Friday 9/11 2020

Sobering thoughts about what this day brought so many years ago. I remember calling frantically to find out if our friend Meg who was originally scheduled to be a flight attendant on one of the planes was okay. She had swapped with a friend and was with other crew members on the west coast when they heard the news about their friends. And a man who later became my boss survived running down the tower stairs with the others in his meeting who did the same. Those at the meeting who took elevators were not as lucky.

And now we have a pandemic, fires everywhere, and violence in our cities. I hope we come out the other side a kinder and more caring nation/world.

Weight 122.6. Not out of my range but a warning to watch it. Mike came to take me to dinner last night and I am going out to his place late morning to do some hiking and lunch. This afternoon I need to be back in my area by late afternoon to attend a wake for the wife of a man in my support group.

Stag safe, healthy, and social!

My parents' scale says 156.8 Hope it's wrong. Unfortunately it's the same scale as at home!! Travel swelling is probably gone, but it looks like vacation and birthday weight is sticking around.

First, thoughts on 9/11. 9/11 was our Pearl Harbor, our JFK. I was in 8th grade. My stepkids who aren't even all that much younger than me, cannot relate to what that day did. And for me and my city, 9/11 especially hit home, just 6 years after the Okc bombing. What a horrific tragedy. I wish everyone could love on one another like we did on 9/12.

We are staying with my parents this week while our kitchen cabinets are painted. I sure hope it's worth it. Because man this is a pain. Almost the instant we touched down after our vacation, all that relaxation seemed to be carried away by the wind as my kids "showed off" for their grandparents and get into everything. I don't even know how to illustrate the level of exhaustion and frustration with it. My parents' house is very kid-unfriendly. Lots of things everywhere. Pretty little things. And in 2 tiny tots and it's utter chaos and exhaustion. I'm sure we'll look back on it and smile but right now...

Vacation was great. I felt pretty safe. We went to a fairly secluded place, Captiva Island And they were doing things like taking temperatures, masks to enter/exit. There, like here, it's perfectly acceptable to remove masks once we've made it to the table. Plane flight was GREAT They tried to stagger boarding and deplaning process. I mean, I'm sure it's riskier than staying at home but I feel comfortable with the level of risk. And although I worry about exposing my parents, my sister, who's a 4th year med student in rotations, stays with them. So I'm sure we have less exposure than she does.

My to-do list is mounting. Soon it will include 2 weeks of laundry in addition to putting the kitchen back in to order and just picking up from pets, cleaning up fine silt of paint that has sprayed everywhere. It WILL be worth it but most of the time I barely feel on top of things anyway so this makes me anxious! All that to say, dieting is for NEXT week!! Actually, I do look forward to reappointing my kitchen and pantry and stocking with healthier options/rediscovering them.

I am glad you had a good vacation and I am sure the kitchen will be worth it. Just hang in there BB!

Always a heavy day of remembrance. There is a poem by Billy Collins, and he memorialized the people who were killed by using names for each letter of the alphabet called The Names. We study this poem in my reading intervention class. When I went to the memorial in NYC , there is a wall with all the names. I searched throughout the 1000s and found the 26 in the poem. All these years my students and I read this poem, and here they were, suddenly so real. I learned Gonzalez was a woman. Always remember, never forget.

The memorial is really moving, I thought.

Good morning ! Just arrived home from RV experience #1 for 2020. Freshwater tank leaked into two "basement compartments" below on rear passenger side. Refrig won't switch onto propane while electric is unavailable due to travel. We got a service appointment with the new dealer next Thursday.

My former district has gone 100% remote after the first day. The entire administrative team had an on site luncheon Wednesday during training. Yesterday, they found out they had all been exposed to an adult vendor who tested positive hours before they were informed. The health department quarantined ALL of them for 14 days, and the Superintendent pulled the plug on everything for a minimum of two weeks. Sooo glad to be retired !!!

This!! Even if the exposure does not result in any transmissions (but it could!), the logistics of all these quarantines seems impossible. If a high school student tests positive, do all of their 6 teachers quarantine? What about all the other students? Each hour they come into contact with a different mix of students ...

So sorry that things weren't smooth with the RV this time. The whole school issue with exposure/quarantining is impossible to solve except for 100% remote learning which I know no one is happy with.

What a sad day this always is. My parents were on one of the Boston flights to LA the week before, coming home from a wedding. My mother, who was a nervous flyer to begin with, never set foot on another plane, even when my dad bought one. It's crazy when you think about it. How many times in our lives could we have been in the path of a tragedy if not for leaving a minute or a week earlier or later, or missing a green light, or turning around because we forgot if we closed the garage door or not. Just makes me realize how very blessed we are to make it to each new day.

The scale moved down a bit more today. I was so ravenous yesterday, but managed to stop when my calories ran out. Some days 1700 feels like a lot. Some days it feels like not nearly enough. Bodies are weird. One of my snacks was a snack bag of goldfish pretzels. Those dry pretzels got stuck and I actually threw up. I think that's only ever happened with my sleeve once or twice? They didn't even "leave", but it wasn't fun. Note to self: avoid bone dry pretzels.

Ferg has an eye appointment today, but that's all that's on the schedule. (Update, they hadn't called to confirm the appt, so I just called and they don't have us down, grrr. Rescheduled in 2 weeks.)

Friday hugs to all.

Hugs to you. Remembering days like this and going to a wake tonight reminded me that life is way too short and we have to savor it as much as we can.