Not Bigger than a Bread Box

Not Bigger than a Bread Box
Originally uploaded by savtadotty.

I found this bread box on the sidewalk today. It's amazing what people throw away. It's exactly what I've wanted, and already broken in, like pe-washed jeans!

Turkey, Roasted

Too full to blog. More photos on Flickr.

Gobble, Gobble

This week's Soup Salon has morphed into a Thanksgiving Day Turkey Dinner. It's gonna be just like a Norman Rockwell idealized Thanksgiving, with a few exceptions:
- there won't be a parade (we had enough parade stuff two weeks ago)
- the event will take place on Friday (tomorrow) 'cause that's when working folks have a day off
- there won't be national football games on TV ('cause football is soccer, and anyhow they don't play big games in the afternoon)
- most of the participants won't be related to each other
- the weather looks like it will be balmy enough to have the dinner outdoors

The various items on the menu have been assigned to various guests, and I get to stuff and roast the turkey. Well ordinarily that wouldn't faze me, but local grocery stores are not in the habit of selling whole turkeys, so I thought ahead and special ordered one from a newly-opened branch of a large grocery chain. David, the store manager called me with some news last week: the Health Department won't allow him to pick up a fresh-killed turkey for me from his main branch store, so I had to go and get it myself.

Luckily the main branch store is fairly close to a friend I haven't seen for about six months, and the store itself has 3 or 4 in-store restaurants. So yesterday I took the train to Rehovot, my friend picked me up, we browsed the cavernous and nearly-empty store (Wednesday afternoon is not a favored shopping time), lunched at the Noodle Bar, all the while me getting more and more anxious: would the turkey be there, as David had promised? From the photo, you know the answer.

As I entered the train station for my return trip, I got a kick out of opening my shopping bag to displaying my 7.63 kilo raw turkey to the security guard when he asked if I had any weapons.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Drugged

This morning in my not-quite-awake haze, I took my dog's dose of Eltroxin (100mcg) instead of my morning vitamins. Eltroxin is synthetic thyroid hormone, prescribed for people (and dogs) whose thyroid gland isn't working. According to my own family doctor, my thyroid gland is working just fine, and according to "Shuki's" tests, hers shut down about five years ago. Ever since she was diagnosed and dosed, her health has been superb. So far, I have noticed absolutely no effects from my mistake, but if my posts begin to sound like those of a hyperactive Canaani mixed-breed, all I can say is "Woof, Woof" (Hebrew translation: "Ow, Ow").

Gone Mainstream? No, Just Eclectic

Yesterday at the dance/movement class my swinging teacher played a CD by someone whose name she couldn't pronounce, so I just attempted to mimic her movements and forgot about it. Suddenly I was dancing to a young Frank Sinatra? No, it was definitely Mel Torme? But wait, he had just a touch of Elvis in him. Who on earth? Michael Bublé (Amazon can't spell his name either). I know I risk losing my street creds and my cool creds and my egghead creds, but what's eclectic if it doesn't include a little mainstream? Listen to some samples and tell me what you think.

One Word

From Udge.

You can only answer one word. No explanations.

1. Yourself: lazy
2. Your spouse: ex-
3. Your hair: braids
4. Your mother: saintly
5. Your father: loving
6. Your favorite item: cellphone
7. Your dream last night: trainride
8. Your favorite drink: dietcoke
9. Your dream car: Jeep
10. The room you are in: sunlit
11. Your ex: reading
12. Your fear: chaos
13. What you want to be in 10 years: here
14. Who you hung out with last night: dog
15. What you're not: athletic
16. Muffins: cranberry
17: One of your wish list items: grandchildren
18: Time: gift
19. The last thing you did: dressed
20. What you are wearing: jeans
21. Your favorite weather: balmy
22. Your favorite book: many
23. The last thing you ate: breakfast
24. Your life: delicious
25. Your mood: upbeat
26. Your best friend: pained
27. What you're thinking about right now: outdoors
28. Your car: none
29. What you are doing at the moment: humming
30. Your summer: grandchildren!
31. Your relationship status: satisfactory
32. What is on your TV: remotes
33. What is the weather like: balmy
34. When was the last time you laughed: today

Tagged you! All!

Extremely Good and Incredibly Honest

I (finally) finished reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and I am really moved by Jonathan Safran Foer's writing. His nine-year-old protagonist is completely believable, even though he has the sensibility of a fantastically creative adult. I seldom fall in love with characters in books, but Oskar Schell hooked me.

Bookworm had to return her copy to the library, but I think the grandmother's meditation she wanted to share was this (in any case, it's the meditation I want to share):

When I was a girl, my life was music that was always getting louder. Everything moved me. A dog following a stranger. That made me feel so much. A calendar that showed the wrong month. I could have cried over it. I did. Where the smoke from a chimney ended.
How an overturned bottle rested at the edge of a table.
I spent my life learning to feel less.
Every day I felt less.
Is that growing old? Or is it something worse?
You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.

A Little Less Fitness

Well I did get up in time to go to bone-building. It was much more crowded than the movement/dance class, the women were considerably older, and the exercises were boring, I think partly because there was no music and partly because they were just exercises. So I decided to forgo bone-building for now and just register for the movement/dance, which in any case meets twice a week. I got a 50% discount, and I don't know why. Either because I'm charming, a good dancer, old, or so late to join that half the semester is over. I didn't ask, because I don't want to know.

Fitness

In preparation for her next visit with Little Bear and Mermaid Girl and their ever-increasing size and weight, and after taking the "creaky" of yesterday's post literally, savtadotty has decided to ratchet up her fitness regime and check out the local community center offerings. She still wants to be able to run after them in the playground and roll around with them on the floor - she has no shame.

This morning I tried out "Movement and Dance" and tomorrow, if I can get up early enough, I'll try out "Bone-building." I expect to fall down one of these days, but I don't want to break anything when I do. I thought I'd be in a roomful of grandmas, but I was the next-to-oldest in the class. Perhaps in honor of the fact that two of the participants are from France, we moved and danced to a medley of French tunes, including C'est si bon (the singer sounded like Eartha Kitt - could it be?), Natalie, Je ne regrette rien (Edith Piaf). The older lady was from Dresden (a long, long time ago), and I was the only one from America. I found out that my body vocabulary is adequate for understanding the instructor, even though she barks her commands in Hebrew. It helps that she does everything she orders us to do, so I really just have to watch her. The hardest part was getting to class on time. We'll see how sore I am tomorrow.

A Creaky Cog

Warning! $$$$$Sponsored Product Review!

Even though my job application as Eyeglass Attendant is still pending, I am no longer officially self-unemployed. Because I read Don Radlauer's blog, Review Me is now paying me to review stuff! I am intrigued by the concept. I only have to review stuff I want to review. I don't have to write positive reviews! I hope I can be creative in my trashing. I am paid based on the traffic to this blog. But don't worry: my first obligation is to you my faithful readers, and I won't do enough reviewing to get rich or boring. Or more boring than I would otherwise get without reviewing stuff. And certainly not richer, as I'll be spending my earnings on frivolities.

The first review is of the Review Me site itself, kind of a practice review. What can I say? The site has colors. I'm actually not so crazy about the color-coding. Maybe green is for advertisers and blue is for bloggers? Except when it isn't. In fact, I think they just have colors kind of randomly assigned to groups of Words. The Words are in English. They seem to be spelled correctly, although some of words are strange: why would I want to Submit a Bug? Wouldn't I rather Report a Bug? The fonts are crappy, almost ransom note style. Boxes. Some boxes have round corners and some have square ones. I don't know why. Come to think of it, the graphic design is kind of a mess. It kind of looks like a poor man's copy of the first version of Flickr. Which was free. So maybe that's why they're paying me to review it! (Sorry, guys…you said the review doesn't have to be positive.)

Advertisers are supposed to buy reviews, and I don't know who's done that. They're probably waiting to see how much spending power or page-hitting power our collective reviewer readership represents. I guess I'll get fired now. It was fun being a creaky cog in the giant wheel of world capitalism, Web 3.0 version. It beat having to set the alarm, and it was slightly more subtle than putting ads on my blog. You could do it too.

I Have Red!

Eyeglasses and Cases
Originally uploaded by savtadotty.

This post is part of my application for the job of Eyeglass Attendant for Spanglemonkey. So far my only competition is Keith. After watching Keith's video CV (36MB), I realize that we have very different qualifications, and therefore a choice of one does not reflect (!) badly on the other, but merely a different need. Note: I also do contact lens care. And cataract implant post-op.

For those of you who are completely mystified, you can either click on the links or make up your own story.

Two Year Blogoversary Today

It's hard to believe: people have been born, died, got married, divorced, changed sex, hair color, got sick, healed, and through it all here I am, still blogging. For me it's been a giant plus: even as I type this there is a four-year-old visitor napping on my bed with my dog curled up next to him, someone I would never have known otherwise (his mom is a blogger too). I wonder where we'll all be next year?

Oh, and don't forget to vote, you Americans out there!

Five Minutes and Forty Seconds

Thanks to Gail for creating a fascinating 5:40 minute video. And thanks to Claude for letting me know about it.

My Diary When I Was Ten (Updated*)

*Update: photo showing price, 39 cents! Endupdate*

A little encouragement goes a long way with me. Now that I've discovered my girlhood diaries (yes, there are more!) - the one I kept at age 10 is the first - you will be the first to know what I thought worthy of recording for Posterity. It's more a "diary" in the British sense of the word, that is, a daily planner, only in this case, after the fact.

Here are a few choice selections from October:

October 18, Saturday - Dear Diary, Road [sic] on the subway by self home from sewing lesson. [It must have been my first solo subway ride...I remember it was for one station.]

October 22, Wednesday - Dear Diary, Went to Dentist.

October 23, Thursday - Dear Diary, Went to Girl Scouts. We got cookie books. Fixed my dress [the sewing project].

October 24, Friday - Dear Diary, Sold TEN boxes of Girl Scout cookies. Went to dancing school.

October 25, Saturday - Dear Diary, Sold EIGHT boxes today. Sewing lesson.

October 26, Sunday - Dear Diary, Went to Central Park with B [my best friend]. Cousin Lucy [yes, that Cousin Lucy!] was here.

I find it interesting what I left out: no mention of school, no mention of meals, no mention of family, no mention of my impressions of anything. All the juicy stuff is omitted. Just the facts, ma'am. That changes when I get to be a teenager.