Cripes, Suzette!

Replay: Recommended Guidelines For A Happy Interaction With Your Scale

FYI - Nashville is not all that bad, humidity-wise, this week. replay from November 28, 2007

How to insure a good reading on your scale:

- Weigh yourself only in the morning after you have gone to the bathroom.
- Weigh yourself completely naked.
- Never weigh your self with wet hair.
- Never surprise the scale by jumping onto it. This will cause a falsely high reading. You should gently place one foot on the scale platform and slowly transfer your weight while sneaking your other foot onto the platform.
- Exhale.
- Never weigh yourself after running up the stairs, exercising or otherwise inducing a pounding heartbeat. Vigorus heart action I'm quite sure is refected in the amount of pressure on the scale.
- If you should somehow dehydrate yourself thru exercise, prolonged exposure to the sun or an attempt at alcoholism, ignore Rule #1 and weigh yourself to see what your body "really" weighs without all that pesky circulating volume bogging you down.
- Flip the switch on the bottom of the scale to have your scale read out in kilograms.

How to account for a less than ideal reading on the scale:
- Subtract all items of food and drink that you have recently consumed. (1 10-oz. mug of coffee is 1/2 pound (the same volume of carbonated beverage is 3/4 pound because of the pressure exerted by all that fizz ) / a modest lunch is 2 pounds / a full supper is three pounds and if you have had a big tumbler if iced tea with it, then you are free to speculate to your heart's content.
- Predict what you would have weighed if only you didn't eat the dessert that someone forced on you.
- Say the magic word: bloat (applies to women only).
- Reposition yourself closer to the middle, front or sides of the scale platform to see if that gives you a differnt reading.
- Review your 24 hour food intake to scrutinize for high-sodium foods that have resulted in temporary water retention.
- Blame a stuck pattern of weight loss on all that damn exercise which has surely resulted in increased muscle mass. So even if you are losing fat weight, the scale will read higher because you are so muscular now that your smaller body is bearing down on the scale.
- Determine which phase of the moon we are in to attempt making a case for fluctutating gravitational pull.

How to avoid getting your hopes up:
- If you should get a very good reading, don't assume it is true. Try not to expect too much.
- Don't extrapolate your weight loss during the first days of your diet to the rest of your life. Example: just because you have lost three pounds overnight (you weighed yourself at night, didn't you?) doesn't mean that by Christmas, you will be 269 pounds lighter.
- Remind yourself that even Oprah had to take a couple of stabs at it until she got it right. And she has servants and stuff to shop and cook for her and she doesn't have to go into the kitchen and find someone else's subversive PopTarts looking her right in the eye.

 

How to insure a good reading on your scale:

- Weigh yourself only in the morning after you have gone to the bathroom.
- Weigh yourself completely naked.
- Never weigh your self with wet hair.
- Never surprise the scale by jumping onto it. This will cause a falsely high reading. You should gently place one foot on the scale platform and slowly transfer your weight while sneaking your other foot onto the platform.
- Exhale.
- Never weigh yourself after running up the stairs, exercising or otherwise inducing a pounding heartbeat. Vigorus heart action I'm quite sure is refected in the amount of pressure on the scale.
- If you should somehow dehydrate yourself thru exercise, prolonged exposure to the sun or an attempt at alcoholism, ignore Rule #1 and weigh yourself to see what your body "really" weighs without all that pesky circulating volume bogging you down.
- Flip the switch on the bottom of the scale to have your scale read out in kilograms.

How to account for a less than ideal reading on the scale:
- Subtract all items of food and drink that you have recently consumed. (1 10-oz. mug of coffee is 1/2 pound (the same volume of carbonated beverage is 3/4 pound because of the pressure exerted by all that fizz ) / a modest lunch is 2 pounds / a full supper is three pounds and if you have had a big tumbler if iced tea with it, then you are free to speculate to your heart's content.
- Predict what you would have weighed if only you didn't eat the dessert that someone forced on you.
- Say the magic word: bloat (applies to women only).
- Reposition yourself closer to the middle, front or sides of the scale platform to see if that gives you a differnt reading.
- Review your 24 hour food intake to scrutinize for high-sodium foods that have resulted in temporary water retention.
- Blame a stuck pattern of weight loss on all that damn exercise which has surely resulted in increased muscle mass. So even if you are losing fat weight, the scale will read higher because you are so muscular now that your smaller body is bearing down on the scale.
- Determine which phase of the moon we are in to attempt making a case for fluctutating gravitational pull.

How to avoid getting your hopes up:
- If you should get a very good reading, don't assume it is true. Try not to expect too much.
- Don't extrapolate your weight loss during the first days of your diet to the rest of your life. Example: just because you have lost three pounds overnight (you weighed yourself at night, didn't you?) doesn't mean that by Christmas, you will be 269 pounds lighter.
- Remind yourself that even Oprah had to take a couple of stabs at it until she got it right. And she has servants and stuff to shop and cook for her and she doesn't have to go into the kitchen and find someone else's subversive PopTarts looking her right in the eye.

FYI - Nashville is not all that bad, humidity-wise, this week. replay from November 28, 2007

How to insure a good reading on your scale:

- Weigh yourself only in the morning after you have gone to the bathroom.
- Weigh yourself completely naked.
- Never weigh your self with wet hair.
- Never surprise the scale by jumping onto it. This will cause a falsely high reading. You should gently place one foot on the scale platform and slowly transfer your weight while sneaking your other foot onto the platform.
- Exhale.
- Never weigh yourself after running up the stairs, exercising or otherwise inducing a pounding heartbeat. Vigorus heart action I'm quite sure is refected in the amount of pressure on the scale.
- If you should somehow dehydrate yourself thru exercise, prolonged exposure to the sun or an attempt at alcoholism, ignore Rule #1 and weigh yourself to see what your body "really" weighs without all that pesky circulating volume bogging you down.
- Flip the switch on the bottom of the scale to have your scale read out in kilograms.

How to account for a less than ideal reading on the scale:
- Subtract all items of food and drink that you have recently consumed. (1 10-oz. mug of coffee is 1/2 pound (the same volume of carbonated beverage is 3/4 pound because of the pressure exerted by all that fizz ) / a modest lunch is 2 pounds / a full supper is three pounds and if you have had a big tumbler if iced tea with it, then you are free to speculate to your heart's content.
- Predict what you would have weighed if only you didn't eat the dessert that someone forced on you.
- Say the magic word: bloat (applies to women only).
- Reposition yourself closer to the middle, front or sides of the scale platform to see if that gives you a differnt reading.
- Review your 24 hour food intake to scrutinize for high-sodium foods that have resulted in temporary water retention.
- Blame a stuck pattern of weight loss on all that damn exercise which has surely resulted in increased muscle mass. So even if you are losing fat weight, the scale will read higher because you are so muscular now that your smaller body is bearing down on the scale.
- Determine which phase of the moon we are in to attempt making a case for fluctutating gravitational pull.

How to avoid getting your hopes up:
- If you should get a very good reading, don't assume it is true. Try not to expect too much.
- Don't extrapolate your weight loss during the first days of your diet to the rest of your life. Example: just because you have lost three pounds overnight (you weighed yourself at night, didn't you?) doesn't mean that by Christmas, you will be 269 pounds lighter.
- Remind yourself that even Oprah had to take a couple of stabs at it until she got it right. And she has servants and stuff to shop and cook for her and she doesn't have to go into the kitchen and find someone else's subversive PopTarts looking her right in the eye.

REPLAY: EXTREMELY PINK

replay from July 31, 2006

I do not endorse; neither do I discourage. I simply report:

From Our Department of It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time - Pepto Bismol Ice Cream. Mmmmm ... Pepto.

"I am a long-time user of Pepto-Bismol. I like the fact that it is extremely pink, and find it very useful for coping with alcohol-induced bouts of digestive trauma. But can you cook with Pepto-Bismol? I am thinking of making some Pepto-Bismol ice-cream, and want to know if there are any dangers involved."
link: blogjam dot com 

Click the link for a photodocumentary of the making of Pepto Bismol Ice Cream and the taste test. FYI - it's a hangover cure.

Spoiler: thank goodness the ingredients include vanilla. Without it, this could very have been ... I don't know - gross?

replay from July 31, 2006

I do not endorse; neither do I discourage. I simply report:

From Our Department of It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time - Pepto Bismol Ice Cream. Mmmmm ... Pepto.

"I am a long-time user of Pepto-Bismol. I like the fact that it is extremely pink, and find it very useful for coping with alcohol-induced bouts of digestive trauma. But can you cook with Pepto-Bismol? I am thinking of making some Pepto-Bismol ice-cream, and want to know if there are any dangers involved."
link: blogjam dot com 

Click the link for a photodocumentary of the making of Pepto Bismol Ice Cream and the taste test. FYI - it's a hangover cure.

Spoiler: thank goodness the ingredients include vanilla. Without it, this could very have been ... I don't know - gross?

REPLAY: WHITE HOUSE WEDDING

This one is not too old but I do it again because I added a video interview that I recently came  done shortly after this post was originally created. In the clip, Luci Baines Johnson discusses her wedding day between newsreel footage shots. Sharp-eyed viewers will catch glimpses of the actual Pricilla of Boston fussing around the bridal gown as Luci gets in and out of the limo. replayed from January 17, 2008

So Jenna Bush is getting married. No White House wedding for her, though - she's opting for a more private affair at the Crawford Ranch. It's just as well because no one - and I mean no one - could out do the extravaganza that took place when Luci Baines Johnson had her White House wedding in 1966. Tricia Nixon Cox may have had a tasteful and elegant White House Rose Garden wedding, but that was a quiet afternoon at the rest home compared Luci's reception. This 10-page article from TIME magazine for August 1966, Three Ring Wedding,  lays it all out.

On page 1, Luci is quoted: "I only want," she said last month, "as personal a wedding as possible in the circumstances in which I find myself." By page 2, the National Shrine's 56-bell carillon is thundering for solid hour before the ceremony, a 100-voice choir is singing and 2 priests are standing on the altar ready to marry Luci and a headless Ken  Patrick Nugent in the presence of 10 bridesmaids, 12 ushers, a matron of honor, a flower girl, a ring bearer and about 700 invited guests.

That was back in the day when the wedding party processional looked like a marching band, everyone wore gloves  and the dresses came with color matched head pieces. Here are the gals lined up on the White House steps and rocking some fierce kind of pink watered taffeta. Luci's dress was a Priscilla of Boston creation with a flowing 9-foot long Watteau court train that fell from the shoulder. The finished dress, kept secret till the day of the wedding,  traveled from Massachusetts to Washington with an armed escort of secret service agents.

[Error! I correct myself to say that it was Tricia Nixon's Priscilla of Boston wedding dress that had the secret service escort. All I can say by way of apology is that all these mesmerizing images put me into a pink taffeta trance that made it difficult to think straight.]

This is one of those pink dresses, now on display at Neiman-Marcus in Dallas, complete with matching shoes. The inside hem is embroidered with the words “The White House Wedding of Luci Baines Johnson.”

Dear readers, this is the one time in my life that I regret not having a paid account with the New York Times. There is no less than six full pages listing article after article about the wedding preparations, everything from the showers to the gifts to the wedding dinner menu. We'll have to wait for some casual googler with paid access to the archives to come along and inform us all in a drive-by comment.

Until then, all we've got is the cake. And what a cake it was - 13 tiers, 8 feet tall and 300 pounds of white fruit cake. It thrills me to know that this was not your basic white wedding cake. Your own Suzette had a delightful cherry-walnut wedding cake, although it was only 2 tiers tall and didn't have any swans on it.

I highly recommend clicking that picture for a larger version in which you can see:

• Lady Bird Jonson's knees
• some big Texas hair
• Luci cutting the cake with her father.
• the watery taffeta goodness of the bridesmaid's dresses

Sadly, the marriage did not last, but a good cake can keep you company for a lifetime.

Recipe for Luci Baines Johnson's Wedding Cake, ramped down to serve 12.

Cake:
1/2 cup seedless white raisins
  Brandy
1 3/4 cup cake flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup sugar
5  egg whites
3/4 cup chopped candied pineapple
1 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Seven-Minute Icing:
1 1/2 cup sugar
5 tablespoons cold water
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
2  egg whites
1 teaspoon lemon extract

Directions:  Cover raisins with brandy and let stand in refrigerator overnight. Preheat oven to 300°F. Line two 8-inch cake pans with greased paper and grease the sides.

Mix together flour with baking powder and salt; sift. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter. Gradually add sugar, and cream until light and fluffy. Beat in egg whites one at a time. Drain raisins; add to batter with pineapple, walnuts, and extracts. Add dry ingredients to batter a little at a time, beating after each addition; blend until smooth.

Pour cake batter into prepared pans and bake in preheated oven for 1 1/4 hours, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool on wire racks before frosting with seven-minute icing.

Seven-Minute Icing: In the top of a double boiler mix together all ingredients except lemon extract. Cook over rapidly boiling water, beating constantly at high speed with an electric hand  mixer until stiff peaks form, for about 7 minutes. Remove from heat, add lemon extract, and beat for another minute. Let cool slightly before icing cake (not too long, or icing will harden).

...................................................................................

IMPORTANT UPDATE: Bless the generous hearts at TIME magazine who have freely opened their archives to searches by the likes of me.In their August 12, 1966 recap of Luci' wedding, we find the answer to "Why is the bride cutting the cake with her father?"

"When Luci finally got around to trying to cut the 13-tier wedding cake, it balked. The President of the U.S. brought his considerable pressure to bear, but the cake still would not cut. Luci cried, "I quit," but Pat suggested trying the fifth layer. The knife finally cut through, and Pat submitted to the bridegroom's traditional cake-eating indignity."

It's a fruitcake.

 

So Jenna Bush is getting married. No White House wedding for her, though - she's opting for a more private affair at the Crawford Ranch. It's just as well because no one - and I mean no one - could out do the extravaganza that took place when Luci Baines Johnson had her White House wedding in 1966. Tricia Nixon Cox may have had a tasteful and elegant White House Rose Garden wedding, but that was a quiet afternoon at the rest home compared Luci's reception. This 10-page article from TIME magazine for August 1966, Three Ring Wedding,  lays it all out.

On page 1, Luci is quoted: "I only want," she said last month, "as personal a wedding as possible in the circumstances in which I find myself." By page 2, the National Shrine's 56-bell carillon is thundering for solid hour before the ceremony, a 100-voice choir is singing and 2 priests are standing on the altar ready to marry Luci and a headless Ken  Patrick Nugent in the presence of 10 bridesmaids, 12 ushers, a matron of honor, a flower girl, a ring bearer and about 700 invited guests.

That was back in the day when the wedding party processional looked like a marching band, everyone wore gloves  and the dresses came with color matched head pieces. Here are the gals lined up on the White House steps and rocking some fierce kind of pink watered taffeta. Luci's dress was a Priscilla of Boston creation with a flowing 9-foot long Watteau court train that fell from the shoulder. The finished dress, kept secret till the day of the wedding,  traveled from Massachusetts to Washington with an armed escort of secret service agents.

[Error! I correct myself to say that it was Tricia Nixon's Priscilla of Boston wedding dress that had the secret service escort. All I can say by way of apology is that all these mesmerizing images put me into a pink taffeta trance that made it difficult to think straight.]

This is one of those pink dresses, now on display at Neiman-Marcus in Dallas, complete with matching shoes. The inside hem is embroidered with the words “The White House Wedding of Luci Baines Johnson.”

Dear readers, this is the one time in my life that I regret not having a paid account with the New York Times. There is no less than six full pages listing article after article about the wedding preparations, everything from the showers to the gifts to the wedding dinner menu. We'll have to wait for some casual googler with paid access to the archives to come along and inform us all in a drive-by comment.

Until then, all we've got is the cake. And what a cake it was - 13 tiers, 8 feet tall and 300 pounds of white fruit cake. It thrills me to know that this was not your basic white wedding cake. Your own Suzette had a delightful cherry-walnut wedding cake, although it was only 2 tiers tall and didn't have any swans on it.

I highly recommend clicking that picture for a larger version in which you can see:

• Lady Bird Jonson's knees
• some big Texas hair
• Luci cutting the cake with her father.
• the watery taffeta goodness of the bridesmaid's dresses

Sadly, the marriage did not last, but a good cake can keep you company for a lifetime.

Recipe for Luci Baines Johnson's Wedding Cake, ramped down to serve 12.

Cake:
1/2 cup seedless white raisins
  Brandy
1 3/4 cup cake flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup sugar
5  egg whites
3/4 cup chopped candied pineapple
1 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Seven-Minute Icing:
1 1/2 cup sugar
5 tablespoons cold water
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
2  egg whites
1 teaspoon lemon extract

Directions:  Cover raisins with brandy and let stand in refrigerator overnight. Preheat oven to 300°F. Line two 8-inch cake pans with greased paper and grease the sides.

Mix together flour with baking powder and salt; sift. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter. Gradually add sugar, and cream until light and fluffy. Beat in egg whites one at a time. Drain raisins; add to batter with pineapple, walnuts, and extracts. Add dry ingredients to batter a little at a time, beating after each addition; blend until smooth.

Pour cake batter into prepared pans and bake in preheated oven for 1 1/4 hours, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool on wire racks before frosting with seven-minute icing.

Seven-Minute Icing: In the top of a double boiler mix together all ingredients except lemon extract. Cook over rapidly boiling water, beating constantly at high speed with an electric hand  mixer until stiff peaks form, for about 7 minutes. Remove from heat, add lemon extract, and beat for another minute. Let cool slightly before icing cake (not too long, or icing will harden).

...................................................................................

IMPORTANT UPDATE: Bless the generous hearts at TIME magazine who have freely opened their archives to searches by the likes of me.In their August 12, 1966 recap of Luci' wedding, we find the answer to "Why is the bride cutting the cake with her father?"

"When Luci finally got around to trying to cut the 13-tier wedding cake, it balked. The President of the U.S. brought his considerable pressure to bear, but the cake still would not cut. Luci cried, "I quit," but Pat suggested trying the fifth layer. The knife finally cut through, and Pat submitted to the bridegroom's traditional cake-eating indignity."

It's a fruitcake.

 

REPLAY: I WAS AFRAID OF DR. ZORBA

rerun from August 13, 2003
As stated in the comments of the entry titled "(*)Woman Birth (*) Infinity", it is a reference to the opening sequence of the old Ben Casey show from the 60s. Dr. Zorba chalks  up the medical symbols as he names them Man. Woman. Birth. Death. Infinity. Then that compelling theme song.

Prepared to be thrilled: click here to see it, to hear it and to swoon over it. Go ahead, click it - it's important to get into the mood. (You might have to select "Ben Casey" from the right hand sidebar.It's not a perfect world.)

I was ten when that show hit the airwaves and honey, I was a goner for that hairy surgeon. Don't forget that I come from a Slavic background, as did 95% of the town I grew up in. No one in my real life had that much hair - not on their head and certainly not on their arms.

Imagine the effect on someone whose hormones were roiling just below the surface! That stern handsome man who played Dr. Casey  - so foreign to me, so volatile. He was liable to burst forth with a harsh comment or a flash of bad temper at any moment. The brooding darkness - who could ever get through to a man like that? That is the stuff pre-adolescent girls dream about. Are you with me on this one, ladies?

We spent a good deal of time, my girlfriends and I, drawing those man and woman symbols dangerously overlapping them, trying to get them to fit togehter, almost understanding but not quite on the mark. Sometimes we would silently slip notes to one another behind our 5th grade desks. We'd peek at the cross that represented death (it was catechism lessons about that time for Confirmation, too) and nod in contemplation of that, at least.  The death note required an immediate reply of the infinity symbol to acknowledge your understanding of the deep mysteries that we were almost- almost! - about to be let in on.

Anyway, all the begging for that year's fashion sensation - the Ben Casey shirt - fell on my mother's deaf ears for the entire season. By the time she finally got with it, all the white ones were sold out and I had to get a turquoise one with big mother-of-pearl buttons which were left undone at the collar. Imagine my thrill when the first color photos hit the teen mags and what looked like white on the black-and-white TV show was really blue. Destiny had given us the same shirt color - what else was in store for us?

Us! Mrs. Ben Casey. Suzette Casey. Never Mrs. Vince Edwards - no, the temperamental and tormented doctor persona was part of the allure.

I wore that shirt as often as s I could get away with it. In those days, as soon as the laundry hit the hamper, housewives were duty-bound to get that washer going but even though the shirt always hung pressed and ready, you dared not wear it too often. It was in the same category as playing a favorite song over and over and over - not allowed.

I was wearing that shirt on "the day I became woman". After that, it didn't seem so interesting to me.

UPDATE: so many have written to me asking about what the symbols were, that I have decided to post an image of them here.

REPLAY: I CAN SLEEP ANYWHERE, LORD LOVE ME. BUT WHERE ARE MY SOCKS?

Babies, I'm off to Nashville for the week. Big business! I will be away from the blog due either to extreme social popularity or mandatory servitude - could go either way. I leave you with some summer reruns - not greatest hits, just a quirky little overview of past blog lives. I post this one now as a cautionary tale to myself for the plane ride to Tennessee. replay from April 12, 2006, Bob the Corgi

I lost my socks on the redeye back from California.
Don't ask.
Then I had airport coffee that tasted like a skunk fell into it.
It's good to be home.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

UPDATE: Seriously, I got on the plane wearing socks and I got off the plane without socks. Here's the thing: after a week of eating restaurant food which I suspect is slightly more salt than I am used to, my feet were a wee bit swollen. When the plane ascends and the cabin becomes pressurized, the swelling increases. Since I gave myself the extra burden of trying to sleep on the redeye to prepare for a full Wednesday workday, I decided to make myself as comfortable a possible. so I took my sneakers off.

What was I thinking? To me, there is no feeling in the world more unsettling, more creepy, more uncomfortable than loose socks. I can't stand the feeling extra space between my feet and my socks. In the morning, when I get dressed, this is the system I religiously stick to:

1. Put on right sock.
2. Immediately put on right shoe.
3. Put on left sock.
4. Immediately put on left shoe.

That way, you can capture the sock before it starts to loosen. It's good until you take of the shoe and release the sock to follow its natural instincts to loosen up. I lasted about 45 minutes trying to pretend to be like other people whose loose socks don't bother them. After thrashing around in my best ants-in-the-pants imitation, I succumbed to my base desire and took off the socks.

That was the last that I saw of them.

When the pilot announced the final decent into Newark, I put my seatback straight up and moved my feet to the place where I left the socks, but they were gone. I searched under my seat and the sets all around me. I shook out the blankets and moved the pillows. I had the young guy in my row help me look. No socks.

I waited in my row until the crowd behind me deplaned and looked again. In the end, I had to go home with bare feet stuck into my sneakers.

Maybe there was more than one person who took off their socks on the plane and in the preparation to land, put mine on instead of his own. maybe it was a sock fetishist who scours late-night flights waiting for opportunities just like this one. Maybe they just went away, like when you put them through the laundry, only now they are leaving in pairs instead of singles.

I guess we'll never know.

REPLAY: NURSIE

replayed from August 16, 2004

I forgot that I had this statuette. I bought it in the gift shop of Hackensack Hospital when I was in my second year of nursing school. It was all the rage among the student nurses at the time because the caps we wore with our student uniforms had a blue stripe on them just like these. There was a different nursie to represent several nursing specialties. The girl that was standing next to me in the gift shop wanted to go into Maternal Health so she picked up the nursie holding a bundled up newborn. I was standing, slackjawed and indecisive, looking at the options because I was undeclared about my nursing specialty and even though I was pretty dopey in those days, I instinctively knew that the gift shop was not the place to commit my future. The girl told me to get the statuette that was carrying a tray full of medicine because I would probably end up in that all-purpose bucket called Med-Surg nursing so I purchased that one. I can't remember what the all other ones represented but I think one had a big syringe and another one had an set-up for an enema. Maybe it was a bedpan. But enemas were big in those days. Big, I tell you.

Reflections On "Reflections On [Reflections On Reflections]"

Welcome to the heights of laziness, or perhaps the heights of repetition. From Our Department of "I'm a Hack!" - Saying this never gets old for me and strangely, never seems to spur improvement. Today we arrive at a new low in blogging as we present not just a repost, but a repost of a repost.  Here's a look at October 2003 through the blog goggles of September 2005:

...................................................................................................

Reflections On Reflections On Reflections

I was sitting here after a glass or two of wine, morosely recalling my long-gone favorite perfume when I decided to Google the tag line from the ad campaign that made me want to buy it in the first place. And what should come up but my own words in the cached archives of my third blog incarnation Traveling in Style?

Plus ca change, cheries, the more they stay the same. Although there are some surprises, such as the earliest post in that montly archive, reproduced here in its entirety:

Wednesday • 10.01.03 Night Out

At one point, I was grasping the handrail in the ladies room so that I wouldn't fall off the pot. I think I saw a streetcar. That's all I know.

and a little jab at Larry King:

Wednesday • 10.08.03 Don't You Have An Orange Stick?

I'm watching Siegfreid Fischbacher on Larry King Live but it's really Larry that is the more fascinating thing to watch. The pointer and middle finger of his right hand have something dark under the fingernails. It looks very much like when the old guys in nursing homes check themselves out and get their own poop stuck under the nails. Then no one comes around to clean them up and it gets all crusty. Larry King. Don't fear the reaper.

For the most part, it is pretty much same old, same old. Dieting, insomnia, Suzette comix, pros and cons of getting a local office (did that really take two years?), driving on the turnpike, karma, my husband the garbage pile commando  (known then as Mr. Coffee), QVC purchases, talk radio, puffy hair, business travel. Gawd, I'm a hack!

Oh, wait - I was complaining then that I was a hack, too. Maybe I should branch out into political opinions, or maybe tell the truth about what goes on here once in a while? I'm not sure I have it in me. This is all I am: fluff and a desperate attempt to make you smile because I know I can't make you laugh. If you've gotten this far, I recommend that you read about that perfume:

Saturday • 10.25.03 I Feel Better Now

I went outside to let the sun shine on my rods and cones and while I was out, I did a little shopping. I am a fickle person who changes her mind in a very short while about most things, however, I am very loyal to the first two perfumes that I ever bought on my own.

During the same heady period that I got my first job and my first apartment, I also got my first credit card: Macy's. This led in short order to cards from B. Altman, Bloomingdales, Bonwit Teller and Saks. (Nothing like starting at the top.) I can't remember exactly where it was that I purchased my first perfume but I know the reason that I chose this one was that I was influenced by an advertisement on WQXR radio: "Everyone will ask you what you're wearing." Infini by Caron.

Oh it was something - a cyrstal bottle shaped like an infinity symbol. And the scent was very lovely - romantic and flowery but not overpowering. The cost was something outrageous because I went right for the Eau de Parfum and never regretted it. I used the perfume sparingly and kept that same bottle for many years , probably something like 15 years - the perfume itself turned dark but the fragrance never changed.

Then one day my sister's young daughter got to all of my perfumes and mixed them all together, wasting the perfume and ruining the finish on my bedroom furniture. That was the end of the Infini. I haven't ever seen it again.

The second perfume I ever bought was Je Revien by Worth. I took it to Europe with me and wore it every day for the entire 21 day vacation. I held onto that one, too and most of it survived the Great Perfume Mixing Experiment.

It came in a round bottle with a plain stopper and I used to apply it - flaunting convention - by holding my finger over the opening and tipping it over and then rubbing my fingers where I wanted it on my person. Unfortunately, I did this during a spell of poison ivy and I guess the whole bottle got contaminated because anytime I tried to wear it after that, I would break out into itchy patches. I regretfully threw it away.

I always meant to replace these two first loves, but got distracted by newer shinier scents and just never got around to it. Well, low and behold - today while I was out sunning myself I stopped to cruise through T.J. Maxx and stopped to look over the sloppy shelf where they jumble the fragrance boxes - what a gold mine! And right there in front was Je Revien Eau de Toilet spray. OK, it wasn't the perfume, but it was right there in front of me and it was only 10 bucks.

You'd better believe that I snapped it right up and am right now sitting here typing this dressed in grey sweat pants, a purple polo shirt and smelling like a tour of Europe. I wish I could find the Infini. But I am made happy enough by this lucky find today.

**le sigh**

I may be a hack but I'm a hack that smells good.

 

A Deadline For Dead Lines

Cripes, Suzette! unveils a new feature today, dear readers. What do you get when you combine Nobody Cared About It In The First Place with Out of Ideas / Out of Time?

I'm on the road for a few days and although I had several brilliant blog topics to expound upon yesterday, I was too busy to execute them and now I can't remember what was so fascinating. I'm almost out the door and so we find ourselves at Left Over, Warmed Up and Re-Served. These are not merely your average reruns of old posts. Nay, these are reruns of old posts that garnered no comments the first time around.

This is your last chance to offer your opinion on these particular pieces. I'm leaving these three zeroes up until I get back in a few days.Now that you're all older and have an increased level of commenting comfort, I  am expecting a veritable flood of comments this time. Don't let me down.

I just cannot believe that no one on the entire world wide web had a comment to make about lab monkey remains the first time around.

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1. BREATHE : RESPIRE  

Somehow, I never got the message that the duct tape and plastic advice was for me, too. I was under the impression that it was only for those densely populated urban areas where it might be hard to motivate yourself away from the dangerous substance. I figured that since I have a car with 4WD that always has a full tank and I know every possible combination of track and field, that there was a good chance that I could outrun whatever was around. (Not that I am the type. I am more the sit-down-and-cry-about-it type.)

Turns out my instincts were right, according to this expert.

If there is an event that interrupts the supply of consumer goods, we're sitting pretty. Mr. Sami will be king of the world, what with his excessive amounts of canned goods, three tools for every chore, rubber gaskets, bubble wrap, nuts and bolts, rolls of tarping, gallons of laundry detergent, extra propane tanks, styrofoam panels, multiple buckets, gas cans and of course his natural inclination to use things for purposes other than their original intent.

He'll be all alone, though, because I'm not going to stick around and listen to him yap about how I wanted to get rid of all his junk and now look.

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2. What Does God Look Like?

I recently found out that one of the people I deal with on a professional basis was involved in a fatal car collision and was declared clinically dead at the scene. It was a very long rehabilitation road back for her, but come back she did - I had no idea that she was ever compromised in any way.

She told me the now-familiar story about the going up towards the light and being greeted by long-dead relatives. I've heard this many times because I've done follow-up care to many patients who were officially dead and then resusitated. They all say the same thing: they were overcome with a feeling of peacefulness and beauty; they were told it wasn't their time and they had to go back; they didn't want to go back; they all felt they were returned for some special purpose.

She did say one thing, however, that no one ever told me before. She saw God. This is what she had to say:

As she was going upwards, she came to a place where she was eye-level with the bottom of a white garment and bare feet in sandals. She said she knew that it was God and that He is a male because He had hairy toes.

True story.

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3. SILENTLY PULSATING

Today is the last day on the job that I have had for three years.

Why I Hate To Leave:

• - People call me all day long and ask me for advice.  Then they do what I tell them to do!, unlike the other areas of my life.
• - No agonizing over what to wear to work. Just like Catholic school, there is very little decision making associated with dressing for direct patient care. Example: Should I wear the vibrant green scrubs that make me look like a convict in a pre-trial hearing, or should I wear the pale grey scrubs that make me look like a convict in pajamas?
• - Because I work pretty much on my own, I can set my own schedule as long as I do the work of two people and get it all done before I leave.
• - Lots of opportunity to inspect and evaluate people's private parts. Gathering and cataloging - may come in useful someday.

Why I Can't Wait To Get Out:

• - Evil biohazardous waste management company that transports lab monkey remains in the same truck as our garbage containers, and then uses the term "pansies" when we gasp and choke from the undescribable odor that clings to the plastic.
• - Speaking of odors, the opportunity to wear perfume - and not make anybody sicker than they already are!You can't/shouldn't wear perfume when you are up close and personal with people who live on the verge of nausea, or those that can't get up and get away from you. I figure they at least have a fighting chance for escape in the offices.
• - I can set my own schedule as long as I do the work of two people and get everything done. Hey ... wait a minute ...
• - No more looking at people's private parts unless I want to. Seriously, you have to be in the mood for it.

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