You Try It

I took Peter's birthday present up to Brae Mere, left it with Paul, and stopped at DK Donuts on the way home. It's been years, YEARS, I tell you, since I've been there. The story below is probably why I decided I could have a glazed buttermilk bar today.

 
Elisabeth watches TV. Daytime. It's not a crime; it's just the back story. She's Dutch. So is Toos.

Toos and I visited Elisabeth today, and she told us about what the doctor said. "Dr Oz?" asked Toos. "No. Another doctor who came on his show," explained Elisabeth ("with a s," she says).  Elisabeth's accent is very thick. But that's irrelevant.

What this doctor says is that we--I guess that means all of us--should eat nothing after 3 p.m. 

"Then what?" I asked. 
"Drink water," said Elisabeth. "Then you--[meaning we]--will lose weight." And I said, "I might lose my mind, too."

Toos said, "That's what we had to do during the war (WWII). We had no food, so we drank a lot of water." I was thinking, "Yes, but the war is over" when Toos said, "The war is over." Then she said, "I cannot go to bed hungry. I just can't."

I ate the buttermilk bar right around 3 p.m. and am considering calling it a day, so to speak, for eating. You know, just to see. Yes, we shall see.

Later:
It occurs to me, at 5:20 p.m., (and it may be obvious why) that this kind of regimen does not make good sense. I mean are we really to go from 3 in the afternoon until the morning, like 7 or even 8, without food? Every day? And then, the question arises, when do we begin eating? Is it 7 or 8 or is it 5 or 6? And how much do we shove in before 3 pops up again?

Who is this doctor, anyway?

Today's WikiHow, or Funny How Annoying a Phone Book Can Be

How to Train for Ripping a Phone Book in Half

Believe me, I'm tempted to do the training, especially now, after having handed Paul his new directory and having brought my own into my house and set it on the kitchen table.

The thing/book is smaller, but that's not better. It's thicker, seems heavier, and the print is tinier, getting harder for me to read. And that's not all the fault of my eyes. I mean, we're talking small.

Paul knew what to do with his immediately. He dropped it in the recycle bin. Mine is still on the table. But, since I have none of the above training, I believe I'll just plop mine into the blue bin, too.

Thin skin

There is this spot on my forehead, right next to where I had the last surgery for skin cancer. I mean very close to it, so close that Steve, the PA, said to Kareen, "This may be a recurrence." To which I replied, "Yes, I thought the same thing. So should I sue?" They laughed, of course.

This was today. Because I called early this a.m. to see if I could get in to see Dr Burr (you know, he calls me kid), thinking that this spot on my forehead was suspicious--cancer or precancer--because it has been there for three+ weeks. Dr Burr is in Canada, fishing, but they could get me in to see Steve Frelli, the Physician's Assistant. I took it, even though I was supposed to meet the Curves rebels for lunch at the very same time. I call them rebels because they quit Curves because our owner is kind of a talk police person and because the place is austere.

Steve told me, because I asked, that his dad changed the name when he came to this country from Frelliaski (I am not sure of the spelling), which is Polish, to Frelli.

Do you understand that I had never met Steve before? I hope you do.

He's a toucher. He touched my arm and a bit later kind of tickled my shoulder. Then he left the room. When he came back in to do the biopsy, he patted my bare leg (I was wearing capri pants).

I said, "Steve, I do not want to offend you." He said, "Go ahead. I'm not easily offended." I knew he had no idea what I was about to say. I said, "No, I do not want to offend you, but would you please not pat me?"

Could have knocked him over with one finger. He turned red, said, "Oh."

I said, "See, you are offended. I'm sorry."

"No," he said. "I'm just a touchy person. I won't pat you."

"Thanks."

He said, "When you grow up to be 6'3" and have red hair [before he went bald, of course] you don't get offended."

Then I told him about my six-year-old redheaded grandson. That helped.

Back to my head. He did a biopsy because he thinks it's cancer. I hope he's wrong, but I think he's right.

I'm kind of bummed about it.

What do you think of this?

In the book Stealing Glances: Three Interviews with Wallace Stegner by James R. Hepworth, Wallace described his wife as central to his life and success.

"She has had no role in my life except to keep me sane, fed, housed, amused, and protected from unwanted telephone calls, also to restrain me fairly frequently from making a horse's ass of myself in public, to force me to attend to books and ideas from which she knows I will learn something, also to mend my wounds when I am misused by the world, to implant ideas in my head and stir the soil around them, to keep me from falling into a comfortable torpor, to agitate my sleeping hours with problems that I would not otherwise attend to; also to remind me constatnly (not by precept but by example) how fortunate I have been to live for fifty-three years with a woman that bright, alert, charming, and supportive."

I am awe-struck by this statement, and envious, too. And just so you know, Wallace Stegner said this of his wife, Mary, during her lifetime. Of course, he could not say it after her death. She outlived him by 19 years, dying at age 99.

I have probably written here before of Wallace Stegner. I loved him, love his novels and appreciate his non-fiction writing, all of which I find instructive and spell-binding. I don't have to agree 100% with his political views to appreciate him. His death in 1993, soon after a terrible automobile accident, left me sad and sorry. 

If you have never read Angle of Repose, his Pulitzer Prize winner, read it. Then you could read Crossing to Safety; All the Little Live Things; Spectator Bird; Big Rock Candy Mountain. And so on. But if you read only one of his novels, make it Angle of Repose.

Just Thinking

I once heard an interview with Tim O'Brien, veteran of the Vietnam War and author of The Things They Carried.  He was at My Lai the year after the massacre in 1968. He said they did not know what had happened there and wondered why it was such a hostile place.
 

Anyway, the interviewer asked what I think was a question she had not given much thought to. "Why do you always write about the past?" O'Brien said, politely, "Because that's where the stories are." He didn't then say, "Duh." But he could have. 

Or he could have said, "Because I don't write science fiction," which is what I think you do when you write about the future. Certainly fiction. But even so, I insist that any writer--that's any writer--draws upon what he knows from the past, whether it's his own experience or something he knows very well. We can make up stories, but we always draw from the bank of memory. (Is that a cliche?) 

And how about writing the present? 

Can't be done, strictly speaking, because as soon a thing happens, it's past; you can't get it on paper before it's the past. So there.

Of cars and my car and does this mean I need a new one?

Okay. About my car. It starts.

AAA guy said something is draining on the battery. Firestone said it's a new battery. (Duh.) Their diagnostic said everything's perfect. But I can hardly believe that. After all. The thing would not start. I couldn't even use my remote to unlock the door.

I went over to ask my neighbor Ron what he thought. He who spent a good hour last May helping me without success, when this happened before. My neighbor Ron said a bunch of things, but when he said, "Do you have anything plugged in to a power outlet?"

Ding dong. Hello.

I have always left my phone charger plugged in. It is now unplugged. And I hope to goodness that makes everything perfect, indeed.

Guess I'll find out the next time I go away for a few days and leave my car behind, which will be mid-September.

Song of the Day

Today's music in my head, I Stand All Amazed, a hymn about the Savior.

Yesterday's, Honesty, by Billy Joel. He laments:
Honesty is such a lonely word.
Everyone is so untrue.
Honesty is hardly ever heard,
Mostly what I need from you.

And both songs have had sway in my head through the day.

Is there some reason I wake with songs running around my brain? Not that it's like a plague or anything like.

Brush your teeth.

Salt and soda on my toothbrush this morning. Haven't done that in decades, but it came to me in the night that salt and soda might help my teeth feel less scummy. And it did. Not the most pleasant of tastes, but it's not as if you can't rinse your mouth.

Salt and soda. Learned from my dad and mom. I recall we used it when we ran out of tooth paste or tooth powder. Tooth powder, what my dad preferred, I believe. Can you even buy such a thing anymore? Don't know. Haven't tried.

Mostly I use Tom's. No saccharine or formaldehyde, as in most other toothpastes. And it comes with baking soda in it, if you choose that kind. You can get it with whitener or fluoride (which has now found disfavor with the experts) with or without propolys and myrrh, or with tartar control; in spearmint, cinnamon, or, my preference, peppermint.

But today I needed to get down to basics. Salt and soda.

Who really knows?

I ask my roofer if the new roof will keep the raccoons away. Half joking, you know. He says, "Well, maybe you need to get somebody up there and spray some more stuff."

That is what I was thinking, wondering if he'd like to do it.

"Or," he continues, "you should spread more of that granular stuff around the yard."

"That stuff is about worthless," I say.  "Doesn't even keep the squirrels away."

Then my roofer says his older brother says, "You gotta trap the raccoon. That's the only way to get rid of him."

Didn't Rudy put a trap in my yard for a week? Yes. Didn't it fail to catch anything? Yes.  It was a stupid-looking trap, I must say.

Didn't I see the great big happy raccoon right outside my writing room window after that? Again, yes, indeed.

I don't say these things to my roofer. I just look at him. Maybe my face says something, like, "Right, I'm going to buy a trap, set it, and handle the thing after the raccoon is caught, if that ever happens. And if all that, then what?" Maybe my face says that. It could have.

Then he says, "Of course, you catch one and another one probably shows up."

Right.

Wow!

It's done. My roof. And I picked the right color shingles. I'm pretty sure I picked the right people to do the job, too.

When Craig said it would take two days, I thought, "Yeah, sure." Everyone else had said five to seven days. But they showed up Wednesday and stripped the old off, laid down the felt paper (I know. I already wrote this part.), took July 4th off, and came back today to finish the job. There were six of them, five roofers and their nephew, Carlson, the gopher. And they got it done in less than five hours.

They also installed four new vents, repaired the areas the raccoon had destroyed, and painted the tall pipe over the garage. All vents are now brown. They fixed the places that had leaked into the garage with flashing.

So far I'm happy. You should see my roof. It looks good.

Moving Forward

Got home a little before noon to find my roof is gone, the white felt paper up, the guys about to leave and haul away the old.

I cried. I think it's because I'm happy, relieved.

Craig has done, so far, all that he said he would do and when. He even removed the old defunct satellite dish. Friday they'll come and put the shingles on. Hooray!

Now he has told me something I already knew.

"You might want to think about painting the house. But if you do, wait until October, after the hot weather so the painters don't damage the roof." This walking on the roof when the temperature is high we have talked about before.

Paint the house. And what would that cost?

Oh well. I maybe don't have to think about that right now.

Maybe.

Today's WikiHow

Who thinks of these things?

How to Make a Small Bag from a Tube Container

 

"If you have a plastic tube container with a lovely design on it, rather than tossing it away when the contents are used up, consider turning it into a dainty bag. This easy repurposing project produces a delightful tiny bag for holding a treasure or a small coin, or it could be used for a doll or for display."

 

I am not going to do it. Not because I don't have a plastic tube container with a lovely design on it. I haven't checked on that. I probably have such. But I'm not doing it.

You go ahead.

Are you kidding me?

Ordinarily I'd put this kind of post on my Lotta Torres blog, but this has really got me, so here it is.

The Obama family's trip to Africa is costing us, the US, that's us, between $60 and $100 MILLION. That's American dollars. So, let's say it may be costing about $98 MILLION. Wow! Brother! And other expressions of shock and dismay.

He's been to his ancestral home, been to the prison where Mandela spent so many years. And so on and so forth. I am positive they--he and his family and I don't know how many others are traveling with them--are having a wonderful time. But from what I've read, many Africans are disenchanted with King Barack because, for one thing, he has not followed up on the generous and helpful HIV/AIDS program started by President Bush--the guy we're all supposed to be ashamed of.

But all this and the much more I haven't mentioned seems beside the point in my thinking.

The point for me is closer to Of what benefit to us, to me, is this extended and extensive and expensive family vacation for the Obamas? Why should we be happy about it? Why should we be glad to pay for it? Why is it costing so much money? No need to mention what else $100 million might be spent for.

It really bothers me. You could tell.