I went to the grocery store today to buy fondue makings (cheese fondue makings, to be exact, for a dinner party Keith and Katie were giving with Christina and Wade). I went to Whole Foods in particular because the recipe I had selected included some bizarre cheeses I had never heard of, and Whole Foods has a great cheese selection (no kirsch, but lots of cheese). While there, I picked up all the ingredients, including some tasty wine.

Pretty much the only time I purchase alcohol these days is for cooking or for someone else (like when I'm having a party and I know someone wants beer). Which is probably the main reason why I was confused when the cashier asked, "May I see your ID?"

My first reactions was, of course, "Pardon?"

"May I see your ID?"

"My ID?"

"Yes, your ID."

"Why?"

"Why?"

"Yes, why?"

At this point, I'm holding out my credit card, having already run it through the POS (that's point-of-sale, not piece-of-shit (another handy acronym I use frequently)) box. I was quite confused, as cashiers rarely confirm my signature on the back of my card, even when they say, "SEE DRIVER'S LICENSE" on the back of them. And this card was even signed, so there was even less reason to ask for my ID, couldn't she just look at the back of my credit card?

"For the wine."

Oh.

D'uh.

I quickly apologized and pulled out my license. I haven't been that embarrassed in front of a 20 year-old in a long, long time.

Bella had another seizure tonight. I was in the office (working on MPUL stuff), and Kris was in the living room, playing online poker. I heard Kris say, "Bella, what's wrong?", before he yelled for me to come quick.

I dashed out to the living room, to see Bella in the green pillow, all tense, with very shallow breathing. Kris was standing over her, just flapping in arms looking down at her. When I asked him what I should do, take videos (the vet wanted a video of her behaviour to confirm diagnosis of seizures) or something, he said, just hold her, pet her.

So, I cuddled up next to Bella, started talking to her, making soothing noises. The seizure lasted about 4 minutes: 11:24 to 11:28, according to the VCR.

And Kris. What did Kris do? What did he do after I started petting Bella, soothing her to relax while this nasty seizure passed? What did he do?

He went back to play online poker.

Yay, Kris.

Here's something I bet you never realized about muscles: when you have them, you can pull them.

For the first time in my life, I pulled a muscle in my chest. I kid you not. Who pulls a chest muscle? I was in a triangle pose, stretching my hamstring, and decided to move into reverse triangle pose. When I shifted to drop my hand to the floor to loosen my hips, a muscle in my chest pulled.

It affects me only when I try to move into that pose again and when I try to do pullups. I can still throw fine. But still. Who pulls a chest muscle? And since when do I have chest muscles?

As a teenager (or maybe younger), when you hosted your first party, did you have the fear that no one would come?

I can't actually say I ever had that fear specifically. However, I feel like it now. The first night of MPUL, which unfortunately was pickup because I couldn't get the draft done (because not enough people signed up, dammit), only 11 people came. Not enough for a game. Enough that I feel like I messed up big time.

Sigh.

So, I'm totally stressing out this morning. I had just found out the changes to code I had made last night completely borked the product, and the client was unhappy that he couldn't test the software, and I'm getting ready for lunch with Heidi, who I haven't seen in ages, and I'm already going to be last, but I have to see if I can fix the problem because we have a meeting at two and there will be other people there, including Mike, who calls at that exact instant of my stress to see what's up and I totally break down and start cursing at the code that's not even doing a POST correctly so that Mike says I sound exasperated, did I want him to look at it, and the dogs are in the bed, sleeping, but I have to dash so I leave and head out and arrive late which is bad because Heidi's time is really pressed, and I can't find her and then she shows up and we have lunch and I had off to the meeting and as I'm walking up to the office, I'm still stressing because this just sucks and ...

The sun hits my face.

It's warm. And pleasant. And at that moment, I am very happy to be alive.

And the meeting wasn't so bad after all.

I was recently talking (emailing back & forth, actually), with a good friend * of mine. He's one of those good people who have always been in my life - you know, the ones who you can't remember your life before they entered it. He commented that, at some point, he'd like to write his "life story" for a personal reflection. We both shuddered at the "life story" bit (how monumental and overwhelming the task of writing one's life down onto paper (or pixels)!).

However, he did point out that since the goal would be personal reflection, and not entertainment of others, few people outside his immediate family would be interested in reading his story.

I disagreed and still disagree.

So much history has been lost. I know precious little about my grandparents, even less about more distant relatives. Perhaps their lives were boring. I suspect not. I think I would probably find similarities between the internal struggles I face and the ones they faced, too. The details may be different, but the conflict is most likely the same.

A watershed moment happened for me a few weeks back. The personal evolution that has happened since that moment may not mean much to anyone but me. But knowing how I was before that moment makes me appreciate more the time after that moment. I doubt I would have the perspective without the ramblings of this site/blog/journal.

Even without the specific personal reflections.

* That link may not be good quite yet. It's a gift to my friend for Christmas and he may not have started it yet.