My husband and I lost someone very special over the weekend.
We were both out of town; he had gone to a conference in Champaign, and I had taken Stella to my aunt's for the weekend, and we'd left our fish, Ivan, at home. He's been left alone before -- he even weathered a week by himself when my husband and I went on our honeymoon -- but this time, tragedy befell him.
I beat my husband home by an hour or two, and since Ivan hadn't been fed since Friday, the first thing I did was go to his bowl to give him some food. I didn't see him, although because of the shape of the bowl, he wasn't always visible. After a minute, however, I realized that I didn't see him because he wasn't in the bowl. He was on the floor. And he'd been there awhile.
I'm not sure if his death was an accident or if he jumped out on purpose -- either because he was upset that we all left him behind or maybe because he wanted to watch something on TV (he always was a fan of the tube) -- but there is definitely a void in our little family without him.
Godspeed, Ivan. Rest in peace, little buddy.
I've been foiled again by Christian Bale. And this time, he has company.
Today, a friend sent me this article about extras casting for the new Christian Bale/Johnny Depp movie, filming next weekend in Aurora. I was really excited about the prospect of being so close to all that hotness until I got to the part about size requirements. Women must wear a dress size of 10 or smaller and stand no taller than 5 feet, 8 inches. The dress size is fine, so long as they don't care if I look extra busty, but the height is definitely an issue. I am decidedly taller than 5'8".
I've always liked being a tall, long-legged gal, so this was a real blow. I would gladly have my femurs removed for a chance to appear on screen with Christian Bale and Johnny Depp, but the filming is next week, and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to heal that quickly.
My efforts to be a more positive person were curbed this week when I was viciously attacked by the flu. It's hard to be happy when all of those things listed on the side of the NyQuil bottle are happening to you. Nevertheless, during my two days of confinement, I did find a few things to brighten my day.
1. I didn't have to cook or clean. In fact, when I offered to throw a load of laundry into the washer, my husband told me I should rest.
2. It didn't matter that there was nothing funny on TV, because laughing would have made me have a coughing fit, and those are painful.
3. I got some good mileage out of the blanket I crocheted for the couch earlier this winter.
4. I got a nice long nap with Stella. This was a positive thing for my husband, because I realized during this nap that there is zero chance I will ever kick him out of bed to make room for the dog, because she snores like nobody's business.
5. I could go to bed at 8 p.m. and sleep 11 hours straight. Most days I would never want to do this, but hey, if I gotta, I gotta.
Saturday was an exciting day for my husband's family. My brother-in-law Mark had been chosen to appear on Wheel of Fortune during the show's college week, and several of us went to Navy Pier to see the taping.
They were taping five shows in two sessions that day -- three in the first, two in the second -- and my husband and I only had tickets to the first. Once we arrived, the guy in charge told us we could stay, that the second set of tickets was just so we could leave and come back, but we couldn't leave Stella that long anyway. Luckily, Mark made it on the second show.
They had seated us in the "contestant guest" section, which on a baseball or concert ticket would be described as "obstructed view." Guy-in-charge told us that was on purpose, because they didn't want anyone giving hints to the players they came to see. He also warned us that if we were caught saying answers, we ran the risk of being kicked out and having Mark disqualified. It made sense, I guess, but boy, I've left and re-entered the country under fewer rules.
It was an interesting experience, sitting in the audience, even if we didn't get to see anything. We spent the first 25 minutes of the taping smiling and applauding while the crew got audience shots. Our seats were beyond where lights or cameras went, but at least I got to add to the soundtrack by clapping and yelling "Wheel! Of! Fortune!"
We were right behind the roommates of the girl who won the first show, although no one was more excited than the random lady sitting next to them, who chatted with them throughout the entire show and kept turning around to tell her friends, who were sitting next to us, all about the girl's life. I admit, I thought it was cool the girl won, but only because her name was Erika, not because I knew her or anything about her, at least until I heard Excited-Lady-Who-Also-Didn't-Know-Her talking. When she found out the guy in the second game was related to us, I thought she'd explode.
I won't go into all the gory details of Mark's game (you can see it for yourself on April 29), but suffice it to say that he cleaned up, and I was very glad not only because he is my brother-in-law but also because the other two contestants were a squeaky girl and a letter shouter. Unfortunately, the bonus puzzle was too tough for him, but in the end, he took home (an affidavit that says Wheel of Fortune will, within 120 days of the air date, send him a check in the amount of) $33,650.
Not bad for a day's work. Or, you know, a year's.
Note on a completely unrelated topic: It didn't take me long to realize that chronicling good deeds is boring when your good deeds are all things like waiting for someone to leave the parking lot before pulling your car out. Rest assured, I'm still striving to do one every day, but unless I save a baby from a burning building, don't expect to hear about my good deeds.
For almost three weeks now, I've been having pain in my left foot. I didn't hurt myself, at least not that I can remember, so the cause of the pain was truly a mystery. I thought it might just be a wear-and-tear-from-the-gym situation, but when ice and elevation did nothing, I knew it was time to go to the doctor. So this morning, I did.
The doctor took an X-Ray, and apparently, I have some sort of bone growth. How it formed I don't know, but he has a feeling whatever is going on has something to do with the fact that I have flat feet and probably don't wear the right kind of shoes. I need to go to a podiatrist to get a better diagnosis and treatment, but in the meantime, the doctor told me that soaking my foot in hot water will help with the pain. I can't get into the podiatrist for a month, but I figure I can take care of the hot water part by going to get a pedicure at one of those places with the massage chair and the bubbly water tub. And once my feet are looking pretty, I can take care of the doctor's other order and buy some cute new shoes. OK, he didn't say "cute;" he said "good quality," but just because they're comfortable and well-made doesn't mean they have to be ugly, right?
On the down side, though, he prescribed me with a pain reliever that both he and the pharmacist warned me comes with numerous tummy troubling side effects. So even though my feet may look great, they probably won't be hitting the town for awhile.
Yesterday was a supremely awful one. It was one of those days where everything that could go wrong did, the kind of day that makes you just want to crawl under the covers as soon as you get home, even though it's still light out. (Which I did, actually).
Today, I awoke with a song in my heart and a smile on my face, thinking that as bad as yesterday was, today should probably be that good, to even things out. That feeling lasted for an hour or so, and then I got some bad news, and things went sour again. I guess it's just one of those weeks.
I was feeling really down, the kind of down where you don't even want to feel better, the kind where you just want to sit in a chair, stare into space and forget who you are for a week or so. That kind of down doesn't happen to me very often, but when it does, it scares me. And usually, it scares me into bringing myself back up. I knew that's what I had to do today.
Coincidentally (or not, if you've read The Celestine Prophecy), this quote popped up in my g-mail inbox today: "It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light." (Aristotle Onassis) The thought is not exactly earth-shattering, but today especially, it resonated with me. So I decided to take old Aristotle's advice, and also the advice of Julie Andrews, and think not of what was making my day so bad but what would make my day better.
So here are a few of my favorite things, with obvious things like friends, family and my puppy excluded...
- super cheesy 80s music
- super cheesy 90s music (you just can't be mad when you're listening to the Spice Girls)
- liquidy ink pens
- tea
- getting my hair washed at the salon
- massages
- great yarn sales
- a DVD from Netflix in the mail
- guacamole
- e-mail
- warm, clean jammies after a long, hot bath
- warm afghans
- soy butter
- new jeans
- big, old trees and that great flip-flap noise they make in the summer breeze
- reruns of old TV shows I've always liked
- the library
- Christopher Guest
- homemade fries
- the kind of laughing that makes you almost stop breathing
Yesterday, I did a good deed for both myself and someone else.
At my workplace, we have a very casual dress code -- my boss has even said we can wear pajamas to work if we want, although no one ever has -- so for the past two years, my wardrobe has mainly consisted of jeans, tee shirts and sweaters. I didn't even have a pair of khakis; the most dressy thing I ever wear to work is a denim skirt, and I look so out of place you'd think I wore a prom dress to the gym. And while it's kind of nice to be able to throw on jeans and a hoodie when I feel tired, and not having to trudge through snow in heels, wearing the same things day after day, week after week gets old. Plus, this has been a long, cold winter, so I've pretty much worn jeans and a sweater every day since Halloween.
The long and short of it is that my dressing habits are mundane. I've never been much of a clothes horse or a fashion risk taker (at least, not since third grade, when I fashioned myself a pair of capri pants about two decades after they were first popular and another decade before they came back into style), but in the past, I'd at least mixed colors and fabrics and rotated skirts, dresses and pants. The jeans-and-sweater-every-day routine was making me feel blah, bland, boring.
So yesterday, I cleaned out my closet. I got rid of four sweaters, a few long sleeved tee shirts and a few short sleeved tee shirts as well. Replacing them (so far) are a skirt, a button-down blouse, a nice pair of slacks and a cute little short-sleeved sweater designed not for warmth but for style. I may be the most dressy person at work, but at least I won't feel like such a slob anymore.
The good deed part of this, of course, is that I will donate the clothes I tossed to a worthy cause, and they will either be given to people who can't afford clothes or sold in a resale shop, with proceeds going to the less fortunate. I call that a win-win.
As I wrote I would, I spent Friday evening volunteering at a homeless shelter. It wasn't my first time at a shelter (I wrote a newspaper story a few years ago about the new face of homelessness), but it was just as humbling the second time around.
There is no permanent shelter in this area, so the group that provides shelter throughout the cold months travels from church to church. As volunteers, it was our job to help prepare food, hand out blankets, clothes and toiletries and generally assist the shelter's guests with anything they needed. Just like the first time I visited a shelter, I was struck at the well-dressed and, for lack of a better word, normal looking people who came to stay.
Before dinner, the guests and volunteers formed a circle and said a prayer, and looking around, I truly couldn't tell one group from the other. Once again, it proves that it's not all that difficult to become homeless. For many people, all it would take is the loss of one paycheck. I'm lucky; I have my family and my husband's family, not to mention friends, who would help out. I left feeling very thankful for all I have, and thankful that there were so many volunteers at the shelter that night, too. As sad as it is to think about the bad in the world, it makes me even gladder to know there are so many good people who are working to help those in need.
Yesterday's good deed was far less interesting or important, but there are many more opportunities to do such a deed. I went to the bank, and, besides holding the door for a couple of gentlemen exiting just behind me, I waited for both of them to leave the parking lot before pulling my car out so as to avoid a jam and/or collision. And, in fact, everywhere I drove all day, I made it a point to relinquish the right-of-way to other drivers in parking lots.
