PLAYING THE WAITING GAME

17 July 2003

I got spam today (surprise, surprise). It was entitled "Are you tired of waiting?" and it was advertising some way to speed up your computer.

But I thought--how appropriate. This has been a day when I am very tired of waiting indeed.

It started off OK. In fact, great. I discovered that one wonderful way to avoid the mid-morning munchies is to sleep till mid-morning and then take care of the cravings with breakfast instead of a snack.

I definitely don't know what got into me. It was the telephone that woke me up. A call from Music Circus about reviewing their show next week. I was surprised that they called so early until I looked at the clock and realized it was nearly 9 a.m.! I had slept through Walt making coffee, making his breakfast, getting dressed, and leaving for work. I had missed the entire Today Show. Absolutely amazing. I can't remember the last time I've slept so long.

By the time I'd checked e-mail and made and eaten breakfast it was nearly time to think about lunch. Now that's a great way to solve the eating problem for the morning.

When Walt got home from work yesterday, he asked me what I'd done all day, and I realized I had essentially done nothing, so I decided that I'd be more productive today. First I took a shower and that, as always felt good on my shoulder, which seems to positively spring to normal the minute a pulsating stream of warm water hits it. Any other time when I remove the arm from the immobilizer, bend over, and start moving it, it tells me that it's not ready to do all this painful moving. But get that ol' hot water on it and I feel like I could start lifting weights. But I don't.

With the ablutions taken care of, I decided that I would mop the kitchen floor. That's not too difficult, since I have a Swifter wet mop and you can kinda sorta get it set up one handed. I did a half-assed job of it, but it needed more pressure on the mop to get all of the marks on the floor and my arm (now that there was no water pouring over the shoulder) just didn't want to cooperate.

I unloaded the dishwasher, but I couldn't take several dishes at once, for fear of dropping them, so got my aerobic exercise taking each plate, one at a time from dishwasher to cupboard to put away.

I tried folding clothes, but ended up with a bigger mess than before I started out, so gave up.

Then I decided I'd surprise Walt and cook dinner. He's really shouldered (pun intended) yeoman's duties around here and has been cooking dinner every night for a month, except when we are going out somewhere. He had taken chicken breasts out of the freezer and it seemed the least I could do to try to make something of them. The easy way would be to make something in the crock pot.

But it couldn't be anything complicated. I can't really dice anything. I can sometimes slice things, if I'm very careful, but if it's something like an onion that needs to be held while cutting, forget it. I also wanted to try to do something that was a low-points meal, so went to the WeightWatchers website and found some good crockpot recipes.

I found one that was low in points and easy--I thought--to make. I also had all the ingredients for it. So I got the crock pot out, plugged it in, got out a can of fat free cream of chicken soup to pour over the other ingredients I would put in the crock pot. Then I looked at the can opener, hanging there above my head, and the can in my hand and realized that there was no way to open the damn can!

I can't even assemble a simple meal in a crock pot, for Pete's sake.

So I am playing the waiting game: I'm waiting to see the doctor, waiting to have my arm back, waiting to be able to get on the exercise bike, waiting to go to Australia....all of my life seems to be on hold while I'm trying to be very patient.

In the meantime, Jeri has returned for a few days and maybe I can get her to take me out tomorrow during the day so we can buy some office supplies (I have a stack of videotapes I've been supposed to mail out and I have to get envelopes before I can do that...and have to get to the post office for stamps!) and some groceries (Walt is good about that too, but this will give him a breather). Heck, I might even get her to open a can for me so I can make dinner myself!