Kim’s Comments (group member since Sep 17, 2008)

Kim’s comments from the Runs with scissors group.

Well, I managed 50 lengths yesterday, and I do not know if I will be able to go swimming this week on my normal Wednesday or not. This week will be the week I must bake my fair entries and I am trying to figure out my baking schedule so that I take the freshest products possible. (Kinda like how I am at Christmas time and I am baking a LOT more items.) I figure that I will get plenty of exercise walking around the grounds delivering and next week when I go to see the judging results.

I am no freaking out yet, this is my planning stage. I will freak out once the bakery is delivered and I will begin to panic about judging....

O.K. folks, August is almost here and I'm looking for ideas. Should we keep up with the group read, or is this and exercise in futility?

On a separate note, my cousin Sarah (I have 2, one with the "h",one without, both on my moms' side) apparently had a mini-stroke and is in physical rehab and should be home this week. She is just over 60.

My great-aunt Bootsie ( real name Ruth) passed away on Saturday. She had bypass surgery last year and just seemed to have problems off and on since. She evidently developed MERSA and went into hospice. She was just Aunt Bootsie to me. (We don't stand on formality in my family.) She was my maternal grandma's sister in-law, and her husband, Chucky, was just as funny as she was. Between the 2 of them, I learned more creative swears than I could have ever come up with on my own.

They had 3 girls and 2 boys, the most children of any of my grandmas siblings. For my mom, she was the cool aunt when she was growing up. My aunt was 79.

So the next time any of you enjoy a beer, please think of my aunt, and toast her for me.

This week I went on Tuesday because my car had to go to the mechanic on Friday and I wasn't sure it I would have a car. I did a 1/2 mile in a very crowded pool (it happened after I got in.) So it was mostly breast stroke with no back for relief. My mom let me borrow her car, so yesterday, I managed 1/2 mile and for some reason it was hard. Not a motivation problem, and energy problem. I felt stiff and slightly sore. I don't know if it was the heat, the fact that I had to mostly breast stroke on Tuesday or both. I swim in an indoor pool, but I had been running errands the day before....

Narzain returned to work this week and all seems to be going well.

So, yesterday I get in the pool with only one other person. No prob, we share the pool often. Suddenly, there is another swimmer and an older Asian couple who share a lane since she exercises (which she is NOT supposed to do during lap swim) and he sort of swims/exercises at the other end. Normally, this does not bother me too much, mildly annoys me that rules are not being enforced, but not usually a problem.

Here comes the problem. Some older guy, a Jack LaLaine type, gets in the pool between me and the woman on my left in the space BETWEEN (not the lane, the space) and starts swimming! And the lifeguard just sits there. After trying to do a lap, I asked the guard "How is this safe?" So, he spoke to the new guy and he got out, and stared down the pool, just like he was daring somebody to get out so he could swim. I almost did, and then I thought "The *bleep* with that! I was here first and I'm swimming!"

And I did. I did a 1/2 mile in 35 minutes. The first guy got out, the new guy got in,and just as I was leaving, a new swimmer took over my lane. I did complain to the desk and to the new aquatics director. My complaint was that it's only a 4 lane pool, and if you have people not following the posted rules, and the pool get busy, they should be asked to leave before a patron has too complain. (According to the lifeguards I have asked, the branch manager does not want to make the patrons mad, so it is only handled when someone complains or is bothered)so the lifeguards have laughable authority. Yesterday, I was told that this may change.


On the other hand, I got a phone call last night from my library to tell me that I had won a prize in the summer reading program. I won 2 tickets to the August 13 Browns vs. Packers pre-season game! :) Not only that, but I get to be an honorary Summer Reading American Flag holder during the National Anthem. I will get to be on the field! I am huge Browns/Indians fan, so this is really cool!

I am so excited, I have been jumping up and down all morning.

This topic came up in another group I'm in and I thought it was very good and thought provoking question. The question is not what we read, but WHY we read.

I started at a young age (way before kindergarten) and had a dad who was a very strong reader, a mom who was a casual reader,grandparents and assorted other family members who read all the time. I was read to all the time, and I still read heavily. (The library staff teases me if I fall below 5 holds or less.)

For me, reading supplied friends and an escape from a lonely life when I was younger. Being the fat kid, I did not have many friends and being an iconoclast did not help either when you are in a parochial school (they don't like nails to stick out there). So, books didn't yell,judge or make fun of me. I love to learn, and still read with as much enthusiasm as I always have.

By the time I was in 4th grade, I read at an 8th grade level, and by the time I was a freshman in high school, I had a post college graduate level of comprehension. To my friends now, and to the boyfriend especially, it is not astounding the amount or how quickly I read, but that I can retain and recall facts from what I read years ago. (I have not been dubbed "Jeopardy Girl" for nothing."

So, why did we get stared reading and why do we keep at it?

For me, it keeps me from being bored, expands my mind,lets me go places I may never get to, and allows me to understand other cultures and faiths better.

How about the rest of you?

My friend Kelley who just lost her dad in March to liver cancer, is now facing the diagnosis that her mom has lung cancer. They think they have found it early.

Narain will have, what we hope will be his final appointment with the cardiologist tomorrow (Wed.) and will be released to go back to work. His rehab appointment is Thursday. We hope that all will go well and that he will only have to make an annual appointment with the doc from now on.

O.K. July is almost here and we did not have a very strong participation for the June group read (Yes, Vulture, I know your local library system sucks). So, yesterday it came to me in a conversation with Vulture that maybe we should have a "re-read one of your favorite book" reads.

So for July, pick one of your favorite books, one of your go to books that you re-read so much you could and probably do, quote it.

On Saturday June 4, 2011, the world lost a great soul. Lillian Jackson Braun (Bettinger) passed at age 97 due to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Her husband, Earl Bettinger was the reason she resumed writing after taking a more that 16 hiatus from her "Cat Who series".

She worked for the Detroit Free Press from 1950-1978 as a good living editor where she wrote about interior design and decorating. (Not unlike Qwilleran in her early books!) She wrote 3 books in the late 60's and stopped due to changing tastes in books at that time. She is quoted as saying "They wanted gore, and I don't do that."

She was encouraged by her husband to go back to the series is 1986 and she did,ending with a total of 29 books.

She was born June 20, 1913.


I discovered her books in the late 80's early 90's with her 14th book, "The Cat who lived high" and I never looked back. Up to that point, mysteries were Miss Marple and Poirot. I was not the fan I am now, and that is thanks to Lillian and her wonderful characters. There was even a cook book inspired by the series, and I must say, THE best mac and cheese recipe I have ever made comes from that book.

Her books were not sexy, gory, or had foul language, yet they were well crafted and entertaining to almost the end. Fans could tell that in the later ones, either she wasn't writing them or she was only over seeing them as the quality dropped (unbeknownst to many, she must have been ill at that time.)

I have read the entire series and own most of it as well. Koko, YumYum, Qwilleran, Polly, and the rest are like dear friends, a warm blanket on a cold night. Knowing that they are forever at rest, is a saddening thought.

So, I raise my book to you, Lillian and say, "Thank you for your words. Thank you for your books. Thank you for everything. May you know peace. May you know you were loved. May your legacy grow on and on."

I already posted my pick. I decided on the first Temeraire book since it is an alternate history and a historical fiction in one.

This is my June pick for alternate history. It also falls under historical fiction since it is set during the wars with England and Napoleon. Dragons are real and are used as an air force in this series. This series covers all sorts of social history as well as military history. I personally find the series to be quite good.

Anybody have a problem with alternate history? Or should we just name that our June theme?

On Thursday, I had a major bout of low blood sugar. Now, I DO NOT have blood sugar issues and I did eat a very nice breakfast of a multi-grain bagel with low-fat cream cheese and coffee with skim milk and Splenda, so I do not know where it came from. I was still feeling a bit off on Friday (yesterday) when I went to the pool for the first time since the day before Narzain's surgery on May 5. So, I have missed about a week and a half, so big deal, I've missed that before. Now, I want it noted that I DID eat breakfast. I had a protein bar that athletes eat mind you, and yes I have eaten them before swimming in the past with no problems.

So, I decide that I am only going to do a 1/4 mile since I am tired and still calming down from the whole "in high alert status" that I have been in for a week (more on this theory in a moment). So, I do the 1/4 mile, and this little voice in the back of my mind says "You could do at least 30 you, know, you wuss." So, I do 30 lengths in spite of the fact that my knees feel a little rubbery (which was low blood sugar). So, now I'm thinking that maybe I should quit. Then the little voice in my head says, "Hey! Wuss! You can't handle 14 more? Sheesh! What a wimp!"

So, I do the 14 more that get me to the 1/2 mile.

Big mistake. I ended up at a fast food restaurant a few seconds from the Y to have a fruit parfait to help out the blood sugar. I also had a lemonade hoping that would help. It took 3 cookies to finally help. (Yes, I know O.J.is best, but they only serve that for breakfast at this location).

Now, I have a theory. I think all of this "high state of alert/anxiety" that I have been under lately may have caused this. My diet last week was not horrible, but it was not routine,as in the fact that I was not eating on a normal schedule and now this week I am. I think the excess adrenaline caught up with me.

So had a an argument with myself and lost. Normally, it's over chocolate cake.

O.K., June is coming and what genre should we read next?

Historical fiction? Alternate history? Suggestions please.

Here's a good way to get rid of them.

I read about this in Dear Abby on 5/18 and looked it up.

There is a group called "Operation Paperback: Recycled reading for the troops" that collects and sends out all types of gently read paperbacks to the troops around the world.

www.operationpaperback.org is the official web site.

I found out yesterday at my library that May is zombie awareness month. I just thought I would pass that along.

He came home yesterday. He will be staying with me until I and he feel that he can handle being back at his apartment. His apartment is an old house that was split into 4 flats and he must go up 2 flights (short ones like you would find in your home) but stairs all the same. I took him to my salon to have his hair washed and get a shave, both are his first is a week. He felt much better.

I finally slept for the first time in a week last night. I think I can finally get my anxiety to "stand down".