A Wider Circle's Great Eight

This year in Silver Spring Ben & Jerry’s Free Cone Day (held every April) featured volunteers from A Wider Circle,* a local organization which furnishes homes, provides clothing and trains people for the workforce in the D.C. area.  Every year on Free Cone Day, Ben & Jerry’s give away free ice cream** and they host a charity who is allowed to fundraise in the store.***  Give the charity a few dollars and you get a key ring tag for 10% off on ice cream for the next twelve months.  In addition to the free ice cream.

So, really, one isn’t just scarfing down free ice cream, one is being a philanthropist. 

Anyway, this year was A Wider Circle’s opportunity and the nice volunteers handed out information on the organization and how to help.  I still have the bookmark they gave me with “The Great Eight” on it.  If you are looking for a quick shopping list of “things to buy but not for me” and have donated enough boxes of pasta and cans of veggies for a while, they suggest:

1.  Tissues and toilet paper

2.  Laundry detergent

3.  Whole grain pasta****

4.  Low-sodium beans

5.  Paper towels and cleaning supplies

6.  Cereal and oatmeal

7.  Diapers

8.  Low-sodium, low-sugar canned fruits and vegetables.

I take food with me for the food bank every time I go to church and every so often the shelter gets some of my beloved hotel toiletries.  I’ll probably go to the store this weekend and pick up some paper goods for donation.   

*From their website:  “A Wider Circle’s efforts focus on the provision of basic need items, education, and long-term support. These three components work in concert to create lasting change in the lives of those we serve. A Wider Circle says no to nobody! Anyone in need of help can find it here. In addition to all of the individuals and families that call us, more than 300 government, social service, and nonprofit agencies regularly contact us for help in serving their clients.

Items can be dropped off 7 day a week, 365 days a year at our Center for Community Service: 9159 Brookville Road, Silver Spring, MD 20910.”

**which is awesome

*** Last year it was the Washington Animal Rescue League, so … kittens!  And puppies!

**** Or gluten-free …

14 is the mew 72

From vetstreet.com, so that Pekoe gets enough candles every January.

How Old Is My Cat?

We all love easy answers, so after the idea of "dog years" became popular, we started seeing the same methodology applied to cats: Take the lifespan of a cat, compare it to a person, then get your formula, which is why you may frequently hear that 1 cat year equals 4 human years.

You’re ahead of me already, I bet: A 1-year-old cat is far more mature than a 4-year-old child, and a 2-year-old cat is fully mature, which can never be said of a human 8-year-old.

Because cats have less size diversity than dogs do, however, in this case we actually can make the formula work, if we start calculating at a cat's second birthday. The first year takes a cat to late adolescence, and the second into young adulthood. You can then start counting in fours: Figure a 2-year-old cat at 24 "human years." and add four years for every one thereafter, making a 4-year-old cat the equivalent of a 32-year-old person. That makes a 9-year-old cat about 52 in human terms, and 16-year-old cat about 80.

A change to the menu

I took Pekoe into the shop because you're supposed to do that every so often.  And because he'll be 13 in January, thus making him officially an Old Guy Cat.  And because (hmmm ... how to put this delicately ...) I was seeing something in the litter box that looked not as solid as would be considered optimal.

He is generally good tempered, has a good appetite.  He's energetic and uses his litter box.  So I really had nothing to worry about, per se, but again, he's an senior cat* and I would hate to find out that he had something we could fix had I only brought him in in time.


So I got his fabulous cat carrier out of the closet and let him play with it** and took him in to see The Vet.

It turns out that Mr. Elderly Feline has -- depending on who you ask -- either Kidney Failure or Chronic Kidney Disease.  This is not uncommon for geezer cats.  (Which made it not one tiny bit less disconcerting for me to hear.  This guy has been my pal and companion for 12 years and I love him a lot.)  And no matter what you chose to call it, the short answer is that Pekoe has a medical situation that is serious but not acute and will need to be managed.

That's the bad news.  The good news is that "managing" his health situation will not require that I give him a pill every day.  He ... doesn't like pills.

We put him on a "bland diet," which means that instead of the crunchy dry cereal that he is so fond of, I now feed him baby food.  Pureed chicken or beef or turkey with broth.***  I wasn't sure how he'd feel about that because he does love his crunchy dry cereal and usually ignores most meat-based human food, but he loved it. Loved.  It.  You'd have thought I was feeding him chocolate covered donuts.  He greets me at the door, usually with a "Yay, you're home!  I missed you!" kind of attitude.  Now he greets me with "Yay, you're home!  Let's open another of those jars!"

The Vet gave (read = sold) me some new crunchy dry cereal that is made by Hills and is specially formulated for cats with kidney issues (K/D).  I mix some of that into the baby food which slightly reduces his laser-like focus on the baby food because with the cereal mixed in, he fills up faster and doesn't gulp it down like a 7-year old at a birthday party.  So it's more like plain donuts ...

I'll soon be buying K/D wet food from the internet.  (The internet delivers.  The vet does not.)  Soon Pekoe will get something like wet food for breakfast and dry food for dinner or some such and I don't anticipate any transition issues because his approach as a former stray has always been "You're feeding me?  Again today? How cool is that!"

However ... the subcutaneous hydration?  Not sure he's going to be such a fan. Stay tuned for Leta and Pekoe's adventures with needles.


*One chart I saw broke cat ages into four levels:  up to 1 year = kitten; 1 year + = adult; 7 years + = mature; and 11 years + = senior.

** He loves that carrier and treats it like his own personal clubhouse.  I may have to just put him in there every so often and walk him around just for fun so that he doesn't start to think of it as the Theme Park Ride That Only Goes to the Vet.

***Strong recommendation:  Beechnut.  It's the only baby food I found that was, in fact, meat and meat broth instead of meat and corn starch.  Because the vet, for some reason, didn't suggest that I give Pekoe a daily serving or two of corn starch.  He didn't say not to, but even so ...

Car accident

You know how a new car is new until it gets its first ding in it?  Well, Gracie, my lovely VW Jetta, went from new to not-new this past Saturday night.

I was on my way home from seeing the NVTA one-acts and stopped when I got hit from behind.  And it's actually kind of lucky that I was there because I was the buffer between the BMW that hit me and the Subaru in front of me.  In the Subaru was a married couple with their one-year-old child.  So by "lucky," I don't mean "lucky for Leta" but "lucky for the folks in the Subaru."

They didn't seem to see it that way at the time, of course.  The mother of the one-year-old had enough adrenaline looking for an outlet that it didn't much matter what I was going to say ("Ma'am, I wasn't moving.  That guy hit me!") because she wasn't going to process it.  So she yelled at me for a while about how hitting their car with her child in it WAS NOT ACCEPTABLE.  (I, of course, agree.  Given a choice, I would not have been pushed into their car.  I also understand that scaring a mother about her child will immediately bring out the protective instinct.)

So I'm kinda listening to her and kinda trying to explain that I didn't initiate this event and kinda thinking about how I hit my head on the steering wheel and now my head hurts.  And about how a friend of mine was in a low-speed impact that left her with herniated disks in her neck. And then the guy who hit me starts asking if he can just give me his information which I didn't understand at the time but now assume to mean could he give me his insurance information and then leave.  And I am certainly the sort of accommodating idiot who might have agreed to that except that Subaru Mom then started screaming about how she was going to call the police.  So, actually, I was lucky that she was there, too, I guess.

The nice policeman arrived promptly and started collecting information.  He asked if anyone was hurt and I said that I hit my head and that it hurt.  Clearly, I was lucid* and not bleeding but he called for the EMTs.  Looking back, I wish that I had taken the time while the Subaru Mom was on the phone with the police to put back into my purse everything that fell out of it when it fell off of the seat when the BMW Guy hit me.   Not because my purse was filled with contraband but because I wouldn't get a good look at it again for another 3 hours or so and spent that time worrying about things like my iPod.

The EMT guys put a neck collar on me and strapped me to a back board and loaded me into the ambulance.  There are patches of the whole event that I don't remember very clearly so I don't remember if the police officer or I decided that a trip in the ambulance would be a better option than me driving myself to the hospital.  Obviously, if I had, say, passed out while driving myself to the hospital** we all would have regretted not having me be driven there by the nice EMTs, so whoever suggested the ambulance trip, the other probably agreed pretty promptly.  I did think to ask for my purse and my magazine.  I've been to hospitals.  There's always plenty of time to read ...

I always wondered what it was like to ride in an ambulance and the answer is ... kinda boring.***  I was strapped to the back board and one of the EMT's spent a pretty decent chunk of time making sure that I was really, really strapped to it, which include taping my head down across my forehead so that my head wouldn't jiggle.  They said that I dealt with it better than many other people have. How did I deal with it?  By chatting with the EMTs, of course.  If I can chat through things, I can get through things.  Anyway, I spent the trip looking at the ceiling.

At the hospital I had nice, clear line of priorities.  As each one was dealt with the next one moved into higher prominence.  They were:

1.  I wanted my phone because I had left a message for David and didn't want to not answer if he woke up, got the message, and called. Scaring one's nice boyfriend unnecessarily is bad karma. I called him again later and actually talked to him.  Hmmm.  Did I do that before or after I got to the hospital?  Don't remember.

2.  I wanted to be released from the back board. My scoliosis makes lying on my back uncomfortable after not too long a period of time.  I was released from the back board within a couple of hours.****  It's also hard to read while strapped to a back board, so I read intermittently and filled the rest of the time worrying.

3.  I wanted to use the bathroom.  I wanted this with more and more urgency as time went on but they couldn't let me get up until the neck collar had been removed and they couldn't remove the neck collar until after the X-rays had been read.  I don't know how long it took and I was only in the hospital, really, from about 12:30 AM to about 4:15 AM, so it couldn't have been the two days it felt like, but boy, oh, boy, was I ever glad to be released from the neck collar when it finally happened.

4.  I wanted to know where my glasses were.  Not in my purse.  Not with me.  Hopefully in the car.*****

5.  I wanted someone to be nice to me.  Not "nice to me" in the kind but professionally detached manner of hospital personnel but "nice to me" as in saying "you poor baby!" and expressing outrage on Gracie's behalf.*+5 *+6  So ... using my phone which has a dedicated button for Facebook, I posted a status update.  I knew that by saying that something bad had happened to me that I was possibly stirring up, well, several hundred people, but it was cold in the hospital and I was lonely.  I kept it reasonably low-key and posted this at 4:54 AM while waiting for a cab. Car accidents suck, hospitals are boring, and I'm glad I'm okay. Bruised and headachy but okay.   

Quite a few of my friends are early risers, so the first "you poor baby!" comments came in about 15 minutes later and continued through the next couple of days.  The actual wording of "you poor baby" was "glad you're okay."

On Sunday evening I posted a follow up:  In theory it's the Naprosin that makes me feel better but I know that it's the love and good wishes from so many lovely friends that's the real extra strength pain relief.  I am very lucky to have lots of people who are nice to me.

6.  I wanted the stupid [expletive] cab to show up.  I called the cab at 4:20 AM and got a text at 4:23 saying that it was 3 miles away.  I had to option to text "where" to find out how far away the cab was.

I went outside (where it was slightly less frigid) to wait for the cab.

At 5:02 I sent the "where" text because I was wondering how it could possibly take 40 minutes to cover 3 miles.  I got the reply that the cab was 4 miles away.

At 5:20 I sent the "where" text again and got the same answer.  I went back into hospital and called the cab company.  They sent another cab which arrived at 5:28.

If I hadn't been so tired and shook up, I think I would have started the process earlier.  I don't like Yellow Cab now.  I may never like them again.

7.  I wanted to collect Gracie, see if she was drive-able, go home, go to bed.  The impound lot she was towed to was only a quarter mile from the hospital, so this part was rather easy.  Except for the $343 tow bill.  On the plus side, the driver put my iPod into the glove compartment for me instead of stealing my car charger like the last time that I was towed.  A new iPod Touch would have cost me about ... $300.  Hmmm.

8.  After I got home, I wanted Pekoe not to respond to how stressed out I was by doing the things that he knows annoys the bejeebers out of me.  I was fresh out of bejeebers, so he got evicted from my bedroom until after I'd had some sleep.

Today I am bruised, much less headachy, and very, very grateful that it wasn't worse.


*Or as lucid as I ever appear to be.


** I didn't pass out at any time during the whole event.  Just sayin'.


*** Don't tell my father this.  He is the President of the Ambulance Authority Board in the county where he lives.


**** Or what seemed like a couple of hours.  Boy, time really slows down when you're staring at the ceiling worrying.


***** Yes.  In the car.


*+5 Gracie is the Jetta.


*+6 The rows of asterisks were getting too long.  The next step is exponential notation.

Thanks again, Dad

I got to be teenager-y and blame my parents (specifically, my father, who provided my Irish genes) for my problems when I got diagnosed with Celiac Disease because CD is very common in Ireland and people of Irish descent.*

Well, fate has offered this opportunity again. I was told today that I have Rosacea **and, according to those strangers on Wikipedia, "It primarily affects Caucasians of mainly northwestern European descent and has been nicknamed the 'curse of the Celts' by some in Britain and Ireland.


*So far the only thing I've gotten from my mother's German genes are a somewhat "Achtung" approach to kitchen organization and a fondness for rules.


**And I was told this in the same way that I am told lots of medical information: as though it were something that the doctor has noted in my file long ago and assumed that I knew. What is up with that?

I am so deep

The thoughts that went through my head - in order - when a doctor's office told me that there was a problem with one of my routine tests:

1. I guess David would be willing to take Pekoe if ...

2. Huh. Does this mean I can stop contributing to my 401(k)?

3. Screw that gluten-free diet.

Luckily for David, Pekoe, my 401(k), and the manufacturers of the gluten-free products I buy, the specialist to whom I was referred declared the area in question "extremely normal."

It also happens to be true

Living in Very Assisted Living ain't cheap. It's costing my mother $295 a day to be kept in the style to which she would have preferred not to become accustomed. $295 a day is more than her income, so we're starting the process to spend down the deposit she paid when she moved there seven years ago. When that money is (too soon) gone, the facility will help her apply for Medi-whichever.

It depresses Mom to think that she won't have anything to leave me and my neices. I've tried different ways to tell her that, while it is too bad, it's more important to take care of her than to worry about any kind of financial legacy.

Today I may have found a way to phrase it that works for her:

Mom, you worked hard all your life and saved a lot of money, which will be spent to keep you safe and comfortable. You're money should be spent on you. And knowing that you are safe and comfortable means a lot to me.

She said that was "a nice way to put it." Had Mom been more of a fan of Hemingway, she might have said "Isn't it pretty to think so," but I doubt she would have gone to far as quote Brick's "Wouldn't it be funny if that was true?" Mom's never been as much of a cynic as Mr. Williams.

It pays to have smart assy friends

Because then you don't get in trouble for saying stuff like I did yesterday. I would probably never say anything so snarky to my very nice and not Smart Assy Friends.

Smart Assy Friend: So how's your Mom doing?*
Me: Oh, pretty well. She was pretty incoherent there for a while but she's recovering nicely.
SAF: Yeah, I spent some of the weekend incoherent, too.
Me: Yes, but with my mother, we can tell the difference.


*Mom spent a few days in the hospital with the UTI. Between the infection and the dehydration, she was not very lucid for a couple of days, scaring the bejeebers out of me. Yay both for anti-biotics and Mom's dislike of superbug-creating anti-bacterial everything.

Knee stabilizing exercises

This actually *exactly* what I need! I have what is called a "mal-tracking patella" which means that my kneecap doesn't run vertically in its little grove, but cants off to the outside a bit, in a kind of diagonal action. Remind me, the next time I see you, and I'll show you what I mean.

Thanks, New York Times!

What I learned at the Neurologist

Mom had an appointment at the neurologist's office the other day and I went along for moral support and, possibly, practical assistance.

Mom has been living with Multiple Sclerosis for the past twenty years. An auto-immune disorder, MS is a particularly vicious foe which attacks the nervous system of the body, destroying the myelin sheath which covers nerves - effectively cutting the phone cord in the house of the body, like the villain in a thriller. Only MS isn't all that thrilling.

Mom has chronic progressive MS*, and suffers from spasticity and muscle loss. She hasn't walked at all in nearly ten years, her vision is affected, and her cognition is somewhat impaired. She can't write legibly very often and cannot remember things long enough to tell them to me if I'm not standing in front of her when they occur to her, which means that when she does remember, she tells me things over and over.** I know quite a few people with MS and Mom has it the worst of all of them. She now lives in a "skilled nursing facility" which wasn't how she intended to spend her retirement years.

So, anyway, one of the staff where she lives noticed that Mom hadn't seen her neurologist in the last five years and suggested an appointment. The appointment was duly made and I met her there and we saw the neurologist. He asked some questions, checked her muscle strength in her arms ("Push against my hand. Uh-huh.") and her coordination ("Touch my finger. Now touch your nose. Now touch my finger. Uh-huh."), and then sat down to talk to us.

What he told us I essentially regard as good news. My biggest fear about Mom has been that she would get worse and worse and eventually be in a lot of discomfort all the time. But the doctor told us that if we could see her the nerves coming off of her spinal cord, we wouldn't see any active lesions, just areas where the nerve had withered. Mom has stabilized. In other words, he said, she is a paraplegic, and could be compared to someone who had been hurt in a riding accident as Christopher Reeve was, rather than to someone with, say a slowing progressing cancer, such as Elizabeth Edwards has. The flood has been and gone; Mom won't be living in the middle of a river with the water getting ever higher.

Which is good news for appropriate values of good news.

After the appointment, we went to Baja Fresh for lunch and I learned that while Mom zips around the nursing home in her electric wheel chair at speed, she is much more sedate on the sidewalks of Wheaton. And that when she crosses the street at less than a mile an hour, the kindly drivers wait for her very patiently. Thank you, Kindly Drivers!

A very educational trip. If one is supposed to learn one new thing every day, I'm up two.



*The other kind is relapsing/remitting where the patient has good days and bad days. Mom generally has bad days.

**Of course, I tell people things over and over and I don't have MS. Maybe it's a mother-daughter thing.

My type?

Nearly twenty years ago, long before I had internet access or structured my day around checking my e-mail and reading Facebook status updates (and ... working) I heard about a young lady named Allison Atlas who lived in Bethesda and needed a bone marrow transplant.

I mention the lack of e-mail and internet because that means that I probably learned about Allison by seeing a flier somewhere, like at the grocery store or wherever else they had been blanketed by friends and family. It's much easier today to e-mail your entire address book, write a blog post, and create a Facebook event, so I have always appreciated the dedication shown by the Friends of Allison or anyone putting so much time and effort into saving someone they care about.

So anyway, I heard about the bone marrow registration drive, which was going to be held at the Jewish Community Center because Allison was of Ashkenazi Jewish descent. I'm not*, but I figured that even though that reduced the chances that I would be a match for Allison from tiny to minuscule, I went anyway and stood in line for over two hours with other people who were actively hoping to be inconvenienced and put through a rather uncomfortable medical procedure in hopes of giving someone else another chance at life.

I wasn't a match for Allison and, so far, I haven't been a match for anyone, but I keep hoping. I check that my registration is current every year on my birthday and I encourage people to join the registry.

Today Quinn posted that the nephew of a dear friend of hers is now depending on that same registry. So if you were thinking about joining the registry or wondering what to do what some extra dollars in your charity fund....


*I'm Engish - Irish - German Episcopalian.

The upside to insomnia

I get lots of reading done in the middle of the night.

Other than that, it's not so great. Today is Thursday and the fact that I can tell you that is kind of surprising as my sleep schedule for the week has looked like this:

Monday night - Got to sleep by midnight. Awake from 4:30 to 6:30.

Tuesday nght - Got to sleep by about 12:20. Awake from 3:30 to 6:30.

Wednesday night - Got to sleep by about 11:30. Awake from 1:30 to 6:00

So that's pretty much it. 13 hours of sleep in the last three nights. And this during a week when I read an article in a back issue of Time telling me that being sleep deprived will make me fat, diabetic, and heart disease prone.

Great.

How to avoid answering that question

Warning - if you have delicate sensibilities, you might want to stop reading after the word "whew." Just a suggestion. Because mental images? They could form.

I am not a smoker. I did smoke some clove cigarettes in college because I thought that they smelled nice and (probably) because I thought that they were cool. And because I thought that they weren't really cigarettes.*

So to prep for Agnes, I am taking "smoking class" with one of my co-workers, which is the source of much conversation around the office. (Possibly the only thing that I could do to evoke more comment would be to get pregnant. And, no, I'm not willing to do that for my art.) The cigarettes that I am using for the show - in compliance with the Maryland Clean Indoor Air Act, are tobacco and nicotine-free. They are made from "lotus leaf, corn silk, licorice root, and plant extracts and essences," and, according to my co-worker, smell and taste worse than actual cigarettes. They also have health warnings on them because they are still a lung irritant-delivery system.

Every day for the next few weeks, I'll go downstairs with my co-worker when she takes her 3:00 break and we will hang outside the back door and smoke together. Yesterday I learned not to smoke like a novelty item, and every day in every way I'll get better and better.**

So, as I say, this is the source of much interest around the office. One of my bosses has offered to teach me to chew tobacco should it ever be necessary for a role (uhm.... thank you?) and today we had this exchange:

You don't have to inhale, do you?

Yeah. It's a hundred-seat house, so fake smoking looks like fake smoking which is distracting.

So is that the most unsavory thing you've had to do on-stage?

Uhm... no.

Oh?

Yeah. And one of our co-workers saw that show. And told me I did a good job.

(pause)

You're blushing, so I think I won't ask any more questions.


Whew.

Because I cannot come up with a scenario where I explain the (fully dressed) fake oral sex that I had on stage during Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead without both of us being weirded out for the rest of the day. Minimum.


*They are real cigarettes. With oil of clove sprayed on the tobacco. And no filter. How I was ever admitted to an institution of higher learning remains a mystery.

**Émile Coué -- Tous les jours à tous points de vue je vais de mieux en mieux

A first

I just heard an ad for some kind of Dietz and Watson prepared chicken that used the phrase "gluten-free."

Right there on the radio!

I think that's literally the first time that I've heard, not read, the words "gluten-free" in any media. Next: television! And after that - movie theaters! After that - who knows!

So I went to their website and found this on their FAQ page:

Q: Are Dietz and Watson meats gluten free?

A: Nearly all Dietz & Watson Meats are gluten free except: Rotisserie Style Chicken, Scrapple, Bockwurst, Fat Free Beef Franks, Gourmet Lite Franks, Gourmet Lite Beef Franks, Chicken Cordon Bleu, Chicken Florentine and Chicken Portabella. All the rest of our meats are free of wheat, rye, barley and oat proteins.

Guess whose deli meats I'll be buying the future.

Out of practice

Part of an e-mail exchange between me and Melinda, Agnes of God's producer. An important plot point in the show is Dr. Livingstone's chain smoking.

"Leta -- I have to purchase herbal cigarettes for you. We have to keep the smoke to a minimum, so we're going to get packs from a few brands to see which works best. A distributor for Ecstasy Cigarettes has offered to let us have their factory seconds at a reduced cost -- the cigarettes themselves are find, but the packaging was dented. That brand only has one flavor, but some others have a variety. One brand has Regular, Cherry, Vanilla, Clove, and Menthol. Since I'm going to get some test packages, do you have any flavor preferences?"

"Clove sounds best to me - it'll remind me of my college years."

Sick

I don't feel so good.* I can only be grateful that I don't feel so good today rather than any time before this past weekend, but it still sucks that I don't feel so good because I was going to see a play tonight. Now I'm going to pick up my new vacuum cleaner** and go home, eat chicken soup, drink a lot of tea, and go to bed. Not necessarily in that order. Well, collecting the vacuum will definitely happen first.

From the bed my cat and I will watch sit-coms and I will read and I will go to sleep, possibly before the sit-coms are over.

Alas.

I don't suppose that anyone wants to come over, pat my (kinda germy, whatever) hand, bring me things, take my temperature, and say "you poor baby," do they? Because I would love that.

Especially if they could be combined, like "You poor baby. Here, have more tea." or "You poor baby, that fever is just spiking, isn't it? You must feel awful." The best thing about the latter option is that it allows me to be all brave and say, rather wanly, "Oh, it's okay, it's not that bad," when I really know that I am possibly sicker than any human should have to stand and that I'm missing a play because I'm this sick.

Good thing that I have a practically full bottle of zinc tablets.


*Symptoms: A cough that comes from my lungs*** rather than my throat and a low-grade fever. So all of my skin feels hot and I feel draggy which means that the assault-level of friendliness that is my dominant characteristic is in abeyance.

** More on that tomorrow, but sufficeth to say, it wasn't a minute too soon.

***Please, please, please don't let this be bronchitis. Please no. I hate bronchitis.

Uncomfortably Numb

Yesterday I hit a wall.

Not with my car or anything, just the mental wall. Here's the background: We just took a play to the Maryland Festival last week; I work full-time; I don't take time off work around shows because then I would never be there; it's Tech Week for Arcadia (please come); I've been working some random overtime; I haven't been sleeping well; and my building is doing some really invasive (prophylactic) pest control* which meant that I had to put everything I own that's made out of fabric into plastic bags, empty the closets, and move all the furniture into the center of the room.

It all came to a head around 4:30. I just couldn't any more. There were a few, small things that I needed to get done before I left but instead I sat and stared for a while. It all felt like too much effort. Everything felt like too much effort.

I don't get that way very often because, among other stupid characteristics of mine, I seem to thrive on doing what I call running on caffeine and oxygen. So Tech Week is usually a happy time for me. David requires a certain amount of downtime where he shuts the door and the world is on one side and he is on the other. My requirement for that kind of downtime is vanishingly small. So these walls always take me by surprise.

I did the few, small things that I needed to do a work and stopped by home to pet Pekoe the Fabulous Orange Tabby, put on make-up, and have dinner. (A spoonful of peanut butter, thank you very much. Eating before a show isn't a problem for me and, in fact, I usually do one-armed curls with whatever snacks are available at the theater, but when I feel like this, the thought of food kinda makes me sick.)

So I went to the theater, trudged up the hill, weaving only slightly, and wandered around inside for a while trying to get my focus back. I made myself a cup of tea, leaned on a door jamb, watched people, and waited to get anything like my groove back. To tell you how out of it I was, I was quiet.

The folks started arriving. The ladies dressing room is shared with Erin, Sarah, and Janet and it's just pleasant to be around them. And Erin is her own nuclear source which is pretty energizing.

The show is divided between two time periods, so when I am off-stage, the whole other cast is on, so I pretty much see Clyde and Michael and the rest of the 1809 men during green room and as we're leaving. Well, except for Sasha, who has the same assault-level of friendliness that Erin and I do, so he crosses over.

I spend most of my stage time with Dan and Patrick but Dan is more like David in terms of personal space and Clyde is teaching Erin to tango or something which makes poor Patrick the recipient of my excess attention. He bears up well, but spare some pity for him.

Eventually being in a theater and around theater people worked its magic. Theaters are energy stores. And being on-stage under the lights did the rest. Vitamin L, you know. Those lamps shining down on me are my love and approval. And like some kind of weird plant, I turn to the light and perk up.

By the time we curtained down I was back to my old self. And by the time I got to David's - a little before 1:00 - I was bright and spunky. Just in time for bed.

Onwards.


*Hint: good-night, sleep tight, don't let the....


Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd

Hello?
Is there anybody in there?
Just nod if you can hear me.
Is there anyone at home?
Come on, Come on, Come on, now,
I hear you're feeling down.
I can ease your pain
Get you on your feet again.
Relax.
I'll need some information first.
Just the basic facts.
Can you show me where it hurts?

There is no pain you are receding
A distant ship's smoke on the horizon.
You are only coming through in waves.
Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying.
When I was a child I had a FEVER
My hands felt just like two balloons.
Now I've got that feeling once again
I can't explain, you would not understand
This is not how I am.

I have become comfortably numb.
I have become comfortably numb.

O.K.
Just a little pin prick.
There'll be no more aaaaaaaaah!
But you may feel a little sick.
Can you stand up?
I do believe it's working, good.
That'll keep you going through the show
Come on it's time to go.

There is no pain you are receding
A distant ship's smoke on the horizon.
You are only coming through in waves.
Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying.
When I was a child
I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye.
I turned to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child is grown,
The dream is gone.
but I have become comfortably numb.

The same headline across a million blogs

Then I'm a freakin' genius

In one of those studies (in Evolution and Human Behavior) that makes you think that researchers have too much money and too much time on their hands (here's another), it has been determined that there is some kind of correlation between where excess body fat is stored and intelligence.

The idea - very condensed, with all that implies - is that pear-shaped women (comme moi) store more Omega-3s along with their excess calories and apple-shaped women store more Omega-6s. Omega-3s have a connection to brain development,so more stored Omega-3s would indicate that pear-shaped women are more likely to confer a developmental benefit to their children (which they themselves also share).

I dunno, I'm pretty bright, but my pear-shapedness comes from my bone structure rather than calorie storage. When I was a freshman in college I was 5'7" and weighed 110 pounds. 110 very bony, underfed-looking pounds. People used to give me food, as though they had the option of helping me or turning the page.* And even then my hips were the widest part of my oh so skinny bod.

The reporting on the study goes on to include the speculation that men go after curvy women because of this possible developmental benefit. Again, I dunno. I've heard a fair number of men talk about women they find appealing and "check out that hip-to-waist ratio.... She's gonna have brilliant kids" has never been part of the conversation.

That doesn't mean, however, that I'm going to resist the temptation to e-mail some of my more slim-hipped friends with the news that I am smarter than they are. Won't they be surprised.


*It drove Audrey, my step-Mom, prett' near insane that I consumed about 8,000 calories a day and gained not an ounce. She felt extremely vindicated when my metabolism slowed in my mid-20s.

Burn, Baby, Burn

Yesterday morning, after my very restful three hours of sleep, I got ready to go strike the set for Taking Leave. Our call was for 10:00, so I got up around 9:00, dressed, made myself some tea and some yummy gluten-free toaster waffles, which I made even yummier by generously sprinkling them with freshly ground nutmeg. Figuring that that day of all days I could use it, I took one of the "energy" vitamin supplements that Mom gave me* and headed out.

About half way to the theater, my arms started to feel very hot. Not hot like I was wearing too heavy a sweater, but hot like a chemical burn. Within a few minutes the skin on my arms had developed an odd, pebbly texture and a noticably cerise hue. And itched just slightly. (This is a truly interesting experience to have when one is driving, by the way, and not distracting at all.)

I tried to figure out what was happening to me and immediately ruled out some freakish new Celiac Disease symptom because while it is possible (CD presents in all kinds of weird ways, being a system-wide autoimmune disease) it's not very likely seeing as that's never happened to me before.

Could it be some kind of response to being exceedingly tired? Also, unlikely.

After another second or two - and considering that I was working on three hours of sleep, I am pretty impressed with myself for having realized this so quickly - I concluded that I was probably experiencing my first ever Niacin Flush. I could just bet that the pills Mom gave me contained some heapin' helpin' of Niacin. I'd not reacted badly to the pills before but I was also willing to bet that nutmeg - a warming spice - is also Niacin-enabled, and was probably enough to push my overtired bod into the red zone.

If you've never had Niacin Flush before, please don't rush out and load up on the stuff just for the experience because while it's not painful, it's definitely rather uncomfortable, rather like having a sunburn from the inside of the skin out. I think I now know how food feels while it's being microwaved.

Fortunately, Niacin Flush isn't permanent or especially destructive. Basically, Naicin is a vasodilator, so once my capillaries returned to their regular size, the redness and swelling abated. I'm still a tiny bit itchy, but at least the flush never got to my face because I can't imagine a way in which that would have been attractive.

When I got home, I checked the label on the "Energy Boost" and sure enough:

Thiamin 38 mg (2533%)

Niacin 60 mg (300%)

Vitamin B12 1 mg (16,667%)

Biotin 1 mg (333%)

Chromium (as chealate) 100 mcg (83%)

I looked up nutmeg, too:

Niacin: 1.400 mg per 100 gm.

The DRV is 20 mg, but the numbers above aren't too scary when you consider that the pro-Niacin crowd suggest taking around 200 mg/day. Or more. A lot more. (Those people are, clearly, wackos.)

I think that the next time that I want to experiment with vitamin poisoning, I'll just stick with huge amounts of vitamin C or something. At least that's water soluble.


*Mom loves vitamins and back before the MS took away walking as her primary mode of transportation you knew when she was coming by the faint rattling sound of all those pills working their way through her system. The only vitamins that I buy are Centrums. The other eight that I take are gifts from Mom. Every day I take a Centrum and every other day I take either Vitimin C, Calcium, and Vitimin E or Bee Propilus (I dunno, ask Mom), Evening Primrose, and Fish Oil (for the Omega-3s). Recently Mom gave some "stress relief vitamins," some "energy" vitamins, and some green tea extract capsules,** the first two of which I take maybe once a month, that last of which is pretty much just a nice little reminder that my Mommy loves me.

**I love Mom and I really appreicate her concern for me, but I gotta say that I am probably one of the least likely candidates for green tea extract capsules of anyone I know. Especially as I would probably wash them down with some tea.

Got Blood?

The DC area is having a blood shortage and I am a Red Cross blood donor, so I was recently the subject of some rather focused attention by the plastic bag and large gauge needle crowd. Especially as I am an O negative blood donor. They want me. I mean, they'd been pursuing me like a frustrated suitor. I had been getting more phone calls from them than I do from David. No flowers or jewelry, sadly, but I think that's just because I was....too easy. (Oh, the shame.)

I finally deigned to return one of their multitude of calls promising me the possibility of expensive gifts if I were agree to meet with them (and put out). So I met with them. But it wasn't for the potential gifts! I'm not that kind of girl! I just....I just wanted to do this.

I didn't expect to do it in a church during the service, of course, but it's these little surprises that keep life interesting, don't you think? When I called the Red Cross to schedule an appointment they set me up for 10:00 this past Sunday morning at Christ Congregational Church and it wasn't until Saturday night that I put together the date - October 28th - with Sunday and it occurred to me that at 10:00 on a Sunday morning churches are usually filled with congregants, clergy, choirs, etc., rather than helpful folks in white with clipboards.

I also hadn't gotten a cheery little reminder phone call, so I was starting to wonder if I had the date right. But, what the heck, I'd go and if there was no blood drive during church I could just skulk back out while feeling stood up, even if the date confusion were my own fault.

However, when I got there helpful Congregationalists (and helpful signs) directed me downstairs to the blood drive. They had the church service upstairs. There were a couple of people ahead of me, but the two activities I never mind waiting in line to do are voting and giving blood. The more the better. Y'all come.

Unlike the last time I tried to donate, my blood drop sank like a stone* so I wasn't rejected. I was made comfy on the combination lounge chair/gurney and got stuck. I always drink a lot of water before donating because my blood seems be pre-congealed most of the time and it usually takes me about 20 minutes to fill that silly little pint bag. But I think I forced somewhere between 75 and 100 ounces of water in prep, so I was done in like 11 minutes. Whoo-hoo!

Then they tried to get me to eat cookies that I'm not allowed to have**, tried to give me a t-shirt that I don't need and don't have room for, and got me to sign up for the raffle for the fabulous prizes. (Although if I win a 50" plasma TV and set it up in my home, it's just gonna scare the cat.)

So now they have my blood and they given me a bunch of empty promises. And they've stopped calling. Not that I'm surprised. Hmpf.


*The hemocrit or blood iron test. They take a drop of blood and put it into a tube of blue fluid. If the fails to sink or sinks and bounces back up, there's not enough iron in one's blood and one is deferred from donating that day. I was deferred the last time I tried to donate, which, using the whole dating analogy was like asking for a raincheck or something.

**Note to the Red Cross - some gluten-free treats wouldn't go amiss at these things.