Satsuma!

What better way to celebrate the best date of each year (11/22, two great numbers that go great together!) than by finding a truckload of gorgeous fragrant and indescribably sweet Satsuma tangerines has magically appeared in the rustic wooden bins of my favorite gourmet produce section? Every year I look forward to this day, and this year it's arrived earlier than ever — hooray! I loaded up two big bags full, one for home and one for the office. I put them in a big blue bowl on the cutting table (these days used exclusively for cutting brownies, pies, and other home-baked treats brought in to share), and everyone is welcome to help themselves to as many as they can stand, if they can get to them before I do. During the short but wonderful Satsuma season I have been known to eat as many as a dozen of them in a day. It's okay! They're small! They're also pretty; our grocer orders the organic ones, with the leaves still on. And they're good for you — full of delicious sweet citrus flavor and probably tons of vitamins and minerals and good karma, too.

This boost could not have come at a better time for me this year. I've been totally swamped at work, and overburdened as well with some stupid emotional stuff having to do with feeling excluded from a drinking party I didn't get invited to (that I didn't want to go to, anyway — really!). I also foolishly said yes to four small freelance jobs, having briefly forgotten how much time and energy these things take ... I thought I'd be able to finish them all last weekend but on Saturday was so exhausted I literally felt like I'd been drugged — could not keep my eyes open or form a full sentence in my mind, let alone speak it — so instead, at the boyfriend's insistence, I spent most of the afternoon sleeping. Sunday was somewhat better but I'm still feeling really wrecked. Just seeing all those happy orange Satsumas sitting around my office — one on top of the monitor, one on the shelf, one on the partition, one on top of my hard drive — I sprinkle them around like jewels — makes me feel better, at least for that one bright shining moment ....

If I could ever get ten seconds away from my desk during a time when the lab is open, I would take myself in for the blood tests my doctor ordered me to have almost two months ago. At some point, I suppose I will need to just take the time and go, and deal with the backlog of work when I get back.

Part of me is kind of afraid to find out what's wrong. I mean, I already know I'm terribly anemic. I have been for years, off and on. But what if it's something worse? I just had my first ever mamogram a couple of weeks ago and the result came back fine, so I can cross that particular terror off my list (the wife of a good friend, only a few years older than me, just got diagnosed with breast cancer and is having a mastectomy next week ... scary).

Probably, I just need to be more diligent about eating iron-rich foods. I don't know what else I can do to feel better. I already eat well and carefully, I take a whole handful of supplements every day, and since the end of July have been exercising 40 minutes or so, four or five days a week. I get plenty of rest. I don't smoke, drink (well, very rarely) or do any other thing I can think of that I know is bad for me. I'm busy and overworked, but no more than usual.

Is my work environment toxic? Could I have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome? Maybe it's a new allergy, or maybe there's mold in the house!

Anyway, I'm trying to figure it out and fix it. With the holiday season now officially open, I am going to need all the extra energy I can get.