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December 21, 2005
That Guy I've Been Chasing All Year
On my way to work this morning I heard that song by The Waitresses that I quoted this time last year in the blog. Note: Aubrey de Grey left an extremely scientific comment.
Well, this year I won't be doing a small Christmas dinner alone with my mom. No, I'll be heading up to the Great White North to have Christmas with MR and his family, and we're bringing my mom too! MoMR has very graciously invited the entire family... well, not the cats. I suspect that Kieffer would eat the MoMR family dog, Maxine. That wouldn't brighten anyone's Christmas, so we'll be leaving the cats at home in the care of their able cat-sitter, who is a vet tech and used to take care of lions and tigers at the zoo. She is not afraid of the giant tabby (yes, he has lost weight, thanks to MR putting him on a diet!) or the seven pound calico who takes up most of the bed. She actually sleeps with the cat, which is important because the cats are so attached to us that they get very sad when we're away and hate to be left alone. She comes over, gives them dinner, reads magazines with them (we have no television) and sleeps, then feeds them breakfast and goes to work. She also gives Philomena her fluids once a week. A wonderful service. Anyhow, off to Canada we go and I was very excited to hear the one and only Christmas song I like, right down to my favorite line:
When what to my wondering eyes should appear
In the line is that guy I've been chasing all year!
Hehehe. The ever so subtle subtext of the blog...
To quote the Waitresses once more: This year's been crazy. From three months working as a fundraiser for the Mprize, to lots of trips to Canada to see my Orange One, to moving in together into a house that appeared for a time to be possessed, to the Kurzweil luncheon auction and Mprize Three Hundred Member Dinner, it's been a year to remember. I sometimes felt like I had received that fortune cookie that reads:
May you live in interesting times.
-- Chinese Curse
I've made a lot of friends, lost touch with one or two friends, and gained a whole new perspective on life. I'm still a recovering workaholic, but being with MR has helped me set limits and make time for myself and my little family instead of focusing solely on my career. I've taken up meditation to great results, learned how to take my supplements on time (for the most part) and in general started taking care of myself, not just taking care of my nurses. I spent my twenties so focused on union organizing that I rarely took time for the kind of activities that most girls in their twenties enjoy... I was more likely to see the clubbing crowd as they left the bars at 5 am when I was just heading out on Saturday morning to a shift change meeting at 6 with some nurses. As my friends started to leave organizing to go to grad school, get married, or have babies, I felt frustrated because none of those paths appealed to me, and while I wanted to do *something* other than just work, I knew that the conventional woman's life wasn't going to be right for me. Little did I know, when I first started CR, that I would find an entertaining hobby (cooking CR food and blogging about it), a cause I could support and volunteer for (the Mprize) and the man of my dreams (no explanation necessary.)
I'm still no fun... I like to be in bed by ten, I get up at five am, and I'd much prefer sitting around my own dining room table eating my own cooking and drinking red wine to going out clubbing, which sounds way too much like what hunters do to baby seals. But I am in good company now as I eat CR'd meals at my own table with my Orange One. It's not everybody's idea of paradise, but for me it's heaven, and I don't want it to stop. That's powerful motivation for holding myself together with CR and doing all I can to support research into better methods of slowing or even reversing aging.
As The Waitresses say:
That Christmas magic's brought this tale
To a very happy ending!
Posted by april at December 21, 2005 9:27 AM
Comments
April,
Just so's you'd know, your lifestyle wouldn't turn me off. I quite like a woman with a sense of humour, works hard and isn't seemingly bent on improving the men in her life.
As for cats on the bed, don't make me laugh, we have six of the damn things and on a cold night I have to get stroppy to get 'em off me:)
Be well.
brendan
Posted by: brendan stallard at December 23, 2005 10:56 AM