bella saves my life

My husband said it was just constipation and I would be wasting my time going to the Dr....this from a man who if he sneezed his mother would take him to the emergency room! Thank god for Bella-she made me promise to go to the Dr...they removed my infected appendix-even my own sister said she thought it was nothing...more later 

Trouble in Paradise

We thought we lived in paradise, we're close to our sailboat and the beach and enjoy picture perfect weather...but lately there is trouble in paradise. Two huge houses blocking half our view, a yip-yapping dog the owners can't seem to hear but drives us nuts, and some other tightwad whacky neighbors have pushed us over the top.

I don't think it's any better somewhere else--but my sister moved from this paradise and she's happier, another sister is in a southern ca paradise and she's put her house up for sale. Lately my husband wants to explore moving to another continent and I'm not protesting. Maybe change is good.

Bella Broken

Bella fall down go boom! I took the hardest fall of my life this morning. I was not ten feet from the end of my run when my left foot sunk deep into a narrow hole in the asphalt. My foot stayed wedged in the hole while my right knee, hip and hand took the full force of my fall. There was no rolling or catching myself. I hit the pavement full force. I lay there moaning thinking this is it. I am done. My wrist and hip are broken. I will need some sort of knee surgery that won't work, and I will grow ever more frail and decrepit as the years of inactivity pass.

I lay there unable to move, but eventually you either have to get up or call for help, so I rolled over and carefully sat up -- I was still alive. I hobbled to my feet, took a few steps, and unbelievably my knee didn't give out underneath my massive tonnage. Honestly, I couldn't believe I was walking.

I limped to my car -- fortunately I could still press the breakpedal down -- went home and filled four Ziploc bags with crushed ice -- it's not just for Margaritas! I lay on the couch like a people-pop: one homemade icepack for my green left foot, one for my purple right knee, one for my scraped hip, and one for my aching and bloody wrist. Delightful.

It looks like nothing is broken, which is great. But falling hard, feeling myself to be totally out of control with no way to break the fall except with my body, well, it really rattled me. At my age it's not just a fall: there's the recovery time, the fact that I could be plagued by the injuries for the rest of my short life -- never really fully recovering -- and that at my age getting back into shape is a herculean task, one I don't know if I'd be up for.

I remember something my dad told me about aging. He said he felt he was always marching up hill until he got his dentures, afterwards, he said, it was all down hill to the grave. I got a little taste of that this morning as I lay splayed out on the blacktop. And I still can't shake it.

Bella Time

I have no time. That huge sucking sound you hear? That would be my life being sucked into a huge vortex where every minute is consumed with petty demands, stupid crap, and the really unimportant business of daily living -- "Honey, did you pick up the dry cleaning?"

I don't have time. I am five minutes from 50 and ten minutes from dead. I am sick to death of spending my day doing shit I hate.

Kuhl wants freedom from her super demanding job, me, the lesser of the two, just wants freedom from stupid tasks that suck the life out of me. As I've said before, I hate everyone: I hate the other board members of my HOA, the other parents at my kid's preschool, and the driver in the car infront of me. You and are all wasting my time and I don't have much of it left!

Kuhl's list

things that bug me

-people who take too many words to say something simple to make themselves feel important

-people who smile with their mouth but not their eyes

-people who don't know how to control their barking dogs and who always say "oh he wouldn't hurt anyone" 

-my ugly toenails

-meetings that take too long

-people who ask what it's like to grow up in such a large family -I don't know the difference!

-mice-ick

things I like

-my husband tucking me in

-my husband asking for advice on skin care

-shopping for bargains!!! Finding an Hermes tie for a dime!

-being the "cool aunt" to my adorable nieces

-writing about travel

-talking about my master's degree in science on any and all occassions (since I am a science idot and the masters is in organizational communication)

-Looking forward to vacations

my husband making me laugh so hard my stomach hurts

A working fool

Bella says this is a blog so I will trust her. I'm 51 (gulp) and have been working since I was 15. My first job was working for the local Catholic diocese mimographing copies of aborted fetuses-honest. I tried not to look. Then in high school I fell in lust with a boy from Waterloo and called him-a lot. In those days long distance calls were expensive and when my mom found out she made me get a job to pay it off. I was a waitress at one of the fancy restuarants in town and learned I better got to college because I would suck at service. Every night after work my co-worker and high school classmate and I went to International House of Pancakes and packed on the pounds. I was always mystified how she got big tips-may have had something to do with not daydreaming. Of course there was always babysitting along the way and I got my charges to answer "Who's your favorite babysitter?" "You are!" It was probably the Ralph the Mouse stories I made up-if only I had written them down. Then I found a new local boyfriend and my cousin and sisters had to babysit -unfortunately the kids complained and asked for me but as my cuz Barb said, "Ruthie has a boyfriend now so get used to it!" In college I had a brief stint at an ice-cream store until I got caught giving away the product to my new boyfriend (hmmm-is there a pattern here with boys getting me in trouble?) But he turned out to get me a dream job-working at the College box office. We were paid well and got free tickets to great concerts. In the summers I made more money though as janitor where I met the elderly African American women who were pros working all year round-they told me a great story about meeting activists in the 60's who blew up toilets. They were not pleased. I wish I could say my jobs got easier but it took awhile-from the "glamour of Tv and radio news" ie-did not pay well to public relations which did compensate. I am now tired of working. I have never had more than a month off at a time-I know moms say taking care of kids is harder than working at a job but gee some days I wish I had that opportunity. 

Bella's List

My yoga teachers toenails: She makes the best color choices. I feel lame copying her -- yoga is done barefoot so my copycat toenail polish is there for all to see. Last week, she had this dreamy purple-blue opalescent color. I promptly went out and had my Vietnamese lady apply the same during my $20 pedicure. Now, this week, my yoga teacher has a sexy, dark -- almost black -- deep purple color. It's funny, but I feel by some cosmic coincidence next week I will have the same. Isn't that crazy?

British football (soccer) fans: loud and drunk before noon. There's some big game going on up my block at the sports bar for Brits/Aussies/and miscellaneous Europeans, like the Spanish. I can hear the screaming, singing and chanting all the way up here in my loft. If they win, they will celebrate by drinking beer; if they lose, they will commiserate, also with beer. Either way, I will have vomit on my sidewalks by 4:00 this afternoon.

Bella Wants

My dirty little secret is that I do boot camp. I am a boot-camper. I always sneered at the whole boot camp concept: so macho, so paramilitary so holier-than-thou; "My workout is way harder than yours," so hard, they had to give it a special name so no one would mistake it with just going to the gym. But the truth is, my particular group (I do four mornings a week at 9:30 after I drop my son off at preschool) turned out to be mostly comprised of other women just like me (old and fat), and is one of the best things I've ever done in my life.

The time, 9:30AM, weeds out all the Über-macho guys who do the 6:00 AM session because they need to get to work. Actually, the time weeds out most people with nine-to-five jobs, which leaves the stay at home moms and the counter culture guys -- DJs, graphic artists and hair stylists -- for my group. Our 9:30 crew is supportive, competitive and hard. So hard. This is do primarily to the long-timers who ramp up the speed and intensity. My first three sessions (each is 6 weeks) were unrelentingly hard. In my youth I rock climbed, kick-boxed and even did a few triathlons (the sport distance). Granted, this time around I was totally out of shape and pushing 50, but boot camp is the hardest thing I've ever done, and now four months into it, it's still spanks me on a regular basis.

Now, here's the rub -- my old group is going through some changes, and I don't do change. I don't like this new group of boot campers. They bug me. Worse, the new annoying additions are not being off-set by the old guard. Holly got pregnant, Renatta is training for a marathon and only comes twice a week and Wendy switched to the 8:30. Now I am out numbered by the newbies. They have their own little cliques, and worse two are a married couple. Where do I fit in? Who can I gossip with on the run? Who is there to root me on? WHO? No one. I am lonely. I don't like making new friends. I miss my old boot camp crew. This is crummy. I want my gal pals back.

Bella Bemoans SF Weather I

I know Kuhl loves and dearly misses SF. I know she thinks the weather wouldn't bother her, but she has forgotten! Why? Because she lives in Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz, people. Surf City. Warm and sunny. Beaches you can actually swim and frolic in with little fear of frostbite. The weather is great, and don't let any of those old hippies who hate the tourists tell you any different.

Me, on the other hand, I am very clear where I stand: I hate San Francisco weather. HATE IT. I took DC (darling child) to soccer practice on Tuesday and froze my huevos rancheros right off. The wind was whipping, the fog was cresting the hill and swirling like the smoke from some evil witch's pot (honestly, when looking for fog metaphors, and lord knows there are an abundance, I try to stay away from all the "kitten's feet" and "cotton balls" kind of romantic version of a very unpleasant phenomenon for those who must endure it for months at a time). While the entire rest of the Western hemisphere is gaily gearing up for springtime -- think happy Easter colors, daffodils, sweet little dresses with just a light sweater and sandals -- I was wearing a blanket, and a wool hat, Ugg boots and a winter coat. Even with all those layers, I was still shivering and quivering like a Jell-O mold. Indeed, not to put to fine a point on it but, I HATE IT. I often wear a hat and gloves indoors. My heater is on high as I write this. Did I mention today is May, not Feburary first? My world is gray.

Bella Bends

Our babysitter, who was born in the Philippines and has had her hormonal clocked cleaned by two bouts with breast cancer, recently told me my hot flashes were all in my head. Gee. Thanks. I think this stung more coming from her because my current obsession is the impact of culture on the experience of menopause. Take my current nemesis, hot flashes, to suffer from them is not a universal phenomenon. Women in Japan rarely, if ever, do -- this is the origins of the whole myth about soy as an antidote to hot flashes. So here she was, a woman from Asia, telling me my hot flashes were psychosomatic. I was already worried they were, and that I was weak or deficient in some way for giving into them. Plus, the fact she had both radiation and chemotherapy, leaving her insides ravaged and her natural hormone balances destroyed, yet never suffered from a hot flash. Well, she got me where it hurts. Ouch.

To fight against the dreaded, I-get-hot-flashes-because-it's-my-fault-syndrome, otherwise known as, IGHFBIMFS (or in some medical textbooks as, you sweat like a pig because you are weak and fat and made of coffee and lard you western woman, you) I went to Yoga today. Me. Yoga. Try not to smirk.

All the things I loath about yoga were there: creepy new age sitar music, the smell of patchouli and lavender, people talking in low voices even though no one was asleep or dying, the obligatory bald guy in pretty good shape for a dude in his late 50s and me; the stereotypical long curly brown haired (it won't make you look younger), slightly over-weight (face it, you will never be thin again) gal in her late 40s. We made bookends him and me. It was a beginner class, but it was an hour-and-half long, and it hurt me to do it. I didn't need a hot flash, though of course I had one, to have sweat gushing from every pore. The teacher was very nice, despite being physically perfect and having the most lovely Australian accent -- who knew they all weren't Crocodile Dundees? I tried for five seconds not to hate her, but I gave into it after the first downward dog. She was exotic (yes, Australia counts), very pretty, seemingly kind hearted and she could do things with her back that were freaky. Why like a person like this? But I hung in there and finished the class weak kneed and quivering.

Afterwards I limped to my car, went home and made a fresh pot of strong coffee to wash my spoonful of lard down with.