Third time’s a…well, it wasn’t charming

This morning was my doctor’s appointment. I haven’t actually seen him in about 3 years and I remember from that time I had to wait about 30 min after my appointment time to see him. Apparently things have not improved. The general talk around the waiting room was how long the wait time was and how it had gotten worse and worse over the years. Two to three hours was apparently the norm?!?!?

Meanwhile one patient kept wandering back and forth between some back room and outside, breathing very badly and coughing. After about a half-hour he appeared wearing a face mask…WONDERFUL! Typhoid Murray’s been wandering around exposing us to his phlemy breath for a good half hour before someone slaps a mask on him. Another patient entertained me by showing me pix of her sister’s cakes and cupcakes on her smartphone. Apparently the sister is a stay at home Mom with one child but their trying for two and she figures baking out of her home could help bring in extra money and she only charges $1 per cupcake and uses almond past and not fondant because it tastes better and is easier to work with, she makes wedding cakes as well as ones for showers and birthdays but can do pretty much anything with any theme and don’t you just love the one she did for her friend’s birthday that follows’ her friend’s shoe obsession?

…yep….

Talk circled back to wait times and I did some quick math, I was in for at least another hour and a half wait, and I had already been there an hour. All I really needed was a referral for someone to go to for grief counseling, so I played the widow card. Walked back up the receptionist, explained I was there for non-medical reasons, explained why I needed a referral for a grief therapist, and lied that I had another app. I couldn’t miss at 1pm – which was quickly approaching. She asked if there was anything else I needed and I threw in the sleep issues. She wrote everything down and said the Doctor would contact me later in the day. And he did, actually the receptionist did, telling me that someone would phone me within the next day or 2 with a referral. And, get this, there was a ‘script waiting for me at a local pharmacy for a “sleep aid”….WTF?!? Not that I don’t want help with falling asleep but it seems a bit odd/negligent/foolish to prescribe a drug to a patient you haven’t met. Am I wrong????

So I now have 14 “Sublinox” tablets, they’re basically the same as “Ambien”, or at least that’s what the pharmacist told me. He also said they’re “not that addictive” but I need to take them before 11pm, otherwise, if waking up at 7 or 8am, I’ll be groggy for a few hours. So my plan is to take them on nights when I’m not working the next morning, just in case. I’m also going to Google for side effects.

…I still can’t believe he prescribed them to me without seeing me?!?!?!?

My 3^rd tap class was last night, it was better than the previous two but I still spent a lot of time wondering what the hell I had gotten myself into. The teacher just teaches so damn fast. And I do get that the rest of the class is more advanced than me, but a few of them have said after class that she moves along too quickly. That makes me feel better but I’m beginning to feel like I’m not getting a lot out of the class, and this is taking into consideration I’m also taking a ½ hour private lesson, and I practice a little bit through the week.

I’m uncoordinated and there’s a huge disconnect between my feet, my brain and my memory. I got the teacher, J, to show me, very slowly, the “Cincinnati” step she was teaching us, 3 times. By the time I had walked back to my place I had forgotten it!

I didn’t have huge expectations for me picking it up quickly, but yikes…..

Ok, and I am going to bitch a bit. A few things I’ve learned with my tap tutor are that I need to keep my knees a little bent to maintain a lower center of gravity to be more balanced and I need to take smaller steps…I would have thought this was stuff the teacher would be noticing too? But apparently not. Giving her the benefit of the doubt she does have about 10 other students in her class but I don’t see her giving any others advice on form etc either, it’s all about the steps and chorography. I think my tap tutor is brilliant ‘tho, as well she should be, she also teaches little kids to tap. Anyone who can teach kids can teach anyone!

If push comes to shove I’m wondering if I can drop the class and keep the tutor?

I’m also considering doing the “Run For You’re Lives” 5K race next month. I had plans to do a few 5K’s this summer/fall but cancelled out on them. I want to do it because it’ll give me something to look forward to, which I’ve learned is very important right now. Also, it’ll give me more motivation to start doing some serious running again. (By "serious" I mean doing 5Ks outside and hitting the 7K mark again, not the Boston Marathon).

Problem is this is the same race (my first) that HE came to, to cheer me on and he was so proud of me when I finished. The other consideration is that this is a zombie race and I’m not sure seeing people all gory looking is physiologically a good idea due to how HE died? So I might be actively deciding to have a very bad day if I go…

…but I want to go, it was fun last year….Ok, and really, so what if it turns out to be a bad day? I have them, and I can’t avoid things that might set me off, hell, I have a lot of moments where living in “our” house set me off….still, it seems a little foolish to choose to do something I know could result in a very bad day….

Ugh! And HE’s not around to help me make up my mind.

I’m doing the 5K “Run for the Cure” this weekend, I’ll decide after that.

Brush with Fame

Love my camera and love my friends!

This has nothing to do with widowhood, which is probably a good sign, and everything to do with a great day I had.

Two of R’s extended family were visiting and I took them on a whirl-wind tour of Toronto. In just over 13 hours we covered Casa Loma, Chinatown, Kensington Market, ROM and the CN Tower – long day, lots of fun!

And guess who we shared the elevator with at the CN Tower, Laurence Fishburn!…ok, not an A-lister but still pretty cool. (If you’re thinking to yourself “who?!” he was on CSI Las Vegas and was in The Matrix, his first acting gig was in “Apocalypse Now”)

Anyways, it was a good weekend; I talked to a famous person, tested out my new camera and had fun with friends.

Vin, Vince & Amy

It’s been a quiet week, and I’ve only had one really bad day since my last post, so I guess that’s pretty good.

I’ve also had satellite TV installed, mainly because adding it to my phone and internet bundle actually drops my overall bill by $40+…yeah, I’m still trying to figure that one out?! I also thought it would help fill up my nights a bit. Problem is I’m not overly keen to spend time in the living room, we spent a lot of time there watching movies and I’ve caught myself a few times turning to where he’d sit to make some comment about the dumb ass show “we” where watching. (And there seems to be nothing but dumb ass shows on these days.)

Anyhow, Joseph, the satellite guy came to install everything. Joseph looked a lot like a young Vin Diesel….Young Vin Diesel kinda turns my crank.

I don't know why I think he's a hottie, I just do.

To be blunt I was having impure thoughts, my loins were anyways, my head was yelling at my loins “Bad Widow, BADDDD! Down girl, down!!!”.

I mean WTF?!?! I’m more than a bit disgusted with myself.

Worse, it’s not the only time it’s happened. I’ve already mentioned that we get a fair amount of Latinos at work right? Well, some of them are damn hot and they don’t really follow the North American loose jean fashion, they wear them well, I’ve always done some ogling, but now it just feels shameful.

My friend K, also a widow, has warned me that a relationship with a man in the next year is a no-no, and I believe her, I can see all kinds of problems arising from that…no pun intended. Plus, I’m no bucket of sunshine right now; anyone who’d want to go out with me in this state is not someone I’d want to be in a relationship with.

…but meanwhile my loins are occasionally being vocal and when they do I feel so guilty, my own body’s betraying me and HIM!

Just because she ownes a silver tea service and
wears pearls does not mean she knows everthing!

And it’s not like there’s any book that covers that particular facet of widowhood. The closest I’ve seen is in my copy of “The Complete Book of Etiquette (A guide to gracious living)” written in 1952 by Amy Vanderbilt (“The foremost authority on manners today”). At the very end of her chapter dealing with funerals she has a paragraph titled “the Resumption of Dating” and states:

“The lonely widow or widower wishing to face realistically the problem of deep personal loss today is, after about 3 months of widowhood, ready for quiet dates with members of the opposite sex. Modern men and women approve such emotionally healthy reaching out for reassurance. In a small, conservative community such dating is limited at first to evenings at home, movies, the theater, musical events, walks and drives, small parties with other couples.”

Yeah, riiiight!

For starters, I’m not lonely, I miss HIM indescribably, but I’ve got friends to attend movies, theater events and small parties with if I wanted to. Evenings at home? That’s exactly what my loins want! And as far as “modern men and women approve such emotionally healthy reaching out”, I can’t think of one friend that wouldn’t be more than a bit startled if I started dating now.

I dunno, Amy has some great advice (I used some of it to write out my post-funeral thank you cards) but I think she’s way off base here.

I guess I’ll just have to accept this as another complication, an unexpected one, on the road of widowhood.

Another thing I need to curb is the god damn “retail therapy”.

I need to be smart about money in this phase of my life, not fashion forward!

Widowhood isn’t solely to blame, about 4 years ago I weighted about 220 lbs, joined a gym and (thanks to C and her great personal trainer skills) am now down to 154. At about 170 lbs I started to kinda like shopping for cloths, I fit into stuff not in the “Plus Sizes” sections at stores. At my current weight it’s almost easy to walk into a store and find something I like on me.

It doesn’t help that I purged a lot of my older (bigger) cloths and needed to buy some new fall/winter wear…actually I think the compulsion to shop is actually pretty much gone, I’m not a total idiot….but there’s this pair of killer boots, seriously savage kicks, that I want. I’ve always been a bit of a boot junky, a great pair of boots looks great no matter what you weigh, and these ones have my name written all over them.

Google “Vince Camuto, Bollo boots”, the ones in brown. No, seriously, do it now!………Ok, so having seen them, can you blame me?!?!?

I can’t justify buying them, I don’t need another pair of boots, and I need to be smart and careful with what money I have…but there’s a part of my brain that’s a whiney 7 yr old, the one you see pitching a fit because Mommy won’t buy her candy at the grocery store, that feels I deserve these boots because HE’s dead. Then there’s the more rational (but still evil) part of my brain that’s trying to rationalize the hell out of the purchase, 1) I deserve these boots because HE’s dead, 2) they’re classics and won’t go out of style for a long time/hold they’re value, 3) I’m pretty much a jeans and t-shirts kind of girl, these boots will dress that look up for certain events, 4) I deserve them because HE’s dead, 5) I get a widow’s allowance, I hate that I get a widow’s allowance, why not save some of it for something I like? I’ll buy the boots as a last blast, then get serious about saving, our wedding anniversary’s coming up, HE owes me. And how low is that?! Using my dead husband to justify a boot purchase?!?!?!

I’ve even done my due diligence and looked at a lot of other less expensive boots to see if there’s something similar that I like at a lesser price. Nope, there isn’t.

Clearly my loins and fashion sense are in league with each other and must be stopped.

Good Girl Gone Tap

Three months ago yesterday HE died. For someone who can’t remember dates/figures I’ve been very cognoscente of how much time has past. Three months ago today, at this time, I was sitting here, watching C and K clean my kitchen, listening to P make phone calls for me and wondering how I was going to get through the day. Three months, I knew last week it had been 11 weeks, but 3 months, its starling.

It’s a weird twilight zone where I know time is passing but it almost feels like it was just last week that I went to the funeral. (Sounds so trite but its true).

Emotionally things have (thankfully) shifted. I’m not rolling through the “7 stages of grieving” daily, I’ll have a few good days, (as in none-crying/sort of have my shit together) then have a bad evening or morning, usually its evenings ‘tho. It’s not so much the Symphony of Suck as bad elevator music playing in the background…it’s till sucks ‘tho…And I am getting better at dealing with telling people I’m a widow, but it’s just damn awkward for everyone involved. Me, them, just a really bad pregnant pause after I say it.

Especially if that person has just inquired if I’m married while asking me out. Yep, had one of those yesterday at work.  I won’t get into all the details but a larger than normal tip was left to make up for the faux pas. And he really felt bad, and I felt bad for him, because how was he to know? It’s not like a go around wearing widow’s weeds or anything. What I did mind was as he was leaving he said “I think you’re a good girl”…. ….???? What the hell is that supposed to mean? And how the fuck would he know solely based on my (excellent) waitressing skills? To add insult to injury my manager told me the same guy asked my idiot co-work, Z, out two weeks before. ICK!

The whole thing is kind of funny and a horrifying glimpse into the current dating scene….I’m very happy to be currently not dating and having a very good reason not to.

Random updates:

-         My first tap class was a few nights ago. I was the only one who had no previous dance or tap experience, actually I think everyone else had previous tap + other dance experience…so, big learning curve. Plus I’m not co-coordinated to begin with. I still had a lot of fun and have arranged to have a “tap tutor” (yeah, I know) to get me up to speed on the basic steps and terms. (All these years I thought it was “ball chain”, turns out its “ball change”, who knew?!). I enjoy being challenged but the basics (which everyone else in class knows) are overwhelming me so a few private lessons should help…I hope! So it was fun but of course I came home to an empty house and HE would have gotten a laugh out of my dance miss-steps. So keeping busy at night’s not exactly solving that problem, I have to come home sometime; I guess I’ll just learn to deal.

-         I have an appointment with my doctor to get a referral for a therapist for the grief counseling. It’s not until the end of the month but I’ve hung on (with massive help from friends) this far so I can sit it out. I think I’m also going to have to talk to him about my sleeping issues; they are better but not great.

-         On a happy note I made it to the gym the last 3 days in a row. I’m sore. It feels good!

Dancing to a New Tune

Nights are tough for me; I think I’ve only mentioned that about a billion times right? It’s not just the “late at night in bed can’t sleep” issues, it’s also what to do with myself after dinner before I go to bed to toss and turn. It’s the same time of night HE would be getting home from work and we would be hanging out, I find myself very restless…. I can read, I can sew, I can practice my Spanish or surf the net, but some of these things take a certain amount of concentration, which I don’t have much of these days. And TV is out since we don’t even have basic cable and renting movies has been a pretty big gamble lately.

Tap Dogs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRUdvu3Qo-E&feature=related

So, to help fill up my nights I’ve signed up for…..tap dancing lessons….

Yep, tap.

Saturday my Mom and I went to buy me tap shoes, which makes me feel like a 12 year old, but in a good way.

Why tap?

Ballet holds no interest for me, at all, jazz is out because I’m not a fan of the music, I don’t even know what “lyrical” dance is, and at 42 I think I’m a bit too old to be learning how to “crunk” in a hip hop class. Tap it is. It seems like a good combination of fun and “stompy”, which suits me just fine.  Plus, years ago HE took me to the big city to see Tap Dogs, if you’ve never heard of them check out the link below the pic. Tres cool in my opinion.

My parents visit went fairly well to, they seem to have accepted the fact that I’m A) Not ready to start college/find a new career this exact month and B) That everything that needed to be sorted out here at home has been. So we’ve just been hanging out, it’s been pleasant. I used my new camera to distract Dad, (unfortunately that led to him downloading the pix on my computer and him feeling the need to “fix” my computer, and by “fix” I mean him downloading programs he feels are essential and re-organizing things the way he likes them) and Mom puttered around in a non-invasive way.

Before leaving they mentioned their next visit might be in November, possibly December depending on my Christmas plans, which gives me a kind of a deadline for figuring out my game plan for what comes next in my life. School? New job? Running away to join a circus? The options are endless and terrifying. And I know it’s a repetitive and maybe boring theme of this blog but it’s a big fucking issue/problem that I need to sort out.

It’s also made me question whether or not I was just drifting along while HE was alive? I think yes, I could have been more pro-active in the last few years with work/a career but just merrily drifted along as a waitress in a small restaurant in a small town. Don’t get me wrong, the money’s ok, waitressing’s great, but I could have pushed myself more, towards more, and it makes me sad that I’m doing it now and didn’t do it with HIM, for us.