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So I get a call late this evening at work from a woman with questions about her doggie door. She had lost the solid panel that slides into the door on the inside, so that you can shut off access to unwanted animals, such as the neighbor's dog or a raccoon. She had measured the opening, and I went to the stock location to compare sizes, to see if maybe a new one would fit on her door.
She asked me if I thought she could just get a new panel for her dog door. I said that probably, all she really needed to do was to find out the manufacturer of her current dog door because designs differ, and one company's panel might not work with another's frame. She asked how she would be able to tell, and I said, "Well, the company name may be stamped into the frame, or maybe it would be embossed onto the plastic flap. The ones we carry from PetSafe have that." So she looked around and said, "No, nope...I don't see it anywhere."
She said, "Wait. Here it is. It's..."(starts spelling it out slowly)"L - A - R - G - E, model 9X11."
So I didn't say anything for a few seconds, to see if she'd get it. I finally said, "No, I don't think I know who made that one."
She said, "Well, yeah, it's L - A - R - G - E," (being sure, checking her eyesight) "model 9X11. That's what it says. That must be the company."
I gave it a few seconds again. I told her she should probably get a new one. She told me she's going to get her son to fix it when he comes to visit this weekend.
I told her, "Be sure to give him that company name."
I just found a cool feature on Blogger. (It's probably been available for years. I haven't been exactly bloggy for a long, long time.) You can get stats on your blog. Not like f(x)=1/2y+3ab where x=all negative numbers. No, I mean you can see how many page views you have lately, and how many all time, and more. You can also see a map of where your core audience is located in the world. And guess where my core audience is located? Russia! Yes, I have had more page views from Russians than from anyone else, including close relatives. When you ask Blogger to tell you who is looking at your blog, and honest-to-God map of the world pops up, and mine shows the entire Soviet Union lit up in green! Which means that either I'm big in Minsk, or my computer is being targeted (or maybe already enslaved) by hackers in the Mother Country. So, доброе утро, Comrades!
Why the hell do I want to start typing at 1:30am? Of course, this is after my doses of blood pressure medicines, both of which carry the warning on the side of the bottle, "May cause drowsiness, dizziness, uncontrollable babbling in bars, contusions around eyes." And after an Ambien. So now while I write this, it's kind of like writing on a small boat, swaying back and forth with the waves. What's come over me?
Reading the headlines this morning: Right after "Butt Slashing Suspect Arrested In Peru" was the headline "What If Humans Could Be Twice As Intelligent?"
Choose your response:
a. obviously, this is needed research
b. there may be a lot fewer butt-slashings
c. there could be a lot more butt-slashings
d. it may be too late either way
Day two of Weight Watchers. Already, some of the anxiety of controlling my food intake has begun to subside. That's because I ate like a pig today. No, not true. I actually did pretty good, considering that Linda changed my supper plan on the way to the grocery store. We went to see the second Sherlock Holmes movie today (which I rather enjoyed) and were headed to the store to get a few things for dinner. We did not make a major grocery trip today, even with the on-the-fly menu change. Planning your meals and shopping with a plan is a core part of WW, and besides, it's something we have always done whenever possible. Except for when the mood strikes Linda to change everything because the weather got cold, we usually succeed. To shorten this up, our meal times were altered by the afternoon movie (no, not a bit of popcorn) and my planned meal got changed to soup. I still managed to stay mostly within my allotted points. I'm sure this is boring you to death. Oh well. What else do you want to hear, that I did six loads of laundry in the last 24 hours? 'Cause I did. I have to go now. It's time for bed, and I have to pack my entire day of food for tomorrow now.
I joined Weight Watchers today. Actually, I re-joined. Linda and I joined August 30, 2010. How do I know this? Is that date indelibly imprinted on my mind? Nah. The WW computer still had my info from before, and it popped up on the eTools part of the website. So now I'm hungry. I just ate. I figured my points for today. I have plenty of fruits to eat for snacks, which now have no points on WW. I already have dinner and my snacks planned out for this evening. And I'm hungry. Several phrases come to mind: Your mind plays tricks on you. Resistance is futile. I'll give up my burrito when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers.
I've been through this before, when Linda and I joined back then. Once I get used to eating only the amount of points I should, and planning ahead for meals, this feeling will go away. It's like my mind/body is scared of not getting enough, which clearly it has not had a problem with here-to-fore.
Linda did not join with me this time. I don't know how much of a help or hindrance that will be, but it will be one or the other. Either she will be so interested in the program that she keeps my interest level and participation high (she's in the other room right now pouring over the books they gave me at today's meeting) or I will begin to NOT want to go to the meetings or track my points because I will not want to do anything that makes her feel like she is not accomplishing along with me. Or I may just get lazy. She did great on WW last time. That was exactly when we found out about her back, and nerve damage, and then surgery, and then infection, and that's about when we quit going, although I did try to keep hanging in a little longer than she did, only because I could actually leave the house on my own (she couldn't).
I'm doing this along with my friend Damian, who, unfortunately for Damian, is shaped about like me. He and I talked about it around Christmas, and decided to take some action on our total lack of looking like healthy human beings. So here we are. I'll keep you posted.
Hello. Hello? Man, it's dusty in here. Look at all those cobwebs all over the place. When was the last time someone opened a window in here? How does somebody live in a dark room like this? Careful, don't trip over anything, not that there's any valuable stuff here, just don't fall down. Whew. Musty. Well, look, here's a keyboard. Hey, I flipped the switch on this thing and it still runs! C'mere and look at this! Ha! There's a bunch of old posts piled up in the corner. I'm going to flip through them for a few minutes and see if there's anything useful in there. Meantime, see if you can find us something to drink. I'll be back in a little bit.
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