In the continuing saga of me and my sinuses, the doctor suggested that I have a cat scan run, on the off chance that all my problems are not linked to allergies, but instead to me being somehow sinusly deformed. So this morning I got up and headed off to the hospital extremely early in order to get a cat scan done before work. I amused myself (and possibly only myself, since everyone else I said this to just rolled their eyes at me and gave a rather weak and barely polite laugh) by noting that I did not see the point in getting another cat scan because I get (actually fuzzy, four-legged) cat scans several times a day and they’ve never turned up anything (Richard responded by noting that perhaps I simply do not know how to interpret the results the cats provide). But aside from being incredibly lame with the sense of humor (hey, it’s Monday, and it was early in the morning), this is the first test like this I’ve ever had done so I was kind of looking forward to it, just to see what they were going to do.

Luckily I brought my knitting with me because I ended up sitting there a lot longer than I had expected to. It turned out that several people called in sick and they had to call in a supervisor to figure out what to do about the schedule. However, they only told those of us who had dutifully shown up early, and were then made to sit around and wait and wait and wait, when I gave up and went to the window and noted that my appointment was at least half an hour overdue. In the afternoon one has to expect delays, but when one is scheduled for the very first appointment in the morning it’s a little harder to be patient.

They finally got things started and came out and gave all of us in the waiting room half-hearted apologies, and then I got my cat scan. They had me lie down on a narrow table and then the guy raised it up and positioned it underneath this big white arch and I was told to stay perfectly still and they took pictures of my head. I was hoping there would be computer screens or something where the scans would magically appear like they always do on those oh-so-realistic hospital dramas on television, but alas, I did not get to see inside my own head after all. Oh well.

As if to teach me a lesson for waiting so darn long to get this started, it took practically no time at all for my referral to the allergist to be approved. The first appointment was last week, during which I met with the doctor and we discussed, among other things, my unruly sinuses, my various allergies to small fuzzy critters, and those pesky migraines I’ve had since the age of eight. He brought up various treatment options, like nasal sprays, but considering that the last time I took nasal sprays I got those oh-so-nifty (ha!) heart palpitations several times an hour, which lasted for a few days even after I stopped taking them, I surmised as how those might not be such a great idea.

So after the initial consultation with the doctor, I made a few more appointments, and this week I got my allergy tests. It was actually kind of fun, in a slightly warped kind of way. I went in and they put little pen marks in lines down the inside of both arms, and then pricked near those pen marks with various allergens. On my right arm I had a plethora of pollens – trees and grasses – and on the left arm slightly fewer pin pricks, including dust mites, dogs, and cats.

I have to admit it was kind of amazing how quickly all those pinpricks exploded into big misshapen rashes and hives all over my arms. The worst of the pollens were a few trees (walnut and olive, I think). I am pleased to report that I’m not allergic to any molds (at least not the ones they tested me for, that is). However, on my left arm I developed a respectable sized hive for the dog test, and quite an impressive lump and rash from the dust mites. I am really, really, really allergic to dust mites – which live, of course, in everything, no matter how much you clean, so there is no time of year or season when I can ever escape them except maybe if I move to Antarctica or move into a glass bubble. And I’m not entirely sure that even then I would be living a dust mite free life, because they are apparently quite hardy little suckers for being mostly microscopic in origin.

I think the nurse who was running my tests thought I was a little odd because I was finding all this so very amusing. But hey, who wouldn’t see the humor in having one’s arms explode in rashes and hives so badly that my skin felt as if it was on fire. There was also lots more humor to be found in the fact that near the very end of the time period for the test the spot where they put the cat allergens gave up and decided maybe it was going to react after all. I always figured my poor immune system gave up on cats a long time ago, but it turns out that my allergy to the cats was probably just masked by all the others (like dust mites. Yeesh!). Or maybe my immune system really did give up on the cats before the tests, but felt a little fiesty during the test because it thought it finally had a chance.

There was also much humor to be had long after the test were over and I went home. The lumps from the dust mites and the trees hung around for over a day afterwards. But the coolest part of all was that I had two neat little rows of holes on the inside of each arm which lasted even longer than the big lumps, and which looked as if I had developed a whole set of oddly located alien nipples.

So there we are. I am allergic to lots of things, including microscopic creatures, and to top it off I now have two arms full of alien nipples. I can nurse alien babies from my arms. Unless, of course, they happen to be related to walnut or olive trees. Or dogs. Or dust mites.

Today was a mostly lazy day, during which I did a lot of knitting and also finally finished Anna Karinena. Last night at the gathering Beth suggested I look for a different translation and perhaps that might make it better, but honestly, by that point I was 500 and some odd pages into it, and the thought of starting over from the very beginning was not appealing. Plus, I am not entirely sure that a different translation will really make me love this book (or heck, even *like* it) because ultimately, the plot will remain the same. Although they did point out that this particular translation left out all the sex, which leads me to wonder whether that might have at least added a point of interest – or perhaps humor – to an otherwise dreadfully dull story.

So now I am all ready for the tea and book club, with three weeks to spare, in which time I can cheerfully forget all the important details about the book except that a few someones have an affair and someone commits suicide and lots of someones are very self-absorbed and clueless and really, I am still missing the whole point of the book.

I mentioned a gathering, didn’t I. Last night was a little gathering of the Sacramento area TUS’ers, and I do mean little. There were only five of us, but we met at Café Bernardo and I had a bowl of delicious red lentil soup with just a hint of curry, and a hunk of chewy sourdough bread, and we sat around and talked about gardening and pets and insane relatives, and had fun. The other people I met are nice and funny and it is always good to be able to put faces and voices to words on a screen.

Yesterday was not as lazy a day as today, mainly because we ended up sliding inexplicably into a healthy food kick and a fridge full of fruits and veggies. It started with the farmer’s market in Davis, where we usually do not buy very much. But yesterday we were somehow inspired, so I picked out mushrooms and corn and white peaches and a monster honeydew melon that could double as a deadly weapon if you dropped it on someone’s head, and Richard picked out strawberries and multi-colored cherry tomatoes and we both successfully avoided saying anything too snarky to the silly little people collecting signatures to get Ralph Nadar on the ballot. And then on the way home later we saw a sign for a you-pick place that we have passed perhaps hundreds of times since we have lived in this area of California, except yesterday was finally the day we decided to check it out. So we followed the mostly well-placed signs and parked and were given baskets and vague directions and off we headed to pick berries.

Apparently we lucked out, because this was the last weekend of the season for berries, and somehow there were still plenty of them on the vines. Richard likes berries, while I cannot stand them, but I still had fun plucking them for him. We filled two baskets with red raspberries and one basket with golden raspberries, even though we had only intended to get one basket of berries in the first place. But there was something rather compelling about lifting up a berry branch (gingerly, since they tend to be a little spiky) and finding perfect little berries hiding underneath leaves and then gently tugging them off into your hand.

When we had exhausted our patience with berries we then wandered around until we tracked down the peach trees so we could pick a small pile of yellow peaches to add the the rapidly growing pile of produce in the back of the car. And after that we decided it was time to quit. So we went home and ate cucumber and tomato sandwiches for lunch and split half of the monster honeydew melon, and sometime between lunch and when I left for the gathering in Sacramento Richard inhaled most of the raspberries. The white peaches are sitting in a bowl on the breakfast nook table, where I am hoping they will hurry up and ripen because I intend to turn them into a pie fairly soon, and I would prefer it if they were soft enough to comply.

Update on the Prius, since I’m sure you all are just dying to know how it’s going. No, really, you are.

I love this car. I really do. There are a few things I wish I could change – like the fact that it beeps quite annoyingly when I put it into reverse, but yet it refuses to give me any beeps or flashing lights or *anything* if I accidentally get out of the car with the lights still on. But otherwise this car makes me oh so very happy. Although I fear I have become obsessed with my mpg lately. I used to only use my cruise control if I was on a long stretch of freeway with few cars in sight; now I use it every chance I can get. I used to keep my highway speed at about 10 miles over the speed limit; now I am one of those pathetic little people in the slower lanes, toodling along as a more modest 3 or 4 miles above the speed limit (or even sometimes – gasp – the speed limit itself). And I do this all because the car shows me my average mpg and I so very much want to make that little number go up and up and up.

I know, of course, that I shall likely never see that mythical 55 mpg that the car supposedly gets, because I do mostly freeway driving back and forth to work. But this morning when I got to work my average mpg for this tank of gas sat exactly at 46, which is the highest average we’ve had on this thing so far. Not, mind you, that that’s saying much, since I think we’re on perhaps the 4th tank of gas and those previous tanks averaged between 44 and 45. But still, we have already established years ago on this journal that it does not take a lot to excite me. So naturally, knowing that I am now getting 46 miles per gallon has me all giddy. Hey, it’s not much, but I take what I can get.

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Last night we sat down and watched Mystic River. I admit that initially I had absolutely no desire at all to see this movie because I was under the impression that Clint Eastwood was in it, and I loathe Clint Eastwood (or rather, his non-talent as a movie actor, not him personally) with a very deep and abiding passion. But then Richard pointed out that he only directed it and was, in fact, not in the movie at all. Besides, Richard really wanted to see it and it showed up from NetFlix, and I still have two more skeins of yarn to work into that damn afghan I am making and what better place to knit than in front of the television, after all. So we watched it.

I think Richard summed it up quite succinctly when he noted at the end “Well, that certainly won’t win the ‘Feel Good Movie of the Year’ award.” It is definitely not a movie to watch when you want to feel light and happy and certain that all is right with the world. But it was very well done, for all that it wasn’t exactly cheerful, and I think I might have actually liked it, and I am not just saying that because it did not have Clint Eastwood in it after all.

A few months ago a friend mentioned that she gets together with a group of women from time to time and they go for tea. There is one woman who is in charge of tracking down places to go, and when she finds a new place, the group gathers, dresses appropriately, and goes off to have a ladylike tea.

It sounded intriguing, since I’ve had so much fun going to the tearoom with my female in-laws. So the friend invited me to come to the next one, which is going to be in Napa near the end of August.

Since its inception the group has grown beyond just meeting for tea. Recently they decided they should also become a book club. I was actually supposed to go to the one previous to this upcoming tea, and had read the designated book (“Five People You Meet in Heaven”) in anticipation. It wasn’t necessarily my type of reading, but it was short and I skimmed it in record time and decided I could at least converse intelligently about it. But then schedules and life got in the way and the last tea did not work out. And then I found out what we are reading for the upcoming tea. Of all the books in the world, someone apparently had the bright idea of picking Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina”. All I would like to know is why.

When we were at Costco this weekend I saw it on the sale table, so grabbed a copy, figuring this way I wouldn’t have to worry about library fines (I am notorious for forgetting to turn my library books in on time). Later that afternoon I sat down and opened the book, figuring I could crank out a few hundred pages while Richard was off at his movie.

Ha! It is all I can do to force myself to read more than a page at a time. Right now it is sitting on the breakfast nook table and I have determined that I must read it each morning while eating breakfast, because at least that way I am forced to plow my way through 30 or 40 torturous pages at a sitting before I can escape. The length is not the problem – it’s a long book, true, but I’ve been known to devour 800+ page books in less than 5 hours, and to read more than one of such lengthy tomes in one sitting when the urge strikes me. The problem is that I am finding this book horribly dull. I read for pleasure, and this book gives me none. If I did not *have* to read it I would never have purchased the darn thing in the first place – the subject material does not interest me in the slightest, and my eyes may just fall out of my sockets will all the rolling they are doing as I shudder through page after page of weak, simpering women and men tiptoeing around the niceties of a society I am eternally grateful I never had to endure.

I am assured that it does, eventually, get slightly more interesting. I am, however, already nearly 250 pages into the book and I see no sign of this happening any time soon. But I shall persevere. After all, I had to read some equally dull and painful literature back in high school, and somehow I not only survived unscathed, I managed to churn out papers on that inane drivel that earned me top grades every time. So I have no doubt that I’ll make it through this one too. Somehow. Painfully. Even if I have to break down and use CliffNotes to do it.

This morning we pondered getting up and going to church, but it was hard to work up any enthusiasm where there was no compelling reason (such as one of us having to sing in the choir / play the piano / otherwise perform some particular necessary function). So instead we put on our bathrobes and our slippers and we went downstairs and we ate s’mores for breakfast.

I suppose there are far better things to have for breakfast than s’mores, but when one’s husband has purchased one a s’mores maker for one’s birthday, it makes a compelling argument to break out the marshmallows, graham crackers, Hershey bars, and a little half-full can of chafing fuel and fire it up to start off the day.

It’s a cute little contraption, although a little bit silly. After all, it’s just a little grill, run by chafing fuel, which comes on a rotating tray with little containers in which to place all the s’more parts. We actually opened the box Friday night and had s’mores for dinner while sitting on the couch in the living room, watching episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation on DVD. We’d then bought extra s’mores ingredients, intending to make use of the little contraption during the game yesterday, but there was pizza and Captain Crunch cereal instead of s’mores and we never got around to it. This meant there were leftover graham crackers, and a half-empty can of fuel from Friday night and we really did need to use them all up. Sure we did.

After stuffing ourselves with s’mores we headed off to Costco to stock up on paper towels and toilet paper, and then we stopped by our favorite hardware store to get a flat of creepers for the backyard. Yes, I know it says something that we have a ‘favorite’ hardware store, but when one is surrounded by a Home Depot, a Lowe’s, and at least two Ace Hardware stores, one has to decide on the best place to go. So we stick with a local chain that always seems to have what we’re looking for.

Last summer, after we built the raised flower bed and put the stone path around it, we put in three flats of blue star creepers, hoping they’d spread out and eventually fill in the gaps between the paving stones. Unfortunately it was too hot and too dry and they all died. Or rather, we *thought* they all died, until recently when I noticed one determined little patch which had somehow hung on and was actually growing quite well. In the meantime the gardeners had, at our request, extended the range of the sprinklers on either side of the flowerbed to reach the path itself, so at least the little creepers would get water. So we went outside, armed with the new flat of creepers and two large mixing spoons (because why waste money on gardening trowels when one has mixing spoons?) and we cut the flat into random chunks and planted all those chunks and now I am keeping my fingers crossed that even just a few of those chunks take hold and start doing what they are supposed to be doing. I have dreams of one day having that little pathway be all green and lovely between the paving stones. Of course I also dream that one day the tree being (slowly) painted on the wall of the breakfast nook will finally be completed too, so obviously I suffer from occasional optimism.

Richard wanted to go see the new Spiderman film, but I wasn’t in a movie mood, so he went off to watch the web slinger while I stayed home and poked at the cats and did some knitting. I am sick to death of blue yarn, and of knitting afghans (since I’m working on afghan number two), but I am determined to finish it anyway, just because it is there. I was pondering various options for dinner when the phone rang with my older sister on the other end, wanting to know if we wanted to meet them for dinner in Fairfield. Since they’re in Napa, it’s the best halfway point for all of us. Richard made it back from the movie just in time, so back we went in the car and joined far too many other people heading in the same direction (ah, how we love traffic) on the freeway. Except this time, instead of grumbling about the traffic we had lots of fun watching the mpg on the Prius climb higher and higher. Hybrid engines just *love* stop and go traffic. Yet another reason why I adore this little car.

Oh, and that reminds me – when we were driving into the parking lot of the hardware store earlier today we were amused to see another little blue Prius pulling out. The driver of the other Prius grinned and waved, so we waved right back. It’s like an exclusive little club – all of us hybrid car drivers. I’ve done it with hybrid Honda Civics too, so we’re an equal opportunity club. I imagine that come next year we will even all be willing to wave merrily to drivers of the new hybrid Ford Escape, even though it might be one of the evil SUV’s, because least it is a hybrid and that is surely better than nothing at all.

Despite the traffic we made it to the restaurant just a little after my sister and her family arrived. My poor mom was not quite so fortunate, hitting the traffic about half an hour after we did (and by then it had gotten a lot worse) so she showed up after we were all mostly done with our food. But it was still fun. My little three-year-old nephew chattered away at the top of his lungs, mainly about the fact that he was wearing Thomas the Tank Engine underpants (he’s potty training right now). After dinner we all over to Coldstone Creamery and got the smallest servings of ice cream they provide (which is still a huge amount right after dinner). By then it was cooling off outside, enough that we took our ice cream outside and sat there and chatted and the little boys could run around (much like several other clumps of small children were doing) to take advantage of the space, and for impromptu, last minute dinner plans that involved driving in horrid traffic, it was a very lovely ending to a lovely day.

This morning we woke up slowly (and I got to sleep *late*, since I did not have to get up at some ungodly early hour to feed the darn cats – they can feed themselves again!) and stopped by the bakery on the way to the annual lamb-themed festival at the fairgrounds. It’s not the biggest affair, but it’s always good for a cute diversion for an hour or so. We meandered around the various arts and crafts booths and I fingered piles of carded (but not yet spun) wool in every color of the rainbow but managed to escape without purchasing any new yarn or yarn precursors at all. I did succumb to the lure of the little handmade soaps shaped like resting dragons, but when it came to the yarn and the wool, I was strong. I am telling myself that there are certain projects I must finish knitting, in order to work my way through the small stash in the guest room, before I am allowed to buy any more yarn, and so far I have stuck to that self-imposed limitation. We’ll see how long it actually lasts, though.

We wandered for about an hour and then headed home to get ready for the game later in the afternoon. Then we arranged to meet my parents back at the fairgrounds for lunch, since one should never pass up the opportunity to partake of fair food. We sat on the grass in a shady spot and listened to a not-very-good band play, too loudly, and ate our lunches. I had an extremely messy gyro with some kind of meat that was never actually identified (although considering the theme of the fair I am guessing it was maybe wearing wool in a previous life) and Richard had a slightly less messy polish sausage.

Last weekend, after we dropped her off after our day of Fun with Drywall, our friend let us borrow her copy of a DVD put out by a little improv group up in Seattle that was a 40 minute spoof on gaming. We laughed ourselves silly watching it, and then begged her to let us keep it one week more so we could inflict it on our fellow gamers. They didn’t disappoint – we all agreed that we all either knew people just like those in the film, or else we’d *been* those people at one time or another. And then we sat down around the dining room table with our books and our papers and our dice and we played, breaking only to go pick up pizza and soda. I will not bore you with the details, since I am well aware that the only people who would ever be interested in what goes on during a role playing session are *only* the people who were actually there at the time (something a great many gaming nerds never quite seem to learn – shudder), but we had a marvelous time.

A week or two ago we got the postcard in the mail saying it was time for the cats to get their annual check-up, and when I called to schedule, it did not even occur to me that ‘next Wednesday’ would be our anniversary. All I wanted to do was to make sure we could work in an appointment. I am fully aware of how lucky I am to have access to a vet who makes house calls – so I try to be as accommodating as possible to her schedule.

I headed home from work a little early on Wednesday afternoon in order to have time to corral Zucchini in the upstairs bathroom, (since he’s impossible to catch when it’s only me around, and it would have been nightmarish to try to do it when other people were present) and then the vet came over. It was one of the hotter days of the year, so the air conditioning hadn’t kicked in as much as I had hoped by the time the vet and her assistant arrived. Combine a fairly warm house with three sweaty people and seven cats who shed several times their weight in hair when stressed, and an oh-so-pleasant (and oh-so-fuzzy) time was had by all. Or not. But we did manage to get enough blood from Rebecca to run some tests (to check the status of her kidneys), and everyone had their teeth checked and their weights recorded and got their vaccinations, so at least the basics were taken care of. We did try to get some blood from Allegra but she reverted to her feral side – the side she used to display when she went out for adoption lo those many years ago when she was just a foster kitten – and between the hissing, the spitting, and all five pointy ends doing their best to rip any available skin from any available human, we decided that perhaps drawing blood just wasn’t going to happen at that particular moment.

The reason for the blood draw attempt was that she’s lost weight since last year. And so, by the way, has Rebecca – not since last year, of course, since she’s gone through extremely expensive treatment since then for her hyperthyroid, but she’s lost weight since the last time she was in to the vet to be checked. And I realized that while this special diet she is on may buy us an extra few months for her kidney disease, it is not going to be worth it if she (and the other cats) is losing weight because they don’t get enough to eat. The vet and I talked about the efficacy of the prescription diets and ultimately decided that Rebecca will do fine on the food all the other cats are eating. It may mean we may lose a little time with her, but with the cats I have always tried to subscribe to the philosophy that what is important is their quality of life, not how long I might want them to be around. Making her stressed and unhappy is not good for her, even if it might seem like it’s good for me. And they are all much happier (and healthier) when we free-feed. I accept that eventually this kidney disease will kill my little grouchy tortie cat, since they cannot cure it, only treat the symptoms. But I also know it is a slow disease, and I’d much rather she be happy and not losing weight in the meantime. Plus, Rebecca is demanding enough that we already turn on water faucets for her every time we turn around, so she’s certainly getting the extra water the vet says she needs for her slowly failing kidneys, and hopefully postponing, on her own, the inevitable time when we will have to start giving her fluids through an IV.

So once the vet left, the food bowls came out, and they are staying out. Ah, the blissful moments when I awoke the past few mornings and was not immediately accosted by cats demanding to be fed Right Now. We’ll see how things go, and keep an eye on Allegra to see if she gains back some of that weight, but for now I’m feeling cautiously optimistic about the situation and am crossing my fingers that it all works out.

Today was our third wedding anniversary. However, without thinking, we scheduled this month’s Young Adults gathering for tonight (since this was one of the few nights that would work for everyone involved). So instead of doing anything romantic for our anniversary, we simply postponed the anniverary dinner for tomorrow night, and instead, this morning before work I stirred up three huge batches of dough for homemade pretzels, and then after work and a house call by the veterinarian (which I’ll talk about later) we headed off to the church to get things ready.

‘Getting things ready’ mainly involved me rolling out one batch of the pretzels and setting them off to rise, since I figured we’d be better off having some cooking when the others showed up. They all did show up, one by one, some with kids and some without, and we all stood around in the kitchen and rolled out pretzels. The first few pans were traditional pretzel shapes, but I knew that wouldn’t last, and sure enough, by the time we’d reached the end of the dough the pans were full of mostly non-pretzel shaped pretzels.

It was supposed to be a potluck dinner but that didn’t exactly pan out. So Richard was sent off to the store to get cheese and fruit and when he returned, the first batch was just coming out of the oven. We dragged a few tables together, set the men to cutting up fruit and cheese, and then commenced with the eating.

Homemade pretzels, fruit and cheese had been one of those ‘company’ meals in my family as long as I can remember, since it’s hard to remain strangers with people when you’re all gathered around a table, hands coated liberally in flour, rolling out dough. I figured since there were a few newbies to our little group it would work out the same for them as well, and happily it did. Between the dozen or so of us that came we managed to inhale almost the entire three batches, and a good amount of the fruit and cheese as well. There were only a few left to take home, and I passed out copies of the recipe to a few of the others. Everyone pitched in to clean up the kitchen (and we all kept nibbling pretzels). It may not have been a romantic dinner for two, but it was a lot of fun, and we all got the chance to get to know a few of the newer members of the group, and we all ate a lot of pretzels and I am not sure which part of that was the best part of the whole evening, since it is kind of hard to choose when homemade pretzels are involved.

What do you get when you take three women and toss them (and eight men) into a small house on a rather warm day, sprinkle them liberally with drywall dust (and make sure they get a full breathing dose too), and then, at some point, hand those three women matching drills?

You get three women stupidly posing with their drills in the classic Charlie’s Angels pose, of course (click picture below for larger view).

It was our second work day for the Sacramento chapter of Habitat for Humanity. We were at the same house we’d been to before – the house where we poured the cement for the back patio, and installed a french drain in the back yard. This time we were installing sheetrock in the interior.

It was good that we were inside for this workday, since it was a lot hotter out than last time. Not, mind you, that it was all that cool and comfortable inside, but at least it wasn’t in the direct sun. And at least hanging drywall did not require anyone to cart wheelbarrows of very heavy cement or rocks anywhere, so that was another plus.

We hung drywall the entire day. We hung it for what felt like about 8 hours straight but what was actually only 4 hours. We took a break for lunch, very nicely provided by a local church congregation, and then we still had half the day left, so we spent another 25 years or so hanging drywall until it was about 4pm and two of the three Charlie’s Angels wannabes (the third got to leave early because she was coordinating a wedding) decided that enough was enough and that we had inhaled our yearly quota of gypsum dust and it was time to be done with the hanging of drywall Right Now.

I have utmost respect for people who spend their work lives doing this sort of thing. It’s heavy, hot, hard work. When we started it was uncoordinated and none of us were really sure what we were doing and had to be shown rather slowly by the habitat site supervisors. But by the afternoon we’d all settled into a routine and by the time we were done we’d managed to get most of the house completed. We were hot and sweaty and sore and completely exhausted by the time we stopped but it was a wonderful feeling to look around and see what we’d accomplished.