Aging sucks

My grandmother was a formidable woman in her time. She is a graduate of the University of Michigan, and was incredibly intelligent, always devouring one book or another. She was a radio DJ in New Orleans during World War II. She was an actress in professional and community theater. She was a business owner in an era when most women didn’t work. She started her own upscale bridal business after working for years in the fashion industry. I remember parading around her store as a little 5 year old, trying on veils and pestering the seamstresses and saleswomen, and then working in the store during my summer vacations when I was in my teens. She taught me about style and cooking, took me to the theater and the symphony, and provided a great role model for me as a strong, independent, smart, opinionated woman. We occasionally clashed – I think because we’re both so hard-headed – but I always respected her for her strength and her ability to give as good as she got.

Old age has not been kind to her. Her health has been bad for years – back problems, knee problems, staph infections, pneumonia, hypoglycemia, you name it. Basically, she’s felt shitty for one reason or another for about 20 years. And now her mind is going as well. Dementia began creeping in around two years ago, and it has advanced aggressively, particularly in the last 9 or 10 months. She's still physically able to get around and take care of herself (somewhat), but is more and more unwilling to do so, which means that my 90-year-old grandfather is doing everything -- cooking, cleaning, laundry, driving, bathing.

This past weekend my mom and I went up to see them. As always, it was a pleasure to spend time with my mother, but the trip on the whole was rough. My grandmother doesn't like to leave the house, often resists getting dressed, and won't get up to go to the bathroom, or maybe she doesn't realize she has to go, so she ends up wetting the bed or the furniture. Then my grandfather has to clean it up.

My mom and I tried to encourage my grandmother to put herself on a bathroom schedule, so that she would go every couple or few hours automatically, thereby reducing the likelihood of having an accident. But she insisted that she didn't have a problem and that we were being mean to her (just like my grandfather) in trying to get her to go to the bathroom. Or to get dressed. Or take her medication. Everything is a protracted battle, and it never ends.

As a result, my grandfather is angry and bitter. He's always been a sweet, good-natured guy, but now he raises his voice at his wife and snaps at her in a way he never has before. He nags her, and she gets her back up and resists his requests even more. This is how they spend their days, fighting and bitching at each other. It's incredibly depressing and wearisome.

I don't know what the solution is, or if there will be one. My mom and her siblings are trying to encourage their parents to avail themselves of some of the services offered by the local Jewish family organization, or to consider assisted living. My grandfather is showing some reluctant willingness to try it, so we'll see what happens. Meanwhile, I've been looking at old pictures taken when my grandparents took me to New York City when I was 8, or when they came to visit us in Israel and India when I was in my teens. I marvel at how strong and beautiful they both were, and I try to remember them like that, rather than think about what I witnessed this past weekend.

New years' eve party shopping list

• 1 bunch sage leaves
• cloth dolls representing 2006
• pins (to stick in 2006 cloth dolls)
• various items representing shitty 2006 events to burn and/or destroy
• lots and lots of booze

This past weekend, my Girls' Night crew held its seventh annual Dirty Santa party. Everyone brings a gift purchased for $15 or less, we draw numbers, and the numbers determine the order you pick a gift. Later numbers are good, because if you don't like the gift you choose, you can force earlier numbers to swap with you. (That's the "dirty" part. The first year, one of the girls thought that the presents had to be dirty, so I ended up taking home a bag of condoms and K-Y jelly.)

The gift part was fun and funny, as always -- gifts ranged from pajama bottoms to Christmas-themed cheese spreaders. I ended up with a tiny bamboo cutting board, two tiny bowls (for miniscule amounts of dip?), a pedicure set, and the above-mentioned cheese spreader.

But the evening was more cathartic than anything else. For the first time in a long time, all of the original group was back together (with the obvious exception of Kristin), and we spent hours ruminating on the events of the past 12 months. Which kinda sucked. In the past year, our various members have dealt with 3 miscarriages, a horribly unjust lawsuit and verdict, spousal infidelity, severe family trauma, and the suicide of one of our best friends. Particularly in the last half of the year, it feels like it's been an onslaught of one bad thing after another, to the point that we're feeling a bit superstitious. Some sort of exorcism or spiritual cleansing is in order.

So, for New Year's Eve, I'm having a party. We're going to jump on a moon bounce, blow shit up, drink lots of champagne, burn sage and poke voodoo dolls representing 2006 with pins. The bad mojo of 2006 will be cleared out, and we will face 2007 with hope and optimism. We have each other, our husbands, our families, our brains and our senses of humor. We will prevail.

One year ago today...

I'll take "really aggressive" for $2000, Alex

My brother has an accountant who does his taxes. Upon being hired, the accountant asked him, "do you want to be aggressive, or really aggressive?" I like this approach in accountants and, now, realtors.

We've decided to hire a shark. The prospect of renting the house from the other side of the planet is becoming less and less palatable, the more I think about it. We'll be losing money and it will be a big pain in the ass. So, we decided to put the house back on the market, using a realtor recommended by a friend. I know people who have had dealings with this realtor, and they wholeheartedly recommend him while describing him as an insufferable, unethical jerk. "He's a scumbag, but he'll move your house," seems to be the consensus.

Works for me.

Resistance Is Futile

I come from a family of pickers and squeezers. We scratch each others' backs, pop each others' zits, tweeze each others' splinters (a favorite of mine), peel sunburned skin, and excavate each others' dermatological blemishes. I have never scratched my mother's back without having her ask, "is there anything to pick?" I'm sure this strikes most people as disgusting, but we think it's kind of awesome.

It's taking my husband some time to into this tendency, but he's slowly but surely learning to appreciate it. He's getting better at letting me poke and prod him with tweezers, needles, and my nails, and he's even reciprocated a couple of times. The only thing that he won't let me touch, much to my dismay, is his eyebrow hair.

Jason's hair is brown, and he has brownish-blonde eyebrows that are relatively normal except for this one, super-blonde, mutant hair that's about an inch long. It sticks out and curves back dramatically, and is noticable from every angle because it's so much lighter than the rest of his eyebrows. It's mezmerizing. And I'm going crazy from wanting to pluck it.

The Hair went away a few months ago -- perhaps in the shower or as part of the natural shedding process -- but it's back with a vengeance now and it's driving me mad. Last night we were sitting on the couch talking, and I couldn't stop staring at The Hair. Just sitting there, mocking me. And then Jason noticed that I'm staring, and he'll mess with me by brushing at his eyebrows so that The Hair sticks out even more than usual, and joke that he'll pull it out by himself and donate it to Locks of Love. It's torture.

But I'm determined to triumph. If I have to sleep with tweezers in my bedside table and pull it out in the middle of the night, I will.

F*&^%$#@K!

The guy that was buying our house was selling a house in order to buy a new one, and his buyer backed out of the deal. So no house sale. Goddammit.

The Internets Can Be Strange

This past weekend I got an email from someone who had viewed some pictures I have up on Flickr. She had seen photos from the triathlon that I did in August, and wrote me that she had always wanted to do a triathlon, but was scared of having to put on a swim cap. So she wanted me to a) email her a description of how one puts on a swim cap, and b) take pictures of myself putting on a swim cap and send them to her. Yes, you read that right. I'm really hoping that she did it on a dare, like her friends bet her on whether she would get a response or something like that. Needless to say, I deleted the message. But honey, if you're reading this, just go to your local sporting goods store and ask the nice lady in the swimwear aisle. I'm sure she'll be happy to help you.

Unbelievable, Part 2. No, make that "completely insane."

The guy that looked at the house this week -- that had to convince me to let him because I had already delisted the house and was over the entire process -- wants to buy it. He's sending me an offer tomorrow. And he wants to close December 11, the same day Jason goes to Australia. This is totally blowing my mind (which is already halfway out of my head because I'm so nervous for tomorrow's Michican-Ohio State game that I can barely contain myself. Go Blue!)

Unbelievable

I'm glad I appreciate irony, because if I didn't, this whole house-selling process would leave me discombobulated.

After having the house on the market since July and getting no offers, we decided to take the house off the market and rent it. Last week I talked to my agent, and she pulled the listing on Friday, but it didn't get into the system until yesterday. We got 4 calls over the weekend from agents looking to show it, and then another one yesterday. I told them all that the house wasn't on the market anymore, but the guy from yesterday whined so much about how his client was reeeaaally interested and he reeeaaally wanted to sell it for me that I relented and let him show the house today. He called me this afternoon and told me that his client loved it, wants to come back tomorrow to see it, and is looking to make an offer this week -- he's deciding between my house and one other. Maybe it's reverse psychology, like people who only fall for people that blow them off. I just think it's hilarious that my best chance at selling the house has only come after I took it off the market.

Rest in peace, my friend

About six years ago, Kathleen and I were lamenting the fact that we didn't have a close group of women friends to hang out and kibbitz with. She had met a woman (Michelle) at a continuing legal education seminar -- they were both in the vegetarian line for lunch and began chatting -- and thought it would be cool to gather a group of fun, smart women to do regular "girls' night" outings. I'm not sure who had the idea originally (whether it was Michelle or Kathleen, or something they came up with together). So we did it. Kathleen brought me in, I invited my friend Karen, Michelle brought Kristin and Mindy, etc. I think our first event was bowling. Our second was a hockey game, which ended up being hilarious because Michelle, Kristin and I ended up participating in an on-ice competition during one of the intermissions in which we raced to win a $100 gift certificate for Sports Authority (I won).

Over the past six years, the group (there are 9 of us, by my count -- Kathleen, me, Karen, Michelle L., Michelle S., Michele H., Judy, Mindy and Kristin) has stuck together. We've been in each others' weddings, babysat each others' babies, watched each others' dogs, listened to each other bitch, held each others' hands, and dried each others' tears. We get together regularly for dinner, parties, movies, bike rides, and walks. We ran 10Ks, half-marathons, marathons and triathlons, cheering each other on and pulling each other along the whole way.

I've never had a support group like this. There is nothing that any of us goes through alone. Every one of us has gone through a time when we were held up by the others when we couldn't quite hold up on our own. This group of women is the single reason that I'm anything less that 100% psyched about moving to Hawaii. The prospect of life far away from them feels very lonely.

Yesterday, we lost one of our own. Our friend Kristin, who had recently moved up to New Jersey to be with her fiance, took her own life, for reasons that none of us can comprehend.

Kristin was one of the kindest, most generous people I ever knew. She was an immigration lawyer, and utterly devoted to helping her clients. She would do anything for a friend. If you needed a ride to the airport, a dog-sitter, a drinking buddy, whatever -- she was there. She and I were frequent movie and opera buddies and shared books all the time. She was one of the huppah-holders at my wedding. She and Michelle L. and I did the Chattanooga Half Marathon together this past spring, and when I had a horrid day in the race -- exhaustion, dehydration -- she and Michelle came back to find me after they had finished and ran the last mile in with me. The last time I saw her, she was in town to close on the sale of her house in September or October, and she and Jason and I went for ice cream and had a great time laughing and shooting the shit.

Of course, we are all heartbroken and shocked. I feel awful for her parents, with whom she was very close, for her fiance, who is a lovely guy, but mostly for her. It kills me that she felt that her problems were so bad that there was no other way out but to die.

The girls are all rallying together. We're going to try to get together soon and try to process this. It's so surreal. I don't know what to think or to say or to do.

Rest in peace, Kristin. We loved you and will cherish your memory.

Election Day

Please get out and vote. Unless you're a Republican, in which case, please stay home.

Stick it to me, Part 2

I just got back from the acupuncturist. It was, to say the least, an interesting experience.

The office is in a nondescript professional building in Sandy Springs, just off of 285. The waiting area is pretty low-rent looking, with a haggard looking receptionist and lots of pictures of flowers with Chinese calligraphy. But the treatment room was very clean and professional looking.

Dr. Li is a tiny little woman who looks about 35 but is probably closer to 50. Shiny black straight hair cut in a blunt bob with bangs. First she did an interview/evaluation in which she asked about my insomnia, my general health, eating habits, etc. She took my blood pressure, which was fine, as it always is. Then she asked to look at my tongue. So I opened my mouth and showed her my tongue. She said, "hmmm..." in a way that made me self-conscious, and wrote some notes in Chinese. Then she felt the inside of each wrist, as if she were taking my pulse, but pressing on a number of different spots.

After feeling my wrist, she looked at me suspiciously, as if I'd been holding out on her, and said, "how long you have lower back pain?" I admitted that I'd had problems with my lower back since I was about 14, but that I didn't bring it up because I didn't think it was relevant to my sleep problems. She nodded, and told me that my kidney and blood energy levels were both low. "Chi very low. Should not be so low. Perhaps add to sleep problems."

She gave me some recommendations to aid relaxation generally. Some breathing exercises I'm supposed to do at night, plus I was told to avoid spicy food ("food too spicy not good for sleep") and to add more broth-based soups into my diet, especially later in the day. "Soup good for digestion, help you relax more."

Then we got down to business. I took off my shoes and lay down on my back on the table. She put needles on the top of my head, at the bottom of each temple, on my forehead between my eyebrows, on the tops of my wrists, on my arms near the crook of my elbow, and in my sternum. It didn't hurt at all. With each needle insertion, she would press down on the skin, wipe it with an antiseptic cloth, and then gently tap the needle in place with her finger, like she was hammering in a nail. Then she attached wires to the needles in my temples and sent electrical current into them. It wasn't a hard shock -- more like a mild pulsing. She turned off the lights, covered me with a blanket, and told me to close my eyes and listen to the classical music that was playing. I lay there for about 20 minutes, feeling more and more relaxed as the time went on. After 20 minutes, she came back in, turned on the lights, pulled out the needles, and told me to come back once more this week. "Then we make more plan. May take 3 to 5 time for you to sleep better. Try be patient."

And that was it. I have no idea if it worked (I guess I'll see tonight), but I'm cautiously optimistic. I'll keep you posted. In the meantime, I had soup for lunch.

Stick it to me

I've mentioned more than a few times in this blog that I have insomnia. Lately I've taken the drastic measure of going off of all sleep medication entirely, because nothing was working. I've tried just about every sleep remedy on the market, and eventually they did nothing but make me feel stoned during the day. I don't really sleep any better or worse than before, so I guess I'm somewhat better off for getting all of those chemicals out of my system.

Now I've decided to try acupuncture. I read some articles about the use of acupunture to treat insomnia, so I figure I may as well give it a shot. I've got an appointment at noon this coming Monday. Wish me luck.

Baby talk

We had friends visit from out of town this past weekend -- an old buddy of Jason's and his wife. I'd met the wife once before and didn't think much of her, and having her in my house for 2 days reinforced 1) my initial opinion of her, and 2) my utter abhorence of baby talk. This woman never met a perfectly harmless sentence that she couldn't make unbearable by her sing-songy inflection, accompanied by a jutting lower lip and batted eyelashes. She doesn't need to make this kind of play -- she's an accomplished surgeon, well-educated, active, etc. But for some reason, she feels compelled to speak as if she were a helpless child, and her husband eats it up, much to my (and Jason's) chagrin.

My reaction (near-vomiting every time she spoke) reminded me of one of my parents' favorite stories about me as a tot. I don't remember this, but apparently when I was about 2, we were living in Caracas, Venezuela, and belonged to a swim club in our neighborhood. A woman who knew us came up to me and asked me in a very baby-talky way where my parents were. I fixed her with a cold look and told her to piss off (or something to that effect).

Now, don't get me wrong -- I don't condone young kids lipping off to adults or being disrespectful, and if a child of mine ever did something like that, there would be hell to pay. But a big part of me gives props to my two-year-old self for refusing to be talked to like a moron.

FOR RENT: 3BR/2BA, W/D, scrn prch, deck, det. garage, pets OK

It looks like we're going to go with renting the house. We won't make any money on it, but we'll be able take a killer tax deduction, so... Whatever. Jason needs to get out of here, and I'm ready to make a decision and have a timeline and all that. We'll keep it for sale simultaneously, so whatever works out first is what we'll do. Anyone looking to rent in Decatur?

Blee blah bloo

I haven't posted in awhile because there hasn't been much going on. The house is still on the market. We had some nibbles but they didn't pan out. We're considering renting the place for a year, instead, but that seems like such a colossal pain in the ass. The holidays are fast approaching and we've already got our travel plans for Thanksgiving and Christmas (Jason's going to Australia, I'm staying home), so it doesn't look like we'll be getting out of here until at least January or February. Meh.

On a happy note, I'm back in the (bike) saddle. Jason took me for my first-ever mountain bike ride, on actual trails with trees and rocks and shit. I was nervous about whether my shoulder would be up for it, but I was surprisingly pain free. It turned out to be my head that was the problem. I was so scared of crashing that I was overly hesitant, to the point that I was increasing my odds of crashing. But Jason gave me some helpful technical pointers, and I eventually got the hang of it and had a really great time. The hard part was shedding all of my road riding instincts, because it turns out that the techniques in mountain biking are polar opposites of those you use on the road. On the road, when I descend, I crouch down and lean forward to pick up speed, and when I climb, I pedal standing up. I learned the hard way that leaning back and standing on a trail climb produces a wheelie, and then a fall onto my butt. Luckily, I fell into a bush and didn't hurt myself at all (except for little matching bruises on each cheek). It was more startling than anything else. I also almost bit it when I followed Jason over a big rock, without realizing that it was going to send me airborne. So I ended up doing a bitchin' little hop, and somehow managed to stay upright. I felt very extreme, like the dudes in the X Games. We're going back on Saturday, weather-permitting.

Mental Health Day

When I was growing up, my parents let my brothers and me take one day per quarter (or maybe semester, I don't remember) to skip school as a mental health day. We weren't allowed to use it to get out of a test or anything like that, but if we just felt exhausted and like we needed a day off, we could take it.

I've decided to carry the tradition into my adult life (and to perpetuate it with my children, if we have some, god willing, *throws salt over shoulder*, ptooey ptooey ptooey), so yesterday I took a mental health day and stayed home from work. I am going through a terrible bout of insomnia. I maybe sleep for 2-3 hours a night, and even those are full of nightmares or anxiety dreams, and the rest of the time I'm either fully awake or in a semi-awake/dozing state that isn't restful at all. This has been going on for about 3 weeks, and I'm fried. Ambien, my old and true friend, has abandoned me. I guess I've built up a tolerance after all this time, and my body is finally saying, "yeah right, bitch, you can't fool me any more. You will not sleep!! Bwahahahaha." Or at least it feels that way. So yesterday, I slept all morning, got caught up on my TiVo'd shows, cleaned out my closet and all of my dresser drawers, took a couple of naps, exercised, and relaxed. It was lovely. I slept horribly again last night, but at least I'll always have October 12 (which is Addie Bowen's birthday -- happy birthday, sweetie!).

I recently read an article about the torture issue, or more specifically, whether "alternative" methods of questioning, such as sleep deprivation, constitute torture. Menachem Begin (former PM of Israel, and possibly a distant cousin of mine) was quoted in the article, talking about how he had been interrogated by the KGB using sleep deprivation, and that it unquestionably is torture. He states:

In the head of the interrogated prisoner, a haze begins to form. His spirit is wearied to death, his legs are unsteady, and he has one sole desire: to sleep... Anyone who has experienced this desire knows that not even hunger and thirst are comparable with it.

I came across prisoners who signed what they were ordered to sign, only to get what the interrogator promised them. He did not promise them their liberty; he did not promise them food to sate themselves. He promised them - if they signed - uninterrupted sleep! And, having signed, there was nothing in the world that could move them to risk again such nights and such days.

Amen, brother. There are nights when I feel like I would give anything -- confess to any crime, perform any task -- simply to be able to sleep soundly.

Watch your language

I've been working on a case involving a state school for the deaf and blind, and the student in question is deaf. I spent last week working with teachers and staff from the school, many of whom were totally deaf or hard of hearing, so we had a sign language translator much of the time. Some of the folks could speak, others used signing to communicate but included some vocalizations, and others did not communicate orally at all. Being exposed to signing was fascinating, and really got me thinking about language and how it works.

One of the teachers I was interviewing -- I'll call her "Dianne" -- was talking (via a sign language interpreter) about a student in the school who might be a good witness in the case. We were talking about whether the student would need an interpreter to testify, and whether she would benefit from real time transcription (an accommodation in which a court reporter takes down the testimony and it appears on a monitor in real time in front of the witness and the lawyers). Dianne said that the student was smart and could sign very well and was also "good at English." I was taken aback by this statement, because I hadn't really considered that she and I had been communicating in anything but English.

But of course, we weren't. I was using English, and the interpreter was taking concepts I expressed and relaying them in American Sign Language (ASL). Sign language isn't a translation of English, but a conceptual language all its own. One of the things that I noticed in reviewing the documents in this case was how rudimentary the written English was of the students and even the teachers. The grammar and conjugation was way off, and sentences would be reduced to their most basic subject-verb-object forms. "Why did you say you would do that" becomes "why you say do that," or "I am concerned that Joe will hurt himself" became "I worry Joe hurt self." Dianne made me realize that when a deaf person can sign and read or write English (or any other language), they're actually bilingual. Maybe she reads the word "mother" and "translates" it by imagining the sign for mother,* the way I read the Spanish word "madre" and translate it to English in my head.

Yet, for purposes of litigation, language must be very precise. The biggest and most important part of any trial or hearing is the transcript, but if we were going through an interpreter who translates our very specific choice of words with conceptual signs, or if we're dealing with a hearing impaired person who doesn't sign very well but also doesn't hear all that well, how do we make sure that our questions are understood and answered properly? How can we make sure that the transcript reflects what the witnesses actually intend to say? It reminded me of George Orwell's 1984, in which the government limits language in order to limit thought.

Anyway, the whole process gave me a newfound respect for the teachers that we were working with, and I now can't stop thinking about how the language we use influences our perception of the world and everything in it. And of course, now I'm obsessed with learning sign language.


*Hold your right hand up to your face with your thumb at your chin and wiggle your fingers. See http://commtechlab.msu.edu/Sites/aslweb/browser.htm for video demonstrations of different ASL signs.

Quality time with the family

This past weekend Jason and I went up to New York to visit Sam and Erica. My parents were up there, too, so we got to kill two birds with one stone. Got in late Thursday night, walked around the city a little bit Friday morning, and then drove up to Sam & Erica's country house in Kerhonkson, NY, in the Hudson River Valley. It's been very pleasant but still pretty warm in Atlanta, so it was a bit of a shock to be up north where it is most definitely Fall. The leaves were changing colors, the air was crisp -- it was beautiful.


Above: Sam and Erica's adorable country house.

And the weekend with the family was predictably hilarious. First, Jason was delighted to discovery that Sam, for some reason, owns a bull costume. I don't know if he and Erica get their kicks playing matador or what. Anyway, Jason found it in the basement and put it on, and then surprised Erica and my mom when they got came in from outside.





















Then we went shopping to load up on groceries and other supplies. Since my mother and I are apparently genetically predisposed to spent at least $100 every time we walk into Target, we loaded up on candles, toilet paper, wine glasses, and of course, shoes. In fact, Erica and my mom and I each got a pair of adorable red suede flats, which we all wore out to dinner that night.

Below: the girls in their matching shoes


And the dinner was amazing. Erica made reservations at this cool place called the Dupuy Canal House Restaurant. The restaurant is in an old wooden house, and it's very cozy and quiet. The food was delicious, and we feasted and drank wine, talking about history and books and gossip.

But, being the freaks that we are, we couldn't just have a civilized meal and leave it at that. First we had a contest to see who could balance a spoon on their nose (Jason won). And who could make musical tones with their wine glass. And Sam balanced his scotch glass on his head for at least a minute. And my father lost his shit, laughing hysterically at the fact that Sam had made up a story, tried to pass it as historical fact on Wikipedia, and then was pissed when the moderators had the audacity to remove it. To Sam, the real insult came not from the fact that a fictitious entry was rightly removed from a website that is meant to be an encyclopedia, but rather that the reason it was removed was not its lack of accuracy but its lack of noteworthiness. This was too much for my father, who was laughing so hard that he was gasping for air and yelling, "I'm having a heart attack." I think we scared away the other patrons in our little dining section.

The next day we went hiking around a quarry before breakfast, and then later that afternoon went to a wine-tasting. We had notions that it would be like a scene in Sideways, with a beautiful farm house next to a stream, with a big, spacious wine bar inside and quiet, knowledgeable patrons commenting on finishes and hints of blackberry and "this wine has some serious legs." In reality, not so much. We went to the Riverdell Winery in New Paltz, which didn't have a lovely farmhouse on a stream so much as a shack on steroids. Sam drove up the driveway, observed the multitude of Toyota Camrys and New York Women's Rugby tour buses, and said, "I'm not so sure about the demographics of this place. Where are the Beamers and Mercedeses?" Inside, the patrons were less gracious and sophisticated than loud and abrasive. There were even women rugby players making out in the corner (with each other). The somalier was a loud fat woman who, when we asked what she recommended, literally yelled at my father, as if she had been too close to the speakers at the Bon Jovi concert the night before, "IT DEPENDS ON WHETHER YOU LIKE RED OR WHITE." Uh, no shit, lady. And thanks for your help.

That night we cooked dinner at home. Grilled chicken and portobellos, salad, and the most unbelievable corn I have ever had in my life. Seriously, when we started eating, everybody took a bite of corn and then all you could hear was gasps of pleasure -- it was like the corn equivalent of crack. More wine, more joking around, and then Michigan football. I couldn't ask for a nicer day.

The next day we went back to the city and headed home, but not before taking a walk in the country, looking at trees and funny scarecrows and old barns. I'm on the road again tonight, traveling for work, but still feeling the afterglow of this weekend. I love my husband and I love my family and I love that they love each other. Life is good.

Old age, and why I'm perhaps suffering the effects already...

Yesterday was my Grandma Anne's 90th birthday. My brothers and I sent her one of those big gourmet gift baskets full of yummy goodies. I talked to her yesterday afternoon, and she was having a wonderful day. Everybody had called and she was feeling loved. We chatted about what it was like for her to be 90 and to look back on all of the things that have happened in her life. The world has changed so much in 90 years, it must be like recounting a dream to think back on World War II or the civil rights movement or the emergence of rock and roll.

My Grandpa Leo is also 90, and my Grandma Ruth will be 87 next week. I had four great-grandparents until I was in high school. I've got good longevity genes is what I'm saying. Time seems to pass so quickly -- Jason and I will celebrate our first anniversary in two months (yoiks!) -- but given my lifestyle and genetic makeup, I should have a long time left to go. I hope I do something worthwhile with it.

In other news, I had to shower at the Y this morning because we had no water. Last night Jason and I were doing the dishes after dinner when we noticed that the water pressure was really low and getting worse. We went and talked to our neighbor across the street, investigated the water meter, scratched our heads thinking that maybe there was a water main break somewhere in town. It was a big mystery. Perhaps someone was playing a practical joke on us?

Turns out, I'm just a forgetful dork and I forgot to pay the water bill, so somebody from the county came by yesterday and turned it off. I looked through the pile of mail that I'm really bad about paying attention to unless it's an issue of Entertainment Weekly or Sports Illustrated, and found a notice from Dekalb County informing me that I owed them $55 and that my water would be cut off if I didn't pay the bill by September 21. Oops. Luckily, we had some gallon jugs of water that I keep in the laundry room in the event of a natural disaster (Jason laughs at me about this -- who's laughing now, smart guy?), so we had water to drink and brush our teeth. But since there was no water for flushing the toilet, when I had to pee at 3 in the morning, I went outside and did it in the back yard. Seriously. Anyway, I paid the bill online and it should be back on today, but I guess I've learned that I need to look at my mail more than once every two weeks.