Pre-trip scramble

I am leaving for vacation in a few days - heading out to Arizona to visit my friend Tracy. I am looking forward it. I haven't been on a real vacation since last year at this time. That was a trip to Arizona, too, and Barry joined me out there. It will be a bittersweet visit this time with all that has happened over this year. It will be good to see Tracy, Elaine, Karl and Jane again.

Thinking of it, I did go on one other trip aside from a couple of conferences. That was when Sue and I did that 5K down in Disney World. That was a whirlwind trip, though, and with the run (well, mostly walk in my case) at the very end we weren't really able to relax. It was a ton of fun, though.

Decorating the tree

I started decorating for Christmas today. I usually leave the tree for last but I started with it this year. Decorating the tree is always a melancholy part of the holiday season. I have an assortment of ornaments that I have collected over the years and they bring back a lot of memories. I realized today that I can recognize most of them from their feel through the tissue paper before I unwrap them. They're like old friends I get to see only once a year. I won't get a chance to finish the tree until tomorrow. When that's done I'll post a picture of it here.

Thanksgiving preparations

Everything seems to be coming together for Thanksgiving. I have taken inventory of all the dishes I have traditionally used - those that came from my mother's house and other things I have collected over the years. Seeing these things is a little like getting together with old friends that I see only once a year. They bring back a flood of happy memories. It will be good to host the dinner again. I couldn't do it last year. All the supplies are in stock aside from a few items I'll pick up tomorrow afternoon.

I'll have to study up on how long to cook the turkey again. THe FDA web site says to allow one pound of turkey per person. I'll have eight people and bought a 23 pound turkey so I should be OK on that front. The stuffing will be great and I have a new, easy and tasty home made cranberry sauce recipe. I still don't know what to do with those yams, though. I'm not good at yams.

Monday, Monday

I'm puttering about the house getting ready for the week. I made it through the weekend successfully not getting anything ready for Thanksgiving so I'll be on the case with that for the next few days. We'll have a smaller than usual group this year - only eight of us - so Thanksgiving dinner should be a snap to prepare. I bought a 23 pound turkey anyway. I figure if you're going to spend all the time preparing a turkey it might as well be a big one..

This week promises to be a frantic one at work. We have several people out for the holiday so everyone who is left will be hopping.

I have a doctor appointment this afternoon. Just a general follow up to the year that has gone before. He'll probably just tell me I'm too tubby and out of shape. I'm not looking forward to that but if that's all the bad news I get then I'll take it.

John, Jennie and I went to see our aunt yesterday up in Johnstown. She seemed just a bit weaker and quieter than she had been the last time I was there. While she said very little she did eat all of the crabcake that we had brought to her. I was glad of that. It's often hard to know what to do to brighten a day. Most of the time just showing up is enough, I think.

Heron return

I saw the heron in the river again this morning. That was reassuring in a way. It had been a long time since I'd seen her and I thought by now she might have left for the winter. Of course, I can't tell if it's a male or a female or if it is even the same heron from one time to another. Still, the herons have been a constant for me over the last year or so and have taken on a significance for me. It was good to see that she is still there.

Flowers by surprise

I got flowers today. They came from my sister and brother-in-law to help me celebrate my big one year mark. They're very beautiful with roses, alstromeria, snapdragons, carnations, lilies and stock. There's also some other flower that I don't recognize. The stock and lilies are very fragrant which is great. Here's a photo...




It's hard to get good lighting on them in my office so imagine them even more beautiful than this picture suggests. Despite all the challenges and problems that the workday presented, this has been a very good day.

Happy news

I have two friends who had been going through some difficult times - one with employment problems and one with a big health scare. Today they both called me to report that all is well. The job issue has been solved and the health scare turned out to be a false call. What happy news. Both of these things had been going on for some time and that sort of looming disaster can be so debilitating. It's good to know that those burdens have been lifted.

In other news, my fancy phone/organizer acted up today and may be dying. I don't quite know what to do ith it. Compared to other issues this is not a major problem. Maybe this is some sort of cosmic trade-off where I have to pay with an annoyance to get some good news. If so, then I definitely got the better end of the deal.

One year

Today is my one year surgery anniversary. It has been a hard year with recovery from the lung surgery, the other much less dramatic hernia surgery, some serious challenges at work, and most of all the crushing loss of my friend Barry. This has all left a profound mark on me. Thinking back, what strikes me is that it was a year of love. I am still overwhelmed by the kindnesses that were showered on me. I have such a wonderful family and the best possible friends. I am also very grateful for the time that I spent with Barry and Rick and am glad to have a job that let me go when I needed to go.

I will hold this year in my mind and heart. I will continue let what I have learned guide my choices and actions. It was a year that let me see clearly what is most important in life. It is my job to show that the lesson has been learned.

Election day

I was up early this morning to get some things done before heading out to the polls. This is an election that I didn't want to miss. I got there at 6:30 (the polls opened at 7:00) and there was already a line. It was worth it. It was easily the most important thing I'll be doing today.

As this election has been approaching I keep thinking of lines from the old hymn, "How Can I Keep from Singing." Among others, Enya recorded it on her Shepherd Moons album. The lines that keeps coming back to me are,

When tyrants tremble in their fear
And hear their death knell ringing,
When friends rejoice both far and near
How can I keep from singing?

I'm certainly not wishing death knells on anyone, but I would welcome a new direction and a chance to rejoice with friends - both far and near.

Morning walks

I've begun morning walks again. I had fallen off of that after the big 5K trip in September. I went again this morning for the first time since then and did what is now my usual three mile route. Some of the enthusiasm came from my biological clock not having caught up with the time change. Despite one-hour time shift I started and finished the walk in the dark.

It was an interesting morning. It is deer romance season and there were deer everywhere. They don't seem to mind if you don't come up on them too closely. I try to make sufficient noise walking so that I don't take them by surprise. I don't want to be one of those people who is featured in the news as a victim of a freak deer attack. Most of the deer I saw were small. They must be this spring's youngsters.

I also saw a fox and a little rabbit. Luckily for the rabbit I didn't see them both at the same time. There were also lots of things skittering about in the woods along the road. Now that the dry leaves are coming down it's hard for anything to move quietly through the trees.

This year's pumpkins

Halloween has come and gone. My neighbors threw a community party. I made a lot of food and was able to support the decorations with all the assorted Halloween stuff I've collected over the years. I also did some pumpkins again this year. Here's a picture of the 2008 crop.

One of these years I'm going to invest in some of those artificial pumpkins that you can carve since I cut similar faces into them each year. Still, there's something about the real thing that would be hard to re-create.

An interesting evening

We had some brisk winds in the area yesterday. The drive home was quite a challenge. Traffic wasn't bad but there were lots of power outages and some important traffic lights were out. I had to take an alternate route to my house because a tree had fallen across Main Street in Ellicott City, blocking the road and taking out several telephone poles. My house had been without power most of the day but it was back on by the time I got home.

I walked down to the river this morning before dawn and power hadn't been restored to Main Street yet. There wasn't much moonlight and it was remarkable how dark the street was. The nights are usually bright with street and house lights in my area. It was interesting to get this view of what it must have been like in earlier days. Much easier to imagine those images in novels of creepy scenes on foggy London streets. It was a good morning.

Sore today

Well, this was unexpected. I finally started doing some exercises - after over a year of doing no strength training at all. I'm sore a bit, which isn't a surprise, but the spot where they cut through my back hurts quite a bit. I guess that I should have seen that coming but after nearly a year I didn't think it would have been the case. It will go away in time, I'm sure, and would probably have happened no matter when I took this back up. The sooner I get back into a routine, the sooner this minor issue will correct itself.

Colder weather

It got down to the upper 30's at my house this morning. I still have some of the windows open so it was fairly crisp in the house. Last year at this time I was gearing up for my big event and bought an assortment of warm fleece things to wear. I also received a very soft robe and an electric throw so I am enjoying the opportunity to put them to use again. While it was a series of experiences I'd be happy not to repeat, many good things did come from the events of this past year. Those warm clothes are among the things in the plus column.

Eleven months

This is my 11 month surgery landmark. I'll stop counting monthly in November. At least I'll stop counting here. But these monthly acknoledgements still seem like landmarks to me. So much is different from this time last year.

I thought this morning a lot about how I vowed to be different because of this experience and how I haven't made good on that. I will pay more attention to that in October so that I'll be able to feel that I actually progressed somewhat through this year.

The weather was glorious this weekend although I didn't have much time to revel in it. Lots to do. I did notice that the trees are beginning to change everywhere now. In the spring each tree shows up individually as leaves come out freshly pale green. In the summer the trees appear as a group - a uniform, richer green. You don't hear people saying, "that tree" as much as "those trees", or "that forest", or "that hillside." As the leaves age into the autumn each tree can be identified separately again. It's almost as if each wants to be noticed as different from the others before moving into the cold of winter. That makes sense to me.

Another birthday celebration

I have just returned home from a birthday celebration with my friends the Rubes on the Loose (Sue, Cindy and Mary Lou). They took me to Toby's Dinner Theater to see The Producers. It was a very good production. They also gave me gifts which seemed too much but which I enjoyed quite a lot. There were too many to list here and I don't want to make anyone jealous.

One is worth special mention, though. Sue and I have mentioned that we often put important things in 'a safe place' and then can't find them again. Sue's daughter Sarah made me a safe place box to use for that purpose. It includes this warning, "Caution: Moving this box can cause you to lose it, feel worried, frantic, sick, confused, disorganized, and hungry. Ingestion of this box after finding or ever will cause major weight gain due to stress of not having s safe place." And on the side it says, "Do not eat or move."

Inside it included a portable safe place (also shown in the picture above) for me to use when traveling. I will make good use of this!

A sluggy week

I have lived like a slug this week. Probably a reaction to having pushed to get ready for the 5K last weekend. I'm hoping to get back in the swing soon.

The cool weather has arrived and that always makes me want to curl up. Little by little we're creeping up on the days when the drive to and from work is made in the dark. "Soon will the winter be on us, snow-hushed and heartless" as the poem goes. Not yet, though, so I want to take advantage of what daylight there is to get the yard and garden cleaned up and ready for winter.

A big step

The Start sign at the beginning of the course

Last weekend, Sue and I went down to Disney World to participate in the Everest Challenge endurance event. It included a 5K run, a short obstacle course, and a scavenger hunt. Sue had heard about it and suggested that we sign up. For me it was a landmark way to put all the challenges of last year behind me. I had been walking some but not in any sort of athletic way so about six weeks ago Sue and I started a program of timed 5K walks to get in better shape. It worked. We did our 5K in our best time ever. We checked the results and we came in with the bottom third of the participants but that's way better than dead last. The course was through the Animal Kingdom park and they kept the park open for the participants after the race so that we could ride the rides and relax a bit. It was a ton of fun. The event was held on Saturday evening. Animal Kingdom usually isn't open at night so it was fun to be there in the dark. The lighting on the Everest ride and the water ride was impressive. It wasn't crowded at all so we were able to go on the water ride three times in a row. We were soaked but happy.

In front of the Tree of Life in the Animal Kingdom park

A view of the Everest ride from a bridge at Animal Kingdom

While we were there we did an assortment of other fun things, too. On Friday evening we went to Pleasure Island to go to the Adventurer's Club one last time (first time for me). It closed for good on Saturday and was jammed when we were there. We also toured through Epcot. I had been there before but we did several of the things that I had missed or were new since I was there last. The Soarin' ride was really cool.

What with one thing and another I had slipped way out of shape over these last few years and at this time last year I didn't think I'd be doing anything like this again. This event was a BIG DEAL for me. I had a wonderful time and am grateful to Sue for setting it all up.

Our very cool medals and the race shirts. We got the standard event shirt plus Sue ordered us team shirts. Our team name was Bluffingwildly.

Birthday has come and gone

The birthday weekend was a very quiet one. That is just what I was hoping for. Last year I had a spectacular series of celebrations (see "A wonderful day" from last September.) That was a big year and the birthday came at a time when the lung surgery was looming in the near future. It was reassuring that this year there is nothing going on that would call for a big acknowledgement of the day. I had a great time, of course, with dinner with my family on Sunday and other time spent with friends. Just what I had hoped for.

I mentioned to my brother John yesterday that I am now older and chubbier than I have ever been in my life. He pointed out that it was OK to work on not getting chubbier but that getting even older was actually a good thing. A wise perspective.

Monday, Monday

Well, the weekend has past and Monday has come again. I have had a busy day of it trying to get things done early because I will be out at a lot of meetings at the end of the week.

The weekend was good but too busy. I did learn one thing, though. At a party someone jokingly (I hope) asked when I was going to stop talking about the lung surgery. I know I do refer to it a lot so I'm going to try to be conscious of that and keep a lid on remarks about it.

My home computer died over the weekend. That was a bad piece of news. I'm going to be working to buy a new one and to figure out how to extract the data from my old hard drive. I know that's possible but I'm not quite sure how to approach it yet. I guess I'll be getting a new computer for my birthday - and delaying the someday purchase of a fancy new TV.