Life has been fairly unexciting lately. At work I am pretty much busy the entire time. Right now, it’s a mix between trying to describe code (most of which is *not* commented, grrr) and finishing up the tutorials I’ve been writing for some of the newest functionality that will be released in the next version of the software. I get to work, shivering from the brief walk between car and office, huddle in my chair til the building finally heats up, and type like a madwoman until it’s time to go home. Sometimes by the end of the day I am carrying on a rather involved conversation with my computer. Granted it’s one sided, and often involves pleading on my part for the system to please either work the way I have configured it, or at least give me some means of explaining the complexities that I keep uncovering.

In a way, this technical writing is just as much of a puzzle as database programming ever was. I am given access to an alpha version of software and am then tossed in to muddle my way through the murky waters of unverified and incomprehensible processes until I can make enough sense of them to put them onto paper. And apparently I’m managing to do a pretty good job of it. My three-month probation period is over and my review was extremely favorable. And I’m enjoying myself. It’s like the old days, when I first dove headfirst into the world of database programming and couldn’t get enough of it. I’m not dreaming documents in my sleep like I used to dream code back in my database nerd days, but the similarities are still there.

My car wouldn’t start this morning. I put the key in the ignition and turned it, and although the lights and radio and all the bells and whistles would turn on, the engine refused to play nice. Considering that the last time this happened it turned out that my car’s computer had decided it no longer recognized my key, I said several decidedly unkind things and muttered my way back inside the house to rouse poor Richard out of bed so he could drive me to work.

It was while we were turning the corner off our street that we both woke up enough to realize what we were driving through. Snow. Incredible, beautiful white flakes, swirling to the ground. Snow, here for the first time in probably at least 15 years. I couldn’t stop staring out the window as we drove down the freeway, watching the snow fall all around us.

It was obvious as we drove further, which cars on the road had been in garages the night before and which ones hadn’t. The ones that spent the night outside had tiny drifts of snow on the hoods, and clumps sliding off the roofs. When we got onto the freeway, traffic crawled, surprisingly well behaved for the weather, especially considering that it’s common to see people speeding along at 80 miles per hour or more even in the worst of the rainstorms.

By the time I reached Roseville, the sun was out and the clouds were clearing. As we grabbed bits of news reports throughout the day, it became clear that of the entire area, only the poor Roseville residents didn’t get to have snow. In a few towns near my own they had several inches on the ground, even enough to build tiny snowmen. Alas, we didn’t get nearly enough for anything picturesque. But that’s all right. At least I got to watch it falling from the sky.

********

I was starting to really wonder about the sharp increase in hits to my site lately from Google and Yahoo searches on my name. The paranoid part of my mind wondered if a sudden plethora of coworkers had suddenly decided to try to find my web presence, but a teasing e-mail sent to one of the mailing lists I’m on finally cleared up the mystery.

Seems that the governor of Maryland took a wife this past weekend – one Jennifer Crawford, a deputy chief of staff. True she’s about my age (well, a few years older than me, actually), but not only have I never been to Maryland, I already have a husband, and besides, they probably don’t allow people to bring seven cats into the governor’s mansion anyway.

********

Oh yeah, the car. Turns out it simply needed a jump start to give it enough juice to get it to the nearest service station, where they pronounced the battery terminally ill (get it? Terminal…oh, never mind) and did an emergency battery transplant. All is back to normal. This is probably a good thing, considering that I had been warming up to give Nissan a piece of my mind if it had been the computer after all. They don’t know how lucky they are.

To further my sporadic organizing streak, this weekend I tackled the wrapping paper. Over the years I’ve accumulated a rather impressive selection of rolls and folded sheets. However, because it was thrown rather messily into a large cardboard box and crate when we moved here, and before that it lived in the bottom shelf of the linen closet, I’ve never really had any clear idea what sort of inventory I possessed. And then I found this marvelous zippered soft-sided gift wrap organizer and I just knew I had to have it because then it would finally be all in one place and actually accessible. So now it’s all organized; the rolls tucked neatly on one side of the organizer and all the bows and ribbons and labels and folded sheets of wrap and tissue tucked neatly on the other, strapped in with velcro and zipped up tidily away.

Now I finally have a good idea of what sort of wrap we have, I can say with firm conviction that Richard and I are not allowed to even *think* about buying any Christmas gift wrap for at least the next ten years. We are swimming in the stuff. I’m not sure what has convinced me, each year, that I needed to acquire at least one or two more rolls of the stuff, but I am not kidding when I say that we could easily fulfill all of our present wrapping needs for both extended families for quite a time into the future. In fact, it’s entirely possible we may never need to buy Christmas wrap again because I own what may be the only true never-ending roll of gift wrap in existence.

I’m not sure exactly when I acquired the roll, but I know that it has been in my possession for at least four or five years now. It’s red, and decorated in cats, stacked into Christmas tree pyramids and draped with loops of Christmas lights. I’m sure this comes as a shock to you that there are cats on the wrap. But I digress. The important thing here is that I have had this roll for years and it shows no sign of running down. Most gift wrap rolls come with just about enough paper to wrap one year’s worth of gifts (assuming you are either really boring or else amazingly anal about using all the same paper), with a few scraps remaining that you save because someday you might wrap up something small, but then they get thrown out eventually because the cat decided they looked edible, or they didn’t quite fit around the small things anyway. This roll, however, comes with far more. I think this roll came with miles of paper to begin with, and then it has some sort of spontaneous paper-generating magic inside the cardboard that keeps spitting out more and more and more red paper with festive pyramids of goofy little cats. I think we could safely wrap the entire *house* in this paper and still have some left over. I mean, granted I think the paper is adorable, but still, it’s starting to make me wonder. The problem here is that I have no idea where I got it, and that’s the frustrating part. Somewhere out there is a store that sells never-ending paper. If they had cling wrap and aluminum foil in the same sort of quantity, I’d be so set.

********

Last weekend we went to Home Depot/Base (whichever one it is that *didn’t* go out of business. I can never keep those two straight) and bought ourselves a small pile of 8-foot long lengths of wood. This weekend we began the task of turning that pile of boards into paperback shelves. While I managed to quickly excuse myself inside the nice warm house yesterday afternoon, Richard and my dad played outside in my dad’s workshop with loud screechy saws and plenty of sawdust and drills and measuring tapes. They trimmed the boards and then drilled holes all along the lengths of two of them so that the shelves can be adjustable. And then we loaded the nicely trimmed and drilled boards into our car and drove them back to our house, full of enthusiasm for today’s chore, which was to sand them and paint them.

Except that neither of us had any enthusiasm whatsoever for the project once the appointed time came for it this afternoon. We did manage to get our lazy butts down to two different hardware stores to purchase primer, paint, and painting supplies, but once we got it home we eyed the stack of boards leaning on the wall with lips curled and eyes narrowed and decided that perhaps we really ought to wait until we’re more in the mood. The current assumption for when we’ll be in that mood would be in two weeks time, when the boards are scheduled to be attached to a rather large and unwieldy sheet of plywood shortly before they’re nailed permanently to the bay window wall in the master bedroom.

I suppose if I was being really naive about this I could put some bright and cheerful little side note here that perhaps we’ll get the sanding and primer done before then, in the evenings when I’m home from work. But I know us too well. Ah well, the painting – and my future organizational plans for the shelf this set will replace – can wait a little bit longer.

There are times when I wake up at night and lie in bed with my eyes open, staring at the ceiling in a room illuminated only by the light of the streetlamp outside as it filters through the curtains, and the world is silent except for the little noises the cats make as they sleep and dream, and his breathing beside me. Sometimes I have to ask myself, saying the words aloud only in my head, whether this is truly my life or whether it is merely in a dream that I will forget the instant I finally wake and there will only be a faint bitterness at something lost as the memory fades and I lie in bed alone.

There are moments when I look at him, covertly, quick darting glances so he will not know. Moments when we are sitting beside each other, each lost in a book. Moments when we are driving and he is focusing on the road ahead and my hand is clasped in his hand. Moments when I reach over just to touch him and remind myself that I *can*; that I have that right and privilege.

There are mornings when the alarm rings and I slip out from under the sheets before the sun has risen, and right before I am down the stairs and out the door to work, I steal softly back into the bedroom to kiss him goodbye, just to have his smile to carry with me on the road. There are afternoons like today – slow, lazy, quiet afternoons with luxurious baths and comfortable chairs before a fireplace, and purring cats in laps – when I am overwhelmed with how very much I love him, and awed that he could possibly love me the same way.

There are times when it is still hard to believe that this is real.

It’s been cold lately, with frost on the grass when I leave for work in the morning, and a bed piled high with cats at night. My father, currently working on a project in Colorado, sent an email gloating over snow, and the little green monster is grumbling faintly about the unfairness of it all. I like cold. I love bundling up in thick winter clothes, and going outside on days when the air is so cold that my breath hangs in frosty puffs in the air. My body has become accustomed to the milder winters of California but that does not keep me from fond remembrances of the years we spent in places where winter brought snow instead of rain.

I realize that I was too young at the time to view snow with the same exasperation adults feel – snow means having to shovel it off the walks, and defrost the car door locks with a blow dryer before you can go anywhere. Snow means ice on the roads and loss of traction. And then once the snow begins to melt, even more inconveniences abound. There is soggy slush and muddy water everywhere, interspersed with the pervasive aroma of dog poop as the results of months of people letting their dogs romp, unchecked, in the snow begins to thaw right along with the frozen ground.

But I’d be willing to put up with all of that, just to have the things I remember as a child. Snow means going outside and standing with my face turned up to the sky to catch the flakes. Snow means perfect beauty on the ground, snow angels, mittens frosted with white, building snowmen, sledding. Even adults can do all of those.

There is a Trader Joe’s in the town where I work, and yesterday afternoon I finally succumbed to temptation and went to look. I haven’t been to one in years as the closest one to home is simply too far to justify the trip. But here is one, ten minutes down the road from my office, and it is chock full of things that work very nicely into my diet. Oh wait, I’m not supposed to call it a diet. Excuse me…things that work nicely into my *lifestyle*.

Anyway, lunches now are a bit more interesting. Spicy vegetable rice bowls and spinach florentine await me so far. A second trip on the way home from work tonight garnered even more things to keep me on the path to svelteness, and further away from the temptations of the croissant place that is only a few blocks away.

On a recent grocery trip as we wandered down the cereal aisle, I noticed something I’d never noticed before. This particular grocery store has divided the cereal into sections: Adult, Family, and Children.

Does this strike no one else as slightly peculiar? I would really like to know what the criteria are for each of these categories. What defines adult cereal – lack of flavor and high fiber? What about family cereals; how are those distinguished from children’s cereals? Is the presence or lack of toys in the box a factor, or perhaps the ratio of sugar to any other useful nutrient? Does a minor need a parent present to buy adult cereals? Is this something the cereal industry came up with or is this just unique to this store?

You see what happens to me when I don’t get enough sleep.

********

Friday night we went to a combined concert of Tempest and Golden Bough. Tempest I’d seen before, but I’d only heard of the other group. And this time it was in a slightly different venue – a larger building with no cat to supervise while they set up the stage, and much more comfortable seats.

There was a clear area in the front for people to dance. In the beginning of the concert, the dancers consisted mainly of a small group of young girls who were spending more time looking to see if anyone was watching them than actually dancing. Soon, however, some adults who migrated there, a few at a time, joined them. This is where the fun began.

Most adults do not really know how to dance. But most adults have figured out that dancing to rock music really only requires the ability to bounce in time to the music, occasionally swinging the arms slightly at the side, snapping the fingers, and nodding the head. In this way, they blend into the crowd with the rest of us who are similarly unskilled in any of the more complicated moves. However, there are some adults who never even managed to figure out what the beat of the music is, let alone how to move to it. Seinfeld had a classic episode revolving around one particular character – Elaine – whose dancing was almost painful to watch in its lack of coordination and style. One would think that this particular episode might be an exaggeration. One would be wrong.

We learned this Friday night because the floor seemed to be peculiarly covered with people who subscribe to the Elaine style of dancing. One woman executed a chicken sort of maneuver which involved jerking her elbows back repeatedly. Another couple seemed to have no sense of balance and ended up leaning on a wall to recover from the dizziness. But one man stood out from the rest. He seemed to be going through what Richard described as the Full Body Heave. He alternated between grabbing at invisible objects located around his ankles, above his head, or hovering near his knees, and doing some sort of odd jerking motion that made it seem as if he was a marionette left to dangle in a strong breeze.

The concert was extremely enjoyable, even despite my usual minor complaint that they played far too loud, to the point that the music began to blend together until it was difficult to tell one song from the next. The dancing spectacle on the floor in front of the stage only made it better.

I was doing so well for a while there. I was really paying attention to the points of everything I ate, writing it down. Or at least if I wasn’t writing it down, I was at least tallying it in my head, to make sure that the total wasn’t going over what I was supposed to eat. I was keeping track. I was working at it. Perhaps not as hard as I should have been, but it was still work, and I was proud of it.

So what happened? Where did all my will power and determination go? I can’t blame this on the holidays because although it’s true that I gained a few pounds the last few weeks of December, the problem started far before that. I started to slack off. I didn’t write things down. I kept a running total in my head but it wasn’t necessarily accurate. I started to make excuses and to allow myself to go over this day, and then the next day, and then the next. And on this path I hit a plateau in the weight loss journey. I’m not sure if I can even reliably call it a plateau because it wasn’t as if I was doing extra work with no results. It was that I was allowing myself to be lazy and then accepting that the results weren’t there.

We did allow ourselves to slack over the holidays, and although I may wince at the fact that my 21-pound total loss has now dropped to 16, I was not all that surprised. This is what happens when you pretend that you can eat anything and there will be no consequences. And I’m not stupid. Not once did I think there wouldn’t really be any consequence.

The problem is that now, given a taste of the old ways, it is that much harder to get myself back on track. I’m getting there slowly but it’s harder now than it was when we first started last year. This time I’ve been on the program for quite a while and I’m realizing that I’m spending a lot of money to do something that is good for me in the long run, but yet I’m slowly sabotaging all the hard work I put into it so far.

So what will it take before I can get myself to get back into the ‘Healthier Me’ groove? I want to lose the weight. I want to be healthier and feel better about myself. I like the fact that there were already physical and mental plusses from losing even the small amount of weight I’ve lost so far, and I want the good feelings to continue. I have a lot of health risks in my genes from both sides of my family and I fully understand that if I do nothing about it, I will face such things as heart disease, adult onset diabetes, and cataracts. The list goes on and on.

I can be strong. I know this about myself. I have found the strength in me before to do difficult things, and all things considered, eating better is not so difficult a task, despite whether my stubborn brain may want to admit that or not. Ultimately it comes down to what is most important to me. I want this. I need this. All I have to do is try.

uper balls are very, very cool. Super balls are even more cool when you bounce them down the stairs, because sometimes they bounce right back up to you again. But the coolest thing about super balls is that they drive the cats completely wild.

Richard gave me a traveling mug in my Christmas stocking; silver with a bright green lid. It was full of extra-bouncy super balls. Tonight I grabbed the whole handful and stood at the top of the stairs, tossing them down one at a time to the confused horde of cats below. I defy anyone to watch cats sliding across an uncarpeted floor as they spring madly after a bouncing super ball and not laugh.

But then I’ve already established that I’m easily amused, haven’t I.

********

I have started to read Neil Gaimen’s series of Sandman comics. I’m not sure why I decided to read them; I’m not normally one for comics, and these in particular can be often difficult to read simply because the cells tend to be all over the page and not often in a sensible pattern. I’m a purist, see. I prefer my books to be neatly text. Yes, yes, narrow minded of me I know, but anyway, crossed-eyes problems aside, so far they’re rather entertaining. I had to admit that I like the image of Death as a goth chick with a warped sense of humor. But then I find odd humor in unlikely portrayals of Death. There is the Death in the Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett, who has a thing for cats. There is the Death in the Eternal Apprentice series by Craig Shaw Gardner (sadly, this series is out of print, but if you’re really lucky and come across a used set, I highly recommend them), who is terrified of ferrets. There are other portrayals of Death who are not nearly so humorous, such as the way Death is portrayed in Piers Anthony’s Incarnations of Immortality series. But I prefer the other versions better. I cannot conceive of a world where the gods and goddesses do not have their own frailties and fears, and of course, warped senses of humor.

********

Two years ago I uploaded my first entry to this journal. Naturally, it had to do with the cats. My, how time flies.

I have shelves in the closet now. This weekend, among other things, we made it to the hardware store for all the supplies, and then while Richard ran off to get other stuff, I sat on the floor of the garage and sanded the boards until they were smooth. When he got home, he put up the brackets, and then, magically, there were shelves.

I have more room than I know what to do with. I could double the amount of clothes I own and still have room to spare. I’m in no danger of doing this anytime soon; in fact as I was rearranging everything and clearing out the old dresser that has now joined the rest of the ‘donate to a thrift store’ pile in the garage, I actually weeded out a few bags of old stuff I never wear anymore. But still, just knowing that it’s possible is pretty cool all by itself.

One more thing to build in the bedroom and then we’ll be done in there. Well, for now. Next weekend my dad is going with us, back to the hardware store. The shelves in the closet were a piece of cake, but a built-in bookshelf is a bit bigger challenge and I figured it was best to call in an expert. And next weekend we will also – assuming we have the time – hit the fabric store. The sewing machine has been on hiatus long enough. It’s time for more curtains.