Friend Bonanza

This post is going to meander all over. I've got lots of things to be happy about today. And some energy to be happy about them.

But first, my mom got caught in the case of the tainted peanut butter. P.eter Pa.n with batch number starting with 2111... she's ok, but has been feeling off all week. Dad made breakfast toast (good) and piled on extra PB (bad) this week. It was kind of funny though because when she described her symptoms to my brother and I, in different conversations, we both said, "so you're pregnant?" Ha, Ha. If I take after my mom, I have another wonderful 24 years of hateful nature to look forward to, but it will eventually end in a flashing internal blaze.

Another way I am a genius! I keep emergency rations of canned soup at work. (That's not the genius part.) Soup companies now sell full sized cans with the pull tab tops which is convenient for work. The problem is that the last snap to remove the lid sends flecks of soup everywhere - fore, aft, on the counter, on the can, and on my shirt - usually in a staining tomato base with a hint of oil. I think I've solved the problem though. I put a little piece of tape over the edge of the lid on the side opposite the tab and rub it on well. Then when I carefully open the can it doesn't give that last little flick of doom. Try it, you'll like it!

Good things came my way today, and this week generally. To count would seem like I was keeping score, and I'm not, just keeping track so I don't forget how blessed I am, so UL tags today.

• Got a nice letter from a friend reminding me to be nice to myself and be patient with the ennui after uprooting my whole life, then inviting me on a brief vacation up in San Fran. I love hanging out with those ladies. (Yes, I plan to see a doctor about the intermittent fatigue! If anyone has more suggestions for tests to get, please post.)
  
• FW2, who needs a week away, is coming to visit early in the summer - this will make once for each coast! Now I get to start figuring out what to do with tourists.
  
• A friend has a friend in the A.meric.an Id.le finalists. She might get to come see Haley and me.
  
• A local friend let me invite myself over so I can more conveniently hang out at Disneyland with yet more friends who will be in town soon. And she has dogs not cats so I can both play with her pets and breathe.
  
• I get to hang out with my "twin" this weekend at a spa hotel in Palm Desert while she schmoozes for work. She's the friend who when one of us describes how we think or act, the other usually says, "Really? Me too!" I should really pack or something. (I was convinced yesterday was thursday, but wasn't ready for today to be thursday. I'm not always a genius, especially if it involves time.)
  
• A fellow Bourne Identity movie fan from my online book club sent me a lovely piece of fan fiction to fill in some time with Jason and Marie in the farmhouse. Really well done. I can't write fiction, but I wish I could have written this.
  
• I'm held accountable for my exercising by publicly posting my weekly efforts. And the inventor of the BodyRev is offering me and many others in my online book club personal and group fitness advice. Some days I forget how nice that is for him to do. Yes, he's selling a product and we're buying, but this is like getting the personal trainer free with your gym membership, and worth a lot more.
  
• I found out that some other friends share an opinion I have. It's a negative opinion so it's hard to test the waters but kind of a relief to know all the same.
  
• Had another productive day of doing engineering tasks at work. One of my poor tools lost its mind during a power blip, and it's still down, but that just gave me time to back up the software and clean up the recipes for the documentation update. And I learned more about how to access the on-tool data plotter which is non-intuitive. Got to fiddle with data in JuMP too.

It sounds really generic saying "friend, friend, friend" but I can't be dropping names left and right without permission and I'm not good with nicknames. So sorry if that's hard to read, but what a friend bonanza after my stint at wallowing in loneliness! Thank you all!

And now I have to go actually and exercise. Thinking about exercise doesn't seem to have the same benefits as actually doing exercise. And I've worked to hard on these abs to let them down. I get a secret kick out of knowing that this chubby grrl can do real toe pushups (as can others of those friends listed above).