Category: life

Never too late

Went to have my teeth cleaned and checked yesterday. Been going to the same dentist for twelve years, so I’ve gotten to be somewhat friendly with my hygienist.

She is amazing. A force to be reckoned with. Very handy and kind with a dental tool.

Over the years, she and I have been through a lot together. For example, I recently got married, she recently got divorced.

She’s has been seeing a new guy for about a year now. The first blush of love has worn off, and they have hit a rough patch.

Yesterday as she scraped at my teeth and gums with a metal pointy object, she caught me up on the latest.

“I’m not even staying over at his place anymore, I’ve been back at my apartment,” she said, angrily.

“I do things for him! I know what he needs and I give it to him. Why can’t he do the same for me!” she huffed. : scrape, scrape :

“He just makes me so MAD” she said, while jabbing the beejeezus out of my gums.

When she gave me a moment to rinse the blood out of my mouth, I said, “you know, my husband has told me that often enough men really appreciate it if you’ll just *tell* them what you need. Give him a little guidance and I bet he’ll be happy to provide what you want. He just wants to make you happy.”

“But why doesn’t he just *know*?!?” she wailed.

“Because he doesn’t. Don’t be afraid to ask for what you need,” I said, gently.

She thought about what I said, muttering aloud to herself with one foot on my forehead and both hands shoved in my face, jabbing at my teeth unmercifully.

“Maybe you are right, maybe I need to be willing to say what I need more. Maybe I’ll go over to his place tonight to watch the hockey game and we can talk.”

I grunted.

For some reason, people like to use me for therapy.

.
.
.
.

Oh…

Did I mention?

My hygienist is 60 years old.

Never, NEVER too late!

Oh man, now I’m stuck in here…

The wayback machine, that is.

After my post yesterday, I got an email from my best good friend. Turns out she was in the wayback machine yesterday too, but for a whole different reason.

Still a resident of Las Cruces, over the years, she’s given me an on site report on all the things changing in that sleepy college town. Yesterday she saw a sight that made her incredibly sad and she had to tell me about it in email.

Remember how I talked about NMSU being a land grant college?

What that meant to a business major such as me, is that if you walked down the hill toward the Ag College, you would find a big open pasture in which actual cows roamed around, grazing on the actual college campus.

With the wind from the right direction, you were reminded, frequently enough, that you did, in fact, attend an agricultural college.

Personally, I always liked that. Tied us to our roots. Kept us humble.

Once upon a time I even had to help round up a truckload of calves that were being moved to a different pasture. Those buggars had managed to break free. Tiny criminals. If you know anything about calves, you know they don’t naturally have that herding instinct yet.

It was like herding jello. Or the Tasmanian devil. Or some combo therein.

Sadly, the cows haven’t roamed the campus of NMSU for several years, and that open land went pretty much unused.

Until former university president, Michael Martin, agreed to annex that pastureland to the City of Las Cruces for the purpose of building a convention center. In exchange, the university gets money back from events hosted there.

I’d heard this was coming. My friend and I talked at length about it when I visited in February.

As of yesterday, ground has been broken. Construction is underway.

They made my best friend cry. That makes me cry.

There is some quote about not going quietly into that good night. But anymore, I’m not sure it’s worth the calorie expenditure to holler into a hurricane.

Change must happen. At the end of the day, it’s not about the memories, it’s about the dollars. As an NMSU trained businesswoman, I should know better.

Photo by Clay Mathis of NMSU. Source.

Saving the best one for last

Why do we do this? Why do *I* do this?

A Singapore counterpart from work gave me a set of reeeeally nice hand lotions on her last visit to the US. I went through and sniffed them all, picked my favorites, then put them in order, thus allowing myself to use the least faves *first* before using the ones I like.

Why? Why would I do that? Why not use the ones I like best first? Life is short!

Today, my admin was kind enough to bring me a sample plate of desserts from a conference room downstairs. I ate the yucky ones first and the nicest one last. Why didn’t I just eat the good ones and leave the yucky ones? Nope. Ate ’em all.

I’m not proud of it, either.

Suppose this is a hazard of being born to Depression Era parents? The propensity to “save” things for later was strong with them both.

Or is it a hazard of my severe obsessive, overly anal personality?

Or could it be just a facet of human nature? Especially as a woman. “Oh no,” : hand to head : “I’ll take the burned toast….”

Whatever.

I just pulled out the jar of *good* lotion and slathered it on. I smell pretty!

Life is too short to dance with short men. Life is too short to drink cheap beer wine. Life is too important to be taken seriously. And life is too dull to not use the “good soap” in the guest bath.

Opening Day

And so, the 2009 baseball season is underway.

The major leaguers started early in the week.

But that’s not where I’m at.

I’m talkin’ about one lowly Single A.

Yeah baby.

The San Jose Giants kicked off their 142 game season in the Pacific Coast League with their home opener last night.

It was, perhaps, one of the strangest baseball encounters I’ve ever experienced.

And I’ve seen some weird sh*t.

To start with, the weather was was, what the indelicate call “pissing rain”. The not quite raining, not quite not. Just…dribbling.

For my home-squirrels in the 505/575 who come from a place where, when it rains, it means it, this phenomenon may not make sense to you.

Imagine those misters they have at Hooters. Only as big as the sky, unrelenting, and without the desert dryness to evaporate that water.

Close enough.

So it was Hooters misting all night long…and cold…and not very baseball-y weather.

Pretty much, the not really capacity crowd thinned out over the course of the game, leaving only the die hards to carry it to the end.

Which would be both me and The Good Man.

We stepped under cover for the third and fourth innings to indulge in bbq-sauce-up-to-your-ears tasty ribs and came out of there recharged and ready.
When you’ve endured several hours of cold soaking rain, it does something to your brain.

So as most people left, and us weirdos starting losing our minds, it got really fun.

Best moment will take some backstory.

Every game, the San Jose announcer designates a player on the opposing team as the “beer batter”. If the San Jose pitcher strikes out that batter, then beer is half price for the next half inning.

Needless to say, people cheer pretty damn hard for a strikeout.

Usually, they end the beer batter promotion in the sixth inning.

So, round about the seventh inning last night…we, the looneys in the crowd decided to dub that same opposing batter the hot chocolate batter (it was freaking cold!). Cheering went up. Someone yelled, “C’mon, daddy needs marshmallows!”

That damn beer hot chocolate batter would NOT just take a swing. Poor sport.

And then, for some reason, in the eighth inning, the announcer played the usual beer batter song and dubbed the guy the ‘apple juice batter of the game, as sponsored by Martinelli’s’. I don’t know if that was a legit promotion, but then all of us started hollering for our apple juice.

As the beer batter stood at the plate, we screamed “aaaaaaaple juuuuuice!” Damnit if that guy just wouldn’t strike out for us! No, he kept foulin’ ’em off! So I yelled “I’ll share mine with you!” No, he wasn’t to be swayed. I even offered to *give* him my apple juice. Considering I was sitting in the third row behind the plate in a nearly empty stadium, I KNOW he heard my offer.

But no, instead of sipping my apple juice, b–tard hit a rope out to center.

A cold soaked to the bone crowd couldn’t even get an apple juice. That ain’t right.

But damn did we have fun!

And yes, the Albuquerque Dukes pennant is still painted on the wall at Muni Stadium and I touched it for luck, like usual! Worked too! We won 7-1!

Tonight, I think I’ll stick to the couch and a blanket and my feline (who I’ve finally forgiven) and baseball on the television.

But I may be prompted to yell “aaaaaaapple juuuuuuuice” at a hitter who needs to strike out. : shrug :

I am SO clever!

Been acting all healthy lately (past couple months). Eating good. Exercising too. Had a visit to my doctor early this week and she wants to get a full blood panel (haven’t done that in a few years).

This week I exercised super hard. Ate pretty good. Feeling good. Blood pressure low. Blood sugar great.

I’m expecting knockout low cholesterol numbers.

Then I went in this morning around 9:30 and gave the blood.

Taking care of me.

So what did I have for lunch today?

Nachos.

: shakes head :

You can make a person almost 40, but you can’t make ’em be a grownup! At least not for very long.