So far so good

I woke up early and decided to go ahead and get up rather than trying to go back to sleep. I got to the Ballard pool in record time (Google said it was 14 minutes). The pool was pretty deserted and my swim was lovely.

The Ballard gym is too far away to be practical most of the time. And while there are a couple of things I like better than my regular gym, there are several - including the commute - that I don't. I am grateful to at least have a very nice Plan B until they see their way clear to fixing Plan A. I'll call my regular gym this afternoon or evening to get today's Line O' Bullshit. Best case, they fix today. It still takes about 24 hours to get it swimmable. So I'll be going back to Ballard tomorrow. Ironically, one of the things I don't like about the Ballard pool is that they keep the temperature just a little too warm. Sigh.

I started my way home about 7:15 and it was fine. A few more cars than yesterday but not enough to slow traffic. It's kind of cool to get up and swim and get home all before dawn. Now I've had breakfast, am about to finish my coffee, am caught up on LJ and ready to go sew and it's not even 8:30. It's ridiculous how much this tickles me.

I think I'm going on a little excursion today. I keep reading about the poke place over on Capital Hill just between the trolley stop and the light rail station. I think I'm going to hop on one of those and just take myself over there for lunch. There's a Walgreens and a QFC grocery nearby if I think of anything I need to pick up. Very low key adventure but fun... and, hopefully, tasty.

On one side note, I am just delighting in finding new Live Journal friends and reconnecting with old ones. Live Journal has made my life so much more rich and valuable in so many ways over the past nearly 15 years. I signed up to have a place to keep an only diary. It was a total surprise to find a network of really fun and interesting and thoughtful friends. I still do enjoy writing in my journal but reading the journals of others quickly became as valuable or more to me. And absolutely, the more the way merrier!!

My tweets

• Mon, 14:03: Nothing like a good Japanese dollar store for both bargains and amusements. https://t.co/msMouDv7NU

Deadline looming

Somewhere about a week and a half from when I plan to deliver the dolls and bears to Jeanie (the Baby Bank lady who sends them out for adoption), I hit the production panic button. I always feel like I am behind. I never am but every month I think maybe this is the month I will be.

So I made 3 dolls today thinking that delivery was this week. It's next week. There will be plenty.

I had a fun little lunch. I got on the trolley which is slow as Christmas and enjoyed a leisurely ride up to Capital Hill and the poke spot. It was delightful and delicious. And then I rode the trolley home. It is windy and cold out but, turns out, I didn't spend that much time 'out'. Not even enough to send my tracker to the daily goal. (Next time I get up to pee, I'll get to the goal. so close...)

My cat is bipolar and is in her manic phase. She's been driving me nuts today. Into everything and demanding food every second. She just now settled down for the first time today. Whew. She'll be cool now for a few weeks and then hit the panic button again. This is why I only have one cat. She's all I can handle (and food wise lately, all I can afford!).

This morning I discovered that I have a whole extra of my expensive inhalers. This is double extra good. It means I don't have to buy one again until the end of February and next year I will only have to buy 10 so I won't hit up against the medicare donut hole again. If I have to buy any drugs between now and the end of the year, I'll have to pay full price for them out of my own pocket. So I'm kind of hoping to to avoid that. 4 days. I like my chances.

Pool Report

"My manager says he tried and couldn't get a hold of the pool guy today. Hopefully, he'll come tomorrow and fix it and it will be ready for swimming in a couple of days."

I wrote an email asking corporate to send them help ASAP.

A very fair question is why in the hell do I keep calling and torturing myself??? Clearly no one gives a shit about this but me. The gym folks clearly don't. My friend Barrie will when her foot heals but til then...

EDITED after dinner: I am going to quit torturing myself. I have the time, I can drive to Ballard every day. On Saturdays, when they hold a class in the pool, I can go to the city pool. If they ever open up the West Seattle gym pool again, I'll go back. If they don't, life will go on. It's a privilege to have found some kind of phyisical exercise I love and have options - good options for doing it every day when and where I want. The whining ends now.

Thank you notes

Thank you notes have been on my mind all week. To say my mother was a stickler for thank you notes would be to grossly understate the situation. We wrote thank you notes for every single gift from my very earliest memory. Until we could hold a crayon, we put our handprint on the note she wrote on our behalf. Until we could copy her words, we drew pictures. Until we could write ourselves, we copied what she printed out for us. By the time we were 5 we were expected to take on the responsibility ourselves.

We were allowed to play with/use/enjoy every gift on the day it was given (birthday/Christmas) but the day after, we were not allowed to touch it until the thank you note was written. The day after Christmas was Thank You Note Day. It was not easy. It was painful. And when I think about how much we fought her on it, it must have been miserable for her. But, when I think about my great aunts and uncles and grandparents who received those notes from us year after year, I'm so grateful to her.

Today the mail came late. 6:30. And in it was a treat of my very own. In an envelope from The Baby Bank of Seattle was this:



And in that envelope was this adorable and oh so amazingly sweet note:



The sticker at the top is a multi-layered hand crafted special thank you tag.

Bentley's grandmother is my new favorite person on the planet.