Suburb of Heaven

So meeting with supervisor is tomorrow morning, so at least I can stop angsting like an idiot about it reasonably soon. But of course, it's still in front of me. This is all just my big old Imposter Syndrome thing, which stands behind me and mutters, "Now they've found out, you thought you could fool them but of course you couldn't." I picture it looking a little bit like Mother Gothel from Tangled crossed with an Alien face-hugger. I hate being so thin-skinned.

In other news, aikido went really well this week (treated myself to a new gi since the old one was blown out at the knee). Work has been productive too. After a momentary scare, I think we have found a way to cope with a dept collector who has trawled up something from over a decade ago and is trying to harass Bemo about it. There's also a potential job that's swum up onto the horizon for him. We are doing our best to remain staunchly neutral about the whole thing, because if he sends his heart over the fence and they lob it back at him, it'll set back all the good work he's doing with the therapist. (How's that for a weird metaphor? Basically he sits on the razor's edge of hope and the fear of hoping, the desire to reach out and start work again and the fear that once again he will be rejected, or be found unsuitable, or disdained. Zen mind, zen mind. It would be a good job for him, we thing - part time in a field he's experienced with.

Am getting increasingly incoherent so we can take that as a sign that the pill is working. Goodnight all.

Bemo and I met up with some friends in Wilber, NE (The "Czech capitol of America!") for their annual Czech Days Festival. It's a really nice event - one of those small-town things where they're happy to have you there spending your dollars on funnel cakes and touring the tiny museum, but they'd be there anyway, with their giant range of polka bands (from little kiddies to oldsters), dancers (ditto), electing the queen, prince, and princess of the festival, and eating kolaches, the traditional danish/jelly doughnut-esqe pastry that the town is very proud of.

Their little town museum is also a fun place to wander around. It's full of scary department store mannequins dressed in historic costumes, odds and ends that townsfolk have donated, period-rooms-of-a-sort (complete with listening stations consisting of a cd player and headphones), and a woman weaving rag rugs sitting in the storefront.


A display of wrenches

One of my museum-coworker friends said that it made her feel great and sad at the same time - it was awesome that the townsfolk could come in and point out a dentist chair to their kid and go, "I sat there when I was your age! It was so scary!" But we both feel sad about the fact that nobody there knows how to preserve most of this stuff long-term, and it's deteriorating before everyone's eyes. Generally, these museums are run on a budget of minus five, and have a volunteer staff who love their collection but don't know how to care for it in the slightest. I think there are publications geared towards these sorts of museums, but they may not know about them. Perhaps we could find a way to send them over, but sometimes it doesn't matter if you know how to preserve, for example, a heavily beaded dress (hint - don't let it just hang off a regular hanger and don't pin post-it notes to it with straight pins) if you don't have the storage furniture, staff to store it, money to buy acid-free tissue paper and the training to know how to pad it out carefully, mannequins that will hold it without stress, etc.

( surprised stuffed bunny is surprised )

We then went to the Wilbur Hotel and ate duck with dumplings (and sausage with dumplings, and pork with dumplings) and really incredible sauerkraut that I surprised myself by scarfing up with great enthusiasm, and rye bread, and the aforementioned dumplings with were little extruded tubes that looked a lot like string cheese and had gravy on them, and applesauce and onion rings (Bemo insisted) and more kolaches and lemonade.

( hot men holding swords from days long ago )

And then we all waddled over (sauerkraut and those dumplings made for a pretty heavy meal) to a nearby quilt show. At this point Bemo and I bid them farewell and headed off to Omaha to look for a dress for me (they apparently went off and found a tank, judging by a photo I just saw on Facebook). I found a dress in Von Maur (a chiffony purpley pretty thing) that will work as my Best Woman dress for mom's upcoming wedding, and I'm glad I found it because I was feeling discouraged about the poor selection of dresses I had been finding up until now. (PS, am feeling discouraged about my weight and my eating habits again, which is funny to say after a description of eating sausage and dumplings, but it's mostly my day-to-day eating that I'm fighting with again, and so am feeling particularly unattractive and not in the best frame of mind to buy a pretty dress.)

And then we bought cat food and dish soap and diet soda and cleaning products because I am going to try and not leave my catsitter a filthy apartment to face. And we came home and did laundry as a giant storm rolled in, all yellow sky and ferocious winds and a few tree branches down in our front yard right as it started, and also the power flickered but thankfully didn't go off. It's cool and I have the windows open, much to the delight of the cats. Ratchet is particularly chuffed as he's been permitted to escort me to the basement laundry room a couple of times (he's good about not getting stuck anywhere or running off and evading me, so he gets to trot down the two flights of stairs and howl at the doors of the storage areas down there. I do not know what is in his tiny cat brain.

Tomorrow will be spent cleaning, I think. And lazing about, that too.

Strangely, the first Bryson I've read (don't most people start with A Walk in the Woods?) about a trip through England just before he and his family move back to the United States. I picked it up on a whim, and I love it, and will be reading more. He's got an entertainingly conversational voice, a fantastic observational eye, and an endearing way of expressing his opinions, which are sometimes unexpectedly sharp and candid, even if not always entirely serious.

In other news, I have commenced another round of Operation: Startle Co-Workers and am wearing my cute little sixties-esque dress as opposed to the series of t-shirts and capris/jeans that they've seen me in the past few weeks. I have also Done Up my face, although my allergies are conspiring to make my mascara and eyeliner evaporate.

Off to go handle an artist's monograph (waggles eyebrows).

My LJ account has run out of paid time, and I think I'll just let it sit like this for a while. But it's weird how much I already miss my big list of icons. When I was over at Diaryland, the format didn't include icons, and I had no idea how addictive the blasted things are.

An active day yesterday. Swimming laps at lunch and then aikido in the evening. I'm all-over sore muscles, but in a good way. I just wish I could figure out what I'm doing that has my neck and shoulders so tense all the time. Stress is a good possibility (insert hollow laugh here) but I'm also wondering about my computer and keyboard setup at work.

Oh, and in an act of brilliant timing, our computer at home had a hard drive crash and Bemo had to go drop it off at the computer store (he was apprehensive and stressed and v. mad at the computer, but pulled himself together nicely and got it taken in) and I just hope our data is retrievable and that the whole business isn't too expensive. If the Law of Economic Averages of Life holds up, it'll cost us $125 because that's the amount of the check that came in the mail two days ago. (One of the other people at the dojo had a furnace break on her the other day, and then had an unexpected tax refund show up for nearly the exact amount as the furnace repair cost her - for me, it tends to happen in the opposite direction. First the unexpected check and the rejoicing, then the expense that eats it up, usually to the dollar.)

Anyway. Getting some paintings photographed today. I usually am not a fan of Geometric Abstraction, but we just unwrapped a really beautiful one, all pinks and yellows and greens and reds, in different textures, looking much like a computer chip out of a Willie Wonka candy machine.

Tomorrow is our last full day here - we leave bright and early (way too early) Sunday morning. I have been a welter of confused emotions for most of the visit here - some wonderful moments, some disappointments, some rough patches, some boredom, some laughter, many things better than expected, a couple of things not living up to what was hoped for. My mom has been through all her phases (she moves like the moon). We've seen her happy, generous, smiling, laughing, and we've also seen her pick fights, snap at people, accuse me of attempting to smuggle Christmas ornaments out of the house for my own nefarious purposes, and issue dire ultimatums about laundry.

I've put in a little bit of time scanning some family photos, and staring into the face of my younger self, smiling and unawares, has had me wallowing in a sort of nebulous nostalgia. I think I want to slosh around in my past because it was safe there. I didn't have to worry about much, and I certainly wasn't responsible for anything. And since we're on vacation right now, we've been able to pretend to be that way right now - sleeping in late, not concerning ourselves with anything much except what we'd like to eat for dinner, having time to read and take long showers and talk about nothing much in particular.

It's a little disorienting, because it's sort of like falling back into your old life for a short while, except it's not, really, and you're always aware that you're about to go and leave it again. There have been a lot of moments when I've wondered if the move to Nebraska was the right thing to do. I think, in the end, it was - the list of pros just edges out the list of cons - but not having your support system around you is difficult, especially when there have been struggles of the sort we've been coping with. It seems almost like I've been able to set a heavy bag down for the time we've spent here, and now I'm bracing to pick it back up again. No different from most vacations, but right now that bag seems particularly weighty. I especially miss seeing my sister and friends on a regular basis. And yet when I imagine moving back here, and dealing with all that this area requires you to deal with on a daily basis - I don't think I could do that.

Back to the routine of work and gym and aikido. Back to the cats. Back to freezing temperatures and wind. Back to wrestling with disability paperwork, and organizing student loans. Back to doctor visits. Back to the steady pace of real life, with the hope of making things better day by day, of adding a little more fun here and there, maybe shaking up the routine slightly (although how, I'm...not really sure yet.)

So, high-ho for the new year. I hope it brings good things to all, because I know for many of us the past year has been more full of painful challenges than delights. Hail the New, ye lads and lasses.

Although that sounds more like something to do with the Easter Bunny, not turkey day.

Anyway. We have returned, bearing gifts for the office (bourbon balls - we were in Kentucky for the holiday), a gift for my lovely catsitter (macadamia nut pancake mix from World Market - one of the few stores I love that was here when we moved, and then closed up shop, much to my chagrin), presents I will not reveal here for my sister, and a load of presents for me. Bemo's stepmother has historically had an antagonistic relationship with her step-kids, but honestly, the past five or seven years or so have really worked a mellowing change on her, and I should probably stop referring to her as "my uptight Southern stepmom-in-law." And, despite the story of shopping I am about to recount, it's not because she has spent big cash on me...but on the really touching fact that she got teary and hugged me after I thanked her, and then I got kinda teary and hugged her back, and where the heck did this new relationship come from? Was it the same that worked its magic on my brother-in-law, who had up until this holiday maintained his half of an old feud between him and Bemo, but which vanished like the morning dew? There was hugging. And joking. And no sulking. I am amazed. Bemo was amazed and thrilled and so happy. Bemo's mom nearly cried at the news. How did this end up such a perfect holiday?

So, the shoes thing. Please keep in mind that because my feet are so very wide, it limits my options very much, so new shoes are a marvelous wonderment to me. Last year, Step-MIL took pity on my wide-footed plight, and bought me some nice New Balances, which I have worn faithfully over the past year, and which may have been the best shoes I have ever worn. This year, she indicated, would be the same - yay for new shoes! So we went out and got me some new tennies, and she then hauls me over to the store's other branch where, after a dizzying sequence of events, I find myself outfitted in a new pair of Uggs. These Uggs. Reader, I have historically scorned Uggs as the bastion of idiot starlets who wear them in July, with miniskirts. I am now a changed woman. I never want to take them off. I am looking at other Uggs boots, although with my calf width, I probably won't be able to fit into the equestrian boots I covet - actually, I may go with my sister to a tack shop back in VA and buy a pair off the rack, if possible.

Have also returned with Toriani syrups for my work coffees, and old photos and battered copies of a farm journal, which I will be scanning in bits and posting. It has been an orgy of holidaying around here, I tell you what. Enough to make up for the brutal 14 hours on the road in either direction - we did the drive in two days on the way back. It's one of those drives you can do in one day, but you don't really want to.

Things weren't utterly perfect - Bemo had some difficult moments, particularly when we got home and hit that our-revels-are-now-ended,-back-to-the-real-world,-what-do-you-mean-nothing's-changed? moment. Things were a little rocky, but they're better now.

I've been looking online for a reasonably-priced, one piece swimsuit in my size. While that looks like a simple proposition, it's proven to be surprisingly difficult. I started my search on Ebay, where the majority of the suits are either buy-me-nows at sixty to seventy dollars, but you can find the occasional used one for cheap. The problem is that I'm still a little squeamish about a used suit. When they looked like they weren't too dingy, I placed a bid, but I haven't been aggressive enough, and lost them to others.

So I started looking elsewhere - Land's End, Speedo, Amazon, a few websites that claim to carry plus-size swimsuits. I started running into a few problems consistently. First of all, many of the suits were designed to look cute by the side of the pool, but wouldn't be good to swim laps in. I wanted a simple tank suit with something like a racer back, or cross-straps, or just tank straps that wouldn't roll or slide. I didn't want something bedazzled, with belts, skirts, or ruched to add festivity across my boobs. Plus, I didn't want some of the eye-bleeding prints that are apparently quite fashionable at the moment. I was hoping for maybe one or two colors, maybe some simple color blocking. This consistently narrowed down my choices to a handful of suits, which, judging by the comments on them, were favored by women in their sixties who did water aerobics. But ok.

From here, price seemed to be a big problem. The Land's End's cheapest suit had terrible ratings for fit. Their pricier suit was just under fifty bucks - a little pricy for what I wanted, but I was willing to pay for it, until I read comment after comment from people who swim daily, and found that not only did the suit fade drastically in a very short time, but that they needed to buy new suits after about three months. Seriously? Three months? I mean, I'm not going to be swimming daily, but that seems like a really short lifespan for a suit. Every other suit I found seemed to be in the mid sixties to high seventies, and on up - more than I wanted to pay, but I may be forced to it in the end.

The next problem was size. I seem to have put myself into a weird category where I'm neither flesh nor fowl, and what will probably need to happen is that I'll have to take my measurements to settle the issue. Am I an 18 in misses? A 16 in womans? A 16 in misses? On some websites I seem to not be considered plus-size anymore, and in other places the difference between a regular 16 and a plus-size 16 seem to vary quite a bit. And am I a 40 or 42 in a Speedo, except when they switch to another measuring system that might be a dress size but then again maybe not? What about the different measurements Land's End uses when you designate yourself a "D Cup" person? After a certain point, I was completely confused about what size I actually needed. And when I went to a sporting goods store to try on a few of their store brand, I seemed to be somewhere between a 14, which fit but was snug, and a 16, that mostly fit but was weirdly baggy in the torso.

So, I have purchased no suit yet. I may just have to suck it up and pay more than I was hoping to. And I'm going to have to take good measurements before I do anything. Plus, it would be nice to drop ten more pounds (I've plateaued again) and become a more certain 14. Part of the reason I'm so dissatisfied with what I'm finding is that I'm chasing a swimsuit I used to own, way, way back in the day. It was a black Body Glove suit, with a racing back, very ordinary except perhaps for a slightly high cut on the legs. I loved that suit. I had my very own wind machine when I strutted around with that suit on. It made me feel like a badass.

Sadly, that was many years and many pounds ago. I should go check and see if Body Glove even exists still. I might be able to talk myself into a pricy suit if it still taps into that place in the back of my brain when I ruled the pool.

ETA: Body Glove still exists, but I may have to drop that ten pounds before I can fit into their largest suit. I also just looked at Title Nine, which is probably ditto, but also had some cute suits I rather liked.

It's almost October, and my personal style guru, an artist and manager of our museum's store, has turned the store's decoration over to Halloween. I took pictures so you can be as tickled by it as I am.

( This is why I end up buying nut cups that I have no use for - I just put them on a shelf and look at them with glee in my heart. )

Well, shit. Had a session with the personal trainer today that started out strong (measurements and weight down, gained an inch on the sit-n-reach, held steady on number of pushups and situps in a minute) and did three minutes of step-up exercises without really wearing myself out too badly. Then he had me do a sort of feet together hopping thing, up onto the low platform (just an inch or so off the ground) and off the other side, back and forth, for a minute. Reader, I crashed. Finished the exercise successfully, then promptly spun into a hyperventilation fit where I had to sit on the floor and try and control my breathing because I was panting, my vision tunneled, and I wanted very badly to barf. Recovered from it, did a couple of machines, and managed some squats before the sparkling in front of the eyes started to creep back in and I called it a day. Checked my blood sugar, just in case, and it was right where it should be.

Trainer thinks it's hangover from the walking pneumonia and also that I need to work on good breath control, so he's told me to start walking slowly on the treadmill at a slight incline, focusing specifically on my breathing. Meanwhile, I am trying not to be discouraged.

Blah. I hate feeling that way, and I hate thinking that I'm about to barf in public. I am less than pleased right now.