Morning November

Here it is November 1st. My phone says it's 6:21 am and now that I glance down into the small right hand corner of my laptop it agrees. My other clocks in the house tried to say seven such but they don't automatically reset. So I am here in real time flipping another page over on the calendar and creeping around in the dark on a coldish Sunday morning after Halloween.
Actually I just checked the weather and it's too cold for me right now...it says 46 degrees...BUT...it should warm to a nice 76 or so. If it keeps its promise to be sunny it will turn into a nice day. I am hoping for a weather repeat of yesterday which was nice by the afternoon.
And yesterday would certainly be a nice repeat, not just weather wise. I got a few things done without burrowing myself all alone in solitary all day at home. I managed to dial the phone and talk to a dear friend I had neglected to say hello to in too long a while. It was the first good move of the day and not five minutes after that call, Dante phoned me and had just finished getting a tire patched and was begging breakfast. He came over and we managed to lose track of time for most of the morning and half the afternoon. We managed to run errands from post office, to bank, to eye doctor's office. I am replacing the prescription lenses on my frames. I found it isn't a good idea to store emery boards in your eye glasses case if you put your glasses in there too. Duh.
Then we hit the book store...Dante was a little disgruntled with me on that one...he said it was an unplanned stop and he knows how I can get lost in a bookstore. I explained I needed a book. I had finished my entire stash and had found and read a Dick Francis that I somehow had missed. Dante doesn't know Dick Francis but my friend on the phone would. But I needed a new book and I was allowed to get one, which I picked up in record time. Then since Target was across the way, we stopped there to pick up candy to give out at our respective houses in the evening. We shopped a while and looked at the small desks they had. Dante is thinking about getting one since he now has room in this new house he is sharing with his brother. We compared a few and it's amazing how they actually carry an affordable Thomasville brand that has some quality and not just particle board for a reasonable price.
So, yesterday was good for me. It was good from start to finish and all the things that happened in between.
And now I am looking at another new month. If the weather warms up as it should I might be brave enough to walk my neighborhood route.
That might be good for me too.
TT   

Fainting spell

I haven’t been running. I am not happy or proud to admit that but it is the fact. I normally like to venture out to do my running miles in my neighborhood. Unfortunately, it has been branded into my mind recently that there is a small possibility of me keeling over in a faint literally miles from home. It has made me mildly fearful.
I have only fainted once in my life, with only one other close call that I remember. The instance when I actually fainted was over 30 plus years ago.
I had agreed to go out with a young man I had met and gone out with maybe one or two times before. He picked me up at my apartment and we went for a drink at a club. We sat at our own table for a while and then we decided to go over to the pool tables. I don’t remember much except standing by the tables as they began to get extremely blurry. The next thing I remember is waking up, on the floor, with people all around me and not knowing what had happened. It took me a while to get my bearings but I knew I needed to get up and out of there. Total embarrassment motivated me to move quickly. I didn’t know this guy I had gone out with very well and here I am on the floor in a public place. He got me up and took me outside for some fresh air. I made it to the passenger side of his car where I managed to throw up in the parking lot. Thank goodness it was already dark. But the darkness didn’t stop my embarrassment or mortification. If I had known how to physically disappear I would have done that.  I must have been the epitome of an THE worst date!  I had to marry the guy so I knew he would keep my secret of being weak and sickly.
The second close call came while I was in a packed funeral hall room where I was standing against a wall with others since all the chairs were filled. I had reached almost the end of the service and a relative of the deceased was speaking when a horrible wave came over me. I kept thinking I needed to get out of there but I didn’t want to walk until the relative was finished. I thought as soon as he was done he would leave the podium and I could make my way out. I didn’t hear a word he said as wave after wave kept hitting me. How was I able to keep standing? He finally finished and I made my move. There was a friend (actually a former boss) that must have had their eye on me that took hold of my arm as I moved. She wasn’t much larger than me but grabbed me, took most of my weight and steered me out of the room and outside. I didn’t faint but got a scolding as we sat on the steps outside the funeral home waiting for my head to stop spinning.
So I’ve had enough experiences with fainting to know I don’t know when or if it will hit me. Not that it has anytime recently but I am biding my time until I wrap this situation up where the fainting can be taken out of the equation…in the next couple of weeks.

I really, really don’t want to be surrounded by people while I am trying to figure out why I am napping along the side of the road when I should be running.
TT

Dress-up

It is basically Halloween at work today. There are potlucks and dessert contests. Costumes are encouraged and I am usually a pretty willing participant for the dress-up thing. I have never been shy about it.
Not this year. I haven’t baked a thing and didn’t even sign up for the potluck. I won’t be wearing a costume. I just didn’t want to, didn’t feel like it and I bet there will be people asking me why since it is known I do this every year.
Nope. Not this time.
I am wearing my dark wash skinny jeans with a tailored button down shirt. I threw on my squared off, rib length bolero jean jacket with the one color machine embroidery stitched down the right sleeve. I put on my Michael Kors cheetah print 4 inch pumps. Not a big stretch for me. I flat ironed my hair as straight as humanly possible to show every jagged layer and allowed the side swept bang to hang well over one eye. I did a smoky charcoal grey eye color with a dark burgundy lip.
But I didn’t go with a costume this year. Just my regular clothes I could team up any given day. Maybe I added just a little extra today but not really. I’ve worn every piece to work before. And maybe if it isn’t a costume it is still dressing up to me. There can be a lot of attitude when you put together regular clothes that way. Doesn’t that make it a sort of costume? So even though I didn’t dress as something I dressed as myself and that has a good feel for me today.

It’s the best I could do right now and today my best…well, it isn’t so bad.
TT

Not much, you?

I spent some time ironing. I had what seemed quite a bit to catch up on since the recent upstairs bathroom remodel. That was the time I was without my washer and dryer for a period of time. That project has finally been completed and I have managed to get all the laundry done but there were items I had put aside to iron. I finally got around to them.
My routine for doing this is usually on a Sunday afternoon. I will set up the board in the bedroom in front of the TV and catch (don’t laugh) a cooking show. I know, how domestic of me. You would be surprised how domestic I can be. This time instead of the cooking show, I realized I had at least four episodes of a show I had recorded but hadn’t seen. It was a perfect time to catch up. So with everything in order, I switched on the iron and switched on the TV and got to work.
I have watched this show since it began last season. I was extremely skeptical about it when it first came on and have to admit it took more than the first few episodes to keep me watching. I was entirely on the fence on whether I thought it would work or not. I am glad I kept watching. I realize now after having caught up on the recent episodes from this season (and ironing all my 11 blouses that needed it) that the actors/writers have really pulled together an enjoyable, entertaining show.
I really believed at the beginning the show would have failed miserably if one of the characters, Walter Bishop, couldn’t pull off the balance between genius scientist and institutionalized crazy. John Noble was able to do it and continues to do it with finesse and humanity. I could go on and on about his character alone. He keeps me watching.
The first season was a little scattered. This season they have definitely pulled it together and have a direction without giving up the individual story lines. I love that the person helping Olivia through some of her problems works at a bowling alley. That might have been the inspiration for me putting this out today. What? Don’t get it? Well, it is kind of obscure…but isn’t Thursday league night? For bowling I mean? Yeah, thought so.
But your saying, what was this about? Ironing, a TV show, bowling.
Yeah. That was it. That’s all it was about. 
And what have you been up to?
TT

Snowball watch

What has happened to the last two weeks? How did we get from there to here so fast? I can’t even remember where it went or what I have been doing. Is this some sort of short trip time travel I’ve been experiencing? When did I board that space craft and who paid for my ticket?
Doesn’t it seem that way? You get to the last quarter of each year and wonder what happened to the time. I was in line at the grocery store and the checker asked if I was ready for Halloween. It dawned on me, oh yeah, Halloween…that’s this week, right? This week! It is in a few days! Oh, well then I guess it will come if I’m ready or not.
It has gotten easier for me to say that these days. It’s easier for me to shrug and say it will come if I am ready or not. It must be since I do all the traditional preparation, get ready for holiday stuff, that it has become second nature to me. Oh, (yawn) is it that time again (looking at my watch)…is that happening again, already?
Maybe that’s what I’d like everyone to believe as I panic inside since it has crept up on me and I haven’t done a thing to prepare. I have to talk myself down. Now stay calm, you know what to do, just get it done without thinking about it. Don’t think how it’s impossible in this short amount of time! You can do this, you’ve done it before. You are good at this, it can be done. For crying out loud! What happened to the time! I’ve got nothing done!
And it just keeps zooming by. It starts with Halloween and rolls right into the holidays. Sure enough the holidays will have come and gone before I even get a chance to think about it. Let’s face it, you get to this time of the year, every year, and that tiny snowball starts coming down the steep incline, picks up speed and turns into a giant avalanche designed to crush everything in its path catching everything and everyone yelling and screaming as it pulls them into its huge mass leaving a deep entrenching trail behind it. Not a pretty picture.
I need to find that time travel space craft. I need to figure out how to get myself a ticket that will have me arrive after all of that. “I would like a ticket to leave now and arrive on Dec 31st, please."
There is one thing that I will get done and not forget to do before I leave. 
I won't forget to chill the champagne.
TT

Safe, not always sound

It was 5:05 pm on a weekday in rush hour traffic. I wasn’t where I would normally be on that day and I admit to being lucky that I don’t have to deal with rush hour on a day to day basis. But still, it doesn’t seem to matter how many times I leave this particular building, as infrequently as it is, I always get turned around and can’t seem to find my way. It’s a busy section of town and I always find myself lost in familiar territory.
On this particular day it was also pouring down, all out, cloud dumping rain. Sure enough, I pull out of the parking garage of the tower building I was in and make the turns I think are the correct way to get me home or at least on my way. I recognize the street names but I don’t travel them enough to recognize any landmarks. Then I get that churning feeling when I realize it really isn’t the right way, but it’s storming crazy. It is a well known fact that when it rains that hard here, the streets flood very quickly. I have a very small sports car that is low to the ground. I know I am going the wrong way but the rain is blurring the windshield even with the wipers going full blast. It is so blurred that I cannot read the cross-streets name until I realize I am close enough to not be able to get into the correct lane to turn.
So…it’s 5:05 rush hour traffic, it’s pouring down rain, my car isn’t made for deep sea fishing and I’m not going the right way and know it. Fudge.
I could drag this out for you and make you experience the whole awful mess. You are going to get very lucky here since I don’t particularly want to experience it all over again. I am not particularly proud of the fact that I got so turned around. I am also not proud of the fact that it took me an hour and 15 minutes to get home when it should have been maybe 20 minutes tops. I will admit to how I managed to go down the right streets but in the wrong direction. I will say how I spent time in traffic knowing I needed to turn around but couldn’t. I will say I almost used my car phone to call Jay and say… “Where am I and how do I get out of here!” …like he is my personal navigation system. But that part I didn’t do. I will say I finally made it home safe and sound albeit later than I would have hoped.
Let’s just say I arrived home safe and as far as sound…well, I arrived as sound as I was before I left.
TT

Positive feedback

I have had an opportunity for the tiniest bit of feedback on some recent posts. I got really uppity and splattered a link to Room for cream?… http://tessatoday.blogspot.com/2009/10/room-for-cream.html, to a batch of friends. Somehow I was feeling good about this one in particular and got the courage and confidence to send it out hoping to either confirm or deny what I was thinking about it. It turned out I did get some really good responses on it and it helped confirm that, at least with this post, I was on the right track on trusting my instinct.
It was good to hear some of the positive reinforcement. It was just the boost I needed. It helped me with sorting through my own thoughts of whether what I thought was good, really was good to someone else. That doesn’t mean I don’t try to overanalyze some of the feedback I get. That is just the way I am when it comes to something important. And I need to remember that these were friends that were giving me feedback so you have to factor in that they might have been trying to spare my feelings. They should know I would much rather have them tell me, it wasn’t any good and this is why. If they don’t add the why, I will ask 20 questions to find out because I can’t fix it if I don’t know. Maybe that is what they were trying to avoid. My 20 questions.
I thought an interesting compliment came when someone prefaced it by saying, in my unbiased opinion. I knew something wasn’t quite right when I heard that but my mind was already speeding along to the next thing so I didn’t get a chance to circle back to it. I thought about it later. Did I miss their veiled subtlety? How unbiased could it be? It was a dear friend, knows me very well and was probably trying desperately to avoid my 20 questions. Gosh, missed that! And here I am the queen of subtlety and didn’t latch on to that one! Like I said, they know me pretty well.
But the feedback was good. I would always prefer to debate it longer to try to learn more on what I could be doing better.  I will always be looking for ways to do it better. 
There is one bit of absolutely strong positivity that Dante gave to me that I will not soon forget. He was referring to my two posts about my confusion and wanting answers about writing that I had concocted fictionally. He said, “Mom, you created an Alice in Wonderland type place except it’s more like Writers in Wonderland.”
I can’t tell you how good it made me feel to hear that he not only liked the posts but that I had conjured up these images for him. And that’s all I’ve ever wanted to do with the writing. I've wanted to conjure something up for each reader.

TT
I seem to be linking a bit to myself lately but these are the Writers in Wonderland posts (also known as Rules of Writing).  Hope you enjoy.
http://tessatoday.blogspot.com/2009/07/rules-of-writing.html
http://tessatoday.blogspot.com/2009/09/rules-of-writing-2.html