Back-Friendly?

13 December 2002

It's Scott's birthday! Happy birthday, Scott!

It's also Santa Lucia Day, but no saffron buns here, and no cinnamon-cardamom buns, either. I went sort of Swedish, though: I just ate a lingonberry-walnut scone with lemon curd. It was all right. It could have been better. If I could have gotten fresh lingonberries, for example, that probably would have worked better. Still, it could have been worse.

(Note the Minnesota locutions here: could have been better, could have been worse. These are the two evaluative phrases you need most often. They cover pretty much everything. Sometimes they cover it together. Sometimes not. The way I first knew that my Gran was really scary-sick, when I was a freshman in college, was when I talked to her on the phone and said, "How ya doin', Gran?" and she hesitated and then said, "Well, honey, I could be better." From some elderly ScanAms, that's as much of a whine as you're going to get, ever.)

What I want to know is, how did there get to be that many little things to do? I kept doing them. There are still more of them to do. It seems like someone must be sneaking in and creating them. Someone has been sneaking in and adding to my to do list while I'm gone, and I know it isn't Mark or Timprov, because they'd add things like, "Sit down and relax." ("I would," Timprov has said many times, "but then you'd do it for a minute and cross it off the list, figuring you were done.")

Ooh. Well, that was an adventure. I got up for a minute and just passed out without warning. Haven't done that in awhile. Whee. So why don't I just sit here and drink some nice cool water, then.

Right.

So Timprov and I headed down to Fremont and met Jenn's foster kitties last night. Garibaldi was all suspicious and Talia was shy and Ivanova was all orange and purry and interesting. So I think the names were chosen pretty well, although I don't remember the Ivanova on "Bab-5" being orange, and she might have restrained the purring impulse as well. Very sweet, though, and it's been awhile since I got to play with any beings that tiny. Someday we'll have a tiny puppy to train. Sigh. We didn't get to stay there very long, though, with allergies and all; we headed out to dinner instead.

Jenn had her NaNoWriMo manuscript sitting in her backseat, so when we took her car out for dinner, I admired it without reading any: ooooh, nooooovel. She's been drowning it in a sea of red ink. I know that feeling. I look ahead to 2003 and think, "Ah, yes, the Year of the Edits." Be assured that this is not a bad thing.

The other thing I want to know is, why do people think we have money? They keep calling and asking us for money for this, that, and the other. Benefit concerts, this and that, and it's never some group to whom I would feel comfortable being snotty. It's always a fairly worthwhile charity. Someone I am genuinely sorry I can't support right now. But I really, truly can't. Yesterday at the post office, the Salvation Army volunteer held the door for us when we went in with our arms full of packages, and he smiled at us and didn't ring the bell or make a verbal appeal or anything when we came out. He is officially my favorite Salvation Army volunteer. The one at Target earlier this week, who was trying to make her bell sound like the stock market dealie? No. She loses.

I'm just feeling generally run-down and crappy today, and I blame the back. So. I'm going to keep drinking lots of water and try to do things that are nice for the back. Some yoga. Some of the magical Zed stretches. A hot shower. Work that I can do in more than one location/position. I'm going to try to make it a back-friendly day, within the context of getting some stuff done, of course. Of course.

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