Per popular request - why I got a Kindle...

Friends, I love books. They have been a huge part of my life since I figured out how to read in first grade. Reading has defined me, has taught me many things, has been my close companion when things get rough, has amused me and made me cry.

Heck, reading is so important to me that I can actually remember the day I figured it out.

I was sitting in my tiny first grade desk, turning pages in my reader and perusing the pictures. I remember looking down and realizing that I knew what the words said. This was revelatory. I don't remember how I came to understand that fact, and since I now teach reading, I know that lots of little skills need to be in place for it to be successful.

Being in a Catholic school, of course, made me fearful. Who needs to be cajoled to behave when God himself is embodied in the figure of a Catholic nun, rosary hanging down to her knees from her waist, her habit and wimple covering just about every square inch of skin and leaving exposed a set of eyes that are capable of boring through your skull to uncover the unsavory thoughts beneath?

To put it in other words, I was afraid to let anyone know that I had figured out this reading thing because I thought I would get in trouble. So I played along.

Since that day, I have been hooked.

But this is about my latest toy, isn't it?

Let me say this - I love books. In fact, they are threatening to take over my house.

I love big books too - the kind that hit the floor with a bang when you fall asleep reading them.

I love having book shelves. When I visit someone's house, I make a beeline for their book shelves. What a person displays speaks volumes about him or her.

Knowing all of this about myself, I held off on getting a Kindle for years. Sure, it sounded cool, and even Stephen King came out with a giddy endorsement.

Nah, not for me, I kept saying. I like holding a book.

Then I got Kelsey one for Christmas. I fell in love.

I don't ever plan to stop buying books. I get too much pleasure out of opening and turning pages. But here's the reasons I love my new toy:

It is very portable. I recently finished a fantasy novel called Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. I loved this book. It is almost 1000 pages long, and even the trade paperback must weigh five pounds. I lugged the thing around with me everywhere. My wrists got tired holding it up in bed at night. Now, if I'd had my Kindle, none of this would have been a problem. I can keep my Kindle in my purse.

It provides instant gratification. I have read so many books that were part of a series over the years, and been frustrated looking or waiting for the next volume. Click on the Kindle and I can have the new title instantly.

You can download samples of books for free. My sister-in-law, bless her, just talked me through how to do this. I'm usually pretty certain I want to read a book if I buy it, but this feature should guarantee that I don't waste money on duds that I never finish.

I can read Twilight in public and no one will know. OK, I have never read Twilight, nor do I plan to, but should I want to read it, I won't be an object of derision. Sorry, Twilight fans.

Books in the public domain are FREE. This includes lots and lots of classics that I should have read, but haven't. Jane Austen, here I come.

It is easy to use. Even for a Luddite like me, who has never mastered texting, and barely knows how to answer a cell phone, the Kindle seems pretty idiot-proof.

So, that's the poop on the Kindle. I think we're going to have a beautiful friendship.

The razor's edge....

I got my surgery instructions the other day:


Nothing to eat after midnight the night prior to the procedure - no problem.


No Advil or other anti-inflammatory drugs seven days prior - okey dokey.


Take off all jewelry on the day of the surgery - check.


Wear loose, comfortable clothing and make sure you bring someone who can drive you home - yep, I can do that.


Stop shaving your legs 48 hours before the procedure - wait a minute - WHAT?

Now, this is simply unfair.

Here's my little secret - I shave my legs before bed every night. I can't sleep otherwise. I can't stand that scratchy feeling.

Strange? Bordering on the obsessive? Absolutely. I own it all. I have issues and I'm proud.

Now, I am trying to come up with a scheme whereby I can continue to shave up until the surgery. Something along the lines of "Oops, I forgot," or "What do you mean it looks like I've shaved my legs? I just have naturally smooth and not-at-all-hairy skin."

Wish me luck.

Under the knife...

So, next Thursday they will insert a small camera and a tiny knife (yes, I am quite sure that this is the correct medical terminology) into my knee and, hopefully, scrape away all of that nasty torn meniscus.

In the meantime, I am hobbling around the best I can.

I doubt many people look forward to surgery the way I am counting the days until this is over. Mostly, I look forward to the end of this pain.

Pain is a pervasive thing. I have nothing but sympathy for people who suffer from it chronically. It takes over your life. One minute you're feeling pretty happy and optimistic about, say, your new washing machine and the next - WHAM - you are reminded that you are nothing but a giant pain receptor.

"Ha," says pain, "you thought you could forget about me for a few minutes. No deal, mister. I intend to remind you of my existence as often as it takes."

I have now reached the point where I no longer need reminders. It is there.

I imagine my orthopedic surgeon not as a kindly young doctor but as a Knight of the Round Table, ready to do battle with the evil, immoral and uncivilized being who has taken up residence in my right knee. I hope for violence. I hope for annihilation. I hope for total victory over the interloper.

Sorry. Guess it's time for a Tramadol.

Sore knees and psycho dreams....

A few months ago, I began to experience excruciating hip pain. My doctor sent me to physical therapy.

The very nice therapist informed me that 1) my left leg was longer than my right leg and 2) as a result, my body was pretty much misshapen, from my pelvis up to my shoulders. This is not the best news to receive as you enter your fifties, but I remained hopeful that she would make me feel better.

Apart from practically sitting on my chest to pop my pelvis into place, the therapist gave me a long list of exercises that would help me to build up my core and strengthen the muscles around my hip. The good news was that I could feel them working, almost immediately.

Thus inspired, I added some weights and some lunges to my workout. I had hopes of getting back into shape and dropping the 20 pounds I'd managed to gain over the past few years.

One morning, while doing my lunges, I felt a most disturbing pop in my right knee. This was followed by pain resembling having a nail pounded into my kneecap. I began to hobble.

In a bout of faulty reasoning that should win some sort of prize, I decided that I would just keep working out. I'd probably only strained something, and exercising was going to make it feel better in the long run. Right?

Well, no. After three or four days, I could barely walk, much less get up and down the stairs. The pain was constant. I mean so constant that I couldn't sleep at night. I tried Advil and ice, which was about as effective as trying to bring down an elephant with a flyswatter.

After my co-workers informed me that my gait most closely resembled that of Frankenstein's monster, I came to grips with the fact that I had probably suffered another meniscal tear.

The meniscus is, as I understand it, the soft tissue around the kneecap. It can tear due to injury or due to long misuse. Sitting cross-legged on the floor for the past 15 years pretty much qualifies as long misuse. Plus, I'd already had a meniscal tear repaired about 8 years ago, and this felt exactly the same.

"Mom," the ever-cheerful Kelsey informed me, "women have shorter ligaments than men. It's just a matter of time."

So, after a teary phone call to my orthopedic doctor ("what do you mean, the first available appointment is the end of February? I am in pain now. Someone is driving nails into my knee"), I consulted with my doctor, who concurred with my diagnosis (love when that happens) pending an MRI. He also prescribed some lovely pain pills and a muscle relaxant.

Excited about the prospect of actually sleeping for a whole eight hours, I took the first dose of the muscle relaxant the night before last.

Unaware of the fact that I was totally and completely wasted, I announced to my family at about 7:30 pm that I was going to take a bath and go to bed early.

"Mom, you'd better be careful. I think you may drown," was my daughter's warning. I could not make my addled brain think of why she was saying this.

Said bath was delightful, and I dragged myself into bed soon after. I think, but I am not sure, that I actually melted into the mattress. At least that's how it felt. My legs, arms and torso became nothing more than a quivering mass. I read a few chapters of the book I am working on, but I have no idea what any of the words said. Then, I fell into a deep, deep sleep.

When not under the influence of powerful drugs, I tend to dream vividly. According to Steve, I sometimes thrash, sometimes laugh and sometimes scream in my sleep. When I wake up, I don't often remember what caused these reactions, but I figure that there's no reason why Steve would lie to me about it. What would he stand to gain?

But on this night, I vaguely recall dreaming about a dark and evil presence - perhaps a ghost or demon, perhaps a serial killer - trying to hurt, of all things, my dog Toby.

What Steve tells me is that I let out a blood-chilling scream, one so loud that everyone in the house heard it. One so loud that Steve actually rushed into the room to check if I was OK.

I have a dim memory of lifting my head, which by this time weighed about 650 pounds, off the pillow to ask "Is Toby OK?"

I woke with what can best be described as a hangover, and struggled through the day at work, feeling fuzzy and as if I had been on a college-level bender. Had the children set fire to the classroom, I probably would not have noticed.

Anyway, tonight I'm back to Advil and ice. Oh, and Kelsey wants to know if I would scream so loudly should some evil presence be after her.

Not for the queasy....

Nothing strikes fear into the heart of an adult person quite so much as the stomach flu. I mean it.

I went home from work the other day feeling nauseous and icky. As I was getting ready to leave, our office administrator (aka my mother) was spraying herself with WINDEX. Windex? Seriously? Others in the building were escorting me, rather quickly I might add, to the door armed with cans of Lysol, and spraying it, not very discreetly, in my wake.

Had I not been ill, I would have been offended.

Most folks I know would rather suffer through a bout of pneumonia than face the stomach flu. Throwing up seems so unnatural. It's a helpless feeling knowing that you need to upchuck the contents of your stomach, and knowing NOTHING on earth can stop you from doing it. Ick.

Anyway, before I descend into graphic and gross descriptions, I'll leave you with this.

I'll never eat beef barley soup again.

Ring out the old stuff.....

I accomplished one chore over my winter break. I managed to clean out my closet.

I am not, by nature, a very organized person. I am also a bit of a hoarder. In fact, "stuff" threatens to take over my life in a way that can't be healthy.

I spend a lot of time moving stuff around. Sometimes, I move it from one drawer to another. I am working on being able to just let go of stuff, but it isn't easy.

Take, for instance, some candles I received for Christmas several years ago. They don't smell very good and I don't really trust myself with candles anyway. I am prone to lighting them and then forgetting about having done so. But I can't bring myself to toss them or, better yet, put them in a box and donate them to the Goodwill store, which is located only minutes from my house.

So I move them around. I encounter them every so often in a desk drawer or in the dining room hutch. Perhaps I feel guilt about getting rid of something that someone took time to buy for me. I think I'll just move them here until I decide what to do with them and then I promptly forget about them for another six months.

My closet is my biggest challenge. It is jammed full of past mistakes and hopeful intentions to reinvent myself.

See, I have a little problem with dressing. I am fussy, for one thing, and I just may have some issues with sensory input. This means that a wool sweater feels like a straight-jacket, and I will be in agony if there are any tags in a garment. Synthetic fabrics most often feel like sandpaper on my skin and if my socks fall down, my day is ruined.

Yeah, I know. We all have our things, don't we?

So I shop with this in mind. The most comfortable thing to wear, I have found, is a cotton t-shirt, with the tags removed, of course. Cotton sweaters and fleece are also OK, most of the time.

I must also say that my job requires me to sit on the floor for hours at a time, and a good day is one where I don't get paint, play dough or any type of bodily fluid on my clothing. Why on earth would someone wear "nice" clothes for this?

Now bear in mind that this little problem of mine pretty much disqualifies most clothing for me. So, when I find cotton t-shirts that fit and feel good, I buy one in every color. My daughter finds this a never-ending source of hilarity. She, obviously, did not inherit my sensory issues.

Anyway, in cleaning out my closet last week, I found that I have five long-sleeved white t-shirts, and seven short-sleeved white t-shirts. Then, we get into the colored ones. There's pink (two), light blue (three), purple (only one, go figure), black (four), gray (four again) and an odd assortment of pastel colors that must have seemed like a good idea at the time.

Are you sensing a theme here? Yeah, me too. I have thought of nominating myself to be featured on "What Not To Wear." I adore Clinton, by the way, and wouldn't mind spending some time with him in the Big Apple.

I can see myself now. First, I get put into the room of mirrors, wearing t-shirts. Clinton and Stacy mock me until I am shamed by the way I dress, and then they send me out to shop. They'll want me to buy trousers, jackets and those boots with the pointy toes. I'll feel overwhelmed and head directly for the t-shirt section.

Then, I'll hear Clinton on a megaphone, as if he is part of a SWAT team:

Put down the white t-shirts and no one gets hurt.

So, I tried, I really did, to get rid of my t-shirts when I cleaned out my closet last week. I just couldn't do it. But what I did do is arrange them by color and style. Long sleeves in one section, short sleeves in another.

I'll try to widen my horizons in 2011 to include something new. I really will. There's always 3/4 sleeved t-shirts. In a variety of colors.

Happy New Year.