My husband usually responded, “Those are Solstice lights.”

I then would sweep out the clutter of images, religious, kitsch, or otherwise. “Those are my solar lights!” I’d say.

Solar lights are just the coolest thing. They are connected to a miniature solar panel that attaches to a spike that you stick into the ground. Their shiny, specially coated surfaces collect solar energy all day long. As soon as the sun goes down, a light sensor tells the lights to turn on, and the effect is a magical, non-linear, brightening of tiny ice bulbs as each string gets the signal at a different time and slowly glows with life. It thrills me every time I look out the window and see them glowing there. I am creating a beautiful night garden and using the natural energy of the sun.

I had never planned to leave the lights up all year. The string of lights connected to each panel is only about seven feet long. I had to stick three strings on my small fir to cover it. Three strings means three little black solar panels that must be pointed toward the sun. After several tries, I placed all three panels so that they received enough winter sun to turn on the lights. It was harder than I thought in the winter garden where deciduous branches are denuded of leaves and perennials have died back to the ground. I had no interest in moving the panels around come spring, chasing the sun as it shifts in the sky with the change of season, not to mention trying to avoid the growing, ever changing garden. I also knew in my heart that I am a klutz in the garden (ask my hubby how many times he has repaired or replaced sprinkler heads because my big foot has crushed them). The image of me stepping on the poor little panels hidden behind various greenery and breaking them into tiny bits tore my heart asunder.

Then I began to procrastinate. Every couple of weeks, I told myself to take down the lights, and then proceeded to not do it. Suddenly, it was May, and people began to ask me about the lights. At first it was the confused, “Are those Christmas lights?” I would try to answer the question, but found I didn’t know the answer. I mentioned my dilemma casually to a neighbor across the greenway from me. She said, “Oh, I love those lights. I can look out my window and see them!”

You mean, someone was actually enjoying these lights in June? They weren’t just for December when special lighting effects were expected? I began to see that these lights filled a special nitch: They were subtle, and thereby, unexpected; when discovered, they were delightful; and when explored, they were found to use only the energy nature provided.

My inner procrastinator sighed with relief. But, as is natural in gardens, green things grew. The yarrow arched over the solar panels dripping them with shade, and the black-eyed susans quarreled with them about their sun access rights. One by one, the strings of lights began to wink out, subtly at first, and then more boldly. I would look out my dining room window and have to crane my neck to find the one string that was still lit. Last week, I finally cleared away the underbrush and set each solar panel in a new and sunny location. Last night, as I looked out my window, I saw a myriad of lights glowing. So what if people thought they were Christmas lights. I knew what they were. And then I heard it. The hum of a million crickets. They sounded just like the jingle of a million tiny bells. Ching, ching, ching, ching, ching! Ching, ching, ching, ching, ching! Sleigh bells, I thought. Those folks were right. These were Christmas lights. And Solstice lights. And Hannukah candles. But they were also Fourth of July fireworks and bright Easter eggs. They were all those things. They were beautiful and they lit up the night with tiny flames of joy.

Hesitantly, I turned on the patio light. Several masked faces looked up at me from the center of the lawn under the bird feeders and froze. Raccoons? But we don't have any raccoons in our neighborhood. I opened the sliding glass door and peered out. The shapes now scattered to the edges of the lawn and watched me. I watched them back. “What are you guys?” I asked the little burglars. They didn’t leave, just stared at me. Suddenly, I knew. Definitely raccoons! I hastily closed and locked the patio door thinking I really didn’t want them in my house. Despite the fact that I didn't turn the light off, the raccoons all scurried back to the feeder as if nothing had happened and started chomping away at something. Had they found a dead bird they were feasting on? Weren’t raccoons vegetarians, or did they scavenge anything? I got my binoculars, hoping to get a better glimpse at what they were doing. I could see their little white and black faces better, but still couldn’t see what they were swarming around. What I did see was that there were about five of them. Then a sixth one, the largest by far, marched over from under the amur maples on the west side of the yard. He sniffed the group, then boldly came up to the patio and munched on the seed I had spilled yesterday when I filled the bird feeders. Ah! They were all munching seed. There was always a big pile under the bird feeders.

I hoped to see the beasts eat with their “hands,” which is one of the most fascinating aspects of raccoons, but they just stuck their faces in the seed and ate like cats. The big male raccoon (as I had come to decide he was) peeled away from the yard, followed, one by one, by each of the others. I had mixed feelings of relief and consternation as they vanished westward. Perhaps seeking another unattended bird feeder? I was excited to have another wild critter in my yard to watch, not having seen a coyote in the neighborhood although I occasionally heard them at night, and only rarely seeing a red fox in the surrounding fields at dusk. The coyotes were known to go after domesticated ducks, but the raccoons probably wouldn't pick a fight. They were smaller than most dogs and only a little bigger than most cats. But what about the dog barking in the distance? How smart is he? And the neighborhood cat that prowls into the wee hours of the morning? Right now it was my secret, but it impacted the neighborhood. It might be the first sighting of a raccoon. I wanted to protect them, but I realized that it was a complicated matter. Were they here before we were, or did they follow us to suburbia? Either way, we had to share the terrain. I hoped everyone would take care, but let the poor critters enjoy their new neighborhood.

Eva was 19 and lived a very full life. I had her from the time she was 8 weeks old. I picked her out of a roomful of unwanted kittens in 1988 partially because of her stunning looks. Some friends nicknamed her "Cow" because of her black and white jersey coat. She was my favorite cat to photograph because of her black and white marks. Her face was split between black and white patches. She had a white jaw but a Groucho Marx black moustache and a little Marilyn Monroe mole above her mouth. She was a very vocal cat. She used to follow me around the house talking very loudly until I paid attention to her. She even joined me in vocalizations when I practiced voice. I decided she was singing with me rather than trying to drown me out.

She slept with me every night of her life. At first, she stayed with me all night long. Then as an adult, she spent part of the night in her heated kitty bed. In her last few months, though, she returned to spending the whole night with me, sometimes sleeping half on my pillow, half on my head.

Eva was a very jumpy kitty who was very shy around strangers for the first 10 years of her life. She even gave Dave a wide birth until about 7 years ago when he became her best bud, providing her laps and really good hip rubs that would send her rolling back and forth on the carpet in ecstasy. As she got older she got more demanding. She never did understand when another cat got attention.

After we moved to Colorado, she liked to lay outside on the back patio on warm days and soak up the sun. In her last weeks, she enjoyed moving back and forth between sun and shade in the back yard as she got too warm or too cold.

Both Dave and I will miss her very much. She was my Ev-wava. A Momma's girl.

Me: I can’t focus sometimes.
Hub: Neither can I and most adults I know.
Me: I procrastinate a lot.
Hub: So do I and most adults I know.
Me: But I don’t’ finish things.
Hub: I go through periods when I don’t finish things, either.
Me: But I mean for years, I don’t finish things.
Hub: But you always finish the important things.
Me: That’s true.

Searching the internet, I found that the ADD association defined a set of criteria to determine if someone is ADHD. It is not a scientific definition, but a loose set of criteria, which defines the basic characteristics of an individual with ADHD. One of the criteria that seemed most important according to the site, however, was that you had to start showing signs of ADHD as a child or teenager to truly have the disorder (experts are starting to change their minds about this since I first started to do this research). This seemed more definitive than the rest of the criteria. I thought back to my childhood. I couldn’t remember any behavior that seemed specifically ADHD. I always did my homework. I loved memorizing spelling words and always did well in spelling. And math. I remember not being able to concentrate with the TV on, but that seemed pretty usual. I remember procrastinating on a paper in college once so badly that I had to stay up all night to write it. That happened once in grad school, too.

Another important criteria was how other people see your behavior, especially people who know you well, like your spouse, parents, siblings, close friends. I already knew that my husband thought I was not ADHD. I will ask my parents. I don’t expect to get much empirical data from them, however, because their memories of their children growing up are rosy-colored and blurry these days.

The most scary evidence in favor of my having ADHD is that I really, really have trouble focusing. While working on one task I am thinking about the next and feeling inadequate because I haven’t already completed both. I move around the house like a beetle. I will be focused on cleaning the kitchen and then I will get distracted by the sight of a droopy plant. I stop to water the plant and then I see cat vomit on the rug and have to clean it up. Pretty soon I don’t have time to finish the kitchen because now I need to be in Boulder for an appointment in 20 minutes. I feel like I leave unfinished tasks everywhere, which is evidenced by the room I write in with its stacks of music and books and notes, and my closet with its boxes of photos and scraps of costumes and craft materials. But my therapist says the distractions of things like housework are normal for someone who doesn’t have an external structure like an office job to dictate a schedule. And that’s me. I left my office job two years ago. So, where does that leave me?

I decided to get a professional evaluation for ADHD from a psychiatrist. He pulled out the official list of criteria from the ADHD Association and asked me to say whether the criteria described me or or not as he read them out loud. I hesitated on at least a couple answers when I really wanted to say “maybe” and said “yes” instead. I ended up with 8 out of 12 “yeses,” which is enough to meet the criteria of the ADHD association. I think in retrospect I should have said “no” to the two questions I hesitated to answer. If I had answered “no” to these two questions, the psychiatrist would have said I did not have ADHD. I couldn’t find the exact criteria the psychiatrist used on the internet, but here are the criteria from the ADHD Association web site.

The psychiatrist identified three types of ADHD:

· attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder: combined type
· attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder: predominantly inattentive
· attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder: predominantly hyperactive or impulsive

Based on my description of my career and my response to the criteria, he said that I was probably ADHD: predominantly inattentive. The psychiatrist told me about three therapies I could try: drugs, cognitive feedback and fish oil. I decided to try the least invasive: fish oil. It is supposed to help brain function. My therapist told me that fish oil components, DHA and EPA, lubricate the synapses in the brain making it easier for the brain to make connections. The internet says that DHA is the predominant fatty acid in brain development. It also states that researchers have found that adults with ADHD have less of these fatty acids in their brains. (Any evidence of this nature would seem to be inconclusive because there is no definitive test for ADHD. Assuming that those adults actually had ADHD is a faulty assumption.) I figure that it couldn’t hurt to try fish oil and it has been proven to help with heart health. The first brand of fish oil I tried, Walgreen’s, made me irregular. My psychiatrist recommended the Pharmax brand, but I haven’t tried it yet. It seems to be only available at high-end pharmacies or the internet.

Overall, I am struck at how off-hand the psychiatrist’s approach to diagnosing me was. He was also quite free in “prescribing” fish oil to me, although there is not proof that it helps to take supplements of it while there is a risk of mercury and other heavy metal poisoning from it. This has been a weird experience for me in general. I’ve found out that at least two of my friends, my therapist, and my psychologist all have been diagnosed with ADHD. It’s beginning to sound like an epidemic. Can there be that many people walking around with it?

My conclusion is that some ADHD criteria describe me, some don’t, so I don’t know if I have the disorder or not. I think having more data from the people that know you well is essential in understanding if you have the disorder or not. But if you don’t come up with an affirmative diagnosis, you still have to deal with the issues you perceive you have. So, perhaps I don’t care whether I have ADHD or not. But I have these issues, and I want tools to help me resolve them. Right now, the standard tools for dealing with depression seemed to work: cognitive therapy, meditation, exercise, and anti-depressants.

Dave drew the bath to be exactly 104 degrees Fahrenheit. (He knew 104 was the right temperature because he had carefully measured the temperature with the kitchen probe thermometer when I had drawn a bath for myself previously. What I really want to know is why he didn’t use the infrared thermometer?)

Despite his careful preparation, the bath was waaay too hot for soaking. Dave added more cool water, and in so doing, raised the water level, and, with it, increased the height of the bath bubbles. We had to peer around the tower of suds to see each other. We talked as we sipped our after dinner drinks about love, sex, what we found interesting or endearing in each other and, because the conversation was so interesting, we never actually got to the short story Dave was going to read to me.

As we were talking, my nose itched. I rubbed my nose. The itching increased. I was mildly annoyed, but not willing to break the spell of the conversation. I didn’t spare any extra brain cells on the problem, I just rubbed my nose again. Man, something was really itching me now. I stopped talking and rubbed my nose again, now fully conscious that I had just rubbed a whole bunch of suds onto my face. I had forgotten that my hands and arms had been floating in about a foot of soapy bubbles and that those bubbles clung to my fingers and anything my fingers touched like airy barnacles. Dave pulled a towel from the shower door rack toward me without comment, and I wiped my face. We continued the conversation.

With my reptile brain, I recognized a tickly feeling on my nose again, so I rubbed at it. My mouth felt funny. Immediately I was aware that I had just given myself a suds mustache. Even my chin itched. Dave smiled and pulled the towel toward me again. I wiped my face and we continued talking.

I was completely enthralled, feeling once again how lucky I was to have a husband who loved me enough to tell me, and who really still found all my little quirks endearing. My love for him pounded loudly in my heart as I rode high on alcohol and romance. I was feeling good about myself, proud to be me, confident. I was smart, attractive, well-loved, and admired by the most important person in the world.

Then I rubbed my nose again. “Geez!” I exclaimed, jarred out of my romantic reverie once again. Did I really do it again? Dave, completely entertained now, laughed loudly as he pulled the towel toward me a third time. I glared resentfully at his smirking face.

Luckily, I was feeling well-loved at the time, quirks and all.

This routine got lengthier and lengthier. I was able to finish my free writing in 20 minutes once. I began to settle for 30 minutes but often got 45 or 50. The meditation, also easily accomplished in 20 minutes according to my guru, usually lasted for at least 30 minutes, but could sneak into 55 or 60 if I was unfocused and restless. As a result my arrival to work began to get later and later. If I wasn’t up by 5:30 a.m., I would not be at work by 9:00 unless I gave up part of my routine, and that I would not do. Soon I was getting to work by 9:15, then 9:30, 9:45, and finally, that outrageously slackadaisical time of 10:00. Luckily, I had an understanding manager.

Good thing that I am retired and no longer have to be at the office by 9:00. Right. I find that my morning kind of oozes into my afternoon, which was never a good time for me. I have little energy as the sun reaches passed noon, and in the summer it is so warm in the house that I feel like a good nap. And then there are my geriatric cats who are so precious and forgiving yet beg for my attention because they don’t realize I am sitting down to write the great American novel. So, I have turned over a new leaf this summer:" I attempt to hit the relative calm and air conditioned air of the local café to get in at least two hours of writing a day. Now that I work for myself, it should be no problem hitting the mark by 9:00. Right. Today I arrived at the café at 10:45. Woo-hoo!

And it’s not that my writing, meditation, and Pilates is holding me back. Not really. Now that I work for myself, some mornings I am through with all of those things by 8:15 or 8:30. No, retirement has opened a new door to me: I am now pursuing a life long dream of playing the guitar. My instructor encourages me to practice twice a day for 15 minutes each time. But I heard what he didn’t say: make that first time early in the day so you can get your day off to a good start.

So, who’s to say when your day actually starts?

A couple of Fridays ago, I joined friends for a burger and a beer as usual at our favorite watering hole in Longmont, Old Chicago. On the way home, I decided to fill up my tank with gas. I never look forward to these moments alone with my car and its gaping gas tank greedily awaiting the gluttonous filling of its 14-gallon gas tank (I hear some SUVs have two of these babies!) and, admittedly, I was feeling a bit laid back after a filling lunch and a beer, ready for my afternoon nap. I went to a new station north of where I live and not very heavily trafficked. I hoped it would be quiet and I could come there regularly. I opened my gas tank door, took off the cap and set it on the hook inside of the door, then hit the Credit Card Outside option on the controls. So far, the interface was what I was used to. The message told me to “Remove nozzle and press start.” I removed the nozzle, then looked around for the start button. I found it, right next to the nozzles. I pressed it. The screen still said, “Please Press Start.” Hmmm. I looked again, then found another red button marked start above the row of nozzles. OK. That one must be it. I pressed it, put the nozzle in the opening of my gas tank and pressed the lever. Assuming all was well, I went about the business of cleaning my windshield. I grabbed the squeegee, pulled up the wiper blades, and scrubbed first the driver’s side, then the passengers side of the glass, turning the squeegee over to press all the water off and meticulously pulling straight lines across the glass.

When I was done, I walked back over to the controls. The screen said, Thank You! And I looked at the read-out:12 gallons. Because my tank was only half empty when I pulled up and held only 14 gallons total, I thought that was a little odd. But it was hot and I was in a hurry to get home and back to my current project (I was finally finishing my brother’s wedding video from four years back), so I pulled out the nozzle and put it back on its hook, screwed my gas cap back on, and flapped the gas tank door closed. I then got into my car and drove away.

It wasn’t until a couple of days later when I was driving a friend around who was visiting from another state that I looked down my gas gauge. “That’s weird.”

“What’s that?” my friend asked.

“I thought I filled up with gas on Friday, but my tank reads only a quarter full.” Was the gas station ripping off people by making them pay for gas they never received? Boy was I going to be pissed.

“Well, look at your receipt.” He leaned toward the steering wheel and pointed. “And Your Check Engine Light is on.” He was right. I had noticed it days before but had procrastinated calling the mechanic.

“Yeah, yeah. I know my check engine light is on.” I was feeling slightly incompetent by this time, and I didn’t need to be reminded of it.

A couple of days after that, it hit me. I had never received a receipt. (I know because I collect them and write my mileage on each one at the time I fill up the tank, then I set it on the top of a pile of like receipts in front of my computer waiting for the day that I will calculate my mileage and prove that I am saving gas by not letting the engine rev above 2rpms. My husband tells me that this behavior is a bit pathological, but I really will calculate the mileage for each receipt and then I’m going to input them into a spread sheet. Maybe I’ll even create a color pie chart…oh, sorry. Back to the story.) I had never received a receipt because I had never pumped any gas into my car. I was horrified. What would have happened if I hadn’t looked down at my fuel gauge until after the tank was empty and I got stranded on the Diagonal and had to walk home in the baking sun with no water? Shudder.

A week after that, I finally took my car to the mechanic. He discovered that my gas cap had worn and wasn’t closing properly, and that’s what made my check engine light turn on. I asked him if it was unusual for the gas cap to wear that way, and he said no. But I suspect it could be related to screwing the cap back on with an almost empty tank on a hot day and stripping the cap threads. But ignorance is bliss!

Moral of the story is, some of us just need a little extra help once in a while. No big deal in an enlightened society. Didn’t someone say you can measure the greatness of a society by how they treat the klutz? Those fancy gas stations really do meet the needs of this large segment of the population. Notice that I said “needs,” not “desires.” Other people go to full service gas stations like they were going to a spa for an orange mango toe rub. People like me seek them out furtively from the shadows, desperate to fill a small tank of gas without spilling gasoline on our clothes, or leaving streaks of dirt on our wind shields. And god-forbid we turn on our cell phones and start chatting as we fill the tank. In fact, basic assistance is such a requirement for us folks that insurance companies should cover each visit to the tank. What a cost savings it will be for the insurance companies when we go to all-electric vehicles! But then there would be electricity and outlets involved. Eek.

In 1988, we both worked at a large computer engineering firm. It was our first job out of school. He was a software engineer and I was a technical writer. We never worked together, but high-tech friends introduced us at a party. It was a traditional courtship in many ways. We met first for an impressive lunch at a sub shop. Then we kept running into each other at parties and the attraction was obviously there. And then there was the spectacular New Year's Eve when, on the dance floor, at midnight, I kissed him. Things started to fizzle after that. I figured I had scared him off. After all, he was an ultra geek and had bad luck with women in the past, or so a friend of a friend said. We did see each other at parties and in groups, but never alone, which can't be described as a dating situation. We did get many chances to talk, though not about personal stuff. I remember he did talk me into setting up email on my UNIX workstation. I knew the company had an intranet, but I didn't understand its potential for personal communication. I had no concept of e-poetry just as no one else did. Remember this was before anyone (was it Gore?) had invented the "e-"; as a prefix to anything done electronically.

One day, after a weekend water volleyball party, he called me. "I just sent you an email message." I had forgotten about my email account. I logged in and there it was. Because this was before Gore invented the internet, the email came through a UNIX server networked environment. Don't worry about what that means, just know that UNIX is to Windows like the cockpit of a Leer jet is to your television remote, and the computers we used were more like a HUM-V than the subcompact car-like internet device you might be using to read this blog right now. A lot more power than most of us need. I read these emails on a black screen, the ghostly white letters glowing at me in a glorious monospaced font. There were no BlackAdder or New York Times fonts to choose from. Yet the words sprang from this dull screen with the romantic vibrance of a dozen roses. I fell in love heavily and hard and we have been together ever since. So, thanks to all those university types, NASA, Al Gore, & whoever else contributed to this first network of computers. They made us who we are today.

The box arrived in plenty of time for Christmas. I should have known what I was up against when I saw the inventory sheet. Written on it in red magic marker were the words, “A+ ooooh mystery gift!” When I opened it up, I was astonished at some of the weird stuff that was in there. I hadn’t thought about whether the gifts would be male- or female- oriented and, at the risk of sounding chauvinistic, I was not comfortable giving some of the gifts to Dave even as a gag because they were too “girly.” Some were decidedly male, such as an internet urinal, and some decidedly female, such as a pink poodle purse. Some of the items were cultural misfits, partially because they were so chauvinistic: “Ideal Girl” and “Ideal Boy” tissue packs (pink and blue, respectively) showed a dark-skinned, dark-eyed, and dark haired young girl and boy, respectively, with faces that looked very much like idealized Hindu gods. There were many odds and ends which I couldn’t even define. I spent several minutes just laughing at the box. Other items, such as a heavy sheet of shiny paper covered in small rectangular pictures with Chinese writing on them looked like playing cards for several different games – they had several pictures on each offset at different angles with lettering of some kind in each corner so you could imagine a different identification for each rectangular “card” for each side and direction in which you held the card.

I decided not to give Dave the poodle purse, but the urinal was a great gag. As a software engineer, he spends many hours at work at a computer, and, also a computer game enthusiast and web freak, he spends many hours on the computer at home as well. I was being helpful by giving him an internet urinal. I mean you never know when you are in the middle of an important web search and you have to go. I giggled while I wrapped it.

Some of these items were pretty large and would not fit into his stocking. So I wrapped those and set a handful of smaller gifts aside to fill his stocking on Christmas Eve. That left at least another handful of weird gifts that were small enough to fit into a stocking, but now there was no more room. Luckily, Archie had included a black cloth bag the length and size of a wine bottle which had the word “cheers” inscribed on it in pink alongside several pink elephants. I contemplated the cultural significance of this and gave up. It could be an Asian interpretation of the American stereotype of the drunk seeing elephants when totally plastered, (usually polk-a-dotted not solid pink, but one has to leave latitude for cultural interpretation) but I didn’t want to send too much time on that one. But, whatever its significance or strangeness, it was a perfect secondary stocking for the other smaller gifts: empty tins smaller than Altoid™ boxes labeled “firecrackers,” and tin cards with slogans on them from the old Soviet Union. I don’t read Russian so, I can’t tell you what they said, but a picture of a severe looking woman in a head scarf reminded my of Rosie the Riveter from American World War II posters. I also slipped in the coups de gras: a tiny red plastic television embedded in cardboard and sealed in cellophane labeled “Food on TV! Just like your mother used to cook!” When you looked in on one side of the television you could see pictures of brightly colored food dishes like sausage casseroles and so on through a little view finder, all reminiscent of 1960s TV dinners.

Finally, I was set: everything was either in the “stockings” or wrapped and set under the tree. The whole experience was a bit mind blowing and I couldn’t wait to show it all to Dave.

On Christmas morning, we got up and finally made it to the tree about 9:30 after morning coffee and cat chores. Dave began investigating his stocking and was soon puzzled: two plastic and leering skulls small enough to fit in your fist, a plastic hedgehog with pines quivering, and the firecracker tins were just the beginning. He asked, “What is this?” I told him it would all become clearer later. Then we hit the tree. When he got to the internet urinal he just stared at it. I burst into laughter for a full minute. He just looked at me. He studied the sheet of playing cards for a minute. “I don’t get it.” I shrugged. When he got to the plastic martini glass with matching multicolored “cocktail squids,” he cracked up. Up till then I was enjoying myself more than he was, but now he was catching up. When it was all over, he looked at me expectantly. “And so….?”

I looked at him blankly and shrugged again. What was wrong? Why didn’t he get it?

“OK, so there really is no explanation? I thought it was a set of clues that I was just not getting.” His look was a bit skeptical.

“I guess not.” I felt bad. I tried to tell him it was our friend’s fault. That didn’t really fly. How could I tell him that the explanation was as simple as my own amusement at his expense? Merry Christmas, darling!

Bad wife?

I have also been doing a good bit of writing. I wrote a novel for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) again, and have been reworking a novel I wrote two years ago. You can see an excerpt from the latest novel on our web site. I also wrote a couple short stories and essays and have been submitting them for publication and contests, but no bites yet. This is the part of writing where you just keep putting it out and writing new stuff and don’t worry too much about it. I am lucky that I am not trying to earn my living this way, albeit I am not yet working at publishing very hard right now. Maybe next year! I still plan to finish my research on the Mary Chase Project and write her biography, but I wanted to take a vacation first.

I am still singing and have even more allusions of grandeur now that Dave bought me a voice trainer for Christmas. (It actually came from Eva, Dave tells me, because she thought I could use some help singing when she joins me at karaoke, which she does quite frequently. Funny, she never really sings on key – any key -- but she sure does wail confidently.) The trainer allows you to play any CD and mostly cancel out the lead vocal. This means you can attach a mike and sing the lead yourself with the original band! You can create a “loop” of one song phrase and play it over and over and sing along until you’ve got it right. I hope to be singing like Nora Jones at the next Girls’ Night Out at our local karaoke bar! See my Diva II photo album for pictures of my last Diva Party!

Dave still works at Emulex in Longmont and is enjoying defining his job as he goes. He is still lead test engineer, but he keeps his hands dirty in many aspects of the hardware networking business. Dave has a new manager who he’s now trained to completely respect and kowtow to him: Dave recently wowed him by working a couple of weekends to design and implement a solution to a tricky and continual problem the company is battling. Dave continues to expand his cooking talents, doing everything from baby back ribs to Burger of the Gods to Bagna Cauda to Bananas Foster. He also re-did the shelving in the utility room/extended pantry so that we can stack a lot more stuff in there, get to it more easily, and enjoy its clean good looks because he whitewashed it to match the walls!

In May, we traveled to Atlanta to attend the wedding of a friend, as well as visit Dave’s brother, sister-in-law, and niece. The wedding was a dual Christian and Hindu ceremony with beautiful western and eastern costumes. The couple knelt during most of the Hindu ceremony and, because we were in the back, we didn’t get to see the details, but what we did see of the exchange of gifts was quite stirring. We had fun hiking around the hills outside of Atlanta with Dave’s brother and family and identifying wildflowers and birds. We also stayed in a lovely bed and breakfast off of Ponce de Leon which sits on two lots leading up a hill with mature trees that hide many birds. We enjoyed eating our breakfast in the garden and looking up through the heavy branches for a glimpse of the noisy birds above.

In July, I joined my family at Republican Island in the middle of Charleston Lake in Ontario, Canada. (Dave had to stay back home because of work commitments and cat duties.)
The island, which is approximately a half mile long and 800 feet wide, is owned by my brother Paul’s in-laws. We had total run of their villa for 5 days. It has vaulted ceilings and wood surfaces everywhere. The great room has a 270 degree view of the lake. The kitchen was completely open and had every modern convenience.
Plus there were plenty of bedrooms and bathrooms. We had enough food and booze to really party down and gorgeous weather, except for one night when a storm knocked out the generator.
The next day we had to “rough it” by carting water, eating and drinking only the food and beverages set out from the fridge, and not taking showers. We were about to cook dinner on the gas grill when the power went back on. We were relieved, although we had been feeling a bit spoiled and were reminded how generous my sister-in-law Julie’s family was to let us stay in such a resort.
I took lots of photos, and looking them over now still fills me with fond memories, especially meeting my new nephew, Paul’s son, Miles Benjamin Wilkin, for the first time. What a sweet, happy baby he is! (photo)

My sister, Wendy, and husband John are well. Their twins, Kate and James, are now in a whole day kindergarten, which they had to adjust to, but are now doing fine. Wendy and John insisted that they be in separate classes, and that seems to have worked out very well. Kevin and Ellen Faye bought a new house in Quartz Hill, California and moved in with their two rottweilers in September. The house is only a few years old and the yard is quite large. They seem happy. Paul and Julie are well and busy chasing after Miles, who just turned one in December. Chris knocked our socks off at Christmas by announcing his engagement to Deby, who Dave and I haven’t met yet. The rest of the family seems to love her. They plan a wedding in Maui in April and a reception back in L.A. in May, which we look forward to.

My parents are well. My Dad alarmed the doctors when he lost a bunch of weight. But he gained the weight back when he switched to his standard meat’n potatoes diet again after eating my Mom’s low-fat meals, which help her control her cholesterol. Dad keeps the house and automobiles in order, walks the stairs to keep in shape, and enjoys reading the biographies and memoirs of military figures and heads of state. Mom is now a 12-year breast cancer survivor. She continues to see an oncologist and in March received preventive treatment at an alternative medicine clinic in the L.A. area. Mom continues to hike along the Erie Canal and garden in the nice weather. She also has retained her title as the Best Well-Read Person I Know.

We spent a week at Thanksgiving in Topeka with Dave’s family, hosted by his sister Elizabeth and her husband Scott to celebrate Dave’s parents’ 50th wedding anniversary. Dave’s brother, Jim, Jim’s wife Karen, and their daughter Alayna are also karaoke aficionados, so I brought my karaoke machine. We sang our favorite songs and discovered that Jim, Karen, and Alayna all have good voices. In fact, Alayna can belt ‘em out like she’s on “American Idol!” Maybe she will be one day. Even Dave did a couple of tunes. He discovered a new excuse, though, for not singing karaoke: not very many pop tunes are sung by basses. My machine can transpose the key on any tune, but distorts the music a bit. Guess I need a better karaoke machine! Oh, Eva! How much money do you have?

We were glad to spend some quality time with Dave’s parents. Dave’s Mom is doing great. She is very active and is able to walk for over 30 minutes at a stretch. She also has been stacking up on detective mysteries and reading them voraciously. Unfortunately, Dave’s Dad is not doing well. He has been diagnosed with Multiple System Atrophy (MSA). They do not know the cause, but his symptoms seem to continually worsen. He has been on several medications, and is actively seeking better treatment. He was, however, able to hold his own with Dave in a Trivial Pursuit tournament against the Terrible Three: me, Scott, and Mom. His knowledge of sports, history, and science is like no other.

Another sad bit of news this year is that Zsa Zsa, one of our 17-year-old kitties, passed away on November 1st. She was loved by most people who met her because she was so cute and gregarious. I nursed her for several months until she got so sick with kidney failure that we had to put her to sleep. I was glad that I had retired before this happened so that I could be with her and give her lots of attention. You can read a tribute to her in my blog.

With family events and kitty responsibilities we didn’t take a long vacation this year. We did manage an overnight getaway for our 15th anniversary at the new St. Julian Hotel and Spa in Boulder. It sits at the west end of town right under the Flatirons and most rooms have a view. After I had a massage and salt rub at the spa, we had a delicious meal at a restaurant across the street. The next morning’s breakfast at Jill’s, the hotel restaurant, was also yummy – eggs benedict. Ah!

Dave and I are in good health and physical shape. I battle allergies regularly, but it doesn’t stop me swimming, hiking, biking, and doing Pilates. Dave bikes regularly, too. We’ve learned that there’s nothing like aging to get you on that bicycle. And if that bicycle is electric, all the more power to you (pun intended)! Yes – Dave bought an electric bicycle and built another out of his old mountain bike. He is most proud, however, of his electric scooter. The bikes top out at about 15 mph unassisted. The scooter tops out at a whopping 35 mph. It only has a range of 30 miles, so he still has to use my “gasser” (read “Honda Accord sedan”) to get to Boulder for dentist appointments. But, he looks forward to his hair cut appointments in Niwot, only 4 miles away, so he can ride his scooter into town. Did I mention the scooter is red? You can read more about Dave’s EVs (electric vehicles) on his blog.

However, Dave did break his nose in December by walking into a door at work. Yup. Although his first reaction was to ignore it and make up a different story for each person who asked what happened, when he saw the look in their eyes, he decided he better go to the emergency room. It turned out that it was just a tiny fracture and cut at the bridge of his nose, which was not structurally unstable, so they just stitched him up. Today he looks pretty normal, except the bridge of his nose might be a bit broader, and that’s just a sign of increased manhood, right? Read his story on his blog.

This blog letter has gotten quite long, but there is so much to say about an entire year! Best wishes to you all and enjoy 2006!

I found that the scent wasn’t overpowering. I didn’t feel I was leading with a bouquet of flowers whenever I entered a room. But I had to change my order of dress: instead of putting the deodorant on after dressing, I applied it well ahead of time to be sure my armpits were dry before I put on a shirt. That was a rough transition. Occasionally I would forget that I hadn’t put the deodorant on by the time I was dressed, so I would have to apply the gel afterward. This made me stick to my shirt for a while because I had left a trail of gel to my armpit as I attempted to guide it to the right place through my clothes. But pretty soon I trained myself to put the deodorant on first. This worked for a while, but because the Lady Speed Stick gel container was so small and contained so little actual deodorant, I ran out in like a week. And I couldn’t find a larger size. It was like not only did Mennen think women liked sickly-sweet and sticky deodorant, but they also thought women used so little of it that they didn’t need to package it in containers that held more than an ounce.

I decided to look for a third alternative, willing to go back to the “man’s” deodorant stick if I had to. Then I found a Lady Speed Stick in an “invisible dry” powder formula with a “Shower Fresh” scent. “Sounds innocuous,” I thought. It even came in a size nearly twice that of the gel. Now I changed my order of dress back again, putting the deodorant on after my clothes. I had my doubts at first how invisible it was. Looked solid white to me – I could see it clearly at the end of the applicator. I didn’t want to take a chance that this powder, despite its miraculous yet plain to see “invisibility,” would come off on my clothes if I applied it first. It smelled OK and worked fine and I was happy. Then I got confused. One day after dressing I completely forgot to put on the powder. As I went through my daily routine, I smelled something stale, but thought it was the house. It was closed up now for the winter and always smelled a little more “used” than in the warmer months. It certainly couldn’t be me because I definitely applied my deordorant. So what if it was invisible? I knew it was there. I happily went off to my Pilates class in my cool, sleeveless gym shirt. It wasn’t until I took off my jacket to begin Pilates that I realized the stale smell was me. Not only stale, but now, stinky. Oops. But I used my deordorant. I definitely applied it BEFORE dressing. Oh, wait. I switched back to applying it after dressing when I started using the new invisible dry powder. Crap.

The non-deodorized state of my body dawned on my conscious mind too late. I was just about to begin a full hour of Pilates and, because I was the only one who showed up for class (it was the week between xmas and new year’s) it would just be me and the instructor. How lucky could she get? There was no way she would not notice my odor. I mean, if I could smell it, she could. That’s what they say, right? You never notice your own odor before someone else does. So, I bit the bullet. “I forgot to put on my deodorant today. I am so sorry,” I told her. She just shrugged and said it was Ok. Did I dodge a bullet by apologizing? Or did I just admit to something she might not have noticed if I hadn’t pointed it out? I then realized I would never know. That cat was out of the bag, either way.

I humbly kept my arms down as much as possible during the session, but it was tough. We began with the part of the abdominal series in which you lie down with your arms straight up in the air. You bring your arms down level with the floor as you keep your shoulders down and your abs engaged and then back up again. I felt I was flapping my odor all over the room. And when it came time to do the balance series and I had to keep my arms out to keep from falling over, I was sweating as much from nerves as I was from the physical exertion of Pilates. As soon as I was done though, my arms came down so swiftly you could feel a somewhat acrid breeze blow threw the room. Now I really understood the meaning of invisible deodorant. And then to add insult to injury, the instructor wanted me to do the complete mat ab series, during which you must put your hands behind your head, armpits flaunted, for the entire series. Was she a masochist? But gym instructors, coaches, and Pilates and Yoga teachers, as well as doctors, dentists, and massage therapists, must deal with personal body odor all the time. I mean other peoples’. That’s what they get paid for, right?

Well, I’ll know the extent of the damage next week when I arrive for class and my instructor has a gas mask over her face…. Hope it is an invisible one.

My study was interrupted when the cat abruptly left. I guess I have more to learn about head stillness. Just one of many deeply spiritual experiences that I would never have if I didn’t have cats.

Now it’s fun to see what the kids will come dressed as. I like to guess who or what they are trying to be. When I guess wrong, the kids always correct me. But when I guess right, they are psyched. They seem almost taken aback that an adult knows anything about the Sith or Jedi Knights. I mean, how could they know I was 16 when Star Wars, Episode III came out and that I have been a fan ever since?

Having the advantage point of adulthood and standing on the inside of the front door handing out the treats, I suddenly realized what Halloween trick-or-treating is mostly about. I mean, who foots the bill for the costumes? Adults. Who buys the treats and makes sure there is chocolate? Adults. Who makes sure they are home (or not) on Halloween to greet the kids? Adults. Who gets to see the spectacle of tiny ladybugs with gossamer wings tacked onto the back of winter coats, lop-side-eared Yodas, Grim Reapers with their Reapings, and squat witches with purple-lit black hats pulled over their eyes who trip over the landscaping? Adults. Who gets to eat the left over candy? Adults.

Ah-ha! Man, if I knew the adults were having such a good time watching the spectacle I made in my costume on Halloween and secretly whispering, “Isn’t she cute?” I would never have felt the same. I mean, I thought we were taking the adults for a ride. And all the time it was a conspiracy for adults to get a kick out of the kids. And the funny part is, if you told a kid that this was going on, they wouldn’t believe you. They would be too far into it to see that they have been swallowed up by the conspiracy. And as an adult, how cool is that?

She had a good, long, life, and we enjoyed her company very much. She was a perky, quirky cat. Most people who came to the house, even those who weren't really "cat" people, fell in love with the Z. She was a colorful kitty with many nicknames -- some coined by Dave, some by me, and some by friends: Zeus, Dimmy, Dwim, Boobles, Zsazsler, Z. She was known for her bent tail, which gave me the idea for her name. It was bent into a perfect "Z."

I found Zsa Zsa along with her adopted sister, Eva, at a woman's house. A friend told me that this woman had "rescued" many animals from the local Humane Society's euthanasia line and needed help finding them homes. When I walked in, 30 or 40 kittens were running around her living room. I saw Zsa Zsa immediately -- she was the only kitten who looked at me upside down. That's right. She sat facing away from me and looked at me by tilting her chin all the way up and looking at me over her shoulder. Then I saw the tail. The woman told me no one would adopt Z because they thought she was deformed. How silly! I took both Zsa Zsa and Eva home with me that night to my one bedroom apartment where my two adult kitties, Cocoa and Kizzy, were waiting. I caused an uproar among both felines and humans that week!

Goodbye Z. I hope you charm folks where you are now as much as you did here.

Varmints!