PNewL PNewS
Volume 18 No. 4 “All the pnews that phits.” December 2010
Things I am Learning & Miscellaneous Observations
(Holiday Edition)
With no theme appearing for this issue, I thought I would run with smaller themes. We are sliding into the holiday season and who has time for long thoughts anyway.*** The other day after class, Anna said, Time is going so fast I feel like my life is out of control. The thing that struck me was that in time going fast, we are getting old fast. We are losing time. This actually is a big theme going on for me—facing the age-ing thing. I remember being in a matinee when I first started working freelance, listening to older people talking about medications and illness and hospitalizations, and I thought, I am never going to be those people, and now I am. *** There are more than 40,000 Chinese restaurants in the US (according to Jennifer 8 Lee [8 means prosperous in China] in “Fortune Cookie Chronicles,” a very entertaining read)—more than all the McDonalds, Burger Kings and Kentucky Fried Chickens COMBINED. *** Bad things are happening to good people and some days it just breaks my heart. *** Living with a dog and adult onset ADD work well together—he has it too and doesn’t mind mine. *** My teacher says journaling is a way of offsetting adult onset ADD. It can keep us organized; keep our thoughts about different things in accessible places. She may be right. So now all my wackiness, ideas bouncing off the walls, is in a stack of books. Well, at least I know where it all is. Now can someone tell me where my flash drive is? *** Things can happen in the blink of an eye. A deer runs across the field, dog follows, adrenalin flows. Phone rings, bad news, tears. *** A few weeks back, at the tail end of leaf season, I was walking through the woods, knocked out by the colors and the way the sun looked streaming through. Or maybe it was grey and I was marveling at the different shades of grey and brown and that what Allison said about colors popping more on a cloudy day than on a bright one was really true. And then I thought I should call Chris and tell her to check out the woods right now for painting possibilities or I should go get my camera or I…and then I realized, I could just marvel in it and that was pretty darn good in and of itself. Duh. *** I painted the shed…again. I have this gigantic wonderful shed which has needed some paint and I gave it some last year and it apparently wasn’t enough so I put it off until the deck was added, and right before it got too cold for this project. The only problem with painting is that it always goes on about twice as long as my interest, but I usually start off strong. I had a good book on tape (David Baldacci I think—good easy to listen to, not too complex stuff). It was the Crazy Painting Day. ### I was painting—yuck. ### A bee started buzzing, I slapped it with paint brush, got paint all over back of leg then smushed it into leg. It stung me. ### For bee sting: Took baby Benedryl GRAPE-flavored (surprise!), which made my stomach feel awful. ### Then got on a tall ladder, which I am not all that comfortable with on a good day, plus feeling a little nauseated—yuck again. ### Was swarmed by lady bugs (Loveeta says Asian Lady Beetles) and they chewed on me--OUCH. ### Then the Benedryl kicked in (Pharmacist said to take five—being one who reacts strongly to OTC drugs, I took three.) Started feeling woozy. ### Gave up on painting. Had a glass of wine. Went to bed really early and slept for over 10 hours. (Awoke refreshed and finished the job without incident.) Guess you had to be there—it was so awful it made me laugh. *** About the aforementioned deck. It is a small-ish deck that is giving me great pleasure. They also installed a door (the former front door of the house which I didn’t like on the house but looks sweet on the shed) and a window (from the bathroom—a window of plastic blocks. I like windows to open in my bathroom, but it doesn’t much matter on a shed) and now it looks like a little cottage. But the unexpected pleasure comes from the new perspective that going up four feet from where I usually stand there. It’s not quite a “view” but it is close. I can see Jeff and Susan’s angora goats. With the leaves gone, I can keep closer tabs on their (Jeff and Susan, not the goats) comings and goings. I like it. And it’s a nice place to drink a beer or cuppa and watch the sun set. *** As I was reacquainting myself with my cool/cold weather clothes, I came to a sad conclusion. It was time to retire my “little shoes” from the World Tour. To re-cap: In 1995-96, I went around the world for 386 days. Four months into it, my Reeboks were history. In York England, I bought what was for me a very expensive pair of shoes, Eccos, but I knew that this was a thing worth investing in because shoes crapping out, say, in India would be a problem. I loved those shoes. They went a lot of places. When I was trekking in Nepal, people said, oh I have seen you before—you are the one with the little shoes. (Despite what the guidebooks said, that you could do the part of the Annapurna trek I was doing in tennis shoes, I was apparently the only one not in big boots.) It was refreshing as I have never ever worn what one might consider LITTLE shoes. I had a very handsome shoe salesman tell me my feet looked like canoes when I was in high school and that has stuck with me ever since. But I digress. The shoes came home and were worn in California for many years and were even re-soled for about half of the original purchase price—but I wasn’t ready to let them go. Now, after many years in Florida where they probably molded a lot more than they were worn, and a few years here where I wore them sporadically through the winter, I have to acknowledge that I am not sure I am comfortable putting my feet in there any more. RIP my friends. *** I was looking at some things around the house recently—there are so many “things”—and I wondered, Which Peggy did I buy this for? Sometimes it’s one that no longer exists and sometimes it’s one I wish I were. Maybe that’s why I can’t straighten up the house—there are so many of us living here! *** One of the books I was reading recently was “The Cheapskate Next Door” by Jeff Yeager. In it, they talked about a kind of game they play where they don’t spend ANY MONEY for a week. Imagine. Try it? Wow. Maybe. *** Another book I listened to recently was “Nickel and Dimed in America” by Barbara Ehrenreich. What great timing—Thanksgiving! I am so grateful to live my life than to try to live on minimum wage. Then today, while driving home I caught a piece on NPR about the long term unemployed: folks who worked in white collar jobs for 30+ years who are now living (?) on unemployment. I am thankful, y’all.***
“The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering
from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they are
okay, then it’s you.” Rita Mae Brown
Things I am Thankful for…
• Change of seasons
• Friends, family, and the Big Dog
• The Library (still and again)
• Discovering exercise before it was "too late"
• My lot in life
• The beach! The mountains!
• Raspberries and blueberries I planted that grow and actually produce fruit. Next year, apples? Garlic? Herbs and vegetables??
• A sunny day after a cloudy one
