Saturday, May 27, 2006

Knock on the wall

My inlaws came to stay for several days and my mother in law did a lot of weeding for me. I'm very glad about that. It's amazing that I can completely raze a bed so it's absolutely bare, and in three weeks it'll be chock full of weeds once more. I don't know where they come from. She also bought me a pink Montana clematis, which flowers in early spring. It's now climbing up a trellis next to our front door.

My sister is here for the next two and a half weeks. Last night we went to the horse races in town and saw about four races. We got to see some of the horses close up and Partner chose two winners, but we didn't bet. I feel a little let down now. We should have gambled a little, if only a pound a race. As it was, the track was very windy and a bit cold though the rain has let up a little. On the way out of the parking lot we got stuck in some mud and Partner and Sister had to push while I tried driving. It took about five minutes or so to get it out. It was in Partner's standard transmission car, not my automatic, and I kept stalling it. But we finally got out and then I drove us home and had a look at the damage. There was mud all over his lovely clean white car. At least if it were mine it wouldn't have shown much, being dark red. We had left before the last race so most of the cars were still parked. I can't imagine what kind of mayhem there would be with everyone getting stuck in the mud.

Thursday, May 18, 2006

Tall

These past few days have been so rainy that I've effectively been expelled from the garden. This is bad because a few of my seedling trays really really need to be planted out. They need it now, and it's pouring rain and heavy wind and I don't have any rain gear to speak of. I feel a little guilty not going out and braving the weather. Then there's the fact that, well, I've run out of room! I guess there's still room, but all the sunny spots in my garden are already planted up. There's only shady and part-shade spots left, really.

I am hypoglycemic, which means my blood sugar gets very unstable very easily, leaving me in extreme highs and lows as far as energy goes. If I eat the right kind of foods, I don't have a problem, but if I mess up even a little, or get a little careless, it can affect me for days. Things that mess me up include white flour and anything sugary, most fruits, some sweet vegetables like carrots, corn--a lot of stuff I like to eat. And actually, I'm ok to eat these things as long as they are in combination with things that are good for stablizing me such as whole grains, meat, cheese, green salads. If I eat just the no-no stuff, I start to see-saw every two hours and need to eat immediately. What's bad is that if I can't get some good food down me, which happens often since I'll suddenly drop and just shove the first thing I can lay hands on into my mouth, my body just kind of shuts down.

Which kind of leads me to a kind of detox diet I did for two days this week, and am still kind of on. I just ate fruits and vegetables for two days and now today am eating the same, but with whole grains added to the diet. It's not something I'm going to implement permanently, rather it's something I wanted to do to sort of flush out my system. I read that all the chemicals the body can't dispose of get stored in fat, and that even yucky stuff like mercury and DDT can get washed out with a detox/fast. So lots of water and fruit and veggies for me for a few days. The only problem with that is that I was constantly hungry because of my hypoglycemia. I was eating something every hour or so and still just starving. But today I've had some oatmeal for breakfast and it has calmed me down.

I tell you, eating lots of fruit sure is good, though. We went and bought a whole cart of fresh things like pineapple and melon and cucumbers and they're all really tasty.

Friday, May 12, 2006

Not a penny in it

We interrupt our usual broadcast to bring you an important news bulletin. It's my day off; I repeat: it's my day off.

I had kind of a funny dream that Mel Gibson was our next-door neighbor but he was a really bad neighbor. He kept wandering across our front yard in a raggedy old bathrobe because he had a crush on our other neighbor and was always trying to catch her. I brought out a tray of cookies for Partner and myself and he dumped his entire cup of tea on them as he traipsed past on his way to butter up her little son. I was like: "Mel. Knock it off." I can't say I've ever had romantic fantasies about Mel Gibson. Now why can't I have a dream about Viggo Mortensen...? Oh, actually, I had this great dream about Pierce Brosnan once. He took me to a fancy ball and I had this fabulous shimmery dress, then we were attacked by aliens in spacecraft. It was great.

Yesterday after work I was so happy to be home I went straight out into the backyard and planted some of my cosmo seedlings. It was then I realized just how many I have. About fifty. And that's just cosmos. The past few weeks I've been doing paintings and drawings of the flowers in our yard. I've got a nice painting of our red tulips, but they're now on their very last legs and a good gust of wind will completely denude them. I also have a color drawing of some yellow peonies that I quite like. Last year I painted a vase of gladiolas and I think it's my best work yet. I've not done a lot of flowers in my artwork career, but I find I enjoy it. There are some intensely purple irises in our front yard but I'm kind of shy to go out and paint them. The neighbors would be able to see me.

Where we live all the houses are extremely close together and we actually live at the end of a cul-de-sac so we have neighbors all around. In the back yard we have a tall fence on one side and a hedge of trees at the back, so really only one neighbor could see into our yard. And he never goes into his backyard so it's very private back there. But the front yard is very busy and there are always people about. I'm even shy to garden out there because I don't know what to say to the neighbors if they talk to me.

I guess on a good note, I'm feeling a little better about my foreign accent. I work with a Thai woman and an old lady commented about her in my presence that she couldn't understand these "foreigners." I said to her, "I'm a foreigner" and she said, "Oh you're not foreign, you're a yankee doodle dandy." So there you have it. They don't like foreigners but they like Yankees (doodle dandy).

Monday, May 08, 2006

Wheel of Fortune

Partner got injured again playing sports and we spent several hours at the hospital once more. This time he fractured his index finger. In the end all they did was tape it to the next finger, which seemed a bit anticlimactic after all the time we'd been there and all the people who'd poked it. I'm just glad it wasn't anything life threatening. Two of the doctors there had a good joke about it: one was the doctor he'd seen last week. I thought they'd recommend he stop playing, and one did tell him that playing might not be the best thing for him if he was getting injured every week. Then the specialist told him he wasn't allowed to play for six weeks. Partner told me that he won't be playing any more after this, though he may or may not. At least he won't be playing for six weeks; I'll see to that.

We were at the hospital until quite late last night, and didn't get to bed until a few hours past my usual bedtime. At least today is my day off, so I was able to sleep in a bit. Instead of getting up at six I got up at eight.

One of my sisters is coming to visit us this month. She'll be here three weeks. I can hardly believe it. There are a lot of things I'll want to do once she's here and we'll have to do lots of sightseeing and shopping. My dad visited us last summer. I guess it'll be my mother's turn next summer.

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Published

Partner got hit by a pitch twice at his baseball game this weekend and came home with a huge bruise and a bad limp. This morning, two days later, we got up early and went to the emergency room at the hospital to have it x-rayed. It's not fractured just badly bruised. He thinks he can see the stitching from the ball on his leg and thinks it's cool. I'm not too sure.

My lettuces are still free from slug bites, and now I feel a little more confident about them surviving. I had nine little onions planted out but one seems to have run away and I'm left with eight. And trays upon trays of little seedlings all waiting to be planted out. I have so many trays I'm not sure what is what anymore. Some got labeled and some didn't, so I'll play a guessing game when it's time to plant outside.

I'm settling into my work schedule for the most part. Technically I work three days a week, but it is more like having a week on then a week off. I'll work Saturday to Thursday with one day off, then am off Friday to Friday with one day on. Plenty of playtime. This week is the off week so I don't work again for four days. And I think I'm getting into my work routine pretty well. I've actually finished on time this past week. Since I started I've been staying an extra half an hour or so every day because I had too many things to finish. I can hardly leave for the day if the floors aren't cleaned or if there are dirty dishes still. And normally I don't mind staying, since it's still early afternoon and half an hour more isn't much. I hated staying late at my old job, which I had to quite a bit. I would be scheduled to leave at 8.30 in the evening, but wouldn't usually finish till 8.45 or even 9.00. I was always really tired and hungry and ready to go home.