My dad is on Facebook!

I had the coolest experience on Facebook today – my dad friend-requested me! I accepted the request, of course, and then tonight I called and had the nicest conversation with my parents. Apparently one of my sisters had been telling him about something that happened on Facebook and he thought it sounded cool, so he googled it to find out what it was and then signed up for an account. It totally made my day to see him on there and I just wanted to take note of the occasion.

In other news, Spring Practice starts tomorrow and I've got a whole slew of activities I've decided to undertake – chief among them the commitment to non-wearing of black until after Easter. Others have to do with my diet (I changed the wallpaper on my cell phone to an old encylopedia illustration of the pancreas, for inspiration), my exercise routine, and my regrettable habit of talking trash about people who make me feel threatened.

Details to come, though I don't know when. Still very busy, and found out today I'll be working through the weekend again, long hours alone in a cold building while the rain falls and the wind howls .... I can use the overtime money and should come out of it with a few "free day off" vouchers so it all works out in the end.

Where oh where

So, have I totally abandoned this blog? No. At least not in my heart ... I still think all the time about things I want to write about, and will write about them someday – I hope in the not too distant future.

For right now I'm way over-extended at work, both in my day job and with a couple of freelance projects that arrived at the same time and which, the economy being what it is these days, I felt compelled to say "yes" to even though what I want more than anything else at this time of year is to curl up in a warm little ball of blankets and pillows and nap my way to spring.

However. I can sleep when I'm dead, I suppose. I've heard people say that, and always thought it was a pretty stupid thing to say ... Not least of all because in my opinion lack of sleep is one of the top four or five conditions that cause people to die before their time – and also because I find the process of falling asleep and waking up one of the most pleasurable activities I know. Especially lately, since I'm such a terrible sleeper to begin with and all this crazed and frantic activity (relatively speaking – it might not appear so to others more accustomed to a speedier pace of life) makes it even harder for me to fall into dreamland, and the resulting exhaustion makes it even more tempting than ever to stay there in the morning despite all the work I've committed to ....

In any case. I just got back from a meeting about one more little project that looks like it could actually end up being kind of fun, and I know my brain is just going to be spinning and twirling all night long with ideas about where I want to go with it. Plus, I have a couple of books I've been reading, plus all the trees are busting out in blossoms, plus it's almost time (in less than 48 hours!) to begin my annual spring practice period (formerly observed as a weird non-Catholic form of Lent, sort of) and I still haven't totally decided what I'm going to do.

Restricting my carbohydrate intake to less than 80 grams a day would be good for me, and hard and unpleasant, so it would qualify as an appropriate discipline to undertake ... Other possibilities I've considered include not riding in or driving a car, increasing my daily exercise from 50 minutes to 90 minutes, establishing various other food and exercise related habits I won't bother to detail, brushing the dog every day (not as easy as it sounds, since he doesn't really like to be brushed – but it decreases the dog hair quotient around here by a factor of at least ten thousand hairs a day and would be a good habit to instill in him, too), and finally, the one that I really want to do but am unsure I'm capable of – not wearing black for the entire 40 days plus weekends from midnight tomorrow until Easter Sunday.

I know I don't look good in black. When I look in the mirror I always think I look okay, but when I see pictures of myself wearing black it's clear to me that I don't. With my hair and skin I mostly just look pasty and overwhelmed in black. The main reason I wear it so often is because it's easy – it always matches, and it hides dirt and stains, and as long as both of your dogs are black it doesn't show dog hair either. The trouble is that, were I to take this on starting on Wednesday, I'm not sure I actually have enough non-black winter apparel to keep myself clothed warmly without doing some major layering and/or shopping, which I don't have the time or inclination to do right now ....

Still, I've been thinking about it for several weeks now and it still seems like a good idea. Maybe the difficulty would make it an even better idea. The whole point is to stretch myself, right? To form at least one positive new habit a year, even though it's hard? So I might try it despite my limited wardrobe and see what happens.

P.S. I just realized too that I really hate this winter header. Look for a new one soon, probably this weekend.

Moss gardens, blue boots and other assorted miscellanea

I didn't take this picture myself and I don't know where it came from, but I had to post it because it so gorgeously illustrates my latest obsession – the moss garden. I've been collecting little pieces of moss everywhere and storing it in jars, making little tiny terrariums, tucking it in under the feet of house plants ... It's just the most beautiful color, and so fuzzy, and I love the different forms. Some look like tiny little ferns; others grow in clusters like stars, or miniature aloes or succulents. And for some reason in this driest of winters in as long as I can easily remember, it seems prudent to keep in my mind's eye the image of the lush, green, wet winters I hope will soon return .....

Here's a selection that Mr. A collected for me yesterday from the flower beds next to my office. Two different kinds, plus some oak leaves. The little one on the top right is one I got out of the creek bottom today – slipping on a rock, smashing my knee and destroying a new pair of tights while simultaneously landing with one hand right in the middle of a dried up blackberry bramble. Yowch. Totally worth it, though.

They're resting at the moment on my favorite blue and white plate, by the way – the only one of its kind, which I liberated from the Bauhaus when I moved out in 1986 and have carted around with me like a sacred relic ever since. I've eaten dinner on that plate almost every day for almost 25 years! Not tonight, though.

In other news, this afternoon I went to the plant nursery to see if they had any button ferns in two inch pots (they did not, but are going to get me some by next weekend) and on the way back I decided to finally stop and check out the shop that's now open in the little house I lived in for almost nine years, across the valley on the highway into town.

I almost never even go over to that part of the valley anymore and when I do I make a point of Not going past my old house. It's true it was shabby and ramshackle even before I moved in, and didn't improve much in terms of structure or stamina in the time I lived in it, but I loved that little house so much, and took such care to make it my own space – I knew every tree, every flowering vine and bulb, every bush in the hedge, and planted so much more while I was there, including perennials and herbs and several fruit trees that are now producing beautifully (according to my friend who still keeps a studio in the back of the lot) – it sort of broke my heart to leave it, even though it was what made sense to do at the time, and still does.

So for almost three years I've avoided even looking at the house, preferring to remember it as it was when I lived in it. I could see from the road that the subsequent tenants had ripped down all the jasmine and climbing roses from the front porch and roof, and even that was more than I wanted to know. I also heard from two different sources that my beloved ancient walnut tree had been cut down, and the back of the lot down by the creek was being used as a dumping ground.

Anyway – I guess enough time has finally passed to secure my memories against the threat being overshadowed by a new view of the place ... So I decided to stop. Since it's now a shop that nobody lives in, I was hoping I would be able to actually go into the house and snoop around, instead of having to guess what was happening to it based on what little you can see over the fence, from the road.

Maybe you're one of those romantic types who's expecting me to say that I was pleasantly surprised – charmed, even – by the changes the new tenant has made. Maybe you think I'm going to say that I made my peace with the place at last, and was finally able to release my jealousy and wish it happiness in its new life with its new people ....

I would've loved it if that had happened. I guess in a way I did make peace with it, but not in the way I expected to. First I will say that the stuff they're selling there is not so much in the line of "antiques" as it is more run-of-the-mill "dusty and chipped old junk that smells like mold." They've broken out part of the fence and opened up the French doors from the kitchen onto the patio, which is piled up on one end with soggy old couch cushions, mildewed books, broken lamps and other detritus. The entrance to the shop is through these doors, and from there through the kitchen, which is somehow much, much smaller than I remember, and which looks broken down and depressed now that it's no longer being cooked in by candle light and lovingly cleaned with my special homemade lemony cleansers and filled with climbing plants and flowers and beautiful one of a kind plates and cups and crystal – from there you go into the living room, which is also much smaller than I remember, and similarly depressing in its garbagey clutter, dust, and smell of neglect. The stone fireplace is covered with black smoke stains that they haven't even bothered to remove.

Looking out the French doors into the front yard all I could see was more broken, rain-ruined junk strewn and stacked around, and a 20-foot eucalyptus tree that has sprung up right next to one of my Santa Rosa plums, close enough to kill it if they don't take care, which it doesn't appear they intend to do.

They've nailed up a plywood door in the bedroom doorway, so I wasn't able to see in there.

I did notice that the walnut tree has NOT been cut down, which made me happy. And my favorite little flowering almond in the front yard has buds on it, so at least I know they haven't killed that one yet (though most of the other things I planted are no longer there).

The positive side of this little excursion is that I've finally freed myself from the image I had in my head of that house as being the perfect place for me, that I had to abandon for love. Which it was, at the time, and which I did – and which I'm still glad that I did. But now, when I look around the house I share with Mr. A – which in my mind has never really measured up to the cottage I loved so much – I'm seeing it more for what it is: a solid, well-built house that is slowly being transformed more and more into a place I'm coming to love just as much as I loved that cottage. It's true it isn't as charming as the old house, but it also isn't falling apart – it isn't on a noisy highway – the rooms are bigger, the doors actually close, the water pressure is good, it has amazing views in every direction, and I'm not living in it alone, waiting for a good man to arrive in my life. He did arrive, and here we are together.

I still love the years I spent living in that little house, though. What I remembered today is that I'm loving my time in this house, too. I think allowing myself to take a good look at how that house has moved from the past into the present has helped me see more clearly where I really am right now, myself. I can't wait for Mr. A to get home so I can tell him about it.

As for the blue boots – there are two other buildings on that property, and right now all three of them are occupied by vintage retail shops, one of which is a new place specializing in hip western stuff and amazing boots. The pair I almost got were an amazing turquoise leather with a tall shaft and a low heel, and so close to a workable fit – but in the end I reined myself in enough to admit they were really at least a size too big, and so long I would've been constantly tripping over them. I know this because more than once or twice already in my life I've fallen in love with boots that are too big for me, and every time, I've lived to regret it. Once I came close to losing a tooth when I tripped while my hands were full and landed face-first on the pavement. Those were the cherry suede shearling-lined Dansko boots that stained the cuffs of my jeans red ....

So – no blue boots for me today. Besides, boot season is almost over now. Soon it will be time to start scouting for clonky platform sandals again. Actually I guess that time is already here – so let the stalking begin!

P.S. He also had these, which were too small – unfortunately – or fortunately, depending on how much you would've loved/cringed at seeing me tear it up at the next farmer's market dance party in leopard fur platform shortie boots.

Technical difficulties ... maybe?

Last Friday I went to the "low-cost health screening clinic" at my pharmacy to have a new A1C done. Now that I'm basically uninsured (unless something catastrophic happens and I spend more than my deductible), clinics like this are a godsend. I had called the hospital lab where I've had all of my blood work done until now, and found out that for the two tests I wanted done it would cost me about $235 – out of pocket, non-reimbursable, though it would count toward my deductible IF I was very careful to demand that only lab techs from the official list were allowed to touch my sample.

At the pharmacy's low-cost clinic I paid $65 for the same tests. I was happy with all of my results – A1C safely in the middle of the non-diabetic range, and all my lipids are awesome. I'm assuming my insurance will not count the receipt toward my deductible, since the lab that did the testing is not on the list. But since I don't expect to meet the deductible anyway I'm figuring anything I can do to save a few bucks is probably good.

Except. Tonight I'm wondering ... How do you know the test is good? I wonder what results I would've gotten if I'd had the same tests done at my usual lab. The company is approved by various agencies and organizations, and the tests they run are not bogus – I trust them, I think – but really, how can I be sure? When my life depends on keeping these numbers within a certain range, I hate to think I might be settling for less than accurate information just to save a little money.

I hadn't actually thought about it until tonight, when I got home from a dinner of wor wonton soup (preceded by way too much leftover Christmas toffee from a tin someone brought in to my office today) and tested, expecting the number to be high, and was surprised to see 85 on the little screen. I always love seeing that great number, but I knew it couldn't be accurate, so I tested again and got 87. Suspicious, I pulled out one of my other meters, from a different manufacturer, and tested 165. That was more what I would have expected to see. A second test on that meter showed 156. Close enough.

Then I started wondering – was it the meter, or the strips? I tested a strip from the same bottle using a different meter from the same manufacturer (yeah, I have a bunch of different meters – lots of companies give them to people for free so you have to keep buying their brand of strips) and got 95. So maybe it was the strips? I did a test with the control solution and got 127, which doesn't really tell you much except that the strip is within range for that lot number – which doesn't mean a lot because the range is so wide. Finally, I did another test with my original meter, using strips from a new box – and got about the same result, 87.

So now I'm feeling paranoid about my meter. I've had it almost two years – is it starting to crap out? Probably I will try to figure out what's going on by testing a few more times later tonight, but I hesitate to do all the testing I'd like to, because the strips cost about a buck apiece.

Times like this make me realize why chronic conditions are considered so stressful, even if they're not causing any immediate problems. I feel like I always have to be thinking about my blood – seriously, always! I think about it at least once every hour, every hour I'm awake. If it goes high, like it was this morning (because I have a cold and PMS right now), I worry about nerve damage and heart attacks and obsess about exercising and testing every 20 minutes until it comes down again. If it's low, I feel safe and happy and proud of myself and entitled to relax a bit, at least until the next test.

Lately I find myself thinking a lot about what my life might be like if I live to be old. It's a strange feeling to realize that being diabetic is going to be part of my life for as long as I'm here – it's never going to go away, and I'm never really going to be able to relax and forget about it, and even with the best and most scrupulous self-care it's still likely to get worse as I get older, because that's just how it seems to work with most people.

In a way, I figure – who cares? Everybody dies of something, and the fact that I have this condition doesn't necessarily mean I'm going to die from it. There are a million different ways I could die that have nothing to do with being diabetic. A cheerful thought!

So I'm trying not to get too heavy and morbid about it, but at the same time, I do want to take care of myself as well as I can on the off chance that I do end up living to be old, after all. Which is why the meter is important, because it's the only tool I really have to help me keep track of how my efforts are working, or not working.

In other news: I spent a really great few days with some old friends last weekend, reconnecting over snacks and the Superbowl. It was the first football game I've ever watched from start to finish, and it turned out to be a good one, even though my team (chosen at random because their pants had better stripes than the other team) did not win. The whole weekend was a blessing I'm still basking in. It made me happy to remember again some of the reasons I love these friends so much and how grateful I am to know them – some of them for more than half my life.