Category: Daily Life

If you have to ask how my ambitious Monday plans worked out, you either don’t know me or haven’t read Average Jane very long. Oh, I made it through my usual tasks; I just didn’t exactly exceed and excel. Perhaps things will work out better today.

On top of everything else, my new beta fish is ailing. Yesterday I came home to find him jammed head-first down into the rocks at the bottom of his tank, which seemed to be a bad sign. We promptly went to the local pet store and procured some medicine, but although the fish is no longer wedged into a crevice, he’s still bumming around and looks, well, rather hopeless. In the parlance of The Princess Bride, he appears to be “mostly dead.” I hope that time and medication will do something for him.

Note added 7/10/04: I’ve noticed this blog entry coming up a lot in searches for “sick beta fish,” so I thought I’d pass along the best site we’ve found for comprehensive information about the little fishes: BettaTalk.com. Faith knows everything about bettas/betas.

My only unqualified success with a living thing of late has been the pumpkin vine. Man, that thing is getting enormous! The stem is now about five feet long and about as thick around as my thumb, except at the very tip. If I don’t train it onto a trellis pretty soon, it’s going to wind around and strangle all of my zinnias and marigolds.

When it comes to indoor plants, I definitely don’t have a green thumb. Over the years I’ve learned which varieties can survive being watered only when they’re starting to droop, and those are the only house plants I keep around. When my husband got his beta, we displaced a Syngonium plant that had never really thrived. I took it to my office where it now gets watered at least weekly. It has doubled in size in just a few months, and has tons of new, healthy leaves. Kinda makes me feel guilty about the plants that were left in my irresponsible hands.

The best news I’ve heard lately: I’ll finally get my car back this week! It’s been in the shop for almost two months, but it’s almost put back together. After puttering around like a granny in the emergency backup car, I’m going to have to be exceedingly careful not to get a(nother) speeding ticket when I’m back to driving the sports car. Now I have an added incentive to get all my work done this week: I need to free up a weekend day to wash and wax my car!

I’m beginning this week with the determination to be shockingly, stunningly, mindbogglingly efficient and productive. I’m not sure how I’ll carry through that determination in the absence of strong prescription stimulants, but I have to start somewhere.

I had a good weekend that gave me the time, sleep and companionship to shake off much of the lingering melancholy from the previous week. Last night we all had a good laugh watching the Lewis Black DVD we got my father for Father’s Day. Things are back to normal, and perhaps better than normal.

The Possum is so dramatically improved by last week’s chiropractic adjustment that it’s almost impossible to believe we had recently been considering whether she might have to be put to sleep. She looks and moves like she’s five years younger, her appetite has increased – everything about her manner and behavior marks her as feeling significantly better. She’s even renewed hostilities with her archrival, Chunky, so I know she’s back to normal.

Well, off I go to pack a UPS shipment, bake a batch of scones, and make myself semi-presentable for the office. Tomorrow: giant pumpkin plant update.

I left the house at about 8:15 a.m. yesterday and didn’t get home until nearly 9:00 p.m. I followed a full day at my “real job” with a number of hours at my dad’s office and came home exhausted and hungry. I didn’t feel like going anywhere to procure a meal, so I had a peanut butter sandwich, vegged in front of the TV for about an hour, then turned in.

I woke up at 5:00 a.m. to the sound of a huge thunderstorm, made noticeable by the sudden absence of the noise of my beside fan when the power went out. I lay in bed listening to the storm for a while and watching the flashes of lightning. The cats could tell I was awake, so two of them came to see me, sit on me, mew at me, etc. It became obvious that the power wasn’t coming back on, so I got up, grabbed our battery-powered candle (so handy!) and called the power company on my cell phone to report the outage. Then I went back to sleep.

I woke up a little later than usual, but an interrupted sleep is never as satisfying as a continuous one. This has been a very taxing week, and I’m looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow morning. I wonder how I can convey that plan to the cats and the weather?

Good morning, everyone.

Yesterday was a long, sad day, and I just don’t feel like talking about it.

Instead, enjoy some of the bloggers in my links to the right. Pharmgirl has a dramatic story this week. Always Curious is chock-full of fascinating photos. Finslippy usually makes me laugh out loud at least once in each blog entry – I wish she’d post more often.

Heck, they’re all good! Just have a happy little link-clicking party over there. I do it every day. You won’t regret it.

I don’t have a lot of time today because our friend’s funeral is at 2:00 p.m. in a town about two-and-a-half hours away. I need to spend all the morning time I can at the office.

Here’s a little summary of recent Average Jane events to keep things going:

• According to this article, there is going to be an NBC show called “Average Jane” in the same vein as “Average Joe.” I hope that the many people who run across this blog while searching for the TV show site are not too terribly disappointed.
• I loved all the comments on my “Average Jane Entertains” story, especially since most of them boiled down to, “Don’t host any more parties.” I actually enjoy having people over, but I agree that there’s a definite point of diminishing returns. I think I’ll stick to attending other people’s parties for a while and see how I feel about it later.
• I took The Possum to the chiropractor vet today because our regular vet had mentioned that her pelvis (that is, the cat’s pelvis, not the vet’s pelvis) did not seem to be the proper shape, which could be contributing to her, shall we say, elimination problems. She’s also been pulling out huge chunks of fur from her side and tail, clearly in response to some feeling of irritation. The chiropractor likened it to migraine patients pulling on their hair to relieve scalp tension. After the adjustment, The Possum immediately began swinging her tail more freely and walking far less stumpily. I think that’s a sign of improvement.
• I had a very productive spate of insomnia last night. I woke up around 4 a.m., washed the pots and pans, cleaned the kitchen counters, and loaded and ran the dishwasher. Then I went back to bed. If only I could find a way to sleepwalk through all my overdue projects; I’d never miss another deadline.
• Finally, after watching my husband’s beta fish thrive, grow and develop its own happy “feed me” dance, I decided I wanted one of my own. I strongly considered taking it to work to keep on my desk, but decided to leave it at home for now. I got a pinkish-white one with pale bluish fins and black eyes. I’ve named him Spectre (admittedly under some influence from the movie “Big Fish”). He’s rather small now, but if he develops the kind of appetite that my husband’s fish has, he’ll be increasing in size soon.

Have a lovely Wednesday!

Remember the recurring schtick on the old “Mary Tyler Moore Show” where every time Mary tried to throw a party, it was a disaster and practically no one showed up? I felt a little Mary-ish on Saturday once my bingo party began.

The guest list included the members of the club for which the party was being held (about 70 people) and another 10 or so of my friends. The ultimate guest tally was 10, plus two people serving as bingo callers. I’d gone to a great deal of trouble to round up tables and chairs, clean the house and back yard, buy refreshments, etc. By the time the party started, all I really wanted to do was take a nap, and the low turnout did not help tip the party/nap desire scale in the party’s favor.

When I was a little girl, we had some neighbors who occasionally invited me over to play with their kids. Sometimes they’d offer to come by and get me for some outing but then forget, and I would sit forlornly looking out the window, long past the time the fun was supposed to begin. My mother would be absolutely furious at them for getting my hopes up and then flaking.

A lame party always bring out the forlorn little girl in me, shadowed by a faint flicker of fury inherited from my mother. I know it’s nothing personal – it’s a spring weekend, people have plans – but it’s still disappointing.

Luckily the party was mercifully short, so I had the opportunity to put away all the furniture and food, stash the cooler of soft drinks in the basement, and move on to reading the copy of Eats, Shoots and Leaves that I’d purchased while party shopping. I ended up with a good supply of leftover hummus and pita chips and some lovely raspberry cookies that make a good garnish for vanilla ice cream, so everything worked out in the end. Just don’t ask me to host another party anytime soon.

Yesterday I was pleased to notice that my traffic had skyrocketed, all thanks to a very nice shout-out from J-Walk Blog. It’s the pinnacle of my blogger fame to this point, and I’m very grateful for the kind words. If you’ve come from J-Walk (and I think today it’s safe to say that you probably have), welcome! I hope you enjoy my writing.

I was just getting ready to share my 15 minutes of blogger fame with my husband yesterday afternoon when he received a phone call with some awful news. A very close friend of his had died after a terrible period of depression and self-destructive behavior. My husband took the news very hard – he’d spent many, many hours trying to help coax his friend out of the dark place in which he’d trapped himself. It’s a sad day for many people who considered this man a good friend.

I woke up 15 minutes before I was supposed to be at work this morning, so you can imagine why I had to wait until lunchtime to do today’s blog entry.

Yesterday’s work day involved some frustrating software glitches, and by the end of the day I had moved up from FCC-acceptable cursing to f-word cursing. I believe I also pounded on my desk with my fists a time or two. Thus, it should not surprise anyone to learn that when I got to my dinner meeting, I was ready for a nice, relaxing drink. I ordered a delicious Doley Stoli (that’s a martini made with fresh pineapple-infused vodka. If you haven’t had one, you’re missing out!). It was really TWO Doley Stolis once I had what was left in the shaker. After the meeting ended, I joined my sister and her friends for a birthday celebration at another restaurant and had an Almond Joy martini (chocolate and coconut flavors, mmm!).

By the time I got home around 9 p.m., my stomach was roiling from the super-garlicky chicken spiedini I’d had for dinner, the two varieties of cake I’d sampled, and the mishmash of alcohol varieties I’d foolishly consumed. I fell asleep watching TV and woke up at 2 a.m. in desperate need of an antacid. After I’d chewed down four TUMS, I went back to bed and didn’t wake up again until I was almost late for work. Sigh.

So now I’ve learned my lesson and I’m back to drinking water and eating normally. Work has settled down and all is right with the world. It was kind of fun, though…

As I was drying off after my morning shower, I got the sudden urge to grab a can of Dow Bathroom Cleaner and scrub all the corners, baseboards and door trim in the bathroom. Even though we have our house cleaned every other week, a lot of it is of the “lick and a promise” variety, so dirt sometimes builds up in hard-to-reach spots.

On Saturday, I’m hosting an event for a community service organization and most of the prospective attendees have never been over before. I’m going to do my best to confine the guests to the back deck and patio, but I can’t prevent them from coming in to use the facilities. I’m sure that’s the underlying reason for my rather poorly-timed cleaning fit.

I was shuffling, zombie-like, through my morning chores trying to tidy up the house when I discovered a sure-fire wakeup alarm: the hideous, frantic clanking of a spoon in the garbage disposal. All vestiges of drowsiness immediately departed as I lunged for the switch and retrieved the battered spoon. I think this explains why we never have as many spoons as other utensils.

I was on my own last night while my husband did a recording session, but my evening was fairly busy anyway. My dad came by to pick up some stuff from our basement and we paused to break in the new patio furniture with a nice chat over Guinness Stouts.

After that, I went around the yard with my long-handled loppers, cutting down all the volunteer “trash trees” that have been thriving under my neglectful eye all spring. I didn’t go so far as to actually bag them up. That’ll have to wait for tonight.

By then it was getting dark and it seemed like too much trouble to go somewhere to get food, so I made myself a bowl of ice cream and sliced strawberries for dinner. Hey, fruit…dairy…it’s half of a balanced meal! I figured that my lunch hamburger and breakfast protein shake filled in the rest of the nutrients for the day.

Then it was time to finish up my oh-so-late newsletter project. However, the idea of firing up the TiVo and watching the last episode of “The Sopranos” was just too compelling, so I did that instead. Now I have to do the newsletter tonight, come Hell or high water. Man, when will I learn to say “no”?!

So that’s it for now. I need to get back to my pre-housecleaning neatening. I’m having a big group of women over on Saturday to play BINGO, so the house needs to be spotless and stay spotless until then. Wish me luck with that!