Up in the air

That was a really good movie, but I have no idea why. It was not heartwarming or endearing. No obvious happy ending. Hard fought victories were acheived, but no longer wanted. It was a really good movie. I liked everyone in the movie. I guess that is part of the appeal. They had terrible jobs to do, but they did their best and they did those jobs thoughtfully. I loved all the tips about traveling--so true. The irony throughout the movie showed so well on George Clooney--so cute. The title works on many levels and after the credits were running for a little while a voice comes on and says something to the effect, hey, I've been out of work for a while, so I wrote this song to describe what it's like, hope you can use it. The song is Up In The Air to describe the strange limbo of being out of work. But to me the connotation of being up in the air is like being on a trampoline--the exhileration of being up in the air. It was never any fun getting off the trampoline and being back on the ground. Necessary and safer feeling, but you always missed that tiny bit of being up in the air--defying gravity.

Brown Shoes

A friend is manning a Christmas angel tree for the Boys and Girls Club. We got to talking and I indicated interest, so she offered to get an angel for me to buy a present. She promised to get an angel that had an easy present--not an xbox or gameboy games, because those are really expensive. She called and said that the angel for an eight year old boy who wanted a scooter or a puzzle and he wrote down that he wears size 4 shoes. My friend said, get him a puzzle--that's not very expensive.

Me, I now want to buy out the toy store for this young boy, but I have little kids at home who wouldn't mind receiving a toy store's worth of toys, so I must control myself. I went shoping at lunch to target in the mall. That way, I can't buy too much because I would have to carry it the full length of the mall to get back to my office. Not that I haven't tried carrying fifteen bags (including hugh packages of toilet paper and paper towels) in the past (they were on sale...duh).

Anyway, I looked at puzzles first. Personally, I love puzzles, but I don't know what interests this kid has. Does he like super heros or legos or dinosaurs or all three? Luckily there was absolutely no selection to muke up the waters. They had puzzles for five year olds and they had adult puzzles. Then tucked away to one side there were two puzzles with pretty odd pictures that were for 8 and older. They have two sizes of puzzle pieces--easy and harder for the kid who is learning and graduating into adult puzzles. Perfect.

But if I were an eight year old kid and I opened a puzzle for christmas--I don't think that I would be very happy. So I went to look at the scooters. I couldn't find any. That's impossible I thought--this is target--they have everything here. I did find the shoe department however, so I looked at size four shoes. They are very big for an eight year old. Maybe he is big enough for a scooter. I thought about Adam's first scooter. He'd need a helmet. We supervised and I think he was older than eight. This is a decision for Mom and Dad, not a stranger buying a gift for an angel tree. What if the person from the organization takes the present before it gets to the kid. They could probably sell that scooter or give it to their own kid and my eight year old wouldn't be the wiser. There have to be scooters at target and I must look at them.

Finally, I do find the scooters. They have a $20 scooter and I'd need to buy a helmet too, so that's another $12 or so. But if he's a big kid, will he break a $20 scooter. The next one up is $40, but it is a dora scooter. Do kids old enough for a scooter still like dora? Maybe that's why they still have one two weeks before Christmas. Finally, there is a $60 scooter. That one will definitely be stolen from an eight year old. I go back and look at shoes.

Adam could always use new shoes. He didn't want new shoes, but he always needed new shoes for the condition his shoes quickly acquired on his feet. The selection in size four was not great. Good, I will be doing a good thing by getting him shoes in a difficult size to find. I want to get him a nice style--black seems the coolest. Size 2, Size 11, Size 3, Size 5...do they even have size 4 shoes in black? Now I am looking for any Size 4--I found it before. There, but these are brown. They have lots of brown shoes in size 4, but ... brown shoes. That just seems cruel. It's one thing to get shoes for christmas, but brown shoes. I can't do it. I search and search--there in the wrong size box with no top--a pair of black tennis shoes in size four.

Merry Christmas little boy, I really hope that you like the puzzle and the shoes. I'm sorry there's no scooter, but I hope that you and your family enjoy putting together the cool puzzle. That's going to be the real joy of Christmas.

With Enthusiasm

I am a girl scout through and through and I love to sing. However, as I've gotten older, my singing ability has deteriorated considerably. Even when I do not have a cold (see last blog), singing weakens my throat and I soon get a cold. Needless to say, I am trying to keep my singing to a minimum. But Christmas is tough. I love singing with my Christmas cds. This year (due to all that coughing), I just mouthed the words. It works a little bit, but sometimes I forget and start singing. Since my "cold" seems to be getting a little better, maybe it is ok to sing, but I am leary about a relapse.

Then last night at the Toastmasters Christmas party, Janet brought out song books. My eyes lit up and I knew I was sunk. My singing is rusty at best and I am horrible at picking a good key, but I belted out carol after carol with enthusiasm and I didn't start coughing. Then today was the Jefferson Christmas party and with 33 kids from Jefferson elementary school we belted out carol after carol with enthusiasm and I didn't start coughing. I am almost tempted to sing along with my favorite christmas cd in the car, but I really shouldn't go crazy.

So with the voice going in my advanced years, it occurs to me that voice is not the most important ingredient--it is enthusiasm. That's what I learned in girl scouts all those years. And so I approach Christmas without a dinning room, with half a Christmas tree, having gained too much weigh this year to even consider extra confectionary goodies and with no inspiration, I wonder--what will Christmas bring this year. How to get enthusiastic? And then, from out of the blue, a voice from the past reaches over the facebook network to say "I found you. We'll be in town and going to Disneyland on 12/23. Do you want to come?" I am so there! MEERRRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL! I'm going to Disneyland (and that is a nice long drive with my Christmas cd's playing at full blast).

P.S. Happy belated Birthday, Uncle Marcel--80 years young!

It's a Cold (all sarcasm intended)

So remember a long time ago in my blog I said that I was not sick, it turns out that I am... and have been for over a month. After more that a month of deep debilitating coughing, I went to see a doctor today. But wait, you need the back story (or technically, you don't need it as much as I want to tell it. Warning--icky cold stuff discussed below.)

So a couple days before Halloween, I got a horrible--really mean sore throat. I took some vitamin C and thought, oh, oh. Then the sinuses mildly kicked in and the coughing started. Not horrible coughing, but just enough to say, hum, I might be sick. This was over a weekend. So I took it easy that weekend. Did my little foray into illness get better with my increased care? NO. It got worse, especially the coughing. So being a good citizen and being terrified of labeled a swine flu infector, I took time off work the following week. But as I told you in my earlier blog, no headache, no fever, no aches, no pains--just a really bad cough every once in a while. So I went back to work and said to the world, I am not sick.

Cough persisted and persisted--one week, then two weeks, then three weeks. I had just started to notice that maybe, just maybe it wasn't as bad as it had been, when just before Thanksgiving, I became horribly stuffed up and started sneezing uncontrollably. Oh, oh. Now the coughing gained new, more diabolical depths right down to my toes. A few discrete coughs will be forgiven, but these mind numbing coughs upset all those in a three mile radius. I must be dying.

So yesterday, coughing caused me to leave the room and lose my lunch. It was more than a month and a week since this cough started and there seemed no end in sight. I went back to my meeting and later I was talking with a gal who commented on my cough--have I gone to see a doctor. "No, they'll just tell me my nose is dripping." "Well," says she, "I don't want to freak you out, but when I was younger, I had a bad cough and I insisted that they do an x-ray and they found lung cancer." WHOA. Now I am officially freaked out.

I called the doctor to set up an appointment right away. The next appointment for my regular doctor would be next Wednesday. I'm really hoping this will all be a bad memory by next Wednesday--do they have anything sooner. Well I can call in a 7 a.m. on Monday for a same day appointment, because my doctor only comes in on Monday, Tuesday mornings and Wednesday afternoon. OK, do you have any other doctors--yes, I can have an appointment at 7:45 in the morning. Great, sign me up. Cough, cough, cough, cough, cough (you get the idea).

Meanwhile, I go about my life, because I'm not sick. Everyone in my path is amazed that I'm not home in bed with that terrible cough. If I stayed home in bed with the cough, I'd have been home in bed for the past five weeks. Anyhoo, I practically stay awake all night to make sure that I get up early to get to the doctors this morning at 7:45. I'm even five minutes early. That's really something, because I am late for everything--very unusual for me to be early, but did I mention that Joan put it in my mind that I might have lung cancer!!

The first thing they do is to collect the co-pay that has gone up to $25. This is December. The rates are going to (no doubt) go up in January. Wasn't it just yesterday that the co-pay was $5 just so that people wouldn't abuse the benefit? But I digress. I was weighed (thanks for that depressing act) and they took my blood pressure (just fine) and they looked in my ear, my nose, my throat, took my pulse, listened to my breathing and my heart. I waxed on poetic about my symptoms and the doctor said, well it is viral, but I'll prescribe antibiotics. I said, no, if it is not bacterial, I don't want antibiotics that won't really do anything--I'm against that. Ok, says the doctor, you are right, the antibiotics won't really do anything, because you have a cold. Wait, I say, I have no fever, no headache, no symptoms other than stuffed up nose and horrible, horrible cough. That's right says the doctor, you have a cold. For a month??? I say exasperated (as though the doctor is personally responsible for the lack of vegetibles and nutrition that is my life). Yes, says the doctor, you have a cold.

I have a cold. Not lung cancer, not walking pnemonia, not swine flu, not anything fun or exotic, I have a cold. And apparently it gets to stay forever. The doctor is not rushing to publish an article on my five week ordeal that shows no signs of abating. He simply smiled (inwardly laughing at my extreme outrage) and said You have a Cold.

P.S. I just got a phone call from a friend who said that his wife (a doctor, ironically) had that terrible cough (he heard me coughing over the phone even with my hand over the mouth piece) for four months. OMG.