When I was a kid sports meant gym class and gym class meant humiliation. I was the kid who always dropped the ball or more accurately ran away from the ball. I was the kid picked last for the kickball team. I never understood why they let kids pick teams in gym class. It’s so embarrassing for the people that no one wants to pick. The only time I excelled in an athletic activity in school was during a game of capture the flag. I managed to run unnoticed into the other teams territory. Unfortunately, I was being chased by a bee so I ran right past the flag and into the school.

I’m older and wiser now, but I’m not any more coordinated than I used to be as a child. I still suck at sports. Because I’m not good at it I don’t like it. The other day I encountered a sport that I enjoyed. It’s called disc golf. Have you ever played it? It’s like golf but there are no holes, clubs, tees, sand traps, or balls. Doesn’t that sound just like golf?

Instead of holes, there are baskets, and instead of balls, there are Frisbees. I’m not sure if anything that involves a Frisbee can really be classified as a sport, but I’m sure it can be called fun. Here’s a picture of someone playing disc golf:

He doesn’t look like he’s having fun, but that’s because even though he’s supposed to be a professional he’s obviously doing it wrong. He should get a few lessons from me. While I do approved of the raised leg technique, I definitely don’t approve of the frown.

When I get back to the UK I’m going to make my own disc golf course. I think I can make the baskets out of twigs and yarn. I’m also pretty sure I can use a dinner plate as Frisbee. That should work just fine. Right?

Photo by USACE-Sacramento

Last night’s party was usual in that regard–live music and way more food than anyone could eat. The party was supposed to start at 6. In true Stan and Pam (my parents) fashion, they weren’t even there when the guests started to arrive. My sister and I were there alone to greet confused guests who all wanted to know where Stan and Pam where. That was a good question because while we knew where Pam was we had no idea what was going on with Stan. When I called him I was told that he was getting ready. From what my husband described though getting ready seems to mean walking in a completely different direction than the party for no apparent reason.  They finally did make their appearances though and the party started.

My father invites so many people to his parties that there is no place for them all to sit. There are also usually plenty of people there that no one in our family including my parents even know. Most of these people turn out to be perfectly nice, but sometimes you get a rude entitled one. We had one of those at the party last night. My sister and I didn’t know who he was so we just referred to him as Big Nose. He talked to us like we were his personal servants. Of course, my parents didn’t know anything about this because they were busy being party hosts, but my sister and I experienced his rudeness first hand. We dealt with it by walking away from him every time he tried to demand something of us. We also made sure he didn’t get a piece of birthday cake. If you can’t be nice at the party you don’t deserve cake.

When my sister called the day before the race to find out what time it started she was shocked by the early hour and asked to speak to me on the phone. “When I agreed to this no one told me that I’d have to get up that early on a Saturday,” she said.

She was ready bright and early the next day though. We put on our matching race t-shirts, pinned paper numbers to our stomachs and headed for the start line. The runners all got to the front of the group and the walkers were to the back. When the starter’s pistol fired everyone took off running. “Why is everyone running? You told me we could walk,” my sister said. We almost got trampled by a herd of middle-aged people in running shorts and Nikes.

Once the stampede cleared we were free to have a peaceful walk at the back of the pack. Luckily, my sister’s iPhone was not cooperating with her so she had to talk to us instead of listening to music. My sister is a public defender so she has a lot of scary stories about the adventures of her clients. Outrageous tales of robbery, drug dealing and assault can be so entertaining that the first mile just flew by.

At the half-way point people cheered us on and gave us cups of water. “Why isn’t this coffee? At this hour they should be handing out coffee,” my sister said.

Despite stopping to pick up flyers from houses that were for sale along the route and taking pictures of cats in trees we weren’t the last people to finish the race. There was actually a group of people behind us. My mother was hoping my father would win for his age group just because he would be the only person in the 80 and over group. Unfortunately, a group of buff 80 year-olds showed up in short shorts and sweat bands and they ran the whole race.

My husband who is incredibly competitive would probably want me to tell you that he ran the race. Then he came back to cross the finish line with us even though he’d already finished the race. Anyway, here’s the photo of me completing my first leisurely 5K.

When we started running toward the finish line, my sister said, “What’s with this running? You told me I wouldn’t have to run.”

“We always run over the finish line,” my mother said. So we ran and we finished. Than we ate a not very good breakfast at a restaurant near the finish line.

I wasn’t the kid who desperately wanted to get rid of my glasses so I could be one of the cool girls. I though glasses were cool. I thought I looked great in them. That is until my husband got lasik eye surgery.

I would never get an eye operation. Just mentioning eye operations now is making my eyes tear up, but I don’t want to wear my glasses any more. I’ve decided to deal with this problem by trying Bates Exercises.

The Bates Method is a series of exercises that are supposed to improve your eyesight. The theory is that the muscles around your eyes can change the shape of your eyes to improve your ability to focus. Bates developed a series of eye exercise you could do to train the muscles around your eyes improving your vision.

I decided to start doing these exercises. Well, that’s not exactly the truth. I’ve decided to make up my own exercises because I’m too lazy to look up what the Bates Exercises actually  are. I also really like making things up, like stories, dances and dessert recipes. My made-up cookies are pretty darn good, I think I could accomplish equally good results with made up eye exercises.

When I’m in the car with my husband at night I take off my glasses and concentrate really hard on seeing. I’m not driving when I do this my husband is. It’s a good thing too because as soon as I take off my glasses all I can see is a bunch of streaky lights that look like snow flakes. I’ve put myself on a strict eye exercise routine. My husband says that the exercises just look like I’m making a really serious face, but that’s because he can’t see the tiny movements that are actually going on in my eye muscles. I do this for about 1 minute twice a week.

Is it working? Of course it is. Now when I walk around without glasses, I can see slightly more detailed blobs of color in the distance. Okay, that’s not true either, but I figure that if I pretend it’s working it will work…eventually.

You’ve never heard of Santa Mouse? Well let me tell you the story.

Santa has always been a bit sloppy with his food. He spills crumbs all over the floor. To maintain his hefty physique, he has to eat some pretty rich food. Needless to say Santa’s house is the perfect residence for a mouse or two. 

There is one little mouse who used to watch Santa happily filling his sleigh with presents every year and that mouse would say to the other mice, “That looks like so much fun. I wish I could give people presents and make them smile.” 

Normally, people don’t smile when they see a mouse..especially not a mouse in their house. Normally, they shriek with disgust and jump on a chair. That’s why the mice have to try their best to stay out of sight. This mouse didn’t want to scare people though. He wanted to make them smile. 

One year, he decided that he was ready to leave the North Pole with Santa to deliver a very special present to a little boy or girl. He had his mother make him a little red hat just like Santa’s and he wrapped up the perfect little present and tied it with a yellow ribbon. “Call me Santa Mouse,” he told the other mice in Santa’s house. 

When Santa had finished packing his sleigh, Santa Mouse jumped on board and hid amongst the presents. It didn’t take long before the sleigh took off. The ride was bumpy and Santa Mouse found himself wishing that he’d taken something for motion sickness before stowing away. He crawled out from under the presents to stand on the edge of the sleigh hoping that feeling the wind on his face would ease his nausea. As he did, the sleigh hit some turbulence and Santa Mouse went tumbling out landing in a giant snow drift. His present landed a few inches from him.

It was call and Santa Mouse was scared because he’d never been any place but the North Pole. He didn’t know how he would possibly find his way back to his friends and family again. Just as he was about to clasp in the snow in despair, he noticed a house in the distance. The house was all lit up with Christmas lights so Santa Mouse knew that Santa must be going to that house. It was far for a mouse to walk, especially clutching a present and holding his hat to make sure it didn’t blow off. Finally he made it to the house and was able to sneak inside. Sneaking in was no problem for him. It is second nature for mice. 

The house had a beautiful big Christmas tree and it was so nice and warm in there. Santa Mouse climbed up into the Christmas tree to wait for Santa. In the warmth, he started getting sleepy and before he knew it he fell asleep. 

“Ho, ho, ho,” Santa bellowed awaking Santa Mouse with a start. Santa Mouse scurried down the tree and climbed unnoticed into Santa’s sack. When Santa put his sack in the sleigh Santa Mouse climbed out and got a ride all the way back to the North Pole. Can you guess what the little boy who lived in the house where Santa Mouse slept found in his Christmas tree the next morning? He found a tiny little present wrapped with a yellow ribbon.

If you ever find a little present with a yellow bow in your tree, you’ll know that Santa Mouse has stopped at your house.

That’s the story. Since we no longer had a Christmas tree my mother would wrap a little present with a yellow ribbon for each of us and hide them in the shrubs in the front yard. Every Christmas morning we’d all have to go out in the yard in our pajamas  to hear the Santa Mouse story and get our gifts. It’s very cold on Christmas morning in New Jersey and I swear my mother made the story longer every year, but it was still a great Christmas tradition.

Painting by HikingArtist.com

Spoiler alert: If you are planning to watch Right at Your Door don’t read this post. Chances are you are not planning to watch it and reading this post won’t spoil anything for you. 

The story is about this guy here. His name is Brad or Brian or something that starts with a Br. Brad/Brian and I share similar tastes in shower curtains. Anyway, Brad/Brian is at home minding his own business when suddenly there is a biological terrorist attack on Los Angeles. Brad/Brian just happens to live in LA, so he is a bit concerned.

His wife Lexie is at work in downtown LA and Brad/Brian decides try to find her. Brad/Brian is a musician so he doesn’t have to be anywhere to work during the day and has the luxury of sleeping until 1 in the afternoon.

He tries to go downtown to find Lexie, but some police wearing gas masks stop him and tell him to go home. After seeing them  shoot some guy for no apparent reason, he decides to heed their advice and goes back home.

Once he gets home some random guy comes running into his house. He’s the handyman who works next store. He is locked out of the house he’s working on and the radio said that everyone needs to go inside.  He was wandering if he could stay in the house with Brad/Brian until this whole terrorist attack thing blows over. Brad/Brian says yes. Then the radio tells them to seal up the house by covering up all doors, window, vents, fireplaces, doggy doors and any other openings in the house with duct tape and plastic. At this point I’m looking around my home and thinking I don’t have nearly enough plastic to protect me if there is a biological attack. Heck, I don’t even have any duct tape.

They finally get the house sealed up and then Lexie shows up looking a mess. I guess that’s understandable though since was just in a terrorist attack.

 Brad/Brian won’t let her in though because the radio says that once you seal up your house you have to stay inside and that everyone outside is contaminated and must stay outside. Brad/Brian is distressed. If she had shown up five minutes earlier she could’ve come inside, but now that the house is sealed he can’t let her in. So Lexie gets mad and breaks a window, but Brad/Brian quickly tapes it up. Brad/Brian has become lightning fast with duct tape and plastic.

Meanwhile, handyman guy can’t get in touch with his wife on the phone and decides to leave the house to try to find her. This means he has to un-tape the front door to leave, but Brad/Brian still refuses to let Lexie in.

…but they do have some touching moments through the glass of the plastic covered back door where Brad/Brian talks about how much he loves her and how sorry his is.

Then this dude shows up and he must be an ex-boyfriend or something because Brad/Brian is not happy to see him at all. He convinces Lexie to leave with him to go to the hospital. Brad/Brian keeps yelling for her not to leave with him, but he’s sealed up inside the house so she ignores him and leaves.

It’s a good thing she left because the military shows up looking for infected people and they don’t seem like they want to help anyone by giving them medicine. They test the air inside the house and ask Brad/Brian a bunch of questions.

Lexie comes back the next morning. She couldn’t get into the hospital because it was too crowded and that other dude got hit by a car or something.

They have lots of sensitive moments talking through the glasses about the life they could’ve had together.

Suddenly the military guys come back and they drag Lexie away from the house. Brad/Brian is upset and yells for them to stop, but he can’t do anything really because he’s in a sealed house.

Then the military starts boarding up the house’s doors and window’s with Brad/Brian inside. They say that the test shows that levels of the virus from the biological attack is unusually high in the home and he is a carrier of the disease.

They cover the house with one of those big exterminator tents and pump poisonous gas into the house killing Brad/Brian.

Lexie is just fine and is told she’ll make a speedy recovery.

Needless to say, after I saw that movie my husband was in big trouble. When he got home from his gig I told him that he better not seal himself up in the house and leave me outside if there is a biological terrorist attack. This movie serves as a warning to musician husbands everywhere…If you lock you wife out of the house during a biological terrorist attack you’re probably going to die. Learn the lesson now before it’s too late.

Firstly, I wonder why North Mymms is spelled with a Y but South Mimms is spelled with an I.

Secondly, I wonder who in the world would want to live in North Mymms. Talk about a depressing place. It was ugly and flat and somehow unfinished looking. It seemed like we weren’t even in England, but instead in some horrible place populated by people who looked like they were at one time very heavy drinkers. Even their dogs were quite unfortunate looking. North Mymms was a bit like one of those gray scale cards you use in photography when you set your white balance. It was a neutral gray place with no charm.

I don’t mean to insult North Mymms or the people living there. I’m sure that if you have a particular love for the color gray and if you have a bulbous red nose you’d love it. You would especially love it if you have an English bull terrier. Actually this picture is a pretty good representation of North Mymms to me.

Here’s an example of the countryside.

Lovely, isn’t it?

Despite all these details real estate in North Mymms is a hot commodity. The place we went there to see was taken by the people who saw it before us. The real estate agent said that as soon as things become available there they are snatched up. Property is booming in North Mymms. I guess there are a lot of red faced, bulbous nosed bull terrier owners who are missing the facial muscles that are used when you smile looking for a place to live.

Now I really can’t move to North Mymms because I’ve probably made a lot of enemies. I heard that  bull terriers can easily tear off a human arm so I won’t be moving there.

Pictures by katesheets and satguru.

A couple of months ago when we were making our final moving plans we found out that I have a prolactinoma. A prolactin-what? Don’t worry, I thought the same thing when the endocrinologist told me. A prolactinoma is a benign tumor on your pituitary gland. The pituitary gland is the orange thing in this picture.

Tumors on the pituitary gland are usually not such a big deal considering that roughly 25 percent of the population has small growths on their pituitary glands that cause no problems at all. Most don’t even know that they have them. Occasionally these tumors will secrete hormones and that can cause problems.

My tumor secretes prolactin. Prolactin is a hormone associated with pregnancy that causes lactation. The good news is that I may have a future as a wet nurse. I wonder how much they get paid.

Though I can be quite obsessed with the idea of being ill, when I actually find out I have something wrong with me my first instinct is to do nothing. Ignore it and it will go away is my philosophy. Well with this that kind of isn’t an option. If left untreated increased amounts of prolactin causes early menopause and osteoporosis. There is also the minor issue of the tumor possibly continuing to grow and causing blindness to consider too.

These tumors can usually be treated with medication. Sometimes surgery is necessary to remove them though. Right now I’m taking a medication called cabergoline to shrink my tumor. It made me feel lousy for the first few weeks of taking it, but I read somewhere that if you take it before going to bed at night the side effects are less severe. That seems to be working so that’s great.

This affects our move to the States because of health insurance. I now have a pre-existing condition that needs monitoring. There’s nothing health insurance companies hate more than pre-existing conditions and monitoring. Drats!! Those health insurance companies are a real pain in the back side.

Anyway, that’s where things stand at the moment. I’m largely unfazed. It’s kind of a waiting game for now.

Nature is beautiful and all that, but sometimes it is horror movie worthy.

Anyway, back to moving…

Part of the reason we’re moving is that realistically our flat is kind of dreadful. In this case dreadful means moldy and damp. Now that we’re moving out our landlord is trying to re-lease the place. She’s also trying to raise the rent by 50  pounds a month. The real estate company or estate agent or whatever you call it has been showing people around our home. Even though we’re packing things in boxes we have the keep the place looking nice so perspective tenants can view the property.

Normally keeping this place looking good would be easy, but when sorting through long forgotten drawers and random boxes in closets–oh wait we only have one closet–the task is a bit more challenging. This is a tiny apartment, but we have somehow managed to ram so much stuff in here its unbelievable.

We’ve recently sorted through our stacks of CD cases. My husband has put them all in a bag to go out, but he doesn’t know that the next time he goes out I’m going to build an igloo out of them. All I need to do is to buy a hot glue gun and the building can commence.  I think a CD case igloo would be a wonderful feature that would justify the new rental price for this place.

The funny thing is that when we rented this flat the estate agent seemed kind of shocked. Apparently, they had been trying to rent it out for a while with no success. We were desperate enough to move in anywhere so we took it. Now when new people come to view the property I can see by the looks on their faces that they arent’ going take it. If I ever get a moment alone with any of them I always mention the damp problem. That  doesn’t help the situation much.

If I build the igloo maybe it would make up for the fact that I keep telling everyone about the damp…and I’ll have an excuse to buy a hot glue gun. Every woman wants a hot glue gun.

I’m not saying that we’re perfect neighbors…all right I am saying we’re perfect neighbors. We’re friendly, polite and both play incredibly noisy musical instruments. Who wouldn’t want to live next door to us?

A new family had the privilege of moving into the flat above ours last week. They seem to be generally okay, but I do wonder what is going on up there. I know they are renting because my husband talked to the owner of the flat a couple of weeks ago and he said that he had new tenants moving in soon, but they seem to be making a some renovations.

Soon after they moved in, I spied a brand new door wrapped in cardboard and plastic sitting in the yard. Later that day quite a lot of banging around ensued. “What do you think they’re doing up there?” I asked my husband.

“I don’t know,” he said, “Maybe they’re replacing the doors.”

Then yesterday I swore it sounded like they were ripping up the carpet. “What do you think they’re doing up there now?” I asked my husband.

“Sounds like they’re ripping up the carpet,” he said. Then he went back to reading his book like nothing interesting was happening at all. I sat on the couch looking up at the ceiling and imagining the scene that must be happening upstairs–dust and nails flying everywhere as the carpet is ripped from the floorboards.

I’m curious by nature and if that curiosity was matched with a little more bravery I would’ve marched right over and knocked on their door. But since I’m just a wimp with a wildly active imagination, I can just sit around and speculate.