Oh look!

Insert nose [A] into grindstone [B]. I am so thankful to be working so much, but my poor little blog is getting nothing these days. So I thought today I'd just blah blah blah as if you were here and we were sitting over a cup of coffee. I have to drink decaf, thank you. Not that I want to. I have to. In my coffee snob days, I used to sneer at patrons who ordered "double decaf" and said, "I like the flavor, I just can't have the caffeine." More like can't handle it, I'd snark to myself, with a nice white dollop of eye-rolling on my superiority latte. And then many years later, the day came when I was that person. Yes, I do like my coffee strong. Strongly flavored. But when I imagine the monster leaning on my chest with its big heavy fist and I'm talking like a 45 on 78, I am happy to sip my cuppa decaf.

I bought some thread and pieces of fabric at the fabric store yesterday, to attempt to repair a weird quilt that I bought a few years ago. I don't know where I thought I was going to get the time, but I thought it might be a good break from the screen now and then. It's just the top of a quilt, sewn onto scraps of cotton or muslin which are all sewn together. I will try and post a picture of it. It's a crazy quilt, with no real pattern.

I'm not sure exactly what it's made out of, but it looks like bits of ties and fancy dresses, because every single patch is that shiny tie-like material. Some of the pieces are made out of that incredibly fragile material, acetate, I think. The acetate bits are shredded and disintegrating, so that's what I'm going to replace. The more I look at this weird old quilt, the more I realize it was made by someone with lots of time, lots of shiny material, and very little skill or taste. There is absolutely no color theme. But it's mine now. But the fabric I bought yesterday is not shiny. Right colors, wrong material. Maybe I'll stick it in there anyway, to calm the thing down. There are a lot more missing pieces than I thought.

The dog is sitting below my feet, alternating between obsessively licking the carpet and whining at me. I think he wants to go for another walk. We go on a walk every morning for half an hour. In the morning, Mr. Dog. That is when we do it. Not now, not after dinner. Though it is still light out. And I could use some more break in time on my new orthotics.

Here is one sign that you are entering middle age: appliances. This morning, I went to have my retainer checked at the orthodontist's while wearing my orthotics. Sounds like a sentence from a vocabulary primer.

The retainer was my idea. I had a couple of teeth that were starting to turn inwards, and I decided that it was time that they were straightened out, to prevent them from getting so bad that I had to have expensive veneers put on later, as my mother did. Retainer: cheap; veneers: not cheap. Also, a retainer is cheaper than a Nightguard, which I should have been wearing most of my adult life, because I am a grinder. In a couple of my childhood pictures, you can see that I have worn all of my teeth completely even across the front. Now I can grind away on some plastic and save my tooth surfaces, and the retainer is completely replaceable. Unfortunately, it is also plastic. I'm afraid it's exactly the same kind of plastic that is in all of those water bottles I so righteously shun. So I drink water out of a Sigg or a Kleen Kanteen, and then make sure to put my phlalate pacifier in every night to so I don't miss any of those yummy carcinogens.

Um, then the orthotics. A few months ago, I noticed two of my toes were numb. I had been increasing my running mileage, so I didn't worry too much about it. Until my mother mentioned that her toes were tingly and numb just prior to her diabetes diagnosis years ago. I spent about a week totally freaked out that I was diabetic, bought a very good book that anyone who has diabetes or a family history of diabetes should have: Conquering Diabetes: A Complete Guide for Prevention and Treatment. Luckily, I had a doctor's appointment that included a blood test already scheduled and everything came out perfectly. I don't have high blood sugar, my cholesterols are "exemplary- A plus". All other indicators well under control. I still highly recommend the book. Finally made it to a podiatrist who diagnosed a "neuroma" and prescribed orthotics, which I picked up yesterday.

Another way to tell you are getting old: you think that talking about appliances is interesting. (Also, you reference record turntable speeds in your first paragraph.)

But back to the quilt, I guess it's not so bad. The shiny makes it pretty, even if it is completely schizophrenic.

I think I will walk the dog.