Waiting for Joseph?

Within the next four hours, my Pilates equipment will be delivered.  That means that I may have to wait around, fidgeting, for four hours.  Theoretically, the fidgeting is optional, but I know myself.

I can get a lot done in four hours.  I expect I probably will get a lot done.  The thing is, I will be on the edge of distraction the whole time—is that the delivery?  How about now?  That makes sitting at my computer more difficult than usual.

Worst case, I suppose I finish the laundry and play about a million games of FreeCell.

Ouch!

(This is an old photo and has nothing to do with the rest of the post except that I took a shot and I like puns.)

I got a flu shot.  Despite the fact that I got it in Pediatrics, I just got a plain old bandaid.  I didn’t even have a tantrum.  Also, apparently when one is a grown up, one has to buy one’s own after-shot treats.

I didn’t intend to get a flu shot.  While I believe in vaccines for many things, flu seems slightly different.  I am not a scientist or a doctor and so my thoughts perhaps lack a certain amount of validity, but they are my own.  Stop reading if you so desire!

Flu comes in strains, slightly different manifestations each time.  If what I remember is correct, this year’s flu vaccine represents last year’s best guess about what kind of flu may be going around now.  What I got shot full of may or may not work on what I might be exposed to.

Not that I’m all that worried about getting the flu.  I’m a reasonably healthy person.  I am not elderly (yet) or under 12 (despite my behavior) or afflicted with a disease that would make flu dangerous for me.  I tend to think less medicine, less intervention, is better.  I feel like my personal survival ability is enhanced by, well, surviving things.

But there I was at Kaiser because T. is sick with something that is probably some kind of cold.  While we were there, his doctor pointed out that he needed several more vaccinations.  Since he was getting shots anyway, he got a flu shot.  Since I was there, too, I also got one.

Now I am not a danger to the community, at least not in that way.

Book Report Thursday: The Blood of Olympus

The Blood of Olympus is the most recent Rick Riordan book.  I have written about how much I love his books before.  I still love his books.

This one is the final installment in the Heroes of Olympus series, which is a companion to the Lightning Thief series.  I was impatiently waiting for it to come out because the last installment ended on a major cliffhanger.  One does not Empire Strikes Back one’s fans lightly.  Amends were more or less made by tying up all kinds of loose ends in the final pages.  This is not at all a plot spoiler; we are talking about a quest book, after all.

The prose is energetic and often very very funny.  The book suffers from a too-large cast of characters and what might best be described as epic creep.  I can only be threatened with total apocalypse so many times.  Still, I believe that these books remain inspiring and wonderful without being cloying, perhaps thanks to the author’s wicked sense of humor.

Keeper.

But how to size the boxes?

I promise that eventually I will stop writing about getting rid of stuff.  It will probably be around the time that I move to the desert island with my bike, a notebook, and a bottle of Scotch.  That would be easier.

I came up with a genius idea today.  Once I work out the technology, it is going to be fabulous.  Ready?  Psychic Goodwill.  I’m not just moving boxes and purging/donating/recycling actual things.  I’m trying to slough off old selves, emotional baggage, and character flaws.  What if I could call Psychic Goodwill to come pick it all up?  Bye, failed relationships!  See you later, strange phobias!  Hasta la vista, ugly photos!

In the absence of a technological breakthrough, I will fall back on cleaning.  I may not become a better person, but I will have fewer spider webs.

Visualize a miracle...

When I started studying Pilates, I knew I was moving more directly into the mind-body space.  I’ve learned a lot more about anatomy, but I’ve also read plenty of things about visualization, imagery, and the like.  I lived in Berkeley for all those years; I am not afraid of chi, apple cider vinegar, Reiki, crystals, dream work, or self-actualization.  I’m a little afraid of incense because the smell makes me nauseous, but that’s a personal bias.

This would be a good time for me to practice visualization.  Right now, the reality of my soon-to-be-studio is a giant mess.  Less of a mess than it was yesterday, but still a mess.  Eventually, the boxes and racks and dirt and why-do-we-have-thats will all find their new places and something beautiful will emerge.

At the same time, I can’t just hold an end picture in my mind.  I have to think about what I can do Right Now.  There may be 87 boxes to move, but I have to start with one box, one shelf, one truckload.

Good thing Pilates is about flexibility and core strength.

Party?

What is wrong with the idea of a Terrible Mood Party?  I just threatened to throw one with T.R. because both of our days do not seem to be starting out particularly well.  Syd objected strenuously to the idea, saying that it would just make him in a bad mood, too.  (Brent has already left the building, making him exempt from the discussion; he is driving, so he may well be with us in spirit.)  I suggested that we could wear funny hats.

I think it might help.  Although, come to think of it, T. wears a funny hat most days, so the effect might not be as striking.  But we could play music for bad moods.  Angry Pink?  Really loud ACDC?  Matchbox 20?  Matchbox 20 would have to be for the wallowing in sadness portion of the party.  I’d want to get that part over with.

I’d serve chocolate, chocolate, chocolate, popcorn, macaroni and cheese, chocolate, and alcohol.

There could be a tantrum contest, competitive door-slamming, and a passive-aggressive response award.  I could give empty milk cartons, toilet paper tubes, and dirty socks as prizes.

I feel better already.

(This is an old photo, but it does show Syd and T. in funny hats...)

It's like...

I believe in metaphors.  English majors, by nature and training, must.  It is worse than the average metaphor belief rampant and embedded in our culture (see Metaphors We Live By).  This gives meaning to mundane tasks.  I am not simply moving boxes; I am clearing a way through the jungle for intrepid exploring.  That is not just laundry; it is love expressed through care and cleanliness.

But.  (There is always a but.)  Sometimes tasks are just tasks.  That there is dirt to be dealt with does not imply a general slothfulness in my soul, nor some sort of inherent evil at my core.   The state of my basement is not a referendum on my very self.  I will not be transformed into a new and shiny being by completing my list of things to do.  Metaphorically speaking, the map is not the territory, as they say.

Decision Made!

When I quit my job three weeks ago, I told everyone that I would not be making any major decisions about what I was going to do next until after the trip.  Now that the trip is over, here is what I have decided:

I will be doing personal training and Pilates training in my house.  Well, technically, in my detached garage.

Now all I have to do is make it happen.  Here is a partial list of things to do:

Empty garage.

Buy equipment.

Research insurance.

Incorporate.

Get business permit.

Decorate.

Tell people my plan.

Make website.

Panic.

Start fitness blog.

Think about floors.

Paint?

Clean everything.

Get rid of stuff.

Get rid of more stuff.

Did I mention panic?

Breathe.

I am very excited!

Home!

How to tell you are home from vacation, a useful guide:

• There are two dogs in your lap.  They must both be petted.  Continuously.  And if you pause to talk, they both lick you.  In the nose. 
• You have a cold. 
• There are four baskets of laundry lined up by the washer. 
• You see sports you understand on the television. 
• Your kid who is home hugs you.  The kid who is not home texts you. 
• You have taken no photos today.
• You are grateful.

London, Day 5

I have to write a quick one this time, so few words, more pictures.

Greenwich is a lovely place.  We visited the Royal Naval College, the Maritime Museum, and the Royal Observatory:

I am glad I have chosen to be a superhero rather than  knight:  helmets are WAY too heavy:

Just so you know that I have all my body parts, here is the other end of me, one foot on each side of the Prime Meridian:

And perhaps Greenwich’s darker side.  One must keep the neighborhood safe from ice cream:

London, Day 4

The London Transport Museum is full of buses, trains, carriages, a taxi, and at least one bicycle.  It is an extremely popular destination for kindergarten field trips, we discovered.  I liked this part of a train:

I particularly liked the temporary exhibit they have on right now about wartime.  During the Great War, a bunch of London buses were shipped over to the continent where they served as ambulances, trucks, and troop transports.  Women also began to work on the various transit options while the men were off fighting.  The photos and artifacts are amazingly evocative.

From there, Brent and I continued on to the Museum of London.  Its exhibits begin with London before it was London and continue through the present day.  London has had quite a ride from prehistory through Roman conquest, plague, civil war, fire, and upheavals like the crazy idea of giving votes to women because we are, you know, people:

On the way back to the hotel, we passed part of the Roman wall that surrounded the London of the times:

Tonight, Brent is going to work, so I am off to Shakespeare’s Globe to see a play called Pitcairn.  Will report more tomorrow!

London, Day 3

The British Museum is a wonderful collection of objects stolen fair and square from all over the world.  It is arguable, and the museum does argue it, that some of the objects would not still exist had they not been, ahem, appropriated.  And yet, when I see the Elgin marbles, also known as huge chunks of the Parthenon and read the texts that indicate that various other parts of figures are in other museums, I wish the parts could be reunited into something more like a whole.  Even so, the fragments are amazing:

I liked this lion from a roomful of scenes of the king of the Assyrians hunting:

These chessmen are probably Norse, found in Scotland:

When Brent and I came to London on our honeymoon, we accidentally visited the British Library.  Before it had its own building, it used to live in this room of the British Museum.  I would like to steal the room fair and square, but I’m pretty sure it won’t fit in my suitcase: