Home again

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Driving back to Pittsburgh after a
lovely week in New York. Renee gave Steve a birthday party, taking
all of us to see Guys and Dolls. It was a great treat. I enjoy being
with Charna at a performance; she always get so involved. She performed in the
play several years ago and remembered all of the lines. I find that I enjoy these revivals of old
musicals much more than the new ones. I loved South Pacific when we
saw it last year. Guys and Dolls is right up there. In a real way
these are our operas. I don't see why they don't bring back all of
those old musicals. We need a New York Musicalia along with the
Metropolitan Opera and New York City Opera.

Pennsylvania is a very large state.
Sometimes it feels like we're driving forever. It's sunny today with
a very cold wind, bitter when we got out of the car in Allentown. Trees are just
beginning to get buds, but the grass is green. There were forsythia
and magnolia blossoms in NJ but I haven't seen any here.

We made the trip in record time–not much traffic today. I'm back home with laundry to do and mail to sort.

Day and day after

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Last night was the Seder: family, good food, the usual. Renee got a new Haggadah for us: The 30 minute Seder. I like to think of myself as open to change, and I often hated the books we used in the past, but I didn't like this one either. I appreciated the brevity, but found it a strange mix of instruction and poor story-telling. After all, we are telling a story during the Seder. Earlier on this wonderful spring day I walked from First Ave. & 93rd St. to Lexington and 56th to have lunch with friends. We sat, talking, almost two hours, then walked in Central Park. Lovely afternoon.

I ate too much last night and didn't want to get out of bed this morning. I didn't drink enough wine to call it a hangover, but that's sort of what it felt like. I had two dates today: big motivation. Met Jacqueline for coffee and a look at her proof sheets–lovely photographs of temples and gardens. Makes me want to return to Japan. I'd like to go from October to May so I could look at the gardens in all seasons. It won't happen, but I can dream.

Met Jean for coffee in the afternoon. We met when I was active with Empire Quilters, years ago. She and Mary are people I've maintained as friends. I come to New York now as much as to see my good friends as to do things in the city. 

Walking around New York is

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my favorite occupation. Renee is cooking for tomorrow night's Seder and most of my friends had other things to do. I took the subway down to Bowling Green, at the bottom of Manhattan, and went to the Museum of the American Indian. It's one of my favorite places, second only to the Met. They had two exhibits I hadn't seen: wonderful native women's dresses and some of the work of Fritz Scholder. The women's dresses were the best; each unique and a work of art.

I walked from the museum to Chinatown to meet Julia for dim sum. Broadway abounded with tourists taking photos of I don't know what. Then again, perhaps my photography mystifies other people. I walked past the famous bull, past Wall St, past a new red sculpture that looks almost like the construction machines working at the ground zero site. I'll post pictures next week when I return home.

After we finished dim sum, Julia and I walked around Chinatown. We came upon a wonderful scene on Eldridge Street: several large cherry-picker type machines being used to install red silk Chinese lanterns. This will become a movie site next week for some kind of Disney movie. This is the block that houses the Eldridge Street Synagogue, now museum, next to a Buddhist Temple.

I walked down Canal Street after I left Julia, but there was nothing as exciting as that movie set.

Tuesday in New York

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Renee and I walked to the Met yesterday and spent a couple of hours there. It seems to get more crowded each time I go there. We looked at some drawings from India, a show sent from the Korea National Museum, and the Late Interiors of Bonnard. I wasn't turned on except for some of the Indian drawings. In the evening we met my friend Mary for dinner, then went to a book signing at Dashwood Books. The photographer/conceptual artist I met in Japan, Jacqueline Hassink, has just published a new book, Car Girls. This was more like an artist opening than a book signing–I'm not sure how many books were signed, or sold–and it was fun to be there. Going to openings was a constant part of my life for many years, but not at all for the last few years.

I posted a brief summary of blog class 3 at Silver Streakers. 

Tax and another frustration

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I finally did my income tax Sunday; started and finished.
I've been doing work avoidance on it since January. I think I didn't want to
know how little income I had last year. I will get refunds this year from both
state and feds. I'd rather pay the tax and have the income. I think my work
avoidance also kept me from posting very often. I promise to do better from now
on; I really have a lot to say.

 Instead of buying TurboTax this year, I went to IRS.gov and
found a list of free (or cheap) tax software. I used TaxSlayer. TurboTax was a
little easier, but I now have a better idea of what the numbers are all about
and the whole thing, including e filing and my state return was free. Thank you
Tax Slayer and irs.gov for saving me more than a hundred dollars.

 I printed out most of my China book with results that made
me unhappy. Some of the pictures that I know aren't wonderful, really look much
worse than on the computer.  I stopped
printing about two thirds of the way through and I'm trying to decide whether
to buy a new printer. I have two of them already. One was a comes with
and it's at least six years old. The other was a so cheap I couldn't resist when
I bought my iMac. You get what you pay for, as I constantly remind myself. Both
printers have relatively new ink cartridges, which makes me want to use them,
but mostly I can't figure out what to buy. Even the supposedly high quality
printers are cheap enough; it's the ink that's the killer.

Traveling again–Just a little trip

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Traveling with my toy again; on the train; just to New York.
This is my first trip since I returned from Japan and I really wasn't prepared
for it. I had a very hard time packing last night. I still haven't found a
couple of the things I put away before I sublet my apartment, including the bag for
toiletries I always took with me that has now become useless on airplanes.
I'm sure I didn't toss it, but I have no idea what I did with it.

 The last time I was on this train, almost a year ago, I
spent the entire trip contemplating my mortality. This was just before the
pacemaker, and I had no idea what was wrong. I am finding I have a little
trepidation about repeat visits to the places where I was sick. I'm sitting on
the other side of the train, looking left into the train; that seems to make it easier. Not too much deja
vu.

 Another place I was sick, but never talked about it, was San
Francisco. I don't think we are going again this year. I'd like to, but I also
have mixed feelings about it.

 BTW, the doctor changed one of my meds. He wanted to just
double it, but would have had to get authorization from the insurance company,
so he changed to something comparable—both generic. Would someone please
explain to me why the insurance company needs to bless my medications? I don't
blame the doctor for not wanting to mess with them, but of course, it leaves me
wondering whether the new stuff will do the job as well as the other one. The
good part is that I can easily reach the doctor by cell phone and get a new
perscription filled wherever I happen to be—one of the few blessings of having
the same services all over the country. 

 Yesterday, as I never spoke to Robin all day, I thought
about how cell phones have changed our leave-taking. Going away was a big deal.
Everyone got together to say goodby, sometimes making a going away party. Then
that phony long distance call on arrival, assuring the folks at home you made
it. Today I can call her from the train, or from New York, or wherever. My cell
phone is actually a New Jersey number: so is hers. We never bothered to change
it. Before I left I forwarded my home phone to my cell—a long distance call
each time. All of these are services are payed for on a monthly basis, whether I
use them or not, so essentially free. What a different world this is. What I
really want now is a satellite internet service, so I could surf the web from
the train. It's out there—I just can't afford it.

Pacemaker update

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I was sure there was nothing wrong. All my life, whenever I went to a doctor with a complaint there was nothing wrong. I fully expected my buzzing to be in the same category. So, I was shocked when they called me Monday morning and told me they weren't certain but it looked like something was wrong with the pacemaker and I should come to the office this morning. I spent a very uncomfortable two days; being more open to suggestion than I care to admit. I was very tired and couldn't bring myself to walk more than about a mile and a half each day. I blamed it on the dog, who spent another weekend with me and kept me up half the night on Sunday, but I wasn't sure. And I was worried that if it was the pacemaker, I might have to have surgery to replace it.

The pacemaker technician comes with a machine that reads signals from the pacemaker. It's quite amazing; she knows when I've had trouble down to date and time. The pacemaker was good; it was doing its job. My heart was not behaving properly: too many incidents of fast heartbeat. Some of my medications will be changed, or increased. I have to go back for an echo cardiogram, but evidently that's not urgent. They wanted me to come for it on Monday, but agreed to put it off until I return from New York.

I'm finding it very hard to believe I really have heart disease. When I first got the pacemaker the doctor said I could easily live another twenty years and the pacemaker should not make any difference in my life. I chose to believe that, but I'm beginning to wonder.

Digression

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I'm always amazed at how many ways I can find to waste time. Several times on Tuesday I noticed something seemed to be vibrating in my left breast, like a buzzer but without any noise. Weird, huh? It continued occasionally on Wednesday but seemed like nothing terrible. After I got in bed Wednesday night it occurred every couple of minutes and became very annoying. Also, I realized that it was inside my chest, not really in my breast at all. I immediately thought about my pacemaker. It's on my right side, but I know the leads go into my heart on the left. (I have no idea how this works). I remembered my earlier conversation with my doctor and thought about going to the emergency room. Too much trouble.

The next morning I called the doctor's office. They told me to come in and get a halter monitor and wear it for 24 hours. The buzzing stopped this morning, and of course, I felt fine all along. This afternoon I walked to the office, about 2 miles, and returned it. I'm sure they will find nothing. Another occasion when I should have used my better judgment and forgotten about what the doctor said.

Monday morning

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The class went well. There is a small description of it at Silver Streakers. Since most of you who read this already have blogs I didn't go into detail about how to start a blog. There are several detailed instruction videos on YouTube if you need to know. I think I scheduled too much content for the first lesson and now I'm thinking the next class, about images, will be even worse. I plan to give instructions for downloading Picasa, but we won't be able to do it on the University's computers. Using Picasa and scanning images will both be lectures with no hands on component. Unless I can find good material online I'll make my own screenshots, then email these instructions to the class and post them at SS.

I have been dogsitting this weekend. My family went to New York where Charna is singing with Hazamir, the same choral group she sang with in Baltimore last year. This time I took Darcy to my place instead of moving in with her. I'm going to return her to her home in about an hour, thank goodness. If I ever entertained the notion of getting a dog, she certainly has cured me. She's a little easier to deal with since she's gotten older, but she's certainly not an obedient dog. I fed her and walked her before 8:30 this morning, but she still wants something from me and I haven't a clue.

End of the week

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Tomorrow I teach my first blogging class. I think I'm ready for it. I sent an email to my students with the class syllabus. It is also posted on Silver Streakers, and I'll report on the class there. I have one student I haven't been able to reach: no email address; phone has been busy or no one answers. Everyone needs an email address in order to start a blog. I hope I won't have to get into that in the class. Thanks to Len, my sometime partner in Silver Streakers, I found some excellent videos on YouTube that explained some of the aspects of blogging I've been hazy about.

I think I finally won my war with the ants. Initially, I spread the borax around the sink and floor near the sink. It didn't have any effect. The ants avoided it, but managed to get around anyway, and I only saw a few at any one time. On Wednesday, after cleaning up all of the borax, I tried a different mode of attack. I made a saturated sugar solution and poured some borax into it and left it in the sink. Wednesday night there were ants all over the sink. I left them alone, the point being they eat the sugar solution and carry it back to the nest. Thursday morning there were a few bodies floating in the sugar, but all the rest were gone. Today I have only seen two of them. They're very tiny, less than 1/4 inch long and I can barely see them. I'm hoping I won't see them again.

I'm still walking; four miles yesterday, but only a mile today: too cold. The sun came out just as we finished. Maybe I ought to go out again.