Do As I Say, Not As I Do! ;)

It's all a balancing act: walking up First Avenue to our apartment in NYC with baby trying to climb onto and off my shoulder!

I apologize for having been MIA since Friday (in case there are masses of faithful readers out there mourning my absence and my ever-so-witty humor *ahem*) - but this CFIDS/ME/CFS and fibromyalgia body of mine has been betraying me at every turn - or so it seems.  This happens to me every single autumn/fall as the barometric pressure changes have their fun toyng with me, whereas the temperature changes do THEIR damage.  MY rheumy told me yesterday that all his fibro patients are absolutely miserable.

This year has been so much worse than in years past.  I daresay that this year is right up there with the second year of my adult human growth hormone (HGH) "deficiency" drama - when I was surviving only on fumes. I finally had to be hospitalized in order to simply keep me alive until all the red tape of approval came in, an almost two-year process when all was said and done. We all worked feverishly on my survival, such a nightmare, especially since we weren't even allowed to pay for the HGH out of pocket until the approval by all parties involved got their act together.

And then we had the whole "compartment syndrome" surgery/fiasco just eleven months ago, when all my organs started to shut down, and everyone just concentrated on keeping me alive (the little dramatists), one of those "worst of" years.  So when I say that this is one of my worst periods ever, I have some pretty good company to compare things to - and I've spared you many more incidents, since I - all together now - am trying to make these posts shorter! ;)

It's even difficult to say how much worse it is this year: 100 times worse, 1,000 times worse, a million times worse?  All I know is that I'm "rather" miserable and sicker than I have been in eons.  

Now, I'm not writing this in order to gain sympathy points or votes - that would be rather silly. What I'm writing about is my reaction to being this "new" sick.  Some include, but are not restricted to:

• My legs are like jello and often can't carry me.  I end up crawling a lot.  I'm like dead weight - if hubby is at home, he tries to help me to the bathroom, but dead weight that insists on falling is not the easiest feat to accomplish.  And no, I don't drink, as one doctor in the ER once tried to ask my daughter behind my back - whereupon my daughter started to laugh her head off - a rather long story I'll spare you.  
• When I sit up to get out of bed, my head starts to spin and I see dark spots in front of my eyes - or light spots - and it feels like it's going to implode or explode - I'm not quite sure which.  
• My pupils aren't dilating and contracting the way they should be, even with no medication in my body.
• My head feels so heavy, as if it's made of some sort of heavy metal, because it wants to hit the closest surface, usually the floor, face down.  If I'm lucky, I hit the mattress and just lie there unable to move at all for about 15-30 minutes, making it quite uncomfortable for the rest of the body hanging off the bed.
• My veins, especially the ones by the wrist start to feel as if they are going to either explode of implode.  
• My whole body starts in with these jerky sways, then jerky shakes.

I think you get the messages.  These symptoms are just the tippy top of the proverbial iceberg. 

However, to make things worse, I've found myself engaged in two behaviors that are doing me no favors. However, having weighed all the options, I've decided that I should go on or just do as much as I can.  Mind you!  DO NOT FOLLOW MY EXAMPLE, but rather as I say, not as I as I do, because, after all, I'm an old bat!  Most out there have their whole lives ahead of them and also have not been ill very long.  For the newly-diagnosed patient there is the problem of whether or not a near-cure could really help, if not a cure, period!  Looking at you, spoonies, I have real faith in the cure being found!!!  But getting back to moi and my self-absorbed self (yes, I do see my failings):

• I've been acting like a bit of an "in your face teenager" daring my CFIDS, ME/CFS and fibromyalgia evil fairy. Just as I did wrong with the "non-stop eating" celebration of the dreaded and surprising hypothyroidism, I'm daring, in a way, the DD "fairy," to inflict more damage onto me like a playground bully, though this bully is so much stronger than any bully from school - as I should well keep in mind.  

• I'm mad!  I'm angry!  I've had it.  I've adjusted, compromised, accepted so much of this stupid, idiotic illness for 38 years and I realize that really, I don't have but so many years left - after all, I've closer to 80 than I am to 25!   I have to do what is right for me and not live someone else's guidelines or dictates, because I've wasted enough time already.  I've been ill way too long and realize that in the next decade or so nothing is going to cure me and nothing is ever going to give me back even 10% of a normal life.  Like the person who got severe polio before the vaccine, I'm never going to get well enough to really live life.  Oh, I'll keep fighting - it's part of my nature and DNA - but I'm also trying to accept reality with what will give me a semi-normal standard of living occasionally.

• The holidays are coming up and I refuse to live a "Green Acres" life, the old sitcom where the couple from NYC buys a house out in the country and can never finish remodeling the hovel.  Our remodeling has been going on for 5 years!  Good grief!  The only saving factor about the kids going away to school was that my house would finally be immaculate.  Wrong: I was soo naive!  I live in fear that the remodeling will be completed the day before either hubby or I keel over and we will not have enjoyed a finally put-together house! (Almost!)

• The holidays are coming and that is a big problem for me.  I do not do well with holidays. I used to decorate the house with absolute perfection, down to the Christmas china, chargers, baking peroshki's and cookies, at least 3 or 4 different cakes for dessert.  We'd have Christmas parties.  Even my book club finally decided that each December meeting would be at my house because (LOL!) why bother at any one else's?  (Fine solution for me as the house was washed and sanitized to a inch of its life anyway!)   

But now I have to figure out a way of dealing with all these emotions, planning what is feasible, what isn't, what I won't give up, what I should.  I do know that I will TRY and do all within my power to drive myself harder this Thanksgiving (and hubby's birthday!) and this Christmas than I've been able to in the last 5 or 6 years, because our family's had incredibly bad luck, as well as good luck, health-wise lately and we have much to be grateful for. I want to fall asleep every night (or day or whenever this dysfunctional body decides it'll give me a break and let me sleep a bit) feeling as if I've accomplished something.  Last night I was able to crawl through two rooms that are jam-packed with everything from other rooms and managed to find 3 "must" tablecloths and linen napkins, was able to crawl to the washer and managed to do 6 loads of laundry.  Hubby took care of the dryer (I trust him with the drying part, but never the washer!) and he folded them away to take to the cleaners for pressing. 

That's three things down and how many hundreds more to go????

If anyone has any tips as to how to get organized for the holidays in the easiest way or hints for getting through it all, or any part of it, period, we'd all love to hear it!  

In the meanwhile, I hope all are doing so very well, their very best, only better.  Ciao and paka.

The (Woman) Doctor Behind President Kennedy's Pain Management

I'm happy to say that there were two articles just published in a medical journal about one of my heroes, Dr. Janet Travell, a pioneering doctor in pain (to say the least).  The articles, which discuss the autoimmune disease and the pain medicine aspects of President Kennedy's care by Dr. Travell, is found in this month's edition of the medical journal Practical Pain Management (with his image on the cover) and can be found at the link here and here.  I am especially excited as Dr. Travell has long been one of my heros - and I just wrote a post about her recently).

Dr. Janet Travell with  First Lady "Lady Bird" Johnson. Dr. Travell became President Johnson's White House Physician after the Kennedy assination. 

I'd like to point out that my "source" who knew Dr. Travell very well was not one of the doctors who wrote the articles - I don't want to mislead you - AND petty person that I am, I'd like you to know that I have excellent sources (ha! regarding "petty," true about "petty" and "excellent sources").  

There are a few problems I have with a few "facts" in the articles, but overall, the information is excellent.  Because of my extensive comments and my real effort to shorten my posts, I'll need to divide my observations into several parts.  I'm afraid that when it comes to pain management I get just a TAD (over) serious!  (Ahem!)

My reservations are mostly small, though some are important, while others are small, period.  On the other hand, there are a few points that I REALLY agree with that I'd also like to point out as excellent points made.  Today I'm starting with Dr. Jay's article in light of trying to spare people long-winded posts. (Yes, yes, I basically said that already!  Sigh!)

1. In the article by Dr. Jay, he's a bit inaccurate and I wonder how well he knew Dr. Travell when he wrote that "Her use of procaine injections was most likely into myofascial trigger points...."   UH...excuse me, but Dr. Travell wrote two volumes about myofacial trigger points, still sold at Amazon, as I noted in my post and I even placed a picture of the volumes at the end of the post.   My source tells me that she most certainly DID inject JFK's trigger points and that was also the consensus at a medical conference where she was the guest of honor.  This was when and where my source first met her as a relatively young man when she approached him in her wheelchair, knowing already who HE was, and saying she was following his career, "young man!"   (He would definitely have been too intimidated to approach her and this man is NOT easily intimidated!  Hero worship can do strange things to people (ha!).)

2. I only hope that when Dr. Jay wrote "other stimulants ... There continues to be methylphenidate for use, as well as amantadine" that this was a spelling mistake (maybe generated by the dictatorial iPad which haunts me as well!) and simply not caught by the editors.  On the other hand, I don't want readers confused by seeing this medicine quoted in this usage.  I only caught this error regarding Amantadine since Amantadine is an antiviral medication which I DO take, but for my CFIDS/CFS/ME, not for my fibromyalgia and/or myofascial pain.  The author most likely meant the stimulant, "amphetamine."

3. Dr. Jay also wrote,  "Finally, and most impressively, Dr. Travell treated more than the symptoms of pain and hormonal dysfunction.  .... Dr. Travell knew then what we know now -- physical exercise is necessary to maintain a number of physiological functions as well as to help decrease pain." 

Now this, the exercise, is a real bugaboo of mine, I fully admit it.  With all due respect, however, I beg to differ and one fibro source has even testified in court many times that exercise is not always appropriate for pain.  It all depends on the patient.   As I keep saying over and over again, we can't be plugged into any formulas!  Dr. Travell most definitely believed in what is right for each individual patient and didn't believe in any set "theory" other than going by results - and this in fact was an example of her genius! Furthermore, as I'm always saying, I've seen more theories come and go over the years, each time doctors absolutely sure that THAT was the answer.  I have finally started looking at everything as what works for me - after much damage was done to me, completely innocently, I must add, and much of it permanent damage - and I've had to long ago stop going with anyone's "dictates."  I can just imagine Dr. Travell looking down and shaking her head at some of the rigidity going on.

4. I whole-heartedly agree with the following excellent conclusion, however, and want to point it out: 

"Bottom line -- Dr. Travell treated President Kennedy in a highly appropriate fashion, using tools that most physicians today wouldn't know how to use, and even in ways they may not have been able to fathom.  I do believe that Dr. Travell knew or intuited various things about drugs and hormones that we now understand better and more deeply.  The fact that her treatment plan was so effective is a function of her exceptional skill as a physician at a time when physicians knew far less than we know now."

Now THAT quote is absolutely right!  Dr. Travell understood one could not be rigid in his/her thinking.  She also understood how much each patient varies and how each patient is unique.  In addition to her care, love and intuition of patient care, she understood that no two patients are exactly the same and each patient's care is unique to that care, something the vast majority of specialists today should remember.

"This is not cookie cutter...you gotta do it right," to quote MY source.

As always, particularly today, I hope everyone is doing their best, only better. As they say, "to be continued!"  Ciao and paka!

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I DO treasure that which remains behind....

...That though the radiance which was once so bright 
Be now for ever taken from my sight, 
  Though nothing can bring back the hour 
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;  
  We will grieve not, rather find 
  Strength in what remains behind....
     ~William Wordsworth  (from "Ode to Intimations of Immortality")

It may seem absolutely ridiculous to some out there that a person who is supposedly so sick that she's bed ridden and, for huge stretches of times, is in bed 24/7, who can no longer cook for herself, who can't eat sitting up, who has a hard time talking/dealing with more than one person in the room at a time thanks to sensory overload, should be so interested in such trivial subjects as eyebrows. When I wrote part 1 of the miniseries, an hour after I hit the "publish" button, I was so embarrassed, thinking, "Good grief [actually my real words have been cleaned up], if someone stumbled onto this site right now, they'd wonder how and why someone so supposedly ill would go on and on about such trivia?"  If she's THAT sick, the thinking would probably go, shouldn't she somehow be out there participating in the name change of this awful illness?  Shouldn't she be using her time, and the energy she does have, more profitably on patient advocacy...or any number of other lofty issues/problems?

My answer is that I'm tired of living in that world of only going into the noblest of discussions and activity.  I've now lived with an illness that has so devastated me and robbed me of the "core Irene" that I am an Irene my husband never really knew, and my children don't remember, the more energetic, albeit already sick, mom.  It breaks my heart when I find out that my oldest often tells the stories to the youngest (and they are only three years apart in age) of what mom was like when she wasn't AS sick as I've been for the past twenty five years of the thirty seven years I've had this DD.

Just for a while, I'd like to live in a world not dominated, every single moment, by CFIDS/ME/fibro and its many parasitic hangers-on, as in severe insomnia, pain, light/sound/smell sensitivity, falls, swollen lymph nodes, migraines, tinnitus, BP craziness, neuropathy, IBS, the daily shots...the list goes on and on.

Furthermore, I think that for most of us, we generally DO feel better around beauty.

The other day, I happened to test out a new nail polish.  Given my limitations with "the Claw," I decided I'd paint only my left hand's fingernails.  After all, I just wanted to get an idea of how the color looked on me, the way it goes on, would there be a streaking problem.... I told myself (yes, I often talk to myself and hubby is always saying, "What? What?" not, altogether sounding much different than Ozzie Osborne - oh sweetie, you know I love you!) that I needn't give myself a  perfect manicure. I knew that trying the perfect manicure at that time would only lead to frustration because my left hand is still a huge problem, now, six months post-surgery. I told myself to just slap it on and then take it off after a day or so, and that later, when finally in the mood (come on!  It COULD happen!) I would then go the "perfect" manicure route.

And so last night as I was actually reading a book (yes!  Hallelujah!) and holding my Kindle with my right hand but clicking those pages forward with the left while lying on my customary right side, I suddenly noticed how pretty the nail color was, how perfect it looked on my hand and that this color has the potential of being a "really good" buy.  It put me in a great mood for a few moments, much better than a host of psychiatrists, psychologists, or life guidance coaches could ever hope to achieve, including my GP, my hubby and even my kids.  It's because I saw something pretty, with the same reaction that I feel WHENEVER I see something pretty...be it a daffodil, a vacuumed, dusted and sheet-changed bed and bedroom (MINE, of course!) or a pair of cool boots (though we won't go THERE for a while!)

I know it's superficial to to be hung up on one's looks too much.  And despite all appearances, I really am not crazily so.  Yes, I may be a bit of a beauty product junkie, but we all need to have a side of us that's not always focusing on the bad, nor problem-solving the world, nor the awfulness of this illness and what phase we're in with this DD.  A long time ago, decades actually, I wrote that it's not right to compare the CFIDS/ME/fibro suffering to any other suffering because ALL SUFFERING is suffering and it all hurts.  What we need to do is find a way to live with it, to minimize it.

I've found that in my life, I'm always looking for ways of improving my condition.  If I can, for example, eliminate carbs from my diet and see a .05% improvement, then another .15% improvement from massage therapy, then you know what? - I'm going for it!  It's all a matter of good old arithmetic and common sense.  If you add all the tiny bits of help - this, that and the other - soon you have an improvement of 5%.  And that 5% can make you or break you sometimes. Add more little improvements, and soon you're doing 7% better, add another "successful" med... I think you can see where I'm going.

I suppose this is where I get the most frustrated and upset and even angry: when I'm told by ANYONE, be it dietitians, doctors, "friends," family member outside of the immediate family circle, that I should try this and that.  I meaning I've had this illness for thirty seven (expletive!) years.  How stupid do they think I am when I'm told I should do this and that, by some very rigid people who have, when all is said and done, absolutely no idea what is happening to me internally.  They may see some symptoms, but not all.  My close ones, the immediate family, however, know when I've gotten too sick, be it from the blue to colorless lips, the slur that appears in my speech, the balance problems, the difficulty I have finding a word, the sweat covering my face and scalp and then the rest of me, the dry mouth which makes my teeth and tongue stick to my mouth so it's almost impossible to talk, the croaking sound that comes out when I'm so exhausted or under such pressure that my throat constricts.

Case in point and wow, this is a huge bugaboo of mine: exercise and pacing do NOT work, for ME!!!!  (Boy!  That felt good to say!)  Normally I do not advocate violence but sometimes I just want to smack someone "upside the head" when I hear the THEORY of exercise and pacing.  Been there, done that, long before many of those propagating this advice were even born!  What's more, I've come up with coping mechanisms which I thought were what anyone would give a try, only to find out that no, they're quite unique.  My daughter calls it being an actress and says I should get an Oscar.  I don't mean to employ dozens of tricks that make me appear "normal" to most...it just happens.  It's been evolving for decades and I can't even begin to explain them to you, just as I could never begin to explain how it is that I breath, I eat...it just IS, it just happens.

And understand, that I'm in no way saying anything negative which anyone here reading this blog has offered in the way of help.  I've started on my evening primrose oil, made as a suggestion by my old HS friend reading my blog and I think I see an improvement, though I can't yet be sure because I only got to it a week or so after the suggestion was made and then I forget half the time.  I've called my doctors and questioned the histamine angle only to be told that yes, that's been ruled out and often.  These observations and comments are made by those who don't just blithely say, "honey, if you'd just get your Be-Hind out of bed, you'd be healed!"  I feel no judgement on their part, as I've felt no judgement on any one's part who has offered suggestions here.

Besides, presumably, anyone giving me a suggestion here on this blog has actually read enough of some of my most deepest thoughts regarding CFIDS/ME/fibro and has read enough of my history to at least make a suggestion that makes sense.  It's the out-of-nowhere suggestions that are depressing and frustrating.  It's the rigid suggestions, like the ones that claim anyone and everyone who has CFIDS/ME/fibro will be helped by exercise, because it just isn't so with me...and I know it's not so for a lot of people out there.  I get so angry sometimes by that old chestnut of "You must do this," "you can't do that."  So many of us already experience so much guilt and on so many levels: do we really need more?  And God save us from those who think that if we tried things with more effort, we'd be magically cured.  I don't even want to go there!!!

I mourn the loss of the old Irene.  I hate all the things that have been taken away from me, a bit at a time, like baking bread a few times a week, gardening every day, visiting with friends and so on.  But I still have a lot of good things happening to me and I try to keep those things in mind.

And yes, I want to be more than this illness.  I hate that illness defines me in so many ways.  Sometimes, I admit, I do things I probably should never attempt, but really, how much can one be caged, even in a gilded one?

And so, knowing that beauty helps me cope - beauty of all sorts: the beauty of a wonderfully phrased paragraph in a book I happen to be reading, the beauty of flowers in bloom, the beauty of the hills around the town I live in, the beauty of a clean and organized, dirt/dust-free room, the beauty of the engineering of a particular product...well, I'm going to go on with trying to appreciate those things as long as I can, because for me, it adds to the quality of my life.  This seeing of beauty in what remains behind makes me usually realize that life is good and pursuing the good things in life is often what keeps life worth living.

The mystery of why can't the bookworm read?

The boys loved putting on the "bobbies" hats when we had our own little mystery: who had robbed our flat while we were all sightseeing?

Good golly, great balls of fire!  I am NOT kidding when I say that I'm not sure how much longer I can "accept" this new Irene who doesn't read, who's not capable of reading because of problems with concentration.  I'm very much back in the POSITION of being able to read again, given that my daughter's health is, for the most part, on the upswing, and that I'm back in bed.  In fact, given how much I am recovering from the abuses my body and CFIDS/ME/fibro-addled brain experienced in the last two years, that is, between all the health crises in the family, I should be able to GLADLY escape to my book world, and certainly would have any other time in my life.  Heck, normally at any other moment in my life, I'm sure a crazy blood-thirsty gang of Viking would have had problems ripping a book away from me.  

This is a totally new me I don't recognize.  I don't like it at all and, frankly, I'm beginning to fear it.  Heavens, no matter how ill I've ever been, I've always been able to read.  Granted, I did get to the point in my deteriorating health where I was strict with myself and forced myself to read at all times, for fear of losing the ability to do so. And I reluctantly admit to reading some of the most awful junk on my really bad days (no titles from me on this count - I still have a bit of pride left!) when I had such extreme concentration problems.  Yes siree, I've read awful, flinching stuff when all is said and done, all in the name of keeping my brain from completely atrophying from this DD.

Forget the memory problems (pun: groan!).  I signed the terms to the surrender of that battle a long time ago and made extremely difficult concessions to the agreement, that of having to read a book in a day or in a single "sitting."

"Sitting"?  And how wrong is THAT word since I can basically only read lying down and only on my right side at that, in bed, no other way as long as I can remember?  Ha!  Given that I remember HOW much (?), I'm not sure how convincing that statement is.  But rest assured, it was my middle child, who's always had a knack for noticing the oddest things, who pointed it out to me back when he was about eight years old and he was absolutely right.  And I DO remember my mom being upset with me even when I was growing up, that I wasn't able to read from a sitting position.  I'm a bit of an odd duck, aren't I?

There's yet another reason that I'm afraid and upset about this inability to read.  Just as I've always used my "Russian-ness" as an identity that made me different from others as I was growing up and allowed me, I strongly feel, to avoid an "identity crisis" in college when EVERYONE was going through their "identity crises,"  (it WAS the 70's!) so, too, has "bookworm" been an integral part of my identity.

I've lost so much to this stinking disease, this CFIDS/ME and fibromyalgia, not to mention the migraines, the pain, the God-awful fatigue that makes you want to flow down the drain with the water as the bathtub empties.  I'm no longer able to garden like I love to, cook and bake like I yearn to, on a regular basis.  The couple of times I can do so a year, if I'm lucky, are an exception to the rule.  I long ago gave up on photography (or picture-taking!), swimming, visiting with friends.  I've not been to the movies since 1997 when "Titanic" swept the Oscar's, this a person as a member of a family that would often go to see three movies right in a row on a single Saturday or Sunday.  I no longer go to church. I cannot clean, iron...tasks I used to love to do because of the sense of accomplishment I always felt afterwards, if for nothing else.

As I torture myself trying to analyze what the heck is happening to me, I realize that in the last twenty years I've become more and more drawn to mysteries, and series at that, and have wondered why?  It took me a while to realize that the mystery aspect was enticing and appealing because it sharpened my deductive reasoning skills - a fancy way to say that I needed to think like a detective as I've tried to figure out my biggest mystery: what the heck was going on with, to and in my body, as well as my brain?

And why in the world the love of series?  Well, because it was so much easier to read a novel where I knew all the players and their histories and didn't have to kill off precious brain cells in trying to learn new people and places and their back stories.  There's not much I dislike more than beginning a book because it's just so hard to figure out what the heck is going on.  Lordy, even the font that changes from book to book throws me off my game.  All of this is so weird since that means that as I was reading 400 plus books a year in the last few years  (I kept a journal of titles, that's how I know!) that's an awful lot of unpleasant feelings at least once every single day. Was/am I a masochist? Coupled with how much time I would spend each day wandering the house trying to find a book to read, was in the "mood" to read (code word alert!), and given how much I was reading, I marvel at how quickly I must have been flying through those books!  And it's no wonder hubby had such mixed feelings about hitting up our libraries, hauling books home by the bagfuls, hoping he'd hit a home run with at least a couple of those books every few days.

A funny memory of my kids' childhoods.  At night when they would finally be ready for bed, once I got to the point where I couldn't always put them to bed anymore but hubby had to as often as not, the kids would run to my bed, attack and jump all over me vying for my attention, hyped up as usual from just being three rambunctious children, and demand to know what I was reading and how far along I was into the book. In the morning, when they would see that I'd had yet another sleepless night, they'd again invade my bed and want to know what I was NOW reading. Their biggest delight: if I had finished the book I was reading when they went to sleep, read another book as they slept and was into book #3 when they woke up.  OK, I never said my kids were NORMAL!

I'm trying every mind game I can think of and I still can't get into reading, this to a person who would walk down stairs reading, wash my hands in the sink while reading, brush my teeth while reading...the list goes on and on. In fact, I often tricked myself into doing a chore my body couldn't handle by reading and doing that chore at the same time.  I'm not saying I remembered anything I read while doing these things.  It was a bit like a roller coaster ride, fun while doing it but almost immediately forgotten.  And it got the job done.

Just as a smell can trigger the most deep-seeded memory and bring it it the foreground, I remember where I was or what my interests in life were back then, and I recall what crisis, happiness, indeed every twist and turn of our family's history at any given moment, all from just seeing a book cover.  Books are my history.

And the joke and anecdotes surrounding my reading are many. We were on our first trip to London, the entire family! The oldest was ten (trip first described in the post on 2/26).  We stopped at the bookstore at the airport (oh how I love to look at walls and tables at a bookstore and laugh when I see that I've read at least 75% of the books I see).  The gentleman remarked on how wonderful it was to see my kids zeroing in with excitement towards the books instead of the toys sold there too.

Before you get to "Oh, how sick can she be if she's flying to London, for heaven's sake!"  Wait!  

I held up a book that had caught my interest, but feeling very guilty about the bloody fortune we were spending on this vacation, plus so exhausted from the packing and planning, I was definitely not in peak shape even for my low standards.  I help up a book and asked the seller, "does this come in paperback?"  The man looked at hubby and hubby looked at clerk and I had no answer to my seemingly simple question.  I repeated, holding the book up even higher, a bit annoyed since my upper body strength has never been the greatest, I was exhausted, I was sure my makeup was rolling to my neck down from my face, I was sweating, I was becoming nauseated, my hair was getting wet from the exhaustion and all I wanted was an answer to a very easy question.  Griding my teeth behind what I'm sure was a very fake smile, I repeated, "DOES THIS BOOK COME IN PAPERBACK," a bit more slowly than called for.

The looks going back and forth were quickly getting on my nerves when hubby gingerly replied, "Uh, Irene...you ARE holding the book in paperback."

My brains was so slow that it took me a full minute of staring at the darn thing to finally understand what he meant.

Some days you just can't win.

In the meanwhile, I'll continue reading samples of books from my Kindle.  Something has to finally kick in. 

Reading, like I said, is me.

Visiting Kensington Palace on  Easter Monday, we discovered that Princess Diana had set up an  Easter Egg hunt for little children coming through that day, as well as a place in the basement where they could color and make all sorts of Easter arts and crafts projects.  What a lady!  

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