I Dreamed I Went Dancing, In My Erin Go Bragh

Happy St. Patrick's Day, Everyone!

No, the title of my blog is not my own. I first saw it on an episode of Kojak, way back in the seventies. For those of you unfamiliar with the joke, Maidenform Bras used to have a theme for their commercials, that stated "I dreamed I went..........fill in the blank.........in my Maidenform bra. In the Kojak episode, a banner was strung across a street in New York City on St. Patrick's day, that said, "I dreamed I went dancing, in my Erin Go Bragh."

Daylight saving's time.

Yes it's that time of year again, here in the USA. Time to spring the clocks forward an hour, and lose a precious hour of sleep. I use to hate it when I worked, because I already had to get up at 4:30AM to make my morning commute, and the switch effectively moved my wake up time back to 3:30AM. Of course my schedule adjusted over the course of the next week, so the long term consequences were nil, but I still hated that first day. Now that I'm retired, it's no big deal. I just make it up, by getting up an hour later. It's interesting that social engineers thought we could save energy, by extending daylight an extra hour, but that has yet to be proven. It seems that wherever we manage to save energy, we find some new way to waste it.

Yesterday was epillation day. It's been nearly a year now, and I am down to just once or twice a week, and I can do my entire body in about 45 minutes. I still have some new emerging hair after two or three days, but not nearly as much as at first. What surprises me the most is my chest. Of all the hair on my body, initially removing my chest hair was by far the most painful. It was a veritable torture session, that would have inspired the most sadistic Guantanamo interrogator. It broke me out into an intense sweat, and brought genuine tears to my eyes, but once the initial hair was removed, it's been one of the easiest and least painful areas to epilate. The underarms, which scared me the most at first, were actually a breeze. The most stubborn areas have been my hands, the underside of my forearms, and the lower abdomen. It seems that no sooner is one hair yanked out, when another pops out to take it place. Silly hairs, they still think that I'm a guy!

I bought two older mini-series to watch while riding my stationary bike. The one I'm watching now, is the 3 disc, 7:29 hr. set of the Emmy and Golden Globe award winning series, Holocaust, starring James Wood, Meryl Streep, and Michael Moriarty. It was made way back in 1978, and it is one of the best TV films on the subject I have ever seen. The full depravity of the Hitler regime is shown in this film. Nothing is held back, and I have found myself pedaling away, with tears streaming down my face while watching it. To this day, I have never been able to comprehend the unequaled brutality of Nazis. I know there have been plenty of other brutal murderous regimes, but none that so coolly, and methodically exterminated so many innocent people.

The other mini-series that I got is the 1979 Emmy Award nominated production of James Michener's Centennial. At 20 hours and 32 minutes on six discs, Michener's novel traces generations of residents in the fictional town of Centennial Colorado, from 1795 through the 20th century. It stars Richard Chamberlain, Robert Conrad, Timothy Dalton, Mark Harmon, Andy Griffith, Raymond Burr, Dennis Weaver, Lynn Redgrave, Sharon Gless, Stephanie Zimbalist, and Sally Kellerman. It was one of those wonderful long, well produced mini-series productions of the seventies, that rivaled others like Roots and Shogun.

Up until October, I had been riding my stationary bike for an hour a day, at a hard rate. That did a good job of controlling my weight, but by then my sister started deteriorating, and exercise took a back seat to my concern for her. Soon my five to six day a week rides, became two to three day a week rides, and one hour sessions, became 30 -40 minutes. The pounds quickly began to mount, and when it was time to get dressed for my support group's Christmas party in early December, I couldn't fit into the skirt I had planned to wear, and had to scramble for an alternative outfit. Several weeks ago, I decided get back into my regular exercise routine, in hopes of slimming back down. Today I had my first full one hour hard pedaling in several months. It took that long to build my quadriceps back up. I'm still fat, but at least I've built my stamina back up. If I can maintain that level of exercise for five to six days a week, I won't be ashamed to show myself in summer clothes. I'm a realist. At 61, I will never be able to parade around in a halter top and hip hugging jeans, but a tank top and pair of shorts, or capris would be nice. :-)

By the way, Jenny is back home from her surgery at Charring Cross, and is blogging once again. I'm sure she would love it if you would all pay her a visit. She is really a very sweet girl!

Take care everyone,
Melissa XX