Booooo. Boooooo.

Essential zip-lock of toiletries

I hate Hallowe'en.
I hate to fly.
So here I am, combining both my phobias in some weird through-the-looking-glass like-cures-like move. Waiting to board a spooktacular (Ugh) flight to the east coast, it  turns out that LAX is pretty much Hallowe'en neutral. Unlike, say, Hollywood Boulevard (my most terrifying Hallowe'en night ever) or any shopping mall or pretty much anywhere. There's one friendly ghost half-inflated inflatable at one of the Southwest gates, and one gate attendant sporting an indeterminate set of animal ears. (Bear? Mouse? Anybody's guess.) There's no one here dressed like death, no one streaming fake blood, no fake weapons. Hurray. Now pass the spiked apple cider and the day will be pretty much perfect. There is a guy next to me in corduroy trousers with mallards embroidered on them, but I just heard him say it's his weekend casual outfit. I'll take that over a zombie covered in goo any day.

I did spend one fairly decent Hallowe'en on my front porch. C and I dressed in basic black and witches hats with a great playlist on the laptop. Neighborhood children approached but were not terrified. We gave out good candy. (One year when my kids were small I gave out glow-in-the-dark toothbrushes. Sorry.)

Okay. So go dress up. Scare people. I'm already scared, so you can skip me. But maybe read THIS first.

This Place

View from my yoga mat. Really.

Here in paradise we have Yoga by the Sea. It seems that with the new Daylight Savings Time schedule, I might be able to attend and still cook dinner in a timely fashion for my mom.

There's also going to be some T'ai Chi Chih by the Sea too-and I will be one of the teachers.

Really. Seriously. This place is so gorgeous. But it's damp. And the wind blows like crazy sometimes. So don't everybody move here even though the very famous Tom Hanks set the story he wrote for a Very Famous Magazine here. And yeah, if the thing that happened in that story were to really happen, it would happen here. 

What I Know

You know that feeling when you're nine months pregnant and you're all excited about having that new baby, that precious person in your life that you already love with your whole being, but you really aren't thrilled about how it's going to exit your body? Well some of you do and some of you don't. But yeah, trust me, childbirth is not really something anyone wants to do. Hours and hours of feeling like you might split in two and all that. But yeah, in the end you have a baby.

I'm really looking forward to seeing my mom again. Having her back here and living with me. Cooking dinner for her every night and taking her out for fro-yo after every doctor's appointment. Hearing her stories.

But.

I'm feeling the weight of it a little, I think. Already. Last night while opening her mail, I found an invoice from a hospital stay in Maryland. News to me. She's fine now, my brother's girlfriend messaged me on Facebook after I inquired.

This morning I awoke with muscle spasms in my hip and leg. Skipped yoga. Iced and took Advil. Felt weird all day.

I suppose the hospital invoice was a reality check. I know there will be ER visits. The hospital. Yeah. Like before. I know it. But I'm not ready for it. Because you know what? A person is just never ready for all that.

Waffles. And what the yoga teacher said.

I've gone on a bit here about how I've been cleaning my room. The other day, shredding away, I was struck with a sudden craving for a waffle. Let's be clear. A waffle chez moi is a gluten-free toaster waffle--but I fancy it up a bit by gently heating some frozen blueberries in some real maple syrup and drenching the un-fancy waffle with that concoction. Add some real butter, and it's good. Honest. I mean who would drag out a waffle iron and mix up a batch of waffles for one person? (If someone out there reading this would do that, perhaps we should talk.) Anyhow, I was busy organizing, cleaning, shredding, i.e. subjugating my desire, when what did I find?
This:

Stuffed in a pile of stuff was the un-Christmas card Dan gave me one year. A clear message that I should have that waffle. Which I did, as evidenced by the top photo. I did not get drunk. If someone responds to the parenthetical message above, that waffles and wine thing could seriously happen.

Earlier that morning, I'd gone to yoga. This particular teacher likes to read to us from the Sutras (which, I think, is a regular Ashtanga yoga thing), and what she read was something about the tongue tasting the nectar of infinity. That probably explains the craving for a waffle smothered in real maple syrup, right? And also there was something about how the invisible loves the visible.

I love that.
The invisible loves the visible.

Oh, and can someone explain how it is that I spent a week going through all my drawers and filing cabinets, pulling things out, shredding them-- and now the last couple of days as I've gone through the stacks of papers on my floor and on my credenza, what I've done with those things  is stuff them into files and put them in my filing cabinet?

Probably the only solution is to get drunk and eat waffles.