I just had a wake-up call on a day I’d much rather have stayed asleep. My fortieth high school reunion is coming up next year. Meep! Fortieth! I have the clearest memory of a time too many years ago when an old (as in older than me, not long-time) friend told me she was going to her fortieth high school reunion. I recall thinking, “Forty years! Sheesh, she’s way older than I thought she was!” Now, I’ve never been to any of my high school class reunions–the first three, I wasn’t inclined because I was fat, and everyone told me that the people who got fat after high school were…

I have a sucky relationship with food. I try hard to control it, but more often than not, food controls me. All the great words about being perfect just the way I am, dieting doesn’t work, I’m beautiful…they’re wonderful thoughts, but the bottom line is my joints hurt. So I need to lose some weight. I know myself well enough to know that I’m not going to diet–Weight Watchers is a fantastic program, but I’m not going to pay to fix my body and I’m not interested in weighing in or going to a meeting. Been there, done that and it worked–for a while. All the other choices leave me…

…at the Bettyverse. Come on over–we’re talking about being a lefty, that’s handedness, not politics…

So, today was the day we got the boat out of the water for winter–much harder than putting it in, I’ll tell ya. We did get to enjoy a small ride up to the Beach and back down to the Point where we waited for our storage guy to come trailer us home. He dropped the boat on the trailer  in the driveway of the cottage and then it was our turn. Holy Mary, Mother of our Lord! First, we scraped algae off the pontoons–a wicked nasty job. Just FYI, algae stinks. Then we worked with a scrub brush and a couple of different kinds of cleaners and the power…

…at the Bettyverse, today, Mes Amies. I’m on my favorite rant…if you visit here regularly or know me at all, you’ve heard it before, but come on over anyway and join in the conversation.  Love to hear your viewpoint! Maybe you can change my mind… 😉

…begins and ends with leaves. Gorgeous, colorful leaves everywhere–in the lake, on the road, on the docks, and particularly on our deck! Husband used the leaf blower on Saturday morning and within an hour, the deck was covered again. The umbrella, the table, the chairs, even our car became repositories for orange, red, yellow, and crispy brown maple leaves. The good news is that we can blow or sweep them out into the yard and the yard guy picks them up. Too bad we don’t have him down home–we are the ones who pick up leaves there. Personally, I’m totally into the whole someone else does the yard work thing…

That would be me, mes amies. I not only passed my heart scan, I totally aced it! Zero hardened plaque in my coronary arteries. I was amazed, frankly, but thrilled. All three of us, Mary, PJ, and I left the Heart Hospital with good reports. So how did we celebrate? Lunch, of course! And at my new favorite French restaurant, where the ambiance reminds me so much of Paris. The most important thing about the heart scan is that I now have more peace of mind about the whole dying young like my mom thing–probably dumb because I could drop over dead tomorrow. The heart scan is no guarantee that…

I got a note from my friend Donna today. We met when I rented her Paris apartment two years ago and I knew immediately she was a kindred spirit. We’ve kept in touch, a note here, an email there. We’ve talked on the phone, and I visited her last time I was in Washington, DC. Whenever I hear from her, I think about my time in Paris. What an incredible experience Paris was for me–a dream come true. I’d wanted to go to Paris since I was about ten years old and found a little packet of old photos of the City of Lights in an antiques store in Michigan.…

Today is my birthday. I’m turning 58. My mother died of a massive and unexpected heart attack at the age of 60. My greatest fear is dying the same way, but covered in spiders. I’m kidding about the spiders, although I do have terrible arachnophobia. I’m not joking about the heart attack fear. My sensible self smacks me regularly when this fear manifests. My mother was a good woman, but she was overweight, smoked (and not just tobacco), played around with hallucinogens, never exercised, ate whatever she wanted to eat, and was a non-compliant diabetic who hated going to the doctor. I am overweight, but I’ve never smoked anything, I’ve…