Cashmere Intimidation

Gainesville

Happy Needya Feedya Birthday, Sandy! Although I'll never be able to feedya like you feed me... Nice descriptions of the food you had for lunch. And what fun to watch the Julia videos for the first time... I just always assumed you'd seen them, as you were my French Chef touchstone. I saw quite a few of them in the first run days, as Lee had an interest, and she was such a hoot. Enjoy!

My day was dominated by sweater angst. Doug & family gave Bill and me cashmere sweaters from Lands End for Christmas. Bill happily put his on and wore it out to dinner right away. Mine... more complicated. First, I'm completely intimidated by a sweater that comes with it's own muslin bag, complete with button, no zipper-- you know the thing has to be as fragile and snag-prone as a butterfly wing. Second, I can tell just by looking that it's too big, the sleeves way too long (never even tried it on, but I know a regular small won't work), so I'll have to go through the angst of returning it. Which I put off. And off. Finally last Anti-Procrastination Wednesday I made the call. The replacement arrived, a petite XS. I carefully tried it on: perfect. But what to wear with it? (What do I have that is worthy?) Do I dare to take a thermos of coffee to work? Do I dare to eat anything at all while wearing it? Bill has the right idea, of course: it's just a sweater, it's entirely replaceable, etc. This cashmere intimidation must be a carry-over emotion from high school. I can't remember if I actually ever owned one, but if I did, I'll bet I tied myself in the same kind of knots over it. At any rate, I wore it (it's wonderfully smooth, soft and lovely) and nothing awful happened. The only person I talked to the live long day was the Valic agent who came to discuss retirement options. I hope he was suitably impressed! (As if.)

In other news, I finally got the artificial tree denuded; as you say Mom, it's relatively stress-free. Will need Bill's help to wrestle the thing back into its box, but at least he doesn't have to worry about getting it out to the curb on the right day, and all that stuff.

I had to punt for dinner tonight-- too late to have the scheduled chicken dish, so I hauled some dogs out of the freezer and had them miked with kraut. Had some leftover melon/orange salad and broccoli on the side, along with bag salad. Exciting, huh?

Had some Big White Undies to fold, and watched an old episode of Commander in Chief while doing it. And this just in: TiVo LIVES! Bill hammered away at it early this morning, and after three straight weeks of failed calls to the mother ship, one finally got through. We now have program data through Januray 22, and the little darling remembers everything I programmed into it. Who knows what the problem was. I hope we can keep it alive so you can see it. I agree it would not interest you much, Mom, but I think Sandy will be fascinated.

Enough of this. Too late for Dear Diry tonight. One more day in the tank, then I get to work at home for a day. I worked on my project/presentation today, but with many interruptions-- need a long span of time to finish up the six page section I'm using as a test. It's almost there.

G'night.