The Wild Winds of Fortune

I had  planned to spend the day in San Francisco looking at pretty pictures of beautiful women.  I had dressed, not up, exactly, but certainly more respectably than my regular schlubby self does.  Black corduroy slacks, a black v-neck sweater covered with a deep burgundy velvet shirt, jewelry, lipstick; in other words as  befits hanging around an art museum.* General business casual.  (I am having a bad hair day, but that seems to be the norm the past couple of weeks.  I desperately need to get my hair cut, something which I usually dislike getting done.)    The Rocket Scientist was going to take me up and we were going to lunch and then he was going to drop me off before heading to a weekend workshop further north.  I was going to take Caltrain back home, which I almost always enjoy. (I like riding trains.)

Life happens.  Specifically, defective radiators happen.  The radiator which we had installed in Vincent the sixteen-year-old black convertible a few months ago sprung a leak.  The good news is that it is still under warranty, the bad news is that the time it cost us to determined what was wrong and make alternate transportation arrangements precluded going up to the city.  Rats. We did have a nice lunch locally with the Not-So-Little Drummer Boy, who is home from college and whose company is almost always a delight, but it still is not the same thing as a museum trip that one has been planning for weeks.**

So I am sitting at home in front of my computer.  I feel like I should go out and do something this afternoon, just to make up for missing my museum outing. The house is pretty much clean, and even if it were not, I would want to change before doing housework.

Sigh. I hate having to figure out alternate plans.

*I am actually of the opinion that t-shirts and flip flops are okay for museums, as long as people are there and are really interested in the art. Enthusiasm covers a lot of sartorial sins in my book.
**I originally was supposed to go see this on my birthday, but I was ill and had to punt.

Along with (spurious statistic alert!) probably 75% of the other mothers in America, I received flowers for Mother’s Day.  The florist did a superb job of creating a bouquet to last for days, mixing roses which were in full bloom with not-quite-opened irises and completely closed stargazer lilies. The roses were lovely, and the irises were quite pretty when they opened, but the lilies are spectacular. They’re huge and beautiful and incredibly perfumed.

That last is a problem.  Strong fragrances — even natural ones, such as star jasmine or, in this case, lilies — can be migraine triggers for me.  I have spent the past two days flirting with a headache.

So, you say, throw them out.  I should.  Most sane people would.  But I can’t seem to discard something so lovely.  The need to protect and nurture one’s physical self can sometimes conflict with the need to nurture one’s psyche, especially when the object which is so soul-satisfying is so very transient.

It’s such a dilemma.

“If you want it — take it!”

Maybe I should try that sometimes.


*Da Sichuan Bistro, 3781 El Camino Real, Palo Alto, California,  roughly halfway between Oregon/Page Mill and Charleston/Arastradero.**  Comfy if pedestrian atmosphere, friendly waitstaff, good food. The General’s Chicken is great: sweet, but not syrupy or cloying, with heat, saltiness and acidity balancing out the sweetness. I also really like the sizzling steak on iron plate. The wonton dumpling in chili sauce is terrific, and taking the leftover chili oil sauce and drizzling it into your vegetarian hot and sour soup is trés yummy.  They have a good vegetarian menu, which means all the adults  in our house are happy with either eating there or getting takeout from there.  
** I hate intersections where streets change names.  The bistro is on the eastern (I think) side, a.k.a. the Oregon and Charleston side.  If you are familiar with the area, that last sentence makes sense.

Dear Mythbusters,

I understand you probably get a ton of letters from mothers complaining about the experiments you run, in that it gives their offspring ideas that, as much as you say “don’t try this at home,” they still do, resulting in broken crockery and messy landscaping. My sons, on the other hand, find things to experiment with all on their own.

I  want to thank you for the times when my offspring suggest working on replicating some bizarre idea they’ve seen on the Internet  that I am able to say, with a straight face, “Won’t work — Mythbusters already did that.”*

Most of the time I am even telling the truth.

Me

*That’s only when the issue is one of potential messiness. Safety is nonnegotiable. 

Stardust is one of my favorite movies.  After seeing it for the goodness-knows-how-manyth time, I really want a Babylon candle.  Mucking around with a minivan just seems so inefficient, somehow.

The Red-Headed Menace, working on a history assignment: “Hobbes said that man’s life in a state of nature was nasty, brutish, and short…. it makes me wonder what kind of a home life he had.”

After a labored pun about Descartes and horses, I commented that my ability to make puns had come back.  For some reason, I started spontaneously making puns over the past week, something which I had not been doing in casual conversation for a while.

“I’m not sure that that is a feature,” said the Rocket Scientist.

Spoilsport.