If you can't be a good example, you can serve as a horrible warning.

Kim is home and the cats could not be happier to have someone to sleep with. They aren't really interested in sleeping on our bed anymore, but when Kim is home they always sleep on her bed. When she is gone, they sleep 23 hours a day - Patsy sleeps on the couch (on Grandma's afghan, haha!), and Zorro sleeps on the black rocker/game chair that sits low to the floor.

Lately Rich and Zorro are in competition for that chair, because Rich likes to sit in it too, and if he gets to it first, Zorro prowls around it meaningfully, hoping Rich will leave, and when Rich doesn't leave the chair, Zorro sits on his lap.

Just tonight Rich got the hint - he sat down in the chair to watch TV, and asked me why Zorro was nudging him and staring at him, and then the lightbulb went on! "I'm sitting in his chair, aren't I?" Yes, and he would appreciate if you would get out of it!

I called RA to see how she was doing tonight, after we had gone out in the car to do a couple of errands in the afternoon and her cellulitis leg was getting sore and swollen again. She said she had been doing too much at home, and it was swelling up again, but she needed to go to an activity at church, so she was getting dressed to go out.

I told her to stay home and rest, but no, she had to go because she was in charge of the soup or something like that. Rich heard me on the phone with her, and suddenly remembered that he was supposed to be there, too, so I put on my shoes and went with him, to keep him company.

It was a lecture about making wills and planning for when you are old and in the nursing home, and I could not have been less interested. The dinner smelled good, but we had already eaten, so I just knitted and talked to people during that portion of the evening.

There were three speakers, and the first one was going on and on about setting up a plan for who would take care of your children if you died suddenly. I looked around the room (which was overheated, by the way), and estimated the average age of the audience was about 70, and wondered why anyone thought we needed that information. That was when I started texting Diana for entertainment!

Me:

I'm bored in a meeting. Tell me a story.

Diana:


We went to dinner at BK so I could get the New Moon swag. TJ got me a 5 dollar gift card that says Team Jacob on it. I need help.

Me:

It's a sickness! I want one too!

Me:

It's hot in here and I'm so bored. I'm going to start chewing off my own foot like a wolf in a trap.

Diana:

You are the best of wives. Shouldn't the church be cold on a Friday night?

Me:

It's always hot in here, like Hell or Arizona.

Diana:

We are on our way to see Neil play some jazz fusion I think.

Me:

Fun for u. This meeting will never end. I will die here and my body will desicate in this heat like a mummy.

Shortly after that, the last speaker did finish, and we did actually get to leave the building and go home to find Kim waiting for us. She had arrived home and brought in her laptop so she could set it up and chat with her friends online. The rest of her bags were still in the car waiting for us to help carry them in.

We were all sitting in the living room later, talking and petting the cats - - Patsy's tail fur has been looking thinner and thinner, and tonight I noticed he has licked a bare patch on his back, just above his tail. It looks disgusting, so he is going to the vet in the morning. When our black cat, Chester was still alive, his fur got very thin on his hindquarters one winter, and when I took him to the vet, it was diagnosed as allergies, and he got a shot of an antihistimine and the cat got better right away. I think that might be Patsy's problem, too. I hope so, because he is looking very unkempt, and also, that bare patch is gross.

I woke up early again this morning, and I was laying in bed, thinking about how terrible RA looked when she arrived at that meeting last night, and I was thinking about how she never takes care of herself, and is so dumb about it. Then I had a shocking revelation - I do the same thing!

My doctor gave me that medicine to lower my cholesterol because it is high, and I barely remember to take it, and I don't do any of the things that I always advise other people to do when they are complaining about their high cholesterol! I read in Prevention magazine a few years ago that tests had shown that people who eat just 1/4 cup of beans from a can every day lowered their cholesterol in some short amount of time, and also, I used to eat oatmeal every night at work, and I haven't been doing that lately, either! Two easy things, that involve eating, my favorite activity, and I don't even do them! Oh noes! I am just as bad as RA!

When that epiphany struck, I got out of bed, and came downstairs to make some oatmeal, and vowed to change my ways! I'm going to take my cholesterol meds like I should, and eat oatmeal and beans every day. I love oatmeal! I put frozen berries in it and some cinnamon, and it is the perfect snack at work at 3 a.m.!

The study with the beans was done using canned pork and beans, because they are readily available, and most people like them, but you can eat any kind of beans. Only 1/4 of a cup was effective! That's not much at all! I like beans, so it's not a hardship to eat a small amount every day. I think I'll get some of those little cans of pork and beans with the pop-top, and keep those at work. We eat beans quite a bit, anyway. I make chili, and red beans and rice, and Rachel gave me a recipe for 5-bean soup that I used to make a lot. See, it's easy! I can do this! It'll change my life!

This journal entry was brought to you by the letter B, for Beans, and also for Boredom.