In which I talk plainly about a change I have made for the better...

So I was out to dinner last night with some friends that I hadn't seen in a while, and I was asked what I had been up to. My answer was working and cooking.

Confession: when left to my own devices, I am a terrible eater. I was often eating on the fly. I hate going to the supermarket so I'd end up eating a lot of pasta and very little fruits and veg. And it was totally reflected in my health: my energy levels were low, I had problems sleeping, and my stomach hated me. I knew that I had to make some changes if I want to live a long and healthy life. (And I am lucky to have a sister who had a frank discussion with me about it. Also, being known as the "sickliest friend" stopped being funny and started being scary.)

So about a month ago, I started a nutrition plan (from a book, yes, a DIET book) that is geared towards mending your metabolism. I started following the meal plans and recipes in the book, and something wonderful happened: I feel happier! and I have way more energy! and I am sleeping a lot better! and I am losing weight! All from improving my eating habits. Over the course of the 28 days on the plan, I observed a bunch of things that I wanted to share.

1. Eating healthy does not come cheap. This shouldn't have surprised me because you hear about this on the news when they report about studies about poverty and obesity, but I hadn't really understood it until it impacted my own wallet as I shelled out $45 for enough fresh produce for for 4 days. And that wasn't even organic! It was an adjustment at first, but the cost ends up balancing out with all the food that I was no longer buying (cheese, coffee, sugar, fast food, pizza). But I now have a practical understand of the folks for whom it just isn't cost effective. It adds up very quickly. 

2. Sugar was silently doing a number on me. When I stopped eating processed sugars cold turkey for this diet, I had a migraine-like headache for four days straight. I was miserable and cranky, and I almost quit the plan during the first week. Fortunately, I am 1. stubborn and 2. more stubborn. Once I got past that first week, I started feeling really energetic and upbeat, and, even though I was eating much healthier than I had been, I credit this feeling to eliminating the sugar. Was it easy? No. Do I miss eating cookies? Hellz yes. (Those Girl Scout cookies I had ordered months before going on the plan - I GAVE THEM AWAY!) But this past week, I tried a very sweet coffee creamer, and I felt so sluggish after drinking it that I feel the trade off is worth it for me.

3. I have to plan for eating healthy. When I have a plan, I make much better food choices than I did when I just came home from work and then thought "what am I going to have for dinner?" Or when I didn't bring lunch to work with me and then scarfed down something at 2:45pm that I quickly purchased from a fast food place down the street. The diet recommends that you plan out all of your meals for the week on a chart so that you eat all of the appropriate meals and snacks you need to and can do your shopping accordingly. If can I assemble my lunch and my snacks while I am making breakfast and then already know what I need to defrost or prep for dinner that night, I am golden. But it does take a lot of time. Instead of being a day for goofing off, Sundays became devoted to getting ready for the week ahead. I really did feel like I spent most of those 4 weeks either shopping for food or cooking food (although there was also the eating of the food so it isn't like that's a bad thing.)

I completed the plan this Monday, and, while I haven't slipped back to my old ways of candy, cheese, and no vegetables, I can feel that I am not ready to be let loose on my own yet. I am planning to resume the plan this coming Monday. I keep telling myself that I am building up good habits that will stick with me. And at some point in time, I will have a cookie again and some pizza, but in moderation and with a balanced diet. Until then, I'll just keep pinning recipes for cookies on Pintrest that I have no intention of making. But the pictures look pretty...

I have "Spring Fever"...

Hay fever, that is.  And a case of poison ivy. So this is pretty much an everyday thing. Who knew there was clear Calyadryl? (Not me! Sooo nice.)

I can't believe I got the poison ivy, which, despite being a rather small patch, itches like NOBODY'S BUSINESS. Urgh.  I made the mistake of pulling what I thought was a small tree out of my holly bush and found myself with shiny leaves of three in my right hand.  I washed up right away with Dawn, but I used hot water instead of cold, and the oil from the poison ivy got into the pores on my forearm all the same.

Since then I have noticed a LOT of poison ivy around the edges of my yard as well as the patch growing in the holly and even in the front island. It wasn't there last year, so I have been spraying pretty much everything with three leaves with weed killer, EXCEPT anything with three leaves and thorns because those are wild black raspberries!!!  YAY!! Now I just need a PI-free path to get to them.

On the Eve of Epiphany...

So here we are in 2015. ::looks around:: Seems okay thus far.  2014 left something to be desired for me, which is definitely reflected in my lack of blog entries for the year. My plan for 2015 is to get back into blogging so I am setting a personal goal of 30 posts for the year, a little over 2 posts a month. That isn't a lot. (Actually, it's a little lame, but the frequency of my posts for last year was so pathetic that 30 actually is a reach target.)

2014 in Review: 
On the downside, my health was pretty rotten. My friend MEM had made up this joke about me being her "Sickliest Friend" (which sounds like the title of a song written by either The Smiths or They Might Be Giants), because I kept getting colds, which turned out to be an allergic reaction to winter! But this year, starting just before Memorial Day, I came out with an (as yet) unidentified serious digestive ailment. It ruined my vacation planned in June and spoiled my summer. [I have had a string of tests with no conclusive results, although the big diseases have been ruled out, which is good.](Sorry if that was a bit of an over share. It does explain A LOT about last year though.)

On the upside, I made a new friend (which seems sort of silly to get excited about, but it's difficult making friends outside of work when you are over 35, single, and childless - this isn't just my opinion; it was in the New York Times), and not one, but two, new nephews joined my extended family. [Both boys are cute, but only one is smooshy. The other is a solid little nugget. Henceforth, he will be know as the "Nugget". I don't know what I will call the smooshy one yet; he is the younger brother of the "Sweetpea" so maybe he could be the "Sprout". Need to think on that.]

Big Purchase:
I bought a snow blower, which is new for me as a relatively new house owner. Back in Boston, the condo association handled the snow removal. My first year in Connecticut, I shoveled my own drive and walk. Then we had 4' of snow dumped on us in one storm; if I hadn't laughed about it, I would have cried. Last year, I hired a service plow my driveway and snow blow the walk, but I'd find myself waiting quite a while for them to get to my house and would end up shoveling a lot of the time anyway. So now I have an Ariens' snow blower for this year. I was given a demo by the man who delivered it, but probably should read the manual before the Alberta Clipper scheduled for tonight and tomorrow comes through.

Luckily, the snow we have had up until now hasn't really amounted to much. But it was still pretty to look at.

Casual Observation: The Whole Package?

I will be honest, I am a complete sucker for cute packaging, and I have been totally known to buy products I didn't need simply because they came in a cute container. (Mints or candy in vintage-looking metal boxes tend to be the most appealing. Especially while standing in the checkout line at Trader Joe's.)

But I am also a committed recycler and environmentalist so when I recently opened up a new container of a product I actually do need, I was horrified to see the following (shown here both with and without a penny so you can get an ideal of the scale you are seeing):

That huge wad of cotton is needed to fill up the bottle because the actual pills don't even cover the whole bottom of the bottle, let alone fill the bottle to the top.  Additionally, there is the wasted cardboard box, which is slightly more than twice the size of the actual bottle it is holding (presumably to accommodate the security device?).

So who is the guilty culprit? Well, I hate to admit it because I love this product, but the guilty party is:

Now I am all for getting 60 pills for the price of 45 (especially during the late summer and autumn), but I would love even more for these guys to come up with some product packaging that would make more sense size-wise for what they are selling. If they don't want to sell the pills in a pop-through wrapper, why not try selling them in a smaller tube bottle, like the one used on the product below?

image from drugstore.com

The good thing is that I can (and will) put the plastic bottle and cardboard out for collection in the recycling bucket, but wouldn't it be better if someone at the company was thinking proactively and could come up with a more environmental way to sell this product? They spend loads on advertising; why not spend some on reinventing the packaging for long term impact?

It would make me an even bigger fan than I already am.

"I Stand Outside this Woman's Work" *

There is nothing quite so wonderful as a wintery Sunday, visiting with friends,

sitting by a fire,

snuggling with a baby.

A big shout out to PunkRockMom, CG, and the Niblet on the arrival of the Sprout!! Yay!



*lyrics by Kate Bush, This Woman's Work (one of PunkRockMom and my favorites!)

New Year's Goals - FAIL!

A couple of years ago, I decided to give up on making New Year's resolutions. It seemed to me that it was all too arbitrary and forced, and I never ended up keeping the resolutions anyhow.

At the start of last year, I decided I was going to set some goals for the new year: I was going to try more new things (eating oysters was a big one - yum!), not allow myself to go into hermit mode (making plans with friends for Saturdays), and blog more (in an attempt to get readership up and make some online connections). End of the year review of set goals:

Trying new things - check
Anti-hermit mode - check
Blog more - check

The goals made were actually accomplished! And I was pleased.

So I set myself a new round of goals for 2011. The first two were the same, trying new things and doing more things with friends (albeit this year I want to do more in downtown Boston, in particular). The new third goal was to be more healthy in both diet and behavior so that stupid little colds didn't turn into walking pneumonia and the like. I started the new year by going over RECK's house for NYE. Then on New Year's Day, I went for a 45 minute walk outside in the fresh air and made plans with JR to go to the movies the next day. Checks all around.

Then the second of January, I woke up with a stuffy head, sore throat, and a cough. All of which, eight days later, I still have. (I finally called the doctor today.) And because of this cold, I had to cancel my plans with JR to go to the movies, AND my "Twelfth Night" plans for this past weekend, and stayed home from work a couple of days last week.

So basically, I have turned into a hermit with a cold that has turned into a big hullabaloo, and I haven't even blogged yet this year. This is the opposite of the New Year's goals!

I hope this is just a temporary set-back, and, by next weekend, I will be back in good form and will be able to tackle my goals as intended. As I keep trying to remind myself, that start date of January 1 is completely arbitrary; every day has the potential to be the start date for positive life goals.

The folks at Campbell's got it right; Soup IS good food.

My infamous cold returned at the end of last week, and I once again spent the weekend at home, either napping on the couch or sleeping in my bed. I did manage to read more of our book club book, The Shipping News by Annie Proulx (although I missed the meeting on Saturday afternoon), which I am thoroughly enjoying.

I needed to get some nourishment from something other than the Lipton chicken soup I drank all day Saturday so on Sunday I made the white bean soup recipe from the Williams Sonoma catalog. Needless to say because I made it when I was feeling ill, it is really easy to do. (Plus, with chicken broth, garlic, and root veggies, plus the beans all pureed up, it is very healthy.) I ate it with just some plain toast rather than with the roasted red pepper tapenade as the recipe suggested; will save that for when I am feeling better. Instead of grating the parmesan into the soup, I shaved it with a vegetable peeler (a Sister K trick) and sprinkled it on top, adding lots of fresh ground pepper. Mmm, delicious, thank you.

Ouch!

Over the course of the last 24 hours I have received three vaccinations:

H1N1

seasonal flu

tetanus/diphtheria/whooping cough (one shot for all three; that one smarted quite a bit)

Now if I only had some of these special plasters that my friend Ellen found over at the Urban Outfitters website. I think that I need some of those, don't you?

Childhood loves

When I was a little kid, I got ear infections a lot. Not enough to have tubes, but enough that my mom didn't have to bring me to the pediatrician's office to get a prescription for ear drops. I even had my own special heating pad that I had to lie on with my sore ear. By the fourth grade, an in-school hearing test revealed that I had lost some of the low tones in my hearing.

Point being, I spent a lot of time in bed sick as a kid. Good thing I loved to read. And one of the things I really loved to read were the "Shoes" books by Noel Streatfeild. These books were about industrious kids in post-WWI or WWII England who, for one reason or another, found themselves in some sort of situation where they would become professional performers. There was Ballet Shoes, Dancing Shoes, Theater Shoes, Circus Shoes (shown here) and a ton of other ones that Dell Yearling published and sold to my parents (for me) at the local Caldor.

The one we never found on the shelves was Skating Shoes, which I really wanted to read, with my little Dorothy Hamill haircut and the Lake Placid Olympics not a too distant memory. But it was never there, so we never got it, and I never read it. The "Shoes" books kind of disappeared from the cultural consciousness - I guarantee my younger sisters didn't read them, even though they read the entire Baby Sitters Club collection. Meg Ryan's children's book shop owning character makes a quick reference to them in the film You Got Mail, and I know that several of my friends knew about them from their childhoods, but you couldn't find them in stores.

But lookee what I found today during a quick browse through Amazon.com: the Shoes books are back - including Skating Shoes!! Hurrah!! I am going to finally get the chance to read it and save it on bookshelf I have created for the daughter I don't have (yet)!

It's the little things, people; it really is the little things.

(The image of the book is from Amazon. Doesn't the little girl really look English? I always thought so.)

Fall down, go boom!

I have a tendency to think of myself as a bit of a klutz. I walk into tables, I knock things over, I trip over things. Yesterday afternoon, however, I entered a whole new realm of klutziness.

I was carrying a load of laundry from my second floor apartment down the back staircase of my building to the basement when I slipped on one of the steps. First one leg went out from under me and then the other. I fell flat on my bottom and slid down two of the steps, slamming my back along the way. I was still holding the laundry basket. It was akin to a John Candy movie or perhaps a Three Stooges comedy. Unfortunately, I did not have a stunt double.

The first thought that crossed my mind was "Dear God, don't let me be paralyzed." When I felt the aching pain radiating out from under me, I was relieved. Trying to make as little noise as possible so not to attract my neighbors' attention (because once I established that I wasn't paralyzed, I didn't need to have my pride injured as as well as my bottom,) I got myself up and continued down the stairs to start the load of wash. I went back to my apartment, trying not to cry, and took three Motrin in the hopes of stopping the real pain that I knew was going to set in once the initial shock wore off.

Today is worse than yesterday. I am horribly sore, with bruises on my elbows from where I must hit them on the steps (holding the laundry basket) as well as on my back. It hurts to sit, it hurts to walk, and I can't really bend over at the waist. (Putting on shoes this morning was a challenge.) I came to work in the hopes that I could move around a bit and try not to get too stiff.

There is only one other time that I have been hurt like this. Senior year of college, I went skiing with some of my friends up in North Conway, NH. I hit a patch of ice, fell and rolled down the mountain. I haven't skied since. I have climbed up and down the stairs since falling so that is a good thing, but I might need to rethink how I carry my laundry downstairs. I have lived in my building for 9.5 years, and this is the first time I have fallen down the stairs. I guess that I have to count my blessings for that. I hope it is the last.

Let Me Show You the Cold in My Eyes

One of my colleagues thought it was amusing when I told her today that I have a "cold in my eyes" so I am blogging about it, in a bit of solidarity with other people who have this tendency.

I started catching "colds in my eyes" within the last 3 years. Instead of catching a cold like people normally do - the coughing, sneezing, achy, stuffy head, fever, sore throat - I get very irritated, watery eyes. They usually start out feeling like sand is trapped in them, and then tears start flowing down my face uncontrollably. I might have some of the other normal cold symptoms, but a lot of the time, I just get irritation in my eyes. The first time this happened, I thought it might be pink eye. I even went to the doctor - something I am normally disinclined to do, and the PA told me that I didn't have pink eye. What I had was a cold, and there was nothing she could give me for it.

I would much rather have the stuffy head/sneezing/sore throat because you can usually take some kind of medicine for those symptoms. For the eyes, not so much; they are too sensitive for drops. Even closing them is uncomfortable. My dad currently has a cold. Unless we both get cured soon, it is going to make for an interesting Christmas.

Rambling on about nothing much...

I haven't had really much to say of late. Things at the office are super busy, and I spend most of my free time reading about the Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates and getting myself really upset about the upcoming election, which isn't a very productive thing to be doing.

I watched The Bank Job last night after having the dvd from Netflix for nearly a month. I have found that watching those kind of suspenseful scenes in heist movies that normally make me want to run into another room with a bag over my head are much more endurable when you have them on fast-forward with the closed captioning on. You get the plot development without the heart attack.

I have given up eating desserts and in between meals in an attempt to lose 10 pounds before I go on vacation in October. I have lost 2 pounds already in just one week. This is very promising, but I am also concerned. Have I really been eating that much dessert? That cannot be a good thing. Every time I am tempted to help myself to something sweet or just cave in and run to CVS for some M&Ms, I take a look at some film actress I admire and think to myself, "does Cate Blanchett eat dessert?" Probably, but if she does, it doesn't show. It isn't really the most healthy way to wean myself off the sweets, but I am 8 days into this and haven't caved so far.

I can't believe the summer is over. August was such a beautiful month, weather wise. I love the fall, but I wouldn't mind having a few month of those lovely August days before the days start getting really short and the cold weather arrives.

Speaking of which, on my last day of vacation, I was driving up back roads in Lennox, MA to go to Tanglewood, and a mama bear and her two cubs ran out in front of the car ahead of me to cross the road. When I first saw the mother, I didn't really get a good look at it so I thought "that is a big dog." Then I saw the two cubs come out of the woods to follow their mother across the road and said out loud "that's no dog!!" I had to call Sister K to tell her since she had a bear in her neighborhood last fall. It was a good thing we were all obeying the speed limit.

One of these days, Alice, To the moon...

This actual conversation just happened. [To preface, I have a ganglion cyst in my left hand that I have been "treating" for years by having someone whack it with a heavy book, preferably a hard cover dictionary. Usually it is PunkRockMom, but since she left work, I haven't been able to deal with this because I can't whack it myself, and everyone else freaks out about hitting me. Apparently, I didn't mention the ganglion to the Protégé before I began this exchange.]

Me (to the Protégé): Hey, you are kind of vicious...

Protégé: Umm...

Me: (draws circle on wrist over ganglion) Here take this book (hands heavy dictionary to Protégé) and hit me with it here (points to circle.)

Protégé: Umm, okay, but what if I don't hit it hard enough?

Me: You have to hit it hard; if you don't hit it hard, I will be mad.

Protégé: Let me practice first. (practices three fake hits and then slams my hand with the dictionary.)

Me: (testing wrist) Hey, I think that worked. (puts away dictionary)

Protégé: That was different.

Me: You should tell your mom. It's not every day your boss calls you "vicious" and then asks you to hit her hard with a book.

Seeing Red

Today, I picked up three "Lily" bracelets, one for myself and each of my sisters. The Lily bracelets were created by Boston based jewelry designer Jojo, in conjunction with Lily Burns, a friend and colleague of mine who had a stroke in the summer of 2006 and subsequently open heart surgery that winter. Twenty-five percent of the proceeds of the bracelets are going to the American Heart Association, up to $10,000.

When Lily had her stroke, I was one of her colleagues who took the news incredulously. This is a woman who works out every day, who teaches aerobics, who eats fruit and vegetables, drinks loads of water and who rarely touches birthday cakes or sweets brought into the office. If this could happen to her, then what about me? I have a (small) heart murmur, and I drink a ridiculous amount of Diet Coke. (Well, drank. I have gotten a lot better about drinking more water and less soda, which has improved both my blood pressure and the health of my teeth.)

Anyhow, I thought that the bracelets would make nice "sisters" Valentine's Day gifts, as well as helping to raise money for the Heart Association. This goes along with my whole mind scheme for 2008 to get myself into better overall health through rest, diet and exercise because, to be completely honest, I do not take enough care of my physical person, which is not particularly smart, as I intend to have a long life. The bracelet will be a good reminder to stick to my goals for the year.

Fortunately, Lily is doing really well and is back at work and in good health and spirits. She is currently writing a book about her experience to help other young women who suffer strokes. Her activism on behalf of heart health has touched a lot of us in our office community. Including me, which is why I am reminding folks now that February 1st is National Wear Red Day, where people wear the color red to show support for women's heart disease awareness. So make sure you mark the day on your calendar (it is a Friday, because there are 31 days in January, thanks, JR) and wear red to support women like Lily and raise awareness of women's heart health.

In absentia

I am just nearly over the cold I caught when I was on vacation... three weeks ago. At least now I sound like myself, even if I still have a stubborn cough to contend with.

I can't believe we are on the last page of the calendar for the year. Where has the year gone? I am going to miss writing "2007" on things. I like numbers with "7"s in them.

I have a couple of purchases I would like to make in the new year. One is a new iPod, with at least 30G of memory. Picking and choosing what does and does not go on my 4G Nano is just not working for me any more. The other thing I need to get is a new computer for home. My current one is 5 years old and is not working the way it used to anymore. I need a fresh start for all my tunes in 2008. Hopefully, I will get some money at Christmas and can put it towards these purchases. (Otherwise, I will be using my overtime from the last month!)

I spent $250 at the grocery store on Saturday morning. I realized as I was making my way down the aisles of my lovely Shaw's (that Harvard tried to tear down) that I hadn't been to the supermarket since October and had been living off of take out and office dinners. Well, now I have lots of food to eat; probably more than is good for me, but now I won't have to go shopping again until new years.

I hope that this snow melts before the commute home; it is rather sloppy out there today. Pretty, but sloppy.

No more sick days!

I can actually breathe and talk again without coughing like a maniac. :-) And the doctor's office called, and I don't have pneumonia!!

There is nothing like being home sick for a week to put things into perspective.
1. Going to the doctor's is a good thing and should not be put off until you are convinced that you might actually have pneumonia.
2. There is nothing good on television during the day, even on the Encore channels. It is good to have a dvd collection stocked with one's favorite films that one has seen a million times so that it is okay if you fall asleep and miss part of the film.
3. Going stir crazy will eventually happen, regardless of how crummy you actually feel. It is good to have nice friends who come over with Starbucks and bagels and eggs when you have spent the whole week drinking tea and chicken broth.
4. The value of clean sheets, towels and pajamas should not be underestimated. It isn't like one would put one's head in the oven if one didn't have them, but they sure make you feel better when you do.

Caffeine withdrawal

I had been trying to catch up cut back on my Diet Coke intake this semester as it had been pretty bad last April and May, averaging about five or six 12oz cans of the stuff a day. Usually, I had one in my hand with a spare "hidden" in my suit jacket pocket. This was not good.

So I cut back over the course of the summer down to one 14oz bottle of DC a day and the rest was water. It got to the point where a 12oz can of soda was a dessert at the end of the day. I was feeling better, sleeping better and even my dentist said that my teeth and gums looked better.

Can you see where this is going?

The stress has finally gotten to me, and I am back on the Diet Coke full force. I tried not to drink any today and feel AWFUL. What the heck do they PUT in that stuff? It is like crack! and I am hooked! I had to have three chocolate truffles just to get my head to stop splitting (don't laugh, faithful readers;the Advil I took didn't work.) Now I am ready to go home, with an hour and fifteen still left on the clock. I hope that I can make it until then.

700 channels and nothing is on

I spent much of this weekend at home, in bed or on the couch, with some kind of severe stomach ailment. You know how you think that there is going to be good cheesy television on when you are sick? Like "Lifetime" television movies starring Tori Spelling as a good girl who became a crack whore who sleeps with the local minister/mayor and who is a bookie for mobsters on the side? Well, apparantly those movies are only on TV when you are NOT sick.
That is why I buy good cheesy movies on dvd. Like Sense and Sensibility, Practical Magic, Sweet November and Timeline, all of which got watched over the course of this weekend. "Watched" being a variable term here as I sort of dozed through parts of them. Of course, it isn't like I hadn't seen them before.
You know what are not good movies to watch when you are sick? Anything in a foreign language that you don't speak. Because you feel obligated to keep your eyes open to keep up with the subtitles. Stupid Swimming Pool; I didn't need to see how you ended anyhow.

Dancing Queen

This morning, I got invited by my friend MP to go to a bhangra dance class tomorrow. The highly coincidental thing about that is that I was watching Bride and Prejudice for the third time last night, and I was watching the dancing scenes really carefully. Man, that stuff is HARD. At least, it looks hard to me. In fact, in watching the Behind the Scenes about the making of the film, Naveen Andrews expressed some initial concern about his ability to do the dancing and the need to perhaps hire a body double. But he ended up learning to do the moves himself. Hmmmm...
Will I end up making an ass out of myself? Yes.
Would it be good exercise? Yes.
Do I like the music? Yes.
Does it start at the same time I usually put on my pajamas? Yes.
Would it be a good story to tell people about afterwards? Yes.
Am I a chicken shit? Yes.
Do I need to get over being a self-conscious chicken shit? Yes.
Pros outweight the cons, and I suppose that I should at least TRY so that I won't be accused of being a "Will Darcy." But at least I know better than to say to someone: "I'm a hopeless dancer, but this looks like you just screw in a light bulb with one hand and pat the dog with the other." Yikes. Maybe I should look into hiring a body double.

Day 20 million of rain

It's really funny when Co-Worker Nina randomly lets out an "ooooooooooh, shiiiiiiiiiiiiit." I don't why it is funny, because clearly something is wrong. I guess it is just the rarity in comparison to what comes out of my mouth, usually after I have hung up the phone on someone.

Whoops.

Went home from work early yesterday with RSI difficulties. Watched Empire of the Sun and Finding Neverland. Empire of the Sun should be retitled Finding Paul McGann, because while he is one of the top billed actors in the film, I sure couldn't locate him. It might have had something to do with the fact that I was looking for someone yelling "BEAT TO QUARTERS" though. Trip to the chiropractor was a big help; one should not underestimate the good feeling derived from an adjustment and electroshock/ultrasound therapy.

I was home in time to see both the "Lost" and "Alias" season finales. While I was totally entertained by my three hours planted in front of the boob tube, I was hoping for a little bit more from "Lost". SPOILER ALERT!!! Arnst blowing up was totally unexpected, but I KNEW that "the others" (who looked straight out of Deliverance) were after Walt and his magical powers. I was waiting for the Jack/Locke Celebrity Smackdown, and it never happened. When it does, my money is on Locke. And HELLO!?! what kind of friend is Sayid for LEADING Charlie to the heroin? (granted, in retrospect,I think that only Locke and Jack know about his junkie ways...) Charlie, how are you going to be a good role model for Turnip, er, Aaron, with your Virgin Mary on the Crack Pipe? (BTW, Aaron means "enlightened", I looked it up...what was Claire DOING during those nine months anyhow?) So after everything, including Hurley finally noticing "the numbers", the hatch leads to a ladder? Yes, the ladder to HELLLLLLLLLLL.

With regards to "The Incredibles" also know as "Alias", I was glad that they brought Richard, er, Brodien, back for balance. The rest of the episode was kind of boring, except for Mr. Bristow deciding that he wanted more fun in his life. ;-) GO SPYDADDY! I was really happy that Irina got away. Although if Vaughn and Sydney elope, how can she see Syd on her wedding day? Have a heart, Sydney; your mom is on the lam. I must say that last scene was totally intense: when Syd and Vaughn got hit by the car, I jumped out of the chair. HOLY MOLY! I want to know who Vaughn is if he isn't Vaughn. And if he isn't Vaughn then why is he so upset that Irina killed Vaughn's dad?? I wonder if Vaughn's imaginary dad is related to my imaginary children?

I think that I am going to see Dear Frankie after work tonight by myself. It will be the second time in my life that I have gone to the movies alone; I am thinking of this is terms of character development, as in MINE. (It is probably better this way, because I can't even watch Gerard Butler in the trailer without blushing, so so so cute.)