Author: Average Jane

Following the lead of Mac at Pesky’Apostrophe, here’s a little meme to get me through today’s post:

TEN random things you might not know about me.

1. I sleep hugging a teddy bear (the current one’s name is Franklin).
2. The only bone I’ve ever fractured was the little finger on my left hand, which I smashed while trying to break the ice on a frozen horse tank with a sledgehammer.
3. The last time I was tested, my typing speed was 88 words per minute.
4. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a vet or an archaeologist.
5. I passed chemistry class in high school by memorizing the song "The Elements" by Tom Lehrer.
6. With one exception, everyone I ever dated (including my husband) was a musician.
7. I like to doodle, but the only characters I can draw are a dragon, a lion and a daisy.
8. I tend to keep my house too cold in the winter and too warm in the summer, mainly because I’m cheap.
9. I know how to crochet, but I can only make squares and rectangles (mostly scarves and potholders).
10. I was in junior high school before I learned how to tell time on a standard clock without deliberately counting by fives.

NINE places I’ve visited

1. Orlando, Florida
2. Montego Bay, Jamaica
3. San Francisco, California
4. Manchester, New Hampshire
5. Santa Clara, California
6. Primavera, Mexico
7. Las Vegas, Nevada
8. New York, New York
9. Los Angeles, California

EIGHT ways to win my heart

1. Do a household chore without being asked
2. Plan something fun
3. Tell me I look beautiful, whether or not it’s true at that moment
4. Talk to the cats
5. Spend some time getting to know my friends and their significant others
6. Go on a road trip with me
7. Tell me an obvious lie and laugh with me when I call you on it
8. Spend the day watching movies or concerts with me

SEVEN things I want to do before I die

1. Learn to juggle
2. Have at least one book that I’ve written published
3. Drive a sports car on a real racetrack
4. Travel to Greece to tour ancient ruins
5. Swing from a circus trapeze
6. Go whitewater rafting
7. Receive some critical or popular acclaim for my singing and/or songwriting

SIX things I’m afraid of

1. Not being able to afford to pay my bills
2. My husband’s diabetes and high blood pressure
3. The government imposing on people’s private lives
4. Being discovered for the fraud I am (an irrational fear, but a fear nonetheless)
5. Dropping a hot iron on my bare foot

FIVE things I don’t like

1. People who won’t mind their own business
2. Uncomfortable shoes or clothing
3. The color blue used for home decor
4. Aging
5. Emptying cat boxes

FOUR ways to turn me off

1. Bad breath
2. Apathy
3. Disrespect
4. Food-specked clothes

THREE Things I do every day

1. Drink green tea
2. Pet and talk to my cats
3. Read blogs

TWO things that make me happy

1. Singing
2. Spending time with my husband

ONE thing on my mind right now

1. Writing song lyrics

No matter what other good things happen to me today, nothing can beat the fact that I took my last dose of antibiotics yesterday.  At the risk of sounding like a big whiner, they were HORRIBLE.  They created an almost intolerable bitter taste in my mouth that started when I took them at lunchtime and intensified from there.  If I weren’t already inured to strong, bitter coffee, I don’t know if I could have stood it.

But now I’m free!  Free of the giant, yellow tablets of awfulness.  Free of the earache and cough that they cured.  Not completely free of the bitter taste, but I’m sure it will subside shortly.

Yes, it’s a good day.

Did I hurl myself into the crowds to tussle for cheap electronics on "Black Friday"?  Absolutely not.  Did I spend the day yesterday, "Black Monday," ordering online bargains?  No again.

While I was in Florida with all my relatives, we agreed that this year we would only buy Christmas gifts for the children.  Everybody is equally broke right now, so I think it will come as a relief for us all. 

That means I only need a baby boy gift (probably clothes) and a 5-year-old girl gift.  Oh, and I should probably get something for my 21-year-old cousin since he’s a poor college student.

We’ll still get together for a lovely meal, cookies and good company.  That’s the best part of the holiday anyway.

It was 68 degrees Fahrenheit on Saturday and I spent the entire afternoon outdoors doing pre-winter chores:  putting up our Christmas lights, cleaning the gutters, cleaning out the driveway gutter, and putting away the barbecue grill and deck furniture.  I also replaced my car’s windshield wiper blades, repaired one of our toilets and bought a carload of groceries.

By the time I finally showered and fixed supper, I was a huge bundle of sore muscles.  It would have been delightful to just veg on the couch in front of the TV for the rest of the evening, but my husband convinced me to go with him and a buddy to see a performance of Handel’s "Messiah."

I agreed, with vague thoughts about kicking off the holiday season, etc.  In retrospect, I really should have thought it through more carefully.

The performance was held at the most enormous church I’ve ever seen.  The lobby and hallway reminded me of an airport.  Its auditorium was not exactly acoustically appropriate for a symphony orchestra and chorus; I would have liked the music to be about twice as loud as it was.

I did my best not to fidget through the first third of the performance, but the seats were uncomfortable, the pain in my left shoulder blade kept intensifying, and, frankly, the music was boring the snot out of me.  When intermission came, I said to my husband, "Whew, halfway through!" 

The man sitting next to me on the other side said, "I’m afraid not – there are three sections."

We went to the lobby, hoping to run into the person who had driven us there and talk him into leaving early.  He never appeared, but we couldn’t face the thought of sitting in the torture seats again, so we sat on comfortable couches and watched the rest of the performance on a TV monitor.

While we waited for the Hallelujah Chorus (the one "hit" of the whole piece, as far as we were concerned) we discussed more than a dozen other classical composers whose work we actually would have enjoyed.  We obviously felt some need to establish our mutual classical music appreciation cred, but I think it was unspoken that we’d both have enjoyed a rock concert – any rock concert – even better still.

So that’s my recent experience with the cod liver oil of culture:  it might be good for you, but it’s not necessarily pleasant!

Yesterday my husband and I woke up with the whole day stretching before us and no plans except for our restaurant dinner.  After a leisurely breakfast at Einstein Bros. Bagels (I didn’t have any breakfast food in the house), we returned home and decided to watch two concert DVDs that my guitarist had loaned me.

We started with "The Who Live at Royal Albert Hall."  The band was great, as were the many musical guests including Eddie Vedder, Bryan Adams and Noel Gallagher.

Once that show ended, we went and had our Thanksgiving buffet dinner, which was delicious and hassle-free.

When we returned home, we watched "Judas Priest Live," the same concert I’d watched on my laptop the previous weekend.  I hadn’t gotten to see all the encores on the plane, so it was satisfying to watch it to the end.  It made me realize that I’m singing some wrong lyrics on "Hell Bent for Leather," and I printed out the correct ones so I can remedy that from here on out.

After that DVD, we peeled ourselves off the couch and went to feed my friend’s cat.  When we returned, I baked two pumpkin pies and we settled in for one last batch of concert footage:  disk 2 of the Led Zeppelin DVD released a couple of years ago.

I didn’t make it through the whole DVD – the antibiotics I’m taking give me a headache and I had to bail out and go to bed around 9:45.  Still, I had a great time spending the day watching three bands I like.  I studied all the frontmen very closely for gestures and postures that I might be able to incorporate into my own live performances.

So how did you spend your day yesterday?

Yesterday I went to the doctor about my throat cooties and learned that I have something in common with Ashlee Simpson besides a propensity for dramatic hair color changes.  Yes, my throat weirdness was caused by acid reflux.  (Although I would like to point out that at no time did it affect my singing voice to an extent that would lead me to consider lip-synching.  I’m just saying…)

So it’s back on prescription acid-quelling medication for me.  I don’t know how I managed to overlook persistent, daily heartburn until it started taking a toll on my throat, but I guess I just got used to it.  Sometimes common sense has its limits, I suppose.

As a special bonus, I was also diagnosed with an upper respiratory and ear infection that I blame on last weekend’s air travel.  The weird thing is that I didn’t really feel all that bad. 

Since today’s a holiday, I got to sleep until it was light outside.  What a treat! That’ll probably help me as much as all of the meds.

The plan today is to grab a relatively modest breakfast when my husband finally gets up so we’ll be ready for a mid-afternoon Thanksgiving dinner.  In between, I’ll probably put up the Christmas lights on our house, and we’ve also discussed taking in a movie.

Enjoy your Thanksgiving (or for those of you outside the U.S., your Thursday).

Last night I got caught up on the shows that the TiVo recorded for me while I was gone.  Veronica Mars was good, but Rome was even better.  I know, I said I was giving up on "Rome" a long time ago.  I lied. 

I actually had an episode and a half of "Rome" left to watch, so that was an extra treat.  I would never have imagined that Titus Pullo would live to the end.  I did appreciate that "Et tu, Brute," was implied rather than spoken.

What else is on my TiVo Season Pass list now that "Rome" is over?

• Everybody Hates Chris
• My Name is Earl
• The Office
• Two and a Half Men
• Lost
• Veronica Mars (on Saturday, since it’s on at the same time as "Lost" on Wednesday)

That’s really about it.  I’m looking forward to "Deadwood" coming back to HBO, but I’ll probably catch the next season on DVD rather than pay $11 a month for premium cable. 

I think the DVD route is a great alternative these days.  I’m always hearing about good shows that I wouldn’t have time to watch during the regular season, even with the TiVo time delay.  What better way to spend a snowy weekend than to watch a whole series year in a row?

What shows do you recommend I put on my DVD list?

…and really, really tired of traveling.

As much as I like visiting different places, it’s getting to the point where it’s so much trouble to fly somewhere that it almost isn’t worth it.  The travel watchword for this weekend:  delays.  On Friday, my sister, my cousin and I were late getting into our connecting city on the first leg, then sat on the plane forever before it took off, and ended up getting into Orlando, Florida more than an hour later than we were supposed to.

Yesterday, on the way back, we sat on the first plane for almost an hour before takeoff for some kind of repair, thus making it to the connection city with about five minutes left before our next flight took off.  We RAN through the airport and, fortunately, they were waiting for us.  I really thought we might miss our connecting flight the way my husband and I did last December, but we lucked out.

Adding to our distress was the fact that Northwest Airlines (or as they now call themselves, NWA – anybody else wish they’d been a fly on the wall during the meeting where they decided that?) is in the midst of bankruptcy reorganization and one of their cost cutbacks is to charge for all snacks.  That’s right, we were on airplanes for pretty much the entire day with nothing to eat.  The Florida Turnpike tolls had taken the last of our cash on the way to the airport, so we had to listen to music to drown out the sounds of our growling stomachs.

The experience wasn’t all bad.  I watched almost all of a 1993 1982 Judas Priest concert DVD on my laptop on the first leg of the flight, and my sister and I watched most of "Office Space" on the second leg.  The rest of the time I listened to my iPod in preparation for my lyric writing later this week.

I’m still processing the weekend in my own mind and I may or may not write more about it later.  The one thing I came away with, though, is an even deeper awareness of how horrible Alzheimer’s disease is.  The next time I have some extra money to donate to charity, I’ll probably send it to the Alzheimer’s Association or a similar group.

Back to happier topics tomorrow, I promise!