Frozen Faces

The cock crew and these grandchildren's faces now remain in this contorted shape.  The other picture is the way they used to look.  I love them even in all their ugliness.

Samantha "piggy-faced" Plummer

I don't know if any of you noticed, but Samantha has let herself go.  This is the same girl who photographers used to stop in Central Park and ask if they could take her picture.  She was such a beauty.  But now it seems her features have grown--dare I say it--porcine.  And her body is more swine than slim.  Is that an actual point on her head or is she wearing a snow cone?  Bless her heart.  Be kind to her.  Compliment her on how good she looks in pink!

Supercuts

I think Dede had the discussion about whether to get an expensive haircut or just go to Supercuts.  I admit that the best haircut I ever had was at Figaro's on 9th South, but was it worth $50 a month?  Maybe.  We were making more money then.  But now that we're reduced to a fixed income, my vote goes to Supercuts.  Thirteen bucks for a decent haircut and only eight dollars to have my eyebrows waxed.  Can't beat those numbers.

I watched MEAN GIRLS with the teenaged grandkids last night.  It was so much better than I expected.  Tina Fey wrote the screenplay and played the school teacher, and Tina Fey is hot especially since 30 ROCK has won all the awards for comedy in the last couple of years beating out even my favorite, THE OFFICE.

It was fun last night, guys.  Always good to see Charles unveil his stomach and lecture us on the etiquette of going to the toilet.  Loved the smores.  Thank you Sam and Sarah.  I love you all

Professional swimmers wear goggles

I'm a swimmer and I wear goggles.  I'm not ashamed of it.  Goggles make you look cool and, also, they keep the water out of your eyes, and, also, they allow you to keep your eyes open, so you can follow the line in the middle of the lane and not bump into the lane dividers and look like a dufus.  I swim to keep fit.  My body is toned and tight.  I am a sixty-five year old marvel, an example of what the human spirit can overcome.  Mind over body.

I love America.

It's five o'clock in the morning

Tom and I are both awake and on our computers.  I think I've been awake all night.  It's the curse of aging.  Can't sleep, can't poop, can't think without taking some pill.  The question is would I rather be toilet training a toddler as Sarah is doing?  Would I rather spend the day with eight cub scouts as Erica did or packing my family up for a trip cross country as Dede has had to do?  No.  

Haven't lost any weight this week.  Discouraging.  Two trips to Chick Filet didn't help.  (Can't think of how to spell that!)  I'm amazed at how little I can eat to be thinner.  Dieting is more difficult than writing a book, and losing weight may be more satisfying than anything I can think of.  Makes me feel like a goddess.

We cleaned up Saturday with Harrison's help.  We use his young legs to carry things from the basement to the second floor and vice versa.  He lifts things and carries empty boxes out to the garage.  The result is we now have a "media room," which to my mind is any room in your house that doesn't have windows.  Sounds much better than "basement."  I love having the space we have after downsizing for so many years.  I love having the two offices AND a guest room.  Palatial.  Most of all, I love the front porch.

I have a cold

Monday night I was knocked down by a cold.  I'd had a small sore throat and thought I had non-hodgkins lymphoma.  Of course.  When I put my ear to the ground and hear hoofbeats, I think "zebra."  I was supposed to go to the temple with Pam, my visiting teacher, at ten in the morning on Tuesday, and I got up to do that, and realized I was not fit to be around other people:  sneezing, itchy eyes, runny nose, cough and intense sluggishness.  For once, I did not let my guilt drive me to go, and called her to say I was ill.  Then I went back to bed and read one of the books Tom had checked out of the library on Monday:  HEAD CASE: HOW I ALMOST LOST MY MIND TRYING TO UNDERSTAND MY BRAIN by Dennis Cass.  Tom and his best friend, Al the neurologist, are exchanging e-mails about logic vs. intuition.  Al doesn't believe in anything that can't be scientifically proven.  This raises a lot of questions about the brain and Tom is willing to ask them.  Tom would like to write a book with Al.  Al is mostly dancing around the idea, but he does this in such a funny style, that THAT might be a book in itself.  Anyway, HEAD CASE was a fine read because it was written by a journalist and not a scientist.

Today I read half a book, THE MIND'S PAST by Michael S. Gazzaniga, who is a distinguished professor of cognitive neuroscience at Dartmouth.  It is also a pretty good read, although his use of adjectives is disruptive sometimes.  I'm especially interested in what he has to say about memory.   He says that "starting in childhood and going up to our forties, our brains are cooking up untrue stories about our past."   He has this wonderful quote from Bernard Malamud'a DUBIN'S LIVES:  "There is no life that can be recaptured wholly, as it was.  Which is to say that all biography is ultimately fiction.  What does that tell you about the nature of life, and does one really want to know?"

I used to write this quote on the board in the Memoir class:  "The aim of memoir is not to nail down facts but to gather impressions of the past."  Those are Patricia Hampl's words, not mine.  These scientific books on the brain support the idea of our memories fictionalizing our past. I suspect that the way we tell our stories shapes a meaning for our lives.  But is meaning an illusion?

I wanted to post the picture below for the 4th of July post but thought it was coming up sideways.  Wrong.