Status Report

OK, the melanoma on my leg was teeny-tiny (less than 1 mm) so they only needed to take out a 5 mm margin, which was done on Tuesday, leaving an incision about 4-5 cm long, with five stitches in it. Just like the first "big" incision I had on my face, which has now faded to a 4cm line that only shows if the light catches it right.

The one on my face was 1.6 mm thick, which makes it on the small side of "intermediate", since I'm on the young side for such things they are going to do a sentinel lymph node biopsy [>] to check for signs of spreading through my lymph system. The margins of this tumor also have to be removed, with a 10 mm margin (eek), which means a circle about the size of a US quarter, or a UK 10p piece, this will be done using the MOHS technique [>]. The Mohs is done with a local anesthetic, which would be kind of disconcerting apart from the fact that I've done this before, and now I won't be lying on the table freaking out about massive scarring, because the first big incision has healed pretty damn well. I bet you couldn't even look at my flickr account and tell me where that first big incision was. Unless you find the photo of me with a pressure bandage on my face.

OK, maybe I will be freaking out a little, but not as much as the first time. I know there's not much I can do but trust the surgeon's skill and take good care of it while it heals. That, and start a fund for laser resurfacing and/or chemical peels.

The lymph biopsy will be done under general anesthetic, which scares me: complete helplessness = baaaaaaaaad. Complete helplessness while somebody works at my throat with a scalpel = fucking scary. I have to keep reminding myself that this is not heart surgery, and that lots of people have general anesthetics for mundane things like wisdom tooth extraction.

Now we get to the part that will probably make everyone think I'm insane.

While I'm "out" under general anesthetic, the surgeon is going to remove five other moles from my face. Yes I have that many, no I don't look like a leopard. They all look pretty much like the innocuous moley that turned out to be harbouring 1.6 mm of cancer. My moles all look pretty normal: even colour, symmetrical shape, not too big, and most of them have been abnormal. Now two have been cancerous. My dermatologist, myself, and the head and neck surgeon all reckon it's a good idea to remove and biopsy the significant moles. If they're normal, we can be relieved, if they're not normal it's better to know now, and deal with it pronto. I am going to feel like the Bride of Frankenstein for a while, with stitches on my leg and on 5 small and one sizeable incision on my face.

I'm all calm right now. Listing off how many chunks of my face are going to be removed, and they might have to go back for more later. The thing with this whole experience is that when I'm freaking out, I'm freaking out WAY too much to type or write coherantly. I've been crying in my car a fair bit, unfortunately my long commute gives my brain plenty of time to run through worst case scenarios to itself. I'm either wailing inside and wanting to run far far away or hide under my bed with a cat, or I'm dealing with life. Dealing pretty well I think. I'm trying to make sure I let myself say I'm scared, and cry a bit, trying to let some of it out so that I can hold it all together enough to feel proud of myself.

Sod's Law

I didn't mention this before, because it's become kind of routine for me to have a dodgy mole removed when I go to the dermatologist for a mole-patrol checkup, but I had another two dodgy moles removed right before Christmas. The incision in my left shin healed wonderfully. By Sod's Law, the incision on my left cheek, right next to my nose was the one that didn't heal well. It wasn't an infection, the culture they took came back negative, but it was inflamed and didn't want to close. So I've been keeping it ointmented and covered to try to minimize scarring.

Waste of time.

Most of the moles I've had removed (3 out of 5 until this crop) have turned out to be "abnormal" in a benign way, and have required further margin to be surgically taken out. Sod's Law made sure that 2 of those were on my face (the other abnormal one was on my scalp).

Sod's Law has really outdone itself this time though. Both biopsies came back as melanoma. Very SMALL melanomas, but melanomas nonetheless. That's cancer, the BIG C. It's the nastiest skin cancer, most likely to spread to other tissues, most likely to recur. It's actually the best cancer to have if you're going to have a nasty spreading type cancer: at least it's highly detectable, and early detection means the only treatment required is excision and vigilance. No chemo. Thankfully.

So, back to my lovely dermatologist on Tuesday, to remove margins from my shin. She looks like a prettier version of Janice, Chandler's irritating recurring girlfriend on Friends, so I will call her Dr Janice. Then I will see a specialist in head and neck dermatology and surgery on Wednesday to discuss the offending site on my left cheek, and the possibility of doing a lymph node biopsy. I want the biopsy, I want to KNOW that it's clear, not assume.

Of course, I'm sure I'm sounding (reading?) much too calm. This is because I got the phone call around noon, and have already quietly freaked out about it by myself, then told a friendly coworker, and freaked out a bit more, then told my friendly boss, been sent home, and bought a fancy shower curtain and fuzzy bath mat as retail therapy. I've had 5-1/2 hours to digest this. There will be further freakouts, I may even post during one, they make good reading (if you want to see what I look like freaking out and questioning my existance and role in life etc., just check out 2001-2002 in the archives).

Matt just came home, and I told him right away. He takes my word for medical detail, so hopefully he won't be *too* worried, not constantly at any rate. I'm not going to tell my parents, not until I've had the margins cleared and (hopefully) get the all clear from a lymph node biopsy. My mother's brother died of internal melanoma, it would be such a nightmare to put her through the waiting and worrying again, so I will tell them when it's done and we're in vigilance mode, not treatment mode.

It's freakish and frightening, but it's not the threat-of-death diagnosis a lot of cancers are. More the threat of fear of recurrance and definite need for more bits of my face to get chopped out. I'd been wondering if I should have the remaining moles removed prophylactically, now I'm sure I will.

Shallow though this sounds I'm just REALLY glad this diagnosis came after the wedding. I think I'm going to be looking at a couple of years at least of babying incisions, and then saving up for a laser resurfacing or something. On some level I've been expecting this, you don't have 5 moles removed in 3 years, and have 3 of them turn out ot be abnormal, without something being a bit fishy.

Strike that

Bugger the giving up sweets. Some Januaries it works for me, some it doesn't. A week of sleeping like crap and weird hormone-withdrawal weeping/depression completely killed that. Forbidding myself from eating sweets of any kind was depriving me of much needed serotonin. So I ate a lemon poppyseed muffin. Best muffin I've had in ages.

Still haven't used the workout DVDs either.

My name is Cliche, I'll be your sporadic blogger for the evening

I bought a set of workout DVDs. In the first week of January.

And I'm cutting out sweets. For January.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

My computer tells me it's 4am, therefore it is time to call an end to Hogmanay revelries, involving random 20 yr old finnish girls asking for the recipe for pimento cheese, old Scottish flatmates talking politics with new (ish) mexican friends...it has been a goood one for the books signifying life coming together and making an odd kind of sense of past and present. My husband is snoring. Time to go join him. Since So Cal is behind most countries in ushering in the new year.

Obey the Gingerbread

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Originally uploaded by Rosemary Grace.

Yes, that is a river of chocolate surrounded by mini marshmallows. In the top right corner of the photo there is a bowl of peanut butter flavoured fudge to cancel out any virtue we might feel by eating the bits of fruit and veg.

Despite this photograph, so far the festive season has been pretty "good" as far as pigging out goes. I may make up for that tomorrow night at the New Year's Eve party we're hosting.

Hosting Hogmanay. YAY. I'm excited. New Year's Eve is a big deal in Scotland, and I've garanteed us a bunch of first footers by tempting them into our home with ham and mulled wine.

Sunset / Moonrise With Cold Fingers

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Originally uploaded by Rosemary Grace.

We drove into the nearby mountains yesterday afternoon, hoping to get lunch at a bakery, and finding they were out of everything but nachos at the snack bar. So we had nachos and danish pastries for lunch, then carried on to a little bit of offroad driving. The trail we were on turned out to connect with one of our favourite longer trails, but there was a gate closed across it, so we didn't get to do a big loop, just got out of the car and wandered along the trail for a bit. It was pretty chilly, but that felt nice as long as we were walking. It felt like real November weather. We got back to the vehicle just in time to avoid being stuck in the dark without flashlights. For the last few minutes of walking back, Matt had his camping knife ready in his hand in case of coyotes or mountain lions.

I must admit I was being cheerfully oblivious to the whole "we're in the wilderness" thing. I'm so used to living in a place with city parks, and even if you do go off into the Scottish wilderness, you're hardly going to be leapt upon by a pissed off rabbit or a rabid sheep and have to defend yourself with a bowie knife. The wild haggis keep themselves to themselves. Sometimes it's a little daunting to realize that people do get jumped by mountian lions here, not often, but a couple of times a year. Maybe I should get myself a camping knife too, all I had yesterday was a pair of tweezers I brought in case of a close encounter with a cactus.

Lions and Cacti and Bears! Oh My!

O.K. No bears here, they're further north, but I know what to do if I encounter one: run, but not up or down hill, AROUND a hill. Seriously, they can't run with one side higher than the other, but they can climb trees. So if you ever encounter a wild bear run along a hillside, don't climb a tree like everyone does in the movies.

Watch what you say

Not that long ago I was commenting that my new post-wedding life contained few significant landmarks and deadlines for me, and that that was a good state of being for me.

Well, evidently the lull was too much for me and I needed a new project, because I've decided to apply for graduate school. Specifically to study epidemiology and add the letters "MPH" (Masters in Public Health) to my name. "M.P.H." The post graduate degree that sounds like a stifled burp. Seriously, try it. Try saying "mph" and making it sound scholarly.

So besides my current biostatistics class (in which I have earned a "A" every week so far, go me) I now must start studying for the GRE, which is a post-graduate study entrance exam type thing. Standardized test a la I.Q. tests. I've already signed up to take it in the middle of December, just to make it real. The application is due March 1st. So there's two new deadlines I'm counting down to: Mid-December GRE exam, and 1st of March application due, including spiffy letter of intent and worshipful reference letters from my boss and her cronies. My boss is very supportive of this, I'm very relieved, I was a little afraid to tell her I'd suddenly moved up the schedule for deserting her.

Jitterbug

Wow. The coffee cart coffee must be way stronger than what I'm making at home, I just had one cup from the cart and I'm all zoomy and light headed. My hands are actually shaking! For reference, I usually have 2 or three large mugs of coffee in the morning at home.

I'm going to eat my lunch, drink some water and hope that I slow down soon so that I can do some cell culture. Hopefully my coworkers won't be put off by me flittering about the lab muttering "buzz buzz buzz, zoom zoom, buzzbuzzbuzz", which is how a friend of mine once responded to a double hammerhead.

On Being Damp

Being damp and a little bit cold reminds me of home. I never used to bother with an umbrella because Edinburgh rain so often came with gusty winds that it was too much hassle and you got wet anyway. Besides the fear of thwacking a passerby with your brolly because of an ill-timed puff of wind.

Right now I'm sitting at my desk with damp feet, I stepped in a puddle and my formerly waterproof wondershoes are evidently wondershoes no longer. Just soggy moccasins.

The odd thing about rainy weather is that it makes me homesick. You'd think I'd be extra glad to live in California when it rains, because the rain here is only a small part of the year, but it makes me miss my parents' house and the fireplaces. Damp cold weather NEEDS a roaring fire to toast yourself in front of. My electric fan heater doesn't quite cut it. I have to resist the urge to make this an excuse to live on tomato soup and fried cheese.

Now that I think about it I was cold a lot growing up, which is probably why I'm such a heat seeker now, except for when the weather gets over 90F and I turn into a melted puddle of grumpy goo. Cold bathrooms: trying to keep my entire body under the stream of hot water in the shower because despite the steam, the air stayed resolutely chilly; being thankful for wooden toilet seats, so they were never that cold to sit on. Cold bedroom: getting into bed and spending the first few minutes shivering until my body heat warmed up the pocket of blankets I was in; trying to change into my pajamas under the blankets so I never had to be completely uncovered; giving up on my bedroom and just getting dressed for the morning in the kitchen, in front of the AGA, on which I would pre-warm my shirt.

I wonder if it would drive me crazy now to be so cold. I don't think so, our flat on 30th street was so uninsulated we referred to it as a shack, we'd wake up able to see our breath and shuffle quickly to the livingroom and turn on the heater. Which, by the way, was mounted about 6 feet above the floor level so it very kindly heated all the air next to the ceiling before it started to do us any good. Chilly mornings huddled into a bathrobe and slippers are my favourites, they make it so much more fun to wrap your hands around a mug of hot tea or coffee, rainy weather makes me appreciate my nice dry flat full of warm colours, and it really makes me appreciate the fact that Marble is a well trained foot-warmer. She's quite happy to take a nap on top of my feet.

In the name of science

I got up at 5.05am this morning, somehow managed to make myself porridge (and eat it) and stagger out the door to my car just after 6. The coffee pot was empty, and making more was beyond my mental capacity that early.

Leaving the house without coffee was a mistake, I found myself fighting droopy eyelids at stoplights by the time I got to work. Now that I've done the 7am cell treatment that neccesitated my early morning, and I've got 2 1/2 mugs of coffee starting to work their magic on my system I'm finally starting to feel awake. Hooray for the mini coffee machine on my desk. Hooray for pilfering the little pods of milk from the cafeteria.

I still want a nap though.

No wonder I suck at pushups

I can bench press....

*drumroll*

25lb.

Twenty Five Measly Pounds.

The only way I can go is up, since 25lb is the weight of the unloaded bar I have no choice but to work my way up to...THIRTY MEASLY POUNDS.

Actually I'm really pleased at yesterday evening's workout, my arms, shoulders and back are aching nicely, and nothing went ping.

My legs are even more pathetic than my bench pressing skills though, unloaded squats for yours truly for a while before I attempt to add the 25lb bar across my shoulders.

I don't know what I'll be doing this time next year

I can be fairly sure I'll still be working the same job, continuing to expand my role in the research, living in the same flat with the same husband and the same cats (and the same too-long commute). But there's no big events being counted down to in my life. No wedding, no big trip, NO MOVING. Hooray for no moving.

Matt's got a big exciting countdown going on, he's counting down to leaving his job on December 31st and starting life as a full time student in January. I suppose this is a countdown for me too, but not really, it's going to be a huge change for Matt, and he can't wait to be staying up late studying for himself rather than staying up late cramming Microsoft text books and running labs that don't work in preparation for teaching the next day. Really, that's Matt's landmark, when he transitions from work to university my job will be to keep an eye on the money and make sure we don't go broke, which is my job right now anyway, so it'll be less of a big change for my daily life.

The point is, for the past several years I've been all about the big countdowns. Being a student was a life full of them: the end of this class, the start of the next semester, chopping up the years into bite-sized terms and holidays punctuated with final exams. Counting down to graduating, to moving to the US, to moving apartments, to moving again (to my very own studio), to moving in with Matt, to moving with Matt, to closing escrow on our condo (and moving), to the handfasting, to our trip to the UK, to the wedding. Actually the counting down to the wedding overarched a couple of the moves. See all those moves in there? I didn't even list every one since I graduated...

A woman at work had a baby about a month after Matt and I got married, then a couple of weeks ago a friend told me she's pregnant and I realized that on some level I'm envious of the baby-fest. Probably because now I'm in a stable relationship, and I know who the father would be of my kids, so I can actually realistically picture it happening. I've always known that I want to be a parent, but it was always a very off-in-the-future hypothetical kind of thing. Now we're married there's actually a timeline, albeit a very vague timeline: Matt's going back to university, then I go to grad school, then we seriously look at the whole kids thing, 'cause we'll be in our early 30s by then. That's a loooong timeline, five or more years. That's also about the time we've agreed to consider relocating to the UK for a couple of years. I'm not counting down to it, it's too vague and far away. I'm certainly not thinking "just 5 more years and then I can get knocked up AND move countries!" It will be exciting to be at the point where we decide it's time to throw away the birth control and see what happens, but I don't want it NOW. Yet I definitely have been feeling a twinge of envy for my few acquaintances who are "there" already and have kids.

I've been wondering why I should feel this twinge, I certainly don't think now would be a good time, I want to spend time with my husband "just us" for a while longer, we are about to severely limit our income for the next three years, and there's no room in our place for a kid, so a kid would mean moving to a bigger place, which we can't afford since our income is going down for now...but still...that want is there now more than I've ever felt it. Weird. I started to worry that I was falling into the trap of longing for the next stage and forgetting to enjoy what I have now. I wondered if I was talking myself into wanting something that just plain doesn't make sense right now, just so I could feel deprived. I tried to talk myself out of that little envious twinge. It didn't work.

Then, last week, I was talking action plans with my boss, what we want to happen in the next 6 months, and the next year. She picked up her calendar to illustrate which month a grant application would be due, realized her calendar only covers 2005 and said "oh, guess I need to get a new calendar". Then it hit me. It hit me that next year is a blank slate. It hit me that I don't have anything lined up for 2006 beyond living my life and meeting my goals at work. No landmarks beyond anniversaries and birthday parties. In that moment I felt so free. Free to channel my energy into improving my life every day, to focusing on now in specific and the future in general, rather than one single future event. The experience of being the newlywed wife of a student engineer and mommy to no-one but a pair of relatively well behaved felines.

Suddenly I don't envy the expectant mom and the new mom nearly so much. Having a child has got to be one of the biggest countdowns there is, and after that it's landmark after life changing landmark, all the way through to going from parent to grandparent. No thanks. I think I want to get used to living without making new landmarks for a while.

Stopped Watching, Started Loosing

In the 10 days since I quit Weight Watchers Online, I have lost 1.6lb, breaking a 5 month plateau, granted the plateau also involved my wedding, and all the preceeding planning and running about like a headless chicken, not to mention the celebratory eating and drinking.

I think it's pretty apparant that WW was not doing it for me any more, it worked great when I first started, re-reminding me of portion sizes and mental strategies etc. I also started out on their "core" "no-counting" plan which involves eating lots of veg, fruit and wholegrains, and only using the anal retentive tracking on starchy and/or processed foods. That was perfect because I was also trying to move towards a less processed diet anyway, but it didn't work out long term because I use bread a lot in my diet, wholegrain bread, but bread nonetheless, and that's not a "free" food on the core plan, so I'd run out of points and feel pressured and stressed. So I switched to the count everything plan, which felt good for a couple of weeks because of the flexibility to pick whatever food, but I still didn't loose weight. Even when I was "OP", or on plan to anyone who hasn't been initiated into the cult.

That's another thing that was starting to bug me: all the jargon, the insiderspeak. It made me feel more on a diet that I wanted to, I don't want to be on a system or a plan, because then you can be off plan too.

Last week I realized that I was obsessing far too much over numbers: my points balance for the day, for the week, the fact my weight wasn't budging. I was feeling too strictly limited and that made me want to rebel and eat restricted items like icecream and french fries. I think part of it was that the simplified counting scheme, though easy to use and a great idea, made the points system too abstract and arbitrary for my brain. Calories I get, I have a real life handle on what they mean, fat calories, protein calories, carbohydrate calories, fiber, sodium content...blah blah blah. The points system is easier to pick up because it's simplified, but in the end it's too simplified for me, it wasn't giving me a sense of understanding and control of my diet, just a feeling that these arbitrary numbers were making me feel bad for going "over" this day or that.

So I quit. I bought the $20 FitDay Software for my home computer, pulled some new recipes to try, and recomitted to health over and above weightloss.

Whaddya know, I made salads for my lunches through the week, pigged out on the fruit plate at a lunchtime meeting but completely ignored the cookies (I knew I was allowed one, I just plain didn't fancy one, and they're good cookies too!), went to the bellydancing class on Monday and lost 1.6lb! Just taking the pressure off by removing my daily and weekly limits led me to make better choices anyway. Miraculous!

So I'm still tracking, because it will make me stay accountable, and I honestly want to know how many calories I have to eat (or not eat) in a week to loose weight. This way I still have graphs of my weight progressing and now I get pie charts of my calorie sources for the day and everything. As Dietgirl said: Geekgasm!

Just wait though, in a few months I'll probably feel the need to set limits for a while to kick me off another plateau. It seems to be periodic re-asessing and change of approach that really helps keep things going when you're reinventing yourself bit by bit.

Harvard loves me as I am

I'm playing around with a bunch of calculators on the website of the Harvard Center for Cancer Prevention, and am generally pleased by the results: I'm low risk for every form of cancer they've got, except for melanoma because I'm a peelie-wallie pasty white Celt. The wierd thing is that, for the cancers where risk is affected by being overweight...the website is saying "well done, you are not overweight". I put in correct height/weight stats, and every other website I've asked has said "overweight" or even *gulp* "obese". I think I'm right on the borderline between those two categories if you go by the highly flawed BMI chart.

Meh. So Harvard think's I'm not overweight. I'm tempted to play with the weight data to see at what point they would consider me overweight.

HAH! OK, the CANCER risk calculators don't think I'm overweight, but the DIABETES risk calculator does. I guess cancer is linked to more extreme levels of overweight.

Now I'm going to go pull faces at the Diabetes Risk Calculator, cause it called me a fatty.

I'm sorry, I just don't undulate that way

Last night I went to a bellydancing class thinking I was well equipped for the style, being in posession of a fair bit of hip and a not invisible belly. Oh, I know it's not about jiggling the wobbly parts so much as it's about isolations of muscle groups in your abdomen. My abdominal muscles don't like being singled out it seems, or my spine isn't used to my ribcage bending one way while my hips bend the other, or something. I don't remember feeling so out of touch with my parts since I took ballet classes when I was 5 years old! I'm going back, it's precisely the unfamiliarity that makes me want to learn bellydancing, the challenge to try something different. When I took up karate it was new and different, but I took to it right away, it was easy for me, easier than I'd expected. Now I think it will be fun to try something that I don't take to right away, especially if it'll help my abdomen look anything like that of the lovely instructor Sabrina.

The other plus is that two friends of mine are going to the class, in fact Laura and Bonnie told me about it in the first place, and it's not that often that you get a chance to take up an activity with friends, usually nobody's free at the same time, or interested in the same things. As a surprise bonus on the friendly front, another woman I know appeared at the class last night too, it's a small world in San Diego when you start getting into obscure things like bellydancing, period clothing or martial arts. So far a lot of the people I've become friends with have turned out to know a lot of the other people I've become friends with too.

Sleep? It's overrated

I would not do well living in the tropics. It's only been hovering between 70-80% humidity here, with temperatures ranging from the 70s at campus to the high 90s where I live, compared to many places just in the US that's NOTHING. But I'm suffering, especially where sleep is concerned. First we have the problem that the A/C unit is in the living room, so we open windows in the bedroom, which results in much excited climbing and leaping about of cats. All night. Venetian blinds going *scrunch scrunch CLACK* is not a restful lullaby. Cats standing on your head/face on their way to the window above your head? Also not restful. Funny. But not restful.

This morning I was woken by a cry of distress from Matt, followed by the statement "Marble just SAT ON MY FACE!" I must admit that I wasn't too sympathetic, I thought of that Monty Python song and started giggling, it serves me right that I still have it playing in my head now. I just hope I stay awake enough not to start humming it under my breath, I don't want to shock my coworkers too much.

I think this weekend we will be taking several naps to compensate for a week of crummy overheated cat-bothered not-sleeping-through-the-night. The only other thing we have planned is to toddle over to the local Home Depot to learn how to install ceramic floor tiles, knowledge we plan to apply by creating a slate-tiled patch by our front door. Real slate is such yummy looking stuff, with all the natural colour variations and the nifty uneven surface, as soon as we saw the slate mixed in with the ceramic floor tile samples on display we both started drooling and figuring how to incorporate them into our place. We're officially grownups now: planning naps and home improvement projects for our weekend, not to mention getting excited over a style of floor tiles.

Remainder Brain

Today I get to test my mettle as a cell culturist. I just got handed a tube labelled "Remainder Brain" by a colleague who has taken all the nice juicy white matter parts for himself, and left behind all the other bits, the bits with blood vessels, for me. But since my lab is all about the brain's blood vessels this is a case of waste not want not. We're trying to make use of someone else's waste tissue, which might not be the BEST way to develop a primary cell culture, since the harvest was geared towards HIS goals, not ours, but I'm all in favour of giving it a go.

I Repeat Myself Sometimes

This post was originally a comment left on Mo's excellent pop-culture (as it relates to body image) blog, Big Fat Deal. I ended up waxing eloquent and feeling rather pleased with the result, so I decided to make it a post on my own blog. To remind myself that sometimes I can write, and it is funny. I just added this preamble to give due credit and linkage to my inspiration.

This article left a bad taste in my mouth. The information hidden in there is that the "non-dieting" group of women did actually change/improve their eating habits, and become more active, but they did not do it as part of "being on a diet". Also, they recieved counselling specifically geared to make them accepting of and happy with their own bodies, the "dieters" recieved support, but I can only assume that support focused mainly on the diet part, and not on supporting THEM and making them feel good about themselves.

So really I think it comes down to terminology. Arguing about terminology is, ultimately, not particularly useful to making us feel good about ourselves. We already know that thinking of it as "I'm on a diet" leads to also being "off" your diet, "breaking" your diet, and "failing" at your diet. In fact, I'm currently struggling with this very issue: trying not to beat myself up for not being on plan, while simultaneously working towards actually being on plan. All week.

I think that it's true that women who think of themselves as on a diet, or dieting, may tend towards the self-punishing techniques of trying to make themselves adhere to that diet. It's so easy to focus on the self denial and restraint part, because a lot of that is involved in changing your habits.

Healthy positive lifestyle changes and active choices are just much more FUN to do than self denial.

For example: eating a banana and a low fat yogurt because it makes your body feel good and energised instead of the short lived sugar rush of a banana split sundae...that's a positive being-nice-to-your-self behaviour.

Eating a banana and a low fat yogurt as a poor substitute for the banana split that you crave, because you're not allowed the sundae on your diet, and it would be bad for you and you'd feel like a big fat greedy cow for eating what you're not supposed to have...that's self punishing unhappy behaviour.

I think the word diet is a good one, but mostly in the context of phrases like "vegetarian diet", "organic diet", "balanced diet" or "my diet seems to contain an inordinate amount of liquorice and turmeric". We can make it a cage if we like, and lock ourselves inside it and be miserable, or we can think of it as merely a word that describes the combination of foodstuffs we use to fuel our day.

I've certainly found that starting to actively work on loosing weight and getting fitter has made me more self concious and critical about my appearance and fitness capabilities, because I'm paying attention now. It's hard to change your habits without becoming more self aware. It's hard to be self-aware without discovering a few things you're not very happy with, and wishing them gone, or different, or FIRMER.

Oh, and I also think claiming numbers as definitive as 90-95% is an immediate red flag, I want to know their margin of error on that number, not to mention how they define "success" and "failure". If you define failure as gaining back ANY weight whatsoever ever again...the only way to succeed is to go on the chainsaw diet and chop off you head, because you certainly won't gain back any of that pesky weight if you're dead!

Perfect Light

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Originally uploaded by Rosemary Grace.

Imaginary Friend No More

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Originally uploaded by Rosemary Grace.

This lovely lady is an imaginary friend of mine from the internet. We met online in 2000, the first time we met in person was just before Matt and I moved in together, and her visit was something ridiculously short like 18 hours. During which my bathroom drain backed up, so I got to offer the hospitality of Matt's sofa.

The second time we met in person was when she flew cross-country to be a bridesmaid in my wedding, which is this photograph. She spent the whole weekend being greeted by exclamations of "oh, so you DO exist!" from my local friends.

They had collectively dubbed her my imaginary friend. I'm not sure if that makes me a prime example of the 21st century restructuring of interpersonal communication and friendship...or a geeky wierdo.

Most Important Photo

Wedding 023
Originally uploaded by Rosemary Grace.

Never mind my dress, hair and makeup, never mind my sweetie's fabulous kilt and plaid (and hair). It's the CAKE I have to show everyone first!

Isn't it beauteous?

Married!

The wedding was wonderful. Exactly what we'd planned, and so much more, we made half the guests cry with our ceremony.

Now I'm going to enjoy my homecoming beer and snuggle with my HUSBAND.

Bovine Themed Dairy Product Container

This whole wedding registry thing is pretty interesting. I vary back and forth between obsessively checking the list to see if something else got bought yet, and feeling horribly greedy and trying to pretend that it isn't really me asking for monogrammed beer mugs or a $190-dollar picnic set (since removed).

It's also interesting seeing who buys what, we've already been told we're weird for not picking vastly overpriced china place settings and opting more for cookware and random "grown up" things like table linens and serving bowls. One aunt decided she wanted to get us something much more fancy and made us pick a crystal decanter and glasses to go with. Although I know the gifts aren't really the point, it is sort of nice to get some high-end kitchen stuff to balance out the money we're spending on throwing the wedding. With the credit card balance we're currently chipping away at we certainly can't afford to buy ourselves an anodized nonstick frying pan and a cow creamer! That was one of the combinations that came up actually, one person combined salad bowl with salad servers, one combined healthy cookbook with a fabulous giant stew pot and my bachelor uncle picked a fry pan and a cow-shaped cream jug.

There is family significance to the cow creamer thing. I promise. I had been secretly hoping my Dad would get me a cow creamer, I think I even mentioned it to my parents, but they may have forgotten in the chaos of packing and getting their asses to California without forgetting the borrowed kilt and sporran for my Dad. Leaving behind a collection of over two hundred cow creamers and cow-themed butter/cheese dishes. Bovine Themed Dairy Product Containers. My Dad's quirkiest quirk, it gives him something specific to search for at antiques fairs, only he never realized how many there were out there until he started to look, and buy, and then he discovered e-Bay and it was all down a gently rolling dairy-country hillside from there.

There are a lot of very attractive models, ranging from Delft blue patterns to realistic markings and gilded horns. My Dad repairs the chipped horns and ears with putty and gold leaf. I'm particularly fond of the black and white Frisian ones with the udders carefully painted pink, they remind me of the tiny plastic toy farm animals I had as a kid. One striking model was made by the sculptor husband of one of his students, it looks a little like the brahma bull from India, with a cat perched on it's shoulders to represent one of my parents' two cats. A fairly plain looking brown cow has had aluminium-foil wings added, so that she can grace the Christmas tree every year (though not as the fairy on top, just somewhere on the tree).

Then there's the nightmare cows: Big bulging cartoon eyes with painted eyelashes. Purple polkadots and disembodied heads, oversized udders, pouty red lipsticky lips (to go with their false eyelashes) and some really scary colour combinations. The scariest so far is one of the disembodied heads, a large cheese dish consisting of the head resting on a matching plate. Only the face has been painted up like a crazy tribal drag queen cow and is large enough for a person to use as a face mask. Not that I've chased Matt around holding the dish/mask up to my face and mooing. I wouldn't do anything like that. Twice.

I don't plan to attempt to emulate my father's collection, but I'm really looking forward to having a nice understated plain white cow creamer in my china cabinet to remind me of it's numerous demented cousins in my parents' house in Scotland.

Shocked I even scored 8%

I am: 8% Republican.

"You're a complete liberal, utterly without a trace of Republicanism. Your strength is as the strength of ten because your heart is pure. (You hope.)"

Are You A Republican?

Sinking

We've had another contamination issue at work, and I keep discovering stuff that I was supposed to do...and then didn't. At home, we still don't have the shelves up in the closet, as a result there is still only 4 sq feet of floor in the study. The wedding plans, and the amount of planning still needed to be done, are starting to be scary.

Oh, but I'm seeing U2 tonight. Live and in person on a big stage. Them on the stage, not me.

Oh Dear

You know, I get the feeling that my blog might make me come across as a drunkard. Particularly as I just had to try three time to spell "drunkard" correctly. Why do I think this? Because two of this year's posts have involved a hangover, and right now? Well right now I'm a little buzzed on Sangria. But honestly, most of the time I'm sober, it's just that most of the time that I'm sober I'm busy at work, or catching up on chores at home, and I only get the driving overpowering urge to post when I'm fuzzy enough to ignore the full laundry basket in our bedroom. Also, being hungover makes for funny stories, like having a severe problem figuring out you property taxes. I try to post funny stores here, not boring ones.

Right now I'm eavesdropping on my sweetie's conversation with his sister, he's mentioning our recent trip to Scotland, and how much he loved it, how much more beautiful than he'd imagined the country was. For some reason that makes my heart skip a beat. When we booked our plane tickets I told him that I'd have to use a crowbar to get him on a plane back to the dessert region we live in. It means a lot to me that the country held that attraction to him. Even though I suspect I will remain in the USA for the majority of my life, and raise primarily American children, the fact that I grew up in Scotland is a fundamental part of my own identity. I've even considered learning Gailighe for the sake of exposing my putative children to the culture. I don't really talk like a Scot, but I think like one. I think in a Scottish accent, but I speak in a transatlantic blended one. I have to, being little miss colloquial slang got too frustrating. Day-to-day I'd rather be generic and understandable than interesting and culture-specific. But it comes back to haunt me when I have to emphasize to a new acquaintance that I am, in fact, a brit, not a born-and-raised American.

Don't get me wrong, I don't deny my American half (or whatever fraction), but I first identify myself as British, and then Scottish. I certainly don't entertain the deluded notion that I'm a True Scot. When it comes down to it, Brits think of me as American, and Yanks think of me as either another Yank, or as a Brit, and frankly I feel a lot more at home being the "resident Brit" than I do being "the outsider". Considering that I'm often seen as "the outsider" in the City I was born and raised in...I think you could probably see why. It's only after living in the US for over 3 years that I begin to see that I'm becoming assimilated here and losing my obvious britishness. It's only after living here for over three years, and realizing that moving back to the UK would mean being "The American" again, and that moving to the UK is less economically viable than staying in San Diego County long term. Suddenly I have become aware of the fact that my children, Matt's and my children, will be American. Not just in name, but by birth. Aside from the technology gap and the usual cultural gap between parents and children...Our children will be American. They will not have an internal monologue that uses words like "drukit" and "dreich" or "glaekit" and "fushionless". Since my speech patterns are more John Cleese than anything else, the Scottish part of me will remain silent and unspoken to my children unless I make an effort to express it more.

The language of the region is part of me, but it's a part that carries on in silence. Culturing myself to use the obscure Scots words and speech patterns would feel like putting on an act, and would require much more time spent explaining my meaning to those I encounter day-to-day. But making these words and sayings that I find to be so definitive part of my outward personality as well as my inner world is the only way to transmit them to those around me. By the time my children, children I am not even actively planning as of now, are able to read Burns' poems and Sunset Song...By that time they will be as American as apple pie, and possibly not even interested in this obscure sub culture that their mother seems so obsessed with.

Hawkmoon 269

Like a desert needs rain
Like a town needs a name
I need your love.

Like a drifter needs a room
Hawkmoon
I need your love.
I need your love.

Like a rhythm unbroken
Like drums in the night
Like sweet soul music
Like sunlight
I need your love.

Like coming home
And you don't know where you've been
Like black coffee
Like nicotine
I need your love,
I need your love.

Matt spent over an hour yesterday looking through his collection of U2 to find this song, it turns out it's on the Rattle & Hum album, but not in the movie of the same name. He wanted to play it to me because it's the song that he associates the most with me, and us. Only he doesn't need nicotine any more.

Today is the anniversary of our first meeting with a realtor to look for a condo. Every day is Valentine's day for us, every day we're counting the blessings that come from having found each other, so I'm celebrating a year-to-the-day of starting our homeownership journey.

My Ass Is a Global Threat

No, I'm not having an attack of gas. I'm referring to the message projected by the outfit of a high-schooler I drove past this morning on my way to the freeway.

Again, I'm pretty sure that whatever you're thinking, I didn't see THAT. I am not about to post a rant ridiculing someone's large ass, that would be pretty darn hypocritical. I am about to ridicule what highschoolers wear, which is a much more socially acceptable form of rantage.

My first view of this girl was from behind, as I was creeping up a hill in a line of traffic and she was walking up the same hill. It looked like she was wearing a red plaid bodystocking with a black loin-cloth-style butt flap. That's why she caught my attention. For one thing, I figured a bodystocking would not be very warm in the chilly East County morning, or pass muster for school decency rules, but it was mostly because it was bright red plaid. Bright red plaid framing a large black rectangle hanging from her waist like a flag on a balcony.

As I got closer I realized that it was, in fact, thick leggings tucked into her sneakers, but the butt flap thing was still there, still just as weird. In fact, as I got closer I was able to read the message scrawled accross the rectangle of black canvas. It said GLOBAL THREAT in a scratchy spattered-paint looking font.

What type of fashion statement is being made by wearing a banner on your butt that says "GLOBAL THREAT"? I wonder if she got mocked for this outfit, or if her friends thought it was great, and themselves started to wear butt-banners with snappy slogans on them.

It's official: I'm a fuddy duddy. I'm bewildered by the clothing choices of teenagers. Though I still reckon it's ok to be bewildered by this particular fashion statement, it's only getting really bad if I start freaking out at kids with nose rings and spiky hair, or comment that someone needs a haircut and a nice shirt from the GAP to smarten them up a bit.

Stuffed Cat In Front Of Tree

Christmas 018
Originally uploaded by Rosemary Grace.

We took our tree down last week. Since we allowed ourselves to be corrupted into buying a PLASTIC tree there was no natural demise involving frequent showers of dry pine needles to indicate the tree had overstayed it's welcome. Instead we had the realization that Christmas was over two weeks gone.

Taking down a plastic tree is a bit strange: squishing the wired twigs back against the metal branches, turning the segment of tree upside-down to make the branches fold back agains the metal (but wrapped in green spikey plastic) trunk, then shoving the whole lot into a big cardboard box for next year. Sure it's handy, but there's definitely a lack of romance in the set-up and striking phases.

The cats managed not to destroy or knock over the tree. There's some suspiciously chewed-looking lower branches since they seemed to think the whole thing was a giant flossing device with sparkly stuff to biff at.

At some point Tali tried to climb INTO the tree from the arm of the chair. That didn't go so well. He ended up splatted on the floor tangled up in both tree lights and the cord for the venetian blind. It took him a little while to regain his composure after that stunt.

Have Miscarriage, Go to Jail?

I am so disgusted by this Virginia bill that I am having trouble typing a rational enough entry to get word out. The title is no joke, Republican Delegate John Cosgrove is trying to pass a bill which will essentially criminalize women for having a spontaneous miscarriage and failing to report such a traumatic and intensely private experience to the police.

Failing to report a miscarriage to the police is to be classed as a class 1 misdemeanor. The article linked to above states:

"Does the punishment fit the ?crime??
Suffering a miscarriage is no crime, but Delegate Cosgrove wants to make it a crime for a woman to fail to violate her own privacy in the first 12 hours after a miscarriage, so let?s look at his proposed penalty.

Cosgrove's bill says, ?A violation of this section shall be punishable as a Class 1 misdemeanor.?

Let's see. What other crimes are punishable as Class 1 misdemeanors in Virginia? A cursory Google search reveals just a few...

A person 18 years of age or older engaging in consensual intercourse with a child 15 or older not his spouse, child or grandchild (more commonly known as "statutory rape")

burning or destroying a building or structure if the property therein is valued at less than $200 (arson)

a bomb threat made by someone younger than 15

carrying a concealed weapon while under the influence of drugs or alcohol

possession or distribution of fraudulent drivers? licenses or official identification

stalking

threatening any public school employee while on a school bus, on school property, or at a school-sponsored activity

purchasing or providing alcohol to minors

So, Delegate Cosgrove is basically saying that failing to violate your own privacy within 12 hours of a miscarriage is the criminal equivalent of statutory rape, arson, stalking, and other serious crimes.

The authorized punishments for convictions for a Class 1 misdemeanor in Virginia are ?confinement in jail for not more than 12 months and a fine of not more than $2500, either or both.? "

Please, anyone who reads this... Get the word out, if you know anyone in Virginia, tell them what is trying to be passed and ask them to call their senator. Do not let something like this happen in a country that claims to base itself on principles of freedom of individuals.

Right now I have to go talk to Matt, who was lucky enough to get yelled at for trying to make nice conversation with me when I was busy re-living my own miscarriage of a couple of years ago and filled with inarticulate rage at the state of reproductive rights in this country.

PS - Happy New Year, if the political climate this year keeps going the way it did in 2004...We may just emigrate to Canada.

Photoshopped Rings (not from Middle Earth)

Photoshopped Rings (not from Middle Earth)
Originally uploaded by Rosemary Grace.

We picked up our wedding rings on Saturday. They're both in white gold, Matt's (on the left) has oxidation to bring out the design, and actually looks like a negative image of this picture. Mine is rhodium plated and shiny, so the design doesn't pop out quite so much, especially not as shown, with blue-flame effect photo shopping. I'm looking forward to see how mine weathers, as the rhodium wears off it'll get lots of character.

Most of the wedding planning stuff has now been taken care of. The bridesmaid's dresses have been picked and approved, I've picked my shoes and jewelery, Matt's ordered his kilt outfit, the main vendors have been confirmed too. Matt's immediate family are making travel plans (YAY) and now we're starting to get excited about the whole shebang, it's getting close and starting to feel real!

I Won't Let It Throw Me off Track...I Promise...

I just checked the group exercise schedule for the gym I attend, just to make sure the class I'm planning to go to has not been affected by winter break, and I was presented with a cute snowman jpeg holding a sign announcing NO CLASSES from this Saturday through to January 2nd.

EEEP.

I've only just managed to make that Monday evening class part of my regular routine and now I have to take a two week break! Dammit, now I'll have to actually work out with only myself as inspiration, not the teeny tiny wiry woman at the front of the classroom. So I guess it's time to work on using the simple home strength training routine I have stuck to the fridge. Maybe I should get that Yoga DVD back from my coworker as well.

This is the first time I've mentioned it, but since we got back from the UK I've been actively working on my food/exercise habits, in the hopes of tweaking my weight and bodyfat downwards and my energy levels upwards. I joined the dreaded Weight Watchers (I'm on the "core" plan in case anyone's wondering) and have lost just over 14lb so far, with a one month plateau in the middle where I gained and lost the same 2lb over and over again. That plateau ended when I realized that 30min chugging away on an elliptical may burn a few calories, but it wasn't doing anything to build muscle anywhere in my body, so it was a short term pennance for the odd extra cookie, not anything that would really affect my body composition in a lasting way. Now I'm attempting to practice what I preach; which is that for my body strength training is the way to go, and the rest follows. Notice the emphasis on the personal here. I've read enough weight loss blogs to know that any mention whatsoever of a fitness or weightloss strategy invites a lot of comments and controversy. I'm thinking about adding a section to my sidebar for the diet and weightloss specific sites I visit regularly...but I don't plan on becoming a weight loss blogger, at least it's not an active goal of mine.

Back to the main reason for this posting. The lack of organized exercise classes over Winter break. I will cope, even if it means recruiting Matt to be a cheerleader and make me do extra sets of whatever exercise I'm getting bored with after 5 reps. After three months of effort I'm definitely on track to keep this new health kick going, even if it's in fits and starts it feels good to be making progress again.

Organising Property Tax With A Champagne Hangover

This is not an activity I would usually recommend attempting with any kind of hangover, but if you're a procrastinating, important-document-losing, out-of-sight-out-of-mind person like me...you end up going through your filing drawers at 6.45 in the morning wondering why the weather report on TV is so damn LOUD, and trying to figure out why reading numbers on a supplementary tax statement is such a huge feat of concentration.

That's when I realized I was hungover and reached for the coffee. (Starbucks' Holiday Blend is nowhere near as good as Peet's Holiday Blend by the way.)

Turning down the volume on the TV also helped. Then all I had to do was find out how much the mortgage company thought it had to pay, and compare that with our actual tax bill. Unfortunately the numbers didn't match, so Matt got a panicked voicemail to call me back and get the neccesary stuff to call and fix it.

Not the most auspicious start to the week. At least the hangover took a hike after coffee and breakfast kicked in.

Disappointed, But Not Surprised

That pretty much sums it up.

I did write more, but the internet decided to eat it. I may become re-inspired and return to write a similar post.

Yes, I am talking about the election results.

Luniversary

Today Matt and I have been together for 2-1/2 years (30 months, hence the "luni" part), we have also been in our condo for six months. Six Months! Already! Without an impending move looming on the horizon! We've broken our previous record for staying put in one apartment now, and it feels really nice knowing that *we* will choose when we move out of this place. So we can actually get attached and make improvements, which is what we've been doing this past 6 months already.

Last night we went to Rose Creek Cottage to sort out the menu for our wedding, and put the deposit down to confirm the caterer, so all we have left is the photographer and flowers. We also printed and began addressing save-the-date cards to send to the out of town guests so that they start planning travel in time to actually get here. I really hope Matt's family put in the effort to come, I know they'd enjoy being here.

Life feels very good right now, we've managed to go work out once a week since we got back, which isn't as good as twice or three times, but it's a hell of a lot better than the NEVER we were doing before. Matt and I are getting used to life as normal together, rather than life constantly preparing to move/packing/moving/unpacking. The only thing we're utterly failing to keep a handle on is getting our laundry put away, so the cats get to use it as a bed and get a head start on covering us with their hair.

Seven a.m. at Stone Henge

Stonehenge 179
Originally uploaded by Rosemary Grace.

Matt took this, along with 185 other pictures, he killed a fresh set of batteries!

We arrived just in time to see the sun rise over the mist lying across the countryside, and were treated to an amazingly varied atmosphere as the sun burned through the haze and started to cast shadows and tint the edges of the standing stones with warm light.

I expected it to be a place that gives you goosebumps, like some churches do, but the feeling was one of intense quiet. It wasn't silent, it was deeply peaceful and sheltered from the noise of the world surrounding it. It's an easy place to feel grounded in, I wish I lived close enough to visit on a festival and feel that peace wrapped around me. I'm sure it will be years before we get to go back, but we will get there again, and maybe spend more of our hour just drinking it in.

London, 2004: 2 Different Thugs...

London Eye
Originally uploaded by Rosemary Grace.

This is us on the London Eye, a giant ferris-wheel in the city centre that gives you an amazing view. That's early evening London in the background.

Almost everywhere you go in central London, you can see The Eye peeking over a building, which means that from The Eye you can see almost everywhere in central London. After Matt had pointed this out I kept imagining melodramatic whispers about the All Seeing Eye that followed us through our three days there.

London, 1965: 2 Thugs...

London, 1965
Originally uploaded by Rosemary Grace.

On the back of this photo I found a typwritten label: "2 thugs caught on their way out trying to pretend they live there. Note fab. flower box."

It's a snapshot of my parents first year of marriage, the little note gave it more personal value. My mother, a little younger than I am now, pointing out her fab window arrangement. She's wearing a blouse that I remember being part of the dress-up box when I was little. My Dad still has that sweater, or one remarkably like it.

I used to live half a mile up the road from the apartment where this was taken, I liked living near where my parents had started out their married life together. They have always been my favourite love story.

Idyllwild

Originally uploaded by Rosemary Grace.

This is our Handfasting site, after we took down the paraphernalia we had marking out the circle.

This is a photograph of the "morning after", taken by Matt. I can see his love for all things foresty in this photograph, I can see his attachement to this particular patch of forest too.

This is a photograph of the place where I was involved in my first formal ritual. Where the wind stirred up and the crows started cawing along with Matt's reading of his Charge of the God. Where we gave our vows to each other and exchanged rings. Where we jumped the broom (without falling over). Where our friends gathered around and helped us celebrate the happiness we have found together.

Frost Is Now A Novelty

I took this in 2002 when I was home for Christmas. My dad planted this beech hedge and trained the individual bushes together so that the branches are now fused in places. In the summer the leaves are a glossy bright yellow green, and in autumn they turn to copper but stay attached thtough the winter.

Copper Beech Originally uploaded by Rosemary Grace.

Needlewoman's Thumb

I spent the majority of the weekend sitting in my comfy chair next to the air conditioner, working on my first heirloom, the altar cloth for our handfasting. It's pretty simple: 39"x48" of silver silk organza with grey crystal beaded trim around the edges. It's attaching the beaded trim by hand that has taken me about 12 hours so far, and I still have over a foot of stitching left to do. Of course, for the first couple of hours I was hampered by getting my thread wrapped around the beads almost every stitch, eventually I developed a technique that kept the beading hanging out of the way while I stitched the ribbon onto the fabric. About halfway through I declared to Matt that it was going to be an heirloom, anything that takes that many hours to put together qualifies as heirloom material in my book. Especially if the hours are mine!

My dress was mailed on Friday, by Priority mail, which means I could get it today, or not until this Friday. I'll try not to get too itchy about it.

****************************

Wow, never mind, having left the post sit unfinished for most of the morning, my dress has already arrived! It's gorgeous, all that needs done is to lightly bleach the chemise to make it more ivory. I got another session of coworker drooling, just like when my headpiece arrived, it's one of the perks about having mostly female coworkers.

Evidently

They weren't really trying before, because now Robbins Bros, together with American Express, have gone to a whole new level of screw-up. The refund went through on my card, but so did a brand new $641.11 CHARGE.

According to the manager I spoke to, the charge was applied to my account in error because my account number is really similar to the one they were supposed to charge. So now we can add "incapable of entering numbers correctly" to their resume of ineptitude. I'm waiting to see the false charge come off my account, in the meantime there's no question that I need to write to the Better Business Bureau. A company that sells big-ticket items like diamonds and designer jewelry needs to be able to avoid charging one customer for another's purchase. What if it had beeen a higher amount they tried to charge and it maxed out my card without me knowing?

I thought credit card companies double-checked the name and number combo to make sure the charge went to the right place, evidently all you need is a number. Yuck. This is making me think I really should get some sort of identity theft protection going.

It's Official

Robbins Brother's sucks ass.

After screwing up the design on my ring when they resized it...Then screwing up the replacement and altering (read: screwing up) Matt's ring without permission to make the pair "match" in their screwed-up state...The final insult has been delivered. Or rather won't be delivered. Not on time at any rate. Fortunately I thought to ask if the order was progressing on time, and thought to ask it with a month to go, not a few days, because the order is not progressing on time, the order will come through on August 6th, a week too late.

So we're handing back the screwed up rings and taking our money elsewhere before Robbins Brothers causes either of us to have an aneurysm over our expensive and emotionally significant purchase. At this point, even if they did arrive in time, they'd only be a reminder of the irritation and stress we went through to obtain them, and that not only that, but how much we paid them to provide us with that stress over what should have been a simple big ticket purchase.

There's a gold/silversmith who makes rings and pendants with ogham script on them, which is sort of the old celtic answer to runes: an alphabet with magical symbolism assigned to each letter. We're hoping she has a pair in our sizes, his reading "Beloved Sun", mine reading "Fair Moon". Failing that, there's Costco for plain white gold bands, or Nordstrom for plain sterling silver ones, probably to be engraved.

I've been fighting a headache that started as soon as I hung up from talking to the Robbins Bros rep on the phone, which shows how much tension has built up regarding these rings. Hopefully after we go there tonight and get our refund, my shoulders will stop trying to imitate pissed off rocks. It will also be nice to see my finances suddenly look a little less thinly spread! Matt and I are both rather relieved to have the opportunity to seek a slightly cheaper option as well; the amount was managable, but it took a significant chunk out of our mentally assigned spending money for the trip in September.

Copywrite The Temple

I just noticed the addition of something called BlogBot, allowing windows users to upload photographs to their blogs. Now I want to make a blog for our trip to the UK so I can post photos while we're gone, but...no photographs of Stonehenge! It's not allowed. Unless I go through whatever approval process they have to post photographs from the inside of the stone circle. I don't think I can be bothered.

It irked me at first that their rules on photography seem so strict, since it's an outdoor site I think of it as fair game for photographing, and then posting said photographs to my website. Then I started thinking about the possibility of my sister taking film or pictures and using them in her work, since she's an artist, I figure it's fair enough if she chooses to use images of Stonehenge to express herself. But what if Rolls Royce wanted to shoot a commercial with a big luxury car in the centre of Stonehenge? It would look pretty cool, but it would be like featuring the Vatican in a Ferrarri commercial. Or using images of Mecca to advertize a line of designer clothing. I suppose that's why they're so strict: it isn't just some ancient rocks, it's a sacred site. Originally sacred to a group of people who's origins we can barely trace, and we certainly have only a vague idea of what form their religion took, but it's a sacred site to people NOW, myself included.

I guess this rules out posing for goofy pictures to make it look like we're part of the prehistorical workforce, wearing twigs in our hair and sacrifing a goat. We'll have to take twice as many photos of us at Avebury Tor to compensate.

The Henge

Mum and I are starting to formulate more solid plans for the first few days that Matt and I will be in the UK this autumn. We arrive in London, and are going to be staying at an old apartment near St Paul's Cathedral, I can't remember if it's 17th or 18th century, but it's tiny and lopsided, and there's one tricky step halfway up the stairs that every family member has tripped on at some point. We've stayed there twice before as a family, once just after my 9th birthday, and once for my graduation/Dad's 60th birthday. We'll arrive Friday afternoon and make our own way to meet Mum and Dad at the place on Clothfair (that's the name of the street). By that point we'll be pretty tired from 24 hours or so of travel, we'll probably limit our exploration to a walk down to St Paul's to keep us awake until a decent British Summer Time bedtime.

The first full day in London I want to do a lot of walking around, to combat jetlag, and because walking around the centre of London is a great way to see all the different architectural styles and get a feel for the city. At some point we'll go see a play, whatever's on, interesting, and has standby seats available. There's the Brittish Museum, home of the Rosetta Stone and the Lewis Chess Men, among other things. I'd like to show Matt where I lived at some point, but it's not as important as seeing the more well known parts of London, after all, walking around the city was the part I liked most about living there. The day we leave London, we're going to go see the stone circle at Avebury, and then Stonehenge.

Until last week I thought we'd only be able to see Stonehenge from a distance, they limit access to the circle because of past vandalism, people trying to chip off bits as keepsakes, and I think there was even some grafitti at one point. However, looking through the English Heritage website I found that you can make an appointment to walk around inside the site itself, as long as you go either before regular opening hours, or after. So Mum is going to try to set us up with an appointment in the evening. I hope it works out, they're really cagey about letting people in, we have to list the photographic equipment we'll be using, and what we'll use the photographs for...if there's any intent to use the images for commercial purposes you have to clear it all with them before they let you in. As I said: cagey.

I'm very excited at the possibility of seeing the henge from the inside, and that we'll be able to work it in to Matt's first visit to the UK. My parents are being typically accomodating and generous, they're probably looking forward to another family tour of sites of interest, and they're starting to turn the original plan of just getting to Edinburgh and doing day trips from there into a whirlwind ancient history tour of the entire country.

Our Handfasting is in a month, we've finished the ceremony and collected most of the props, now we just need to orchestrate the more mundane aspects of carting food for 20 up to Idyllwild. My dress should be finished any day now, I'm waiting for an email from Peldyn to let me know it's on it's way. The rings...should arrive in the store in time. If they don't there will be hell to pay after they screwed up the resizing and forced us to put in a special order at the last possible moment. I'm trying not to think about the possiblilty of not getting them in time, since there's nothing I can really do about it.

I still can't believe we might get into Stonehenge! Hooray for researching things in advance.

Will The Bubbles In Carbonated Water Help Wake Me Up?

It's 7.19am and I have already set the 6-hour portion of my timecourse going. The timer will go off just after 1pm, which is fantastic, because it means that the 6-hour thing won't make me have to leave work late. I have set myself up to reap the benefits of getting in to work at 6.30. Now the sleepiness is starting to return.

The reason I got in so early is that Matt was woken up this morning at 4am with a stabbing pain in one eye. It sucks that he also gets migraines, that's one thing I'd be happy not to bond over, because I wouldn't wish migraines on anyone. Excedrin didn't work, and eventually he woke me up to say he was going to have to stay home from work, and what else could he do for the pain? Excedrin has never failed to work on me, so all I could think of was to add vicodin to the mix. Then I took 30 minutes to find the damn stuff. It was hiding behind a cold remedy. By the time the vicodin started to help him I realized it was 5.45, 15 minutes before my alarm usually goes off, so I got dressed. If I'd gone back to bed for a "few minutes" I would have fallen back asleep and been late for work, add a 6-hour treatment followed by collecting results....And I'd be rolling up at home sometime after the first few guests arrived for our party tonight. Rolling up wearing work clothes and feeling grungy, instead of welcoming them at the door in spiffy clothes with freshly washed shiny hair.

So. Matt's in bed nursing a migraine, and I'm feeling dozy at my desk, though the bubbles in my San Pellegrino really do seem to be waking me up a bit.

Now that it's almost 8, thanks to my zombified web surfing in the middle of posting, I'd better get going with the rest of today's work. Today is pretty busy, and will require time management, frankly it's exactly what I need. I've had too many days recently that involved 30 minutes hands-on work, 30 minutes of ordering/making phone calls, and then 7 hours of thumb twiddling.

Day Off?

I'm toying with the idea of taking tomorrow off work, or most of tomorrow at any rate. This week is mostly thumb twiddling and setting up for a rush of work that will start the moment fresh reagents arrive...sometime next week, or maybe the week after if we're really unlucky. I'm determined that even if the reagents are going to arrive on a friday, I'll do the experiment asap, even if it means working on the weekend. I don't want the false delay that weekends provide to get in the way of getting these experiments started. As far as this week goes, I've already set my cells up to go over the weekend, they mght need looked at on Sunday. I have nothing lined up to do tomorrow.

A plan is formulating to fish out the paint chip we matched to the orange walls in our last apartment, go to Lowes and get basic supplies and a small can of the paint, and surprise Matt with a new look for our entryway. We've started to debate the possibility of doing another wall in the living room in a dark blue, which could either be lovely, or a complete disaster, depending on the exact shade we pick.

Oops, the reagents just came in. OK, now I get to calculate concentrations, figure out when I can get my shit together and probably act on my decision to creatively re-locate the weekend. I might get to get the experiment going earlier than I thought AND take tomorrow off to mess about in my apartment and paint a wall. Yay.

Yoga = Good

I did a shoulder stand last night! I can't remember when I last achieved that, I can barely remember trying it. It was right at the end of class, so I was tired but very well warmed up. At another point I also got my foot above head level while stretching one leg out behind me and standing on the other leg. THAT was a real surprise.

I wasn't so surprised to find that my leg and arm strength is already depleted from lack of work, and I'm definitely not a bendy stretchy rubber band person when it comes to yoga. There were a few real rubber bands around me, and it surprised me greatly when I realized that though they were able to do all the more challenging variants when it came to strength or flexibility, I was one of few who could take on the extra balance challenges. I'm so used to being bad all around at any sort of physical challenge, it really helps me to know that I have some real strengths. I know yoga is not competitive, not about comparing yourself to others or "beating" them. The only reason I use them for comparison is that realizing I was one of three people in the room still holding the pose is the only way I knew I was managing anything special.

Today I'm pretty achey, I definitely got a full body workout, my lower back hurts a bit, but I'm pretty sure it's because it got stretched well last night, not actually an injury. I need to keep doing this yoga class, it challenges me a lot, but I still walk out surprised at how much I managed to keep up. There's something about the rhythm of it that enables me to warm up well and keep my body going for longer. It may be hereditary, my Mum did yoga for a long time, it may also be because she taught me a little when I was a kid and it seems familiar.

So now I have been to this class all of twice, and found it a very good thing both times, hopefully I will be able to KEEP going, without the months-long gap between attendances either. It won't kick start me into loosing weight, but I'm worrying about that less and less now, it's far more important to me to focus on feeling stronger and more flexible, I know from experience that my weight will go down a bit with that, especially if I keep working on tweaking my food habits.

Work has been slow paced this week, but in a welcome way: gearing up for being busy next week, not twiddling my thumbs and being bored. We have one big experiment to do which should finish off one project, and then another repeat of the interminable timecourse, which should...WORK this time. Meanwhile I'm learning more on the paper-writing end, which means more boring desk time and tired eyes, but it's stuff I need to be able to do if I'm going to move up the ladder in this field.

War Report

War came right when it was needed. I am referring to the SCA event War, not the variety that involves death and maiming and many other such unpleasantnesses.

The sunday before last, Matt and I went to Rennaissence Faire with John, who is officiating our Handfasting. I went despite waking up with a migraine that day, and though the day was enjoyable and my migraine didn't return in the middle of Faire, I spent the rest of the week paying for it. All week I was spaced out and mentally tired, physically achey and had trouble focusing my eyes. I felt, in short, like crap. Plus I had immense trouble sleeping. By the end of the week I was a tired whiny achey tense little bunny, enough that Matt wondered if I should skip War. Fortunately I knew that all I really needed was to recharge, and that War would enable me to quit worrying about a lot of trivial stuff, mostly switch off my brain, and wander about in garb looking at other people in garb. Especially now we have an air mattress so I can sleep without the ground leeching all the precious warmth from my body, that was the one remaining stress factor with camping.

I was really impressed that we managed to meet up with Bob and Laura after dark in a campground containing over a thousand people, even more impressed that we located a remenant of House Rittervald who recognised us and welcomed us to camp near them. We didn't get a spot in Sleepy Hollow, we were actually in an area known as Bedlam, which is supposedly one of the noisiest at night, but everyone from Bedlam went elsewhere to Party, so we weren't disturbed when we decided it was time for bed.

The first night we pitched our tent and Matt got into his new brecan feildhe. I was already wearing my new tunic, so I just kept that on: it was nice and warm. Before we were done setting up a drunk surfer dude dressed as a 12th century Finn came up and introduced himself and offered the four of us vodka. He was very proud of his costume, which he had made himself. He was also very drunk and knew a lot about spider venom. The rest of his group wandered over and all of a sudden we were having a little party. This is why War is so great, people wander, people chat, people share their booze and compliment each other's garb (and body parts, if they're feeling flirty).

On Saturday I got to see the work in progress on my Handfasting Dress, Peldyn had pinned it all together for a fitting and had some suggestions, such as making the skirt a little fuller, adding piping etc, she also offered me a damsk underskirt at cost. In the end I decided to add sleeves too, since the combination of a velvet gown with a damsk underskirt seems to call for something a little more dramatic than plain chemise-sleeves. The velvet is absolutely gorgeous, a lovely rich emerald green, and Peldyn had machine washed it with softener which made drape beautifully and feel more like silk velvet than cotton velvet. It's the shade of green I think of when people refer to Ireland as the "Emerald Isle", and that's exactly what I wanted. The sort of green you don't see often in California. Matt and I both grew up in green rolling hills, and it's something we both miss.

The rest of Saturday, the rest of War really, was spent alternating between hanging out at the campsite of some of our friends, and browsing the merchants. Matt and I spent far too much time at the booth of a particular swordmaker, drooling over a pair of handmade damascus short-swords with brass knotwork and Pictish beasties on the hilt and hand-tooled leather sheath. Something with that level of artistry and craftsmanship is the kind of sword I would be comfortable with displaying on my walls. A nice sword still isn't the most welcoming message if you ask me, but something that is clearly a work of art as well as a weapon is less of a statement of Nemo me impune lacessit, and more a statement of appreciation of the art of swordmaking.

I'm skipping over a lot, but it's all little details that sound pretty bland on their own. There was Mike wearing a jade green chiton with a cowboy hat (but the turquoise hat band co-ordinated perfectly with the chiton...). A philosophical discussion about comparitive religion in general and Buddhism in particular. Lori and Bob doing a Tang Soo Do blocking drill while drunk and managing not to break anything. Lots and lots of cold sake, too much cold sake for most of us in fact. A wonderful dutch-oven made chicken stew. More sake. A failed quest to find a satisfactory cold spiced tea (first they were out of chai mix, then they didn't know how to make it once they found some). A successful quest to find an athame for our handfasting, and a bonus find in the form of a solid silver rose pendant made by our favourite swordmaker. Another philosophical discusssion about child-rearding techniques, sparked by the repressive parenting techniques of the inhabitants of a neighboring tent.

Personal Greeter

We had the first meeting of the Homeowner's Association last night. It was really just an info session, the management company's representative explained how many "officers" we needed to elect, and handed out nomination forms. There will be another meeting next month to elect the officers and start tweaking the regulations that are already in place.

Matt and I have been worried about the "one house pet" rule since we found it in the HOA binder, now we're not worried. The rules we were given are just a starting point. The first task of the newly established HOA is to set rules about pets and common space, what people are and are not allowed to have on their little patios, blah blah. We've hung out with some of our neighbors already, and none of them have a problem with us having two pets, a lot of them say they wave to whichever cat is in the window as they go past. One woman said that one of our cats leaps up in the window to watch her walk past every single time she comes home, and that she felt as though the kitty's acting as her personal welcome-home committee. I like that idea, that Marble (we're pretty sure it's Marble) is making someone else in our complex feel more at home. The cats certainly make us feel more homey, I'm glad they're spreading the love out our windows too.

Remind Me

Why am I doing this again? Keeping this blog I mean. I'm not entirely sure where it fits in my life any more.

When I started keeping it I was in a big transitional phase between college and the working world. Not to mention being in personal crisis and involved in a few self destructive relationships. I needed a sounding board, a place to vent my thoughts and feelings; publishing those thoughts made me pay more attention what I was spewing into the keyboard. Made me think about what I was saying about myself, and about others. Not to mention making me attempt to pay attention to grammar and word choices. It was a therapeutic writing exercise combined with an attempt to get back into writing again.

There were things I needed to put "out there" just to stop them from knocking around inside my head and distracting me, and in the process of turning those fragmentary thoughts and emotions into the semblance of a cohesive paragraph I would be able to break down the images and line them up somewhat. I'd figure out why they were bugging me. Or at least figure out partly where they came from.

Even after I moved to San Diego, where I lived was no haven and I was actively pursuing a course of therapy for past hurts. There was a lot of re-ordering, reclassification and settling out going on in my head. The grand pie chart project of 2002. Now...I don't need a webspace to act as silent therapist any more. I can talk to Matt. I can talk to my friends. I can talk to my cats if I want to hear back advice no more complex than a squeak and a purr. I'm no longer wondering where the hell I went wrong, I know where I've gone wrong and I know where I took the right path after all.

Yet I keep posting. Laundry lists of what I did the past week. Poor me, I spent a ton on my car, and I'm not completely broke or really that upset, it's just life. My cats are cute, I love my fiance, weddings are expensive, we bought a condo, the cats are still cute and I'm getting to sound like a smug married with no real challenges or internal struggles. Even having facial surgery with very little warning turned out ok, it was hugely traumatic at the time, but I didn't write about it. Whenever I was lost in a reverie about what it could mean to me if I ended up with an ugly scar, I was not about to walk to my computer and start typing. My crises don't hit me when I'm sitting at my desk any more, they're not so overwhelming that they take over my brain until I channel them onto the page. They wait their turn until I'm lying in bed, at worst until I'm driving home (when I quickly shove the worst of them to the back until I'm not negotiating SoCal traffic).

I think the main reason I keep going is that I love being able to click on my archive and see what was going through my head exactly a year ago, or two years. The snippets are so random sometimes. I remember the incidents but can't believe they only happened a year ago, that I was in such an unhappy state so recently, or that this or that bothered me so much back then. The biggest example is how plagued I was by my past, and how I've learned to move on without blocking it completely and setting myself up for another big crash.

I like having a web presence. Of course I also fantasize about having a readership, but I'm pretty sure my "readership" consists solely of a few people who knew me at some point and are curious to see what's going on in my life. Just like I read a couple of blogs kept by people I no longer have contact with, but am curious to see how they're doing. I toy with the idea of a different blog to focus on my currently feeble attempts to knock myself off the fitness plateau, I toy with the idea of forbidding myself from posting anything but a decent bit of creative writing. I toy with the idea of paying more attention to the news and posting some semi intelligent comments on things that are important to me. I've had an offer to write a medical reporting column for an online magazine.

Online Magazine? You know...I should pursue that one. Then I won't be writing pointless crap about re-organizing my underwear drawer. I'll be writing potentially useful crap about recent medical fads and rumors.

Excuse me, I must go talk to a penguin about a new hobby.

If Mainlining Caffiene Doesn't Seem To Be Working

I guess I need to find a different technique to wake myself up. Or make this week a week of early nights to catch up on sleep. Or train the cats to desist from having a session of WWF kitty-wrestling on my legs in the middle of the night.

This is mostly to see if the comments function is working at all. Nothing of great import to report sir.

Price Adjustments and AAA-Emergencies

I followed one day of good and fun financial luck with a week that has left my wallet pleading for mercy.

Last Friday I discovered that the black linen dress I splurged on over a month ago (and still haven't worn) is now half price. After I finished feeling dumb for not waiting for it to go on sale I decided to take the dress, which is still in it's hanging bag and has the tags attached, to Ann Taylor and ask for a price adjustment. If they refused that I was going to return it and buy it again at the cheaper price. Fortunately for me the sales clerk decided to give me a price adjustment with only a mild admonishment for being outside the 14 day grace period. So I walked out of that store having bought earrings for Evie's birthday and STILL carrying a $42 credit on my store card. Yay.

Then I went into the sale section of Banana Republic and found a black velvet top with cream lace trim for a whopping $9.97. Leaving me up one birthday gift, one pretty frilly thing, and still $30 richer.

Matt and I then wandered around and decided how to spend the gift certificate our realtor gave us as a housewarming gift. We decided to use it for something we'd never splurge on with our own money: a good quality pepper grinder and sea-salt grinder. One came from Williams Sonoma, the other from Crate & Barrel, but it turns out they're made by the same company. The final decision on which ones to purchase came after traipsing back and forth a couple of times between the two stores to compare what they had. The gift certificate also covered a plate stand which will be used to hold up our wedding cake, and a box of Godiva for an extra treat.

The most fun shopping sprees are the ones where you walk home with an armload of goodies and are none the poorer.

Unfortunately, this week, to make up for last week's serendipitous money bonus, my car reared it's 12-year-old-84k-mileage status by snapping it's timing belt while I was going 65mph on the 52 West in rush hour...And had left my cell phone at work the night before. CHP rescued me by calling AAA on my behalf and I had them tow me to a repair place I know near work. It's possible my timing belt's decision to crap out saved me from a very expensive problem, one involving an exploding engine or busted head gasket, because I asked them to have a look at the coolant system while they were fixing the timing belt, and they discovered a nice big hole in the radiator and the complete absence of ANY coolant in the system. I knew it needed to be checked out, and had plans to do so...But might not have caught it before my car BLEW UP on me.

So I have a new timing belt, radiator and thermostat, and have been warned that my brake pads are at about 5-10% which means they need to be replaced in the next couple of weeks. My savings account is limping somewhat but it's all pretty routine stuff that any car of a similar age would need done. Pity it hit all at once, but my main feeling is one of having a lucky escape from more serious engine damage, and/or my brakes crapping out on me while driving.