No plans

[susandennis]

I have never been a big holiday person.  I used to go to my parents house religiously for Thanksgiving and Christmas and it was  sometimes nice and comforting but more often stressful with everyone suffering acute cases of Trying Too Hard.   My last round was the last year I was married - no one really liked my husband (me included) and my brother's wife got the nod only because of the toddlers and everyone was judging everyone really harshly.

So...  that next year I got divorced and declared an end to family holidays that lasted for 30 years.  After my father died, I did go spend Thanksgiving every year with my Mom.  It was just the two of us and we would scope out some extremely toney high end restaurant and eat ourselves silly.  We spent the rest of the visit doing her year end finances and taking her shopping and just stuff.  It was fun for six years but, honestly, when she died, it was a relief not to have to traipse across country with the masses.

I don't even remember what I have done since then.  I'm thinking tomorrow of doing brunch at 13 Coins - one of my favorite places that I rarely go to any more but is a great place for a single person on a holiday.  Warm, inviting and delicious.

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Last night I woke up in the middle of the night scratching the back of my hand. This morning I discovered the reward for my efforts.

The darker mark at the top of my arm is where I bumped it against the edge of  a cardboard box yesterday.  The other mark is left over from last week.  My other arm looks even worse.

I hate this stuff and there seems to be no way to avoid it.  It does not hurt, it just looks disgusting.  My doctor says that the aspirin a day I take makes it worse but millions of people take an aspirin a day and their hands and arms don't look like the beginnings of leprosy!     I can wear long sleeves and gloves but not in the swimming pool.  

This started several years ago and, honestly, I think gets worse every year.  It's only on my hands and arms.  I think I'm glad it's not on my face or neck!



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No class today that I really want to go to so I think I'll just take my MP3 player and do my own program.  I hope everyone else is too busy cooking or whatever and I get the pool to myself.  

And I need to make a quick pop into the grocery store.  I'm hoping the small market near the pool won't be too much of a madhouse.

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My personal jury is still out on Windows 8.  I put it on my laptop to try it out and meh.  I like some things but I'm not seeing giant improvements in throughput or speed or much of anything else.  On the up side, I do not feel at all compelled to upgrade either of the other two windows computers.  They have windows 7 and we are all happy with that.

I was one of the very fortunate ones who got one of the free Google trial laptops way back when they were first trying out chrome machines.  I find I am using it more and more these days.  It's heavy (compared to my other laptop) but otherwise, it's very nice to use.  It's fast and the chrome operating system has come a long long way since it was born.  

Currently there are no chrome laptops that are attractive and, happily, I'm not in the market.  But, if they come up with a pretty, lightweight one, I can envision switching over next time I'm in the market for a laptop.  

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I am happy to say that so far, so birds have been killed in this house today.  Score!!

Comments

[howeird]

Two suggestions about the ugly arms:
1. Now is a great time to start your tattoo collection
2. There must be laser treatments which can erase these.
http://www.aboardcertifiedplasticsurgeonresource.com/laser_skin_resurfacing/Laser%20blemish%20removal.html

[susandennis]

I like the tattoo idea... maybe I could 'sell' them as a tattoo that went horribly wrong!

They are like bruises - only they don't hurt when you poke them. Depending on the severity, they fade away completely after a couple or 3 weeks but by them, I've bumped something else and there are new ones.

[jawnbc]

My first year in Canada I trekked to NYC for (US) Thanksgiving. The airports alone swore me off holiday travel for 2 decades. The part about people Trying Too Hard is so true, but at least in a large family like mine there's always a crew of snarky social commentators from whom you can find entertainment.

[susandennis]

Yeah, we had way too small a population... no where to hide!

[rsc.livejournal.com]

This is the first year in living memory (other than the year we spent the day flying home from Japan -- '90 or '91) that we're not spending Thanksgiving with my family (in Fort Lee, NJ, and later on Philadelphia). I'm actually happy not to be travelling.

So we're going to make ourselves a festive meal, just like we do at Christmas. And when deciding what to get at the supermarket yesterday jwg managed to pretty much duplicate last Christmas's menu (http://rsc.livejournal.com/130153.html).

[susandennis]

Oh! I remember thinking last year how delicious that all sounded!

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

Re: improvements in speed, and such, new Windows *usually* won't cause massive increases without new hardware. Sometimes you'll see incremental improvements - it now starts in 2 minutes, instead of 2:15. But on the same hardware, you'd normally expect to see only modest improvements in performance, if that. However, sometimes there are big improvements. Windows XP would start slowly on a solid-state hard drive - faster than a regular hard drive, but not a lot. Vista wasn't much better. Windows 7 would start in 30-45 seconds. Windows 7 was written to recognize and utilize the power of a solid state drive, but Vista and XP weren't.

Anyway: I wouldn't expect Windows 8 to have many visible improvements. There should be stability improvements, and security improvements (Windows has tools that let an anti-virus program start *much* earlier in the boot process), but not much in the way of speed. And, if you like the new UI, of course, you'll have it. I prefer the Start Menu/Desktop, but I do see the appeal of the new interface for people who have gadgets on screen.

[london1952.livejournal.com]

My mother has marks like that on her arms and hands, quite a few a result of the dog belonging to the "boys" next-door that she baby-sits occasionally being over-affectionate...ie: his claws making contact with her skin. This has only happened since she has been on Warfarin....which in effect is similar to aspirin, but stronger, so I guess it's a similar cause.... maybe some Arnica rubbed on would help ?

Happy Thanksgiving anyway, but good for you doing ii your way and pleasing yourself !! can't think of anything better ;-)

[susandennis]

I never heard of Arnica! I'll give it a shot. Thank you. And HTD to you, too!