Sleep in Heavenly Peace...

I spent 2 hours and 17 minutes in the dentist's chair today, and part of the time their music system was playing Silent Night! I was so tired I was almost asleep while I was waiting for the anesthesia to kick in. I find dentist chairs physically very comfortable, while psychologically very stressful. 

I used to be a total dentophobe, with a period in my life when I actually avoided going to the dentist for 8 years! At which point all my childhood fillings, of which there were a lot, had to be replaced, wisdom teeth drawn, etc. Another five year hiatus after I moved to California. Various kindhearted boyfriends offered to refer me to their dentists, make the calls for me, physically transport me. It was Greg who broke through to me by saying "you have such beautiful teeth" (an exaggeration, to be sure, but compared to his cleft palate mouthful....) I also came to realize that one of my phobic reactions was to men having their fingers in my mouth, and a female dentist whose motto was "Gentle Dentistry" made a lot of difference. Also, it took a long long time for novocain to work on me, and all my previous dentists hadn't waited long enough before digging in.  Dental insurance removed the I-can't-afford-it excuse. I learned to apply Lamaze-style breathing, mindfulness meditation, and relaxation techniques and the innovations of suction instead of having to spit, warm neck pillows, and earphones also helped. 

Still, almost 2 1/2 hours with my mouth open wide, having to have six impressions made for the replacement of a crown (only a year old) reactivated a lot of the old reflexes: I became obsessed with the whiny and growly noises of the drill, the rasps of the suction machine, the beeps of the timer, the high-pitched and maniacally cheery voice of the hygienist in the next cubical "selling" a couple of preschoolers and their mom on x-rays, the droning recorded spiel of the how-to-floss video on the other side. As the numbness began to wear off I had to tell myself that that did not necessarily mean it was going to start hurting (and it actually didn't, much). The dental assistant was a new one on me, and she dropped a couple of little things (god knows what they were) on my head. The dentist, also a new associate, was apologetic: "we want this crown to be perfect" -- too bad they're not paid in tips, because she wouldn't have gotten a big one.

I'm tired of all this. My mom had all her teeth pulled when she was 35 and lived happily with dentures for almost 40 years although she was too vain to ever be seen without her teeth. She said she never regretted it.

A word to my readers: floss, damn it.

Memorial Day-- My Dad served in the Navy in WWII and my uncle was a medic in Korea, but no one in my generation in my family was ever in the service (brothers, cousins, husbands got college deferments or lucky lottery numbers during the Vietnam War). I was a peace marcher in the 70's. More recently, some of my most inspiring students in ESL classes have been refugees from South Vietnam, Iraq, Somalia.  I got a different perspective. Now my son is in the California Army National Guard and I feel a closer connection with service men and women and their families. I just watched the whole Memorial Day Concert in Washington DC -- sobbed through a lot of it. Nothing is as simple as it used to seem -- brave people, stupid wars, just causes, horrific results. Compared to a young wife with little tots losing her husband in Afghanistan, my loss of Greg to Parkinson's seems somehow....less. We had a life. What about civilians being killed by drones? What about all those little girls who can't go to school when the Taliban is in charge? Why is it our fight? Why shouldn't it be? What can peace-loving people (talk about the 99%!) do? 

After 33 years, I still get a thrill...

I BARTed up to San Francisco yesterday for a meeting with my financial advisor and a day out with my friend Morag. I still get such a thrill every time I hit the City. I love the fact that you can find your way around by landmark bridges, buildings, hills. I love all the little hole-in-the wall shops and galleries, and the inifinite choice of restaurants! We did a "tea-tasting" in a tiny shop in Chinatown, talked to a photographer who had an amazing photo of the Golden Gate Bridge focused up-side-down in a hundred raindrops on a windshield,  and a discussed life-choices with a teacher-painter-turned-novelist who was selling locally handcrafted jewelry. We ate fresh lychees! We went into a glass art store, which had crappy souvenirs cheek-by-jowl with $1000 Chihuly-style glass chandeliers. When we asked him what the heck he did in case of an earthquake, the proprietor shrugged and said he had no idea (and evidently cared less!) Everywhere we went we saw people walking tiny dogs in pairs: Scotties, Highland terriers, poodles, cockers....Our BART car on the way up there was crammed with Chinese-American middleschoolers, and on the way back down was full of seated Indo-American engineer-types. We even got rained on, just a little bit! What a lovely day!

Public Display of Exercise

I took my friend with me to the Fitness 19 place yesterday, with great hesitation, because I am very shy about sweating, grunting, and grimacing in public. 

I think it all goes back to high school gym class: those horrible little one-piece gymsuits, stall-less showers, humiliation of being the last one picked, standing out in left field praying the softball never came my way. Swimming was, and is, OK because most of the body is under water! (forget the diving part!) I have always self-defined as a klutz, and I do think my kinesthetic sense has always been a little off -- I often bump into doorways, bang my ankle bones and elbows into furniture.

Jenny Craig program appealed to me mainly because of the privacy of the weigh-in and the one-on-one counseling, and I was able to carry that over to the fitness center because, face it, I know I'm never going to impress a tatooed  ex-wrestler less than half my age, so what the heck. I don't know a soul there, which is good. I have trouble exercising and talking at the same time and I keep losing count of my reps even when I don't have anybody to talk to. But going with my friend (who signed up for a membership!) turned out very well. She validated my efforts and it was kind of fun to be the "expert" based on a few weeks of experience. Having her there will also give me another layer of accountability, and fewer, feebler excuses. 

I don't feel stronger, fitter, more flexible or with more endurance -- YET -- but I do feel proud I have kept at it, six weeks now. That's a whole grading period in 10th grade!

• Mothers' Day 2012 -- the best: 
• strolling around the local Art & Wine Festival admiring things but not feeling I had to buy anything, 
• watching a terrible movie with Jeff and agreeing on all the things that made it wonderfully terrible, 
• timing 29 seconds for him to find the battery charger that had been hiding from me for two weeks, 
• walking the mudflats in the morning and listening to the symphony of birds, 
• enjoying buffet at Sweet Tomatoes with a good mix of healthy and decadent food free with coupon, 
• meeting Matt's sweetheart's kids for the first time and seeing the place he'll be living with her, 
• wiping a tear from my eye after reading a sweet sentimental Mother's Day card,
• visiting the Moffett Field Commissary with Jeff,
• feeling maybe I hadn't done such a bad job raising my kids after all!

Sneaking a little more weight on the machine

I'm trying to do my weight training on my own one day a week, checking in with my trainer less and less often. He sneaks a little more weight on the machine, and I don't notice it until about 2/3 the way into my reps. I want it to feel easier, not harder, but the way to improvement is built on what he calls "burn" and I'm trying not to call pain. My weight loss is still "maintaining" although I'm less careful of my diet. I'm not ready to try to lose more yet, but I wouldn't mind if it just happened. Ha! There are too many ways to measure exercise -- resistance, repetitions, time, intensity, speed, calories burned, heart rate. Nothing seems to actually correspond with feeling stronger, healthier, more energetic? Is this too subjective? Or maybe it sneaks up on you, too.

Movie night

I wanted to go see The Hunger Games Saturday night, but when we got to the theater (Great Mall) they had cancelled the 7 o'clock showing in favor of another showing of The Avengers (It was already in five of the auditoriums!), so we settled for The Five Year Engagement. During the previews, the sound was so loud it was painful, but it settled down when the feature began, but then the sound kept alternating between a barely audible mumble and a shrieky blast. We kept thinking it would sort itself out, but it never did, and nobody went out to complain because we didn't want to miss any good parts!  There were a lot of good parts! I recommend the movie, but not the theater.

Afterwards the entire audience lined up at the customer service desk to complain, and they comped us two free tickets each. However I would have preferred to hear the whole movie in a normal sound level. I remember the days when there were actual projectionists showing movies-- boy does that date me! Still, it seems like it would be good management protocol to have someone (even a janitor?) go around to all the theaters on a regular rotation to make sure everything is working properly. It might even save them some money.

A year ago I wrote in my journal: I don't know how to think about the future.

. What are the components of happiness?

·      Work – not.

·      Travel: A respite from—boredom. A postponement of thinking.

·      CREATIVITY. But I want others to admire it.

·      Order. Impossible. Another postponement.

·      Health. Unreliable.

·      Friends. Why did that come so late in the list? Because it also imposes obligations.

·      Freedom= Loneliness?

·      Financial security.

·      Living in the moment: doesn’t this just give me an excuse for playing video games?

Thinking now: what's different? 

• work: I'm really retired and basically liking it, although occasionally bummed out about the "waste" of all my experience and materials.
• travel: I have done quite a bit of travel, a mixed bag, but enjoyable enough. 
• creativity: I have gone to the church craft days, participated in a bunch of craft shows, sold a few things, shown my stuff at a shop in Morgan Hill, and am still having fun with it.
• Order continues to recede ahead of me, but I measure my progress by little boxes and file folders labelled and wastebaskets filled and bags donated to HOPE.
• health: I am undergoing light treatment for my psoriasis, with good results, and I'm maintaining my weight loss, and starting a weight training regimen (One month completed!) I'm off all my antidepressants! Not depressed!
• friends: regular get-togethers with girlfriends and former colleagues. I have let one friendship totally lapse (he has dementia). I need to get together with long-lost relatives, though.
• freedom:  I haven't actually thought much about this lately. I'm trying not to say "no" just because I can.
• financial security: nailed it!
• living in the moment: why not?My video games are pretty boring -- goody. I have a lot of t.v. shows I like to watch, but DVR makes this totally flexible. My Kindle makes reading very convenient, but I haven't found anything really compelling to read since I finished The Hunger Games trilogy.  I have an enormous pile of unread newspapers that I can't seem to throw away unread. My garden pleases me weeds and all (well, maybe not gophers.)
  So I guess this all adds up to happiness. But if I have to "guess", I wonder...