Happy 50th!

I didn't really know what to title this blog entry until I noticed it would be my 50th. Good gad! 50! Just think of all the other things I should have been doing! But I really am enjoying this. I hope I keep it coherent and entertaining enough to not outlast your attention span by too much, too often.

I've been in kind of a funk this week. It lead to putting off getting the medical reimbursement receipts together, and tomorrow is the last possible day to turn them in. I've been good and proactive for 3 years, but not this year. My place is once again overrun with paper. (I can admit this because I think I really tweaked my friend whom I promised never to let it get that bad again so she's probably not reading this blog.)

So 3 good things this week.

1. Went to the podiatrist, finally. I had been to one just before leaving Boston but he was a putz. So despite the fact that one of my two best friends from high school is herself a podiatrist, I've been putting it off. And maybe that was a good thing because I just went to the doctor next door to the internal medicine doc I got a referral for and she's fantastic. She gave me tips for the tootsies and medicines that actually work. For other "make your own medicine" kind of folks, she says tea tree oil is a great tool for your pedicure box. It remains to be seen if I need prescription orthotics so I can run again. Or at least stand for a while.


2. Wine class was pretty good. I rated 3 wines a 15/20 on my personal rating scale, out of 3 for appearance, 4 for aroma, 4 for flavor, 3 for aftertaste, and 6 for general opinion. This is the best rating I've given any wine in the class so far. I think what I've learned is that I prefer cheap wine, so that should make me happy, right? I avoided posting right after the class because instead of bringing home bottle ends, we just polished them off in class this week. I had a nice WALK home afterward, but didn't want to repeat my 40,000 word lecture format.
   
   (Cranky detour:) It was easy to see why our instructor broke off from his former teaching partner though. This other guy was our guest speaker on "wines from Italy" ("There is no Italian wine! The people who live in this country called Italy have regional identities." Of course I knew this from my visit to Genova and was able to point out the one classic Italian trait of holding a grudge: Vendetta!) But this guy was a know it all wine snob. No one could make a statement that he wouldn't correct, refine, or refute. He was especially bad about doing this to our instructor who took it with good grace. Yeah, this guy knows a lot about, dare I say it, Italian wines. But he was such a snot about it! Dude, you're 60 or so; Grow Up! You don't always have to be the most right.
   


3. Got a lunchtime tour of the local P.rocte.r & G.amble factory that makes C.harmin and Bounty paper towels. It's funny; they derive from the same pulp stock, but I love Bounty and think C.har.min is like unto dryer lint. HUGE machines. LOUD machines. It was with SWE so we got the steel toed boots tour. We didn't get free Bounty, but that's ok because I just stocked up on my Select-a-Size.
   

So. Those were big good things. Had small good things too: anticipated package came in the mail, several get-togethers with friends near and far are coming together, I had a good engineering moment at work this morning. I just wish I was more alert to enjoy it. I've been doing the minimum possible home-work to survive this week. It's a little sad that I finally emptied my dishwasher run from last week because I ran myself out of peanut butter knives for my breakfast toast. But I can't beat myself up for it or I just feel worse. I did finally call around to find a tax preparer who is willing to take on someone with taxes from two states, moving expenses, stock sales and a first home purchase this late in the tax season. Because I sure don't want to deal with it.