I'm one of those people that sings stupid songs many times a day. I've done this since I can't remember when. When the boys were little, I'd sing songs and replace some of the words with their names and now I do that with Einstein.

::ahem:: for example:

Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah, zip-a-dee-ay, my oh my what an Einsteiny day.
Plenty of Einstein comin' my way, Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah, zip-a-dee-ay

There are several songs in my repertoire, but that one is my go-to song of the day. I don't think a day goes by that I'm not singing that song in one form or another.

Today is Friday, a half-day for me and I was shutting down my company laptop. In doing so, I fired up my Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah song to Einstein. What do I hear next? BJ shutting his office door!

I'm SO SURE!

OK, yes, I can understand that it could become annoying and yes, I do it several times a day but I told BJ he's going to miss it when I die.

NOTE: I'm not dying anytime soon- that's just my way of making him feel guilty. It's a good one, eh?

I went back for my six month check up with the cardiologist today. I’d broken my foot and tore that ligamenty-type stuff due to fainting since the last time I’d seen him and was wearing a boot. I shared with him that my neurologist wasn’t a happy camper that he was taking a watch and see attitude with the fainting because each time I hit my head could be the last time I hit my head. A brain injury on top of another brain injury could be fatal or other terrible things that I’d personally find to be worse than fatal.

Anyhoo- enough of the fatalistic thinking. Bleh.

My cardiologist says that he knows why I faint (tachycardia), but he doesn’t know the cause of the tachycardia, so he is sending me to another cardiologist that specializes in electrical problems of the heart and said that he’s going to advise that he surgically place an internal heart monitor. Here's some information about it if you're curious.

I would have this for up to a year, depending on how often I faint.

He also ran a slew of blood tests today.

It would certainly be nice to get to the bottom of this and get it treated so I quit bonking and breaking things. I’ve gained almost 20 lbs since breaking my foot because I’m supposed to stay off of it as much as possible until it’s healed. My instructions are, when it starts to hurt, get off of it. That takes about 10-15 minutes, which isn’t very long. I can’t even ride the bike because it involves moving my ankle around (where the stuff is torn.)

Summer is coming and I want to be ACTIVE again.

I go back to see the foot surgeon in April to see if surgical intervention is required.

Surgery, surgery, surgery. Thank goodness for health insurance.

BJ and I rarely go out to eat, mainly because we just like being home. When we do go out to eat, it's typically breakfast. We have a place "Ma's Diner" (seriously! that's what it's called!) that we've gone to many times, but it looked really busy and there was no parking. So off we went to another hole-in-the-wall diner that I've noticed many times because it's right by the train station where I used to pick up the train to go in to work.

...the breakfast was great, by the way.

The woman that seated us and then waited on us was, I'd guess, in her 60's. She wore a LOT of makeup and had on a white silk (looking) blouse. You could tell that her appearance was important to her and I'm guessing she was quite a 'looker' back in the day.

Nothing out of the ordinary happened, at least in my opinion. For example, I didn't offer to pick up the dishes, take them back and wash them for her. But what happened when we went to leave was very out of the ordinary.

We went to the cash register to pay and she handed me an envelope that had something in it. She smiled at me, said "God bless you" and told me to not open it until we'd left the restaurant.

I did as I was told and waited until we were in the car. In the envelope was a little bracelet made of beads the color of amber, and a card that read, "Thank you for being so kind". BJ just looked at me and chuckled, saying "what *is* it about you and strangers?"

I get that sort of thing a lot and BJ is getting used to it. I'm honestly not aware that I'm doing anything extraordinarily kind, but I am 'that person' that gets hugs from the shuttle driver (happened to me twice in less than a month, by two different shuttle drivers.) I think most people would be a little weirded out by being hugged by a virtual stranger, but I take it as a compliment because I know that I've done something to touch them emotionally and that's how they expressed it back to me.

The last shuttle driver that hugged me wouldn't even let me tip him, saying that having me as a passenger brightened his day. We were only together for about an hour. I don't remember anything in particular that we talked about that would have been a big deal.

Things like this make me wonder why being treated with kindness seems so unusual to people. I act upon the belief that we should all be kind and treat everyone like we'd want to be treated, but the actions of these people make me think that this is not the norm. It's as if they're not used to someone being kind to them, which makes me sad.

Of course, being this way does get me into many situations whereby I'm cornered by someone that wants to unload on me. I guess I just have to take the bad with the good.

I'm trying to think of a place to keep that bracelet so I can look at it often, thankful that someone took the effort to let me know that I made them feel good- because that makes ME feel good.

It's such a simple thing- being nice.

I used to love getting out in the garden, and would pretty much spend the entire weekend gardening. Now? I look at it as work. Too much of it. Time I'd rather be spending doing something fun- like taking Einstein to the dog park or, when my foot is better, hiking.

Or even sitting on my keester, reading a book.

But then I look at my yard and cringe. I see all the hours it's going to take to prepare it for spring, and then the cycle of working on it every weekend just to keep it up. It's no longer fun for me. I like planting stuff during the spring, and want to continue doing that- but the weeding, pruning, etc. etc. etc. is just too much.

So, we've decided to hire it out. We interviewed our current landscaper- the guy who mows and fertilizes our lawn- and we're interviewing another one (Mr. Ho!) tomorrow. It's going to cost a lot to get it ready for spring, but the weekly outgo doesn't seem too bad.

Last spring and summer I wouldn't make plans for the weekend because I knew that I had to work on the yard. Then I'd procrastinate it until the weekend was over, feeling guilty the entire weekend. Not a good way to spend a weekend, if you ask me.

I'm really looking forward to having a yard that I can enjoy again- and having weekends to do fun stuff. I've been simplifying my life over the past few months, and this is just one more step in the process. Pretty soon, I'll hire someone named Raul to feed me grapes and fan me with big leaves.

Yeah, that's it. I'm sure BJ won't mind, right?

This post is private because I'm writing some very personal things here and don't want people to be hurt by what they might read. Chances are that they don't read my blog, but....