Friends Functioning As GPS

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Who needs an I-Phone to call up a map or an in-car GPS? I myself prefer to rely on the navigational skills of friends.

My running group changed locales. We'd been meeting for our Tuesday track runs at  the a private high school but with school kicking back in that became unavailable. So last night was our first night to meet at the Guilford College track. I know where Guilford College is but what I had assumed from the road was the track was actually the soccer field. I also found the football field and auditorium, but no track.

I called my friend Melody who had graduated from Guilford. "Suppose, hypothetically, one wanted to find the track at Guilford College but was instead staring at a soccer field," I said. "Where might one go?"

"Well, hypothetically, one might want to leave the parking lot and turn left," she said. She then stayed on the phone with me as I called out landmarks.

"Apartments."

"Yes, that's right."

"Tennis courts."

"You're very close."

Finally I spied it. "Ah ha--track!" I cried.

"Glad to help. Enjoy your run." And she was gone.

You have your way of staying in touch with your friends, I have mine. And considering how often I find myself lost or misdirected, I probably talk to my friends a good share more than you do yours. Thank heavens I have no sense of direction.

Cheers,

Dena

An Abundance of Reading Material

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Forget books. I manage to sneak in one every two weeks but the majority of my time is spent trying to keep up with my magazine reading. Anyone else have this issue? It's not a matter of wasting my time reading material I'm not interested in. I truly want to read all the magazines I subscribe to. It's just there's so many of them. In no particular order, I subscribe to:

  • Newsweek
  • The New Yorker
  • Runner's World
  • Writer's Digest
  • Poets & Writers
  • Catnip
  • ASJA (American Society of Journalists & Authors) newsletter
  • Toastmasters International magazine
  • Log Home World
  • Cooking Light
  • Travel & Leisure
  • Magazines I publish in that are sent to me and I feel somewhat obligated/interested in to read

Every magazine has its place. By far, my favorite magazine to receive is Runner's World and I rip through it the day it arrives, reading everything. Newsweek is read at breakfast over the course of a week. New Yorker articles are read at night in bed before sleep.  Cooking Light, Log Home World, and Travel & Leisure are more skimmed than read. The other magazines get carried around in my bag, to be read in snatches between appointments or while waiting to meet someone OR in bed a night once The New Yorker is finished.

Right now, I'm backlogged on Writer's Digest magazines having not read the last two issues. This is giving me heart palpitations but I'll catch up. I  always do.

Cold Be Gone

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I have absolutely forbidden my body to get sick. It's giving little whimpers like it wants to be--a sneeze here, a tickle of the throat there, and today it's even dared to feel sore and achy. I'm not having it. I can schedule some sick time in around late September but I'm simply booked until then and unable to accommodate any illness that might arise.

I'm in that in-between stage where the aches could just be from running and the sneezing could just be from the cats. But as everyone knows, the feelings that accompany cold/flu symptoms are in a world of their own and usually recognizable upon sight.

I'm trying to pump in sleep like a mad woman. I've developed the charming habit of waking up at 2 a.m. every night for about twenty minutes. I get up, pet the cats, maybe get a drink of water, then crawl back to bed and toss and turn until sleep finds me again.  I don't do well if I don't get solid and consistent sleep. I know what I have to do. I just need to stay in bed when I wake up for about three nights and break the habit. Then I'll sleep through again.

Meanwhile, I'm tucking  myself into bed around 8:30 or 9 p.m., reading for a short while and then lights out. Lots of hot tea and "poor me" helps as well.

Good health to all of you!

Stinky Clothes

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Here's how much we love our cats:

Last Sunday, Blair did some work out at the property. Even though it was 95 degrees with about 10 extra points added for intense humidity, he wore jeans and a three-quarter length shirt because he was dealing with briars and brambles.

He came home soaked from sweat, to say the least, and abandoned his clothes on the floor while he took a shower. That was Sunday. Today is FRIDAY and the clothes are still there.

Why? Lucy has a love fest going on with them. She sits on them and purrs. She sleeps on them. She rubs her scent glands over the folds and ridges. In short, she is in total kitty-clothes ecstasy.

"Get off the stinky clothes!" we tell her, but we do nothing to remove them. She seems so happy. "You are stinky kitty," we inform her (not without affection).

So the clothes sit there. I suspect we'll break down this weekend and wash them but it just...I don't know...either cracks me up or worries me to no end that we've allowed this to occur. How much control over your lives is too much when it comes to your cat?

Meanwhile, at least I know where to find her...