Helloooo. It’s been a wild two weeks over here. I haven’t been sitting around on my shrinking butt doing nothing. Mostly I’ve been busy freaking out because Ryan’s surgery is in the morning. Adenoids out, septum straightened, you-know-what vacuumed away. In the big picture, this is so routine, a nothing surgery. But still. I mean, it’s not even like he’s going "under the knife" unless you count the tiny laser razor on the end of the thingie they stick in his nose. No stitches, about 90 minutes out, 2 hours in recovery, then home to sleep and ice cream. In fact, I know several people here who have had the surgery, including two people in my band. The head geezer, Barry, had it done last year.

But still. The past couple of weeks, I’ve literally been a human doing because if I stop and breathe, I feel deep anxiety. Like it vibrates my whole body. That is not a good thing right now. Too bad I don’t drink or do drugs. I remember in the good old days how that would make time just literally disappear.

Lately, we are so sober and healthy, we experience every blessed minute. Fortunately for me, eating healthy and curing disease takes time. So much time. When I’m not reading and taking notes, I’m printing it all out and making everyone else read it. Or I’m counting out vitamins and chasing everyone down with ’em. Or squeezing fresh OJ so I can count out drops of GSE to put in it. And cooking. My back hurts from standing around in the kitchen all day. That’s new for me!

Everyday I make fresh bread, then try to keep up with the demand for homemade mayo, chicken salad, egg salad, hummus, clarified butter, hard-boiled eggs, and fresh washed cold celery. Hal keeps us in brown rice and beans. Gone are pasta, canned goods, chips, potatoes, peanut butter (because here you can only get it with hydrogenated fats or freshly made from rancid nuts – they just don’t get peanut butter in Costa Rica. Besides, peanuts are a huge allergen and we’d give it up anyway.) The list of what we no longer eat is LONG.

The boys like to complain there’s nothing to eat. But, you know, they always think there’s nothing to eat if they can’t find chips and ice cream.

It’s true, the cupboards look bare. We have always been a Full-Pantry kitchen. I think that’s been the hardest thing to get used to: looking in cabinets and seeing space. If the cabinets are over-flowing, that means a) we are prosperous, b) we won’t starve and c) there’s gotta be something good to eat, right? It’s completely psychological… and an incredibly wasteful way to live. Looking back, I’ll bet we could have supported a family in Darfur on what we’ve thrown away. Ouch. Yeah, I’m uh-merikan. Pity.

But I’m moving on!

The geezer gig went fairly well. If you only count how we sounded, it went incredibly well! We really sound good, tight harmonies, good musicians and a real live saxophone player! Too bad, because there were only a dozen or so people in the audience, mostly friends and family. I felt like I was in a high school play. Our publicity campaign fell a tad short. We now have a website (notice the next gig 25 October) and an updated email list. And an Advertising Action Plan. Heck, we sound too good not to play to a full house!!! And, ok, since we keep the door, we need more than 12 people in attendance.

Sunday the next day was my birthday. To celebrate, we fed the homeless in downtown San Jose with the Amma crowd. It was right after the Week of Worry and I was feeling deeply grateful. An overwhelming urge to give back overtook me. At that exact moment, I got an Amma email announcing their monthly soup kitchen. Serendipity. Sunday morning early, we met at one of the organizer’s homes, cut, chopped, stirred, spiced and got a soup going. Then drove it all downtown and served it up. I was the Tang girl and I was darned good at it.

There are some seriously homeless people in San José. They were all so filthy, they pretty much looked alike. Some taller, a few gringos, not too many young people, too many women who looked like they’d been run over. They love soup, they love Tang. Good for the boys, good for me. It was a perfect birthday.

Let’s see, what else… OH. I kinda got a hair cut. Like all of it. I actually paid someone to cut my hair and she did a terrific job. I am sick of dying my hair and actually want to see it all silver which it looks like it will be once the reddish blonde is gone. And I LOVE no hair. Whoa, this is living. I know why Hal shaves his head now. Besides the fact he doesn’t have enough hair to speak of…

I hate this picture because this is exactly what I look like. I always think I’m thinner and younger. I’m especially always surprised that my mouth is so little. Oddly, you can see a bit of a picture of my father who everyone says I look like. Um, he’s a guy. A good looking guy, but still.

We are off to bed. To sleep… HA! To read, toss and turn, to wander about, doing stuff. More soon.