Big Ten tourney Saturday afternoon

Dragon Mood? -- hopeful, yet nervous

Gearing up for THE game. Ahem, at least THE game for today!

Ask anyone and they'll tell you the MSU Spartans have had a weird and disappointing season. Ranked #2 in the nation before the season began, they have struggled mightily and up until this past week, were even in danger of not making the NCAA selection for the Big Dance. Oh my gosh!

Thursday night, they handled Iowa pretty easily to move onto the quarterfinals and meet up with Purdue. Amazingly, they got an early lead, held onto it and beat the Boilermakers 74-56. As the headlines announced, they pounded Purdue.

Now, I'm watching as they play their third game in as many days, against Penn State in the semi-finals. If they win this, they will play Ohio State, ranked #1 in the nation, tomorrow afternoon.

Go State, beat the Nittany Lions!

UPDATE: Halftime, tied at 26.

FINAL SCORE: Spartans lost, 61-48. Damn! :-(

Monochromatic

Dragon Mood? -- introspective

Yesterday, to avoid a long wait at a train crossing,I took some unexplored back roads to get home to the house in the woods.

The roads were powdered with snow, possibly slippery. I drove slowly, taking my time, focused on my passage over the unknown roads. In hindsight, I felt very much 'in the moment'.

The sky was overcast. I kept looking at the passing landscape as if I were going to (try to) paint it. Everything was grayed and flat, a matte filter over my eyes. The only shine I could see was the light bouncing off isolated wet, smooth areas on the asphalt road.

Everything in the landscape looked outlined in white, as if sugar-powdered with the lightest of Mother Nature's touch. All the bare foliage looked soft, in a multitude of shades of taupe, brown and gray, almost as if they were airbrushed. Soft, matte and monochromatic.

Other than the sound of my car, things were quiet. People's homes appeared dark and empty or more accurately, still. It was an hour or so before dusk and even then, I didn't see lights in people's windows. The stillness and quiet of those passing moments was almost palpable.

I felt an incredible sense of stillness and peace. An extra-ordinary experience ... simply driving home from errands.

'Frisson'

Dragon Mood? -- thrilled and trembly

Words. I've had a lifelong love affair with them. I'll never give them up, never get over them. What can I say?

Here's one that I enjoy rolling around in my mouth before I release it to the world:

frisson: A moment of intense excitement; a shudder; a thrill.

As in,"The story's ending arouses a frisson of terror."

I don't know why I like this word so much but there's definitely an arousal factor there. Oh yeah! As the old saying goes, "There may be snow on the roof, but there's still a fire in the hearth." No truer words were ever spoken.

Frisson. YOU try using it just once and see what happens to you!

Dragon Mood? -- excited and cowed at the same time

Because I have far more things to report and share here than I took time for in December, I'm still in the catch-up mode. One highly anticipated change was and is my transition from 20th century phone technology to the 21st!

So, here's my old cell phone, a sturdy Samsung that served me well for over four-and-a-half years.



My new phone is a Motorola Droid 2, operating on the cutting edge Android 2.2 operating system. (I imagine someday I'll look back at this posting and chuckle at my breathlessness for a then-antiquated technology! New today, out-of-date tomorrow, eh?)

I wasn't planning on buying a Droid 2. Beyond it being cutting edge, I heard it was a little big for a woman's hand, a little heavy perhaps. All true.

I was in a Sam's store, waiting while a prescription was filled, poking around in the store. A kiosk inside sells cell phones, a separate entity owned and operated by Radio Shack. I was actually looking for the HTC Incredible, another Android phone, when I noticed the price of the Droid 2. Ordinarily they were selling for $250- 300, but this one was listed at $49.97. Whahhh?

Turns out Radio Shack was having a 'special' that weekend, the weekend before Christmas, selling the Droid 2, applying rebates up front and then discounting it some more. I talked to the manager for a few minutes, asked him to set one aside for me, picked up my scrip and called S. We ended up revisiting the store later that day, purchased my Droid 2 and began a technological adventure that continues to this day.

See, cell phones used to come with 1/2" thick little user manuals that you could read and pour over, discovering and testing all the ins and outs of the phone. Not anymore. That's way too tree-killing for the 21st century. Now, the cell phone manufacturer gives you a 18"x24" piece of paper, printed on both sides, folded up like an origami Rubic's cube with all the basic info you need. After that, Google it. (chuckling) Oh yeah!

So, in a nutshell, I've struggled with the phone. While I like to think of myself as being pretty computer and software savvy, I'm not so sure anymore. Maybe for an old fart, but certainly not compared to the Gen X and Gen Y folks. Part of the issue is the lack of documentation. I've read online tutorials, watched YouTube videos, found a little "HELP" button buried in the Droid 2 apps (who'da thunk to look there?). I've consulted my daughter (who is a strong iPhone user and afficionado, not at all impressed with my fancy-schmancy Droid 2), along with S herself, who ended up buying a Droid X one impulsive trip to the Verizon store.

Slowly, day by day, I'm getting more comfortable and adept at using this phone. Not there yet, but I'm making progress. At one point, I was so discouraged and angered over some of its shortcomings, I thought about returning it (still within that 30-day grace period). Well, the grace period ended three days and so now, I'm stuck and committed to making this damn phone work.

And I will!

Fleeting and elusive

Dragon Mood? -- frustrated

You know, I'll be driving to work or driving home from work. Sometimes, I get these in the bathroom, taking a shower. Sometimes, it's in the middle of the night.

And this incredibly luminescent light bulb will go ON for me, inside the dark, mysterious recesses of my brain, and I think, "By golly, I need to write that down. I should blog about that!" Of course, at the time, in the moment, I'm convinced that I'll be able to retrieve that sparkly whit of insight like the snap of fingers. The sad reality is that I'm not. And then I let out this heavy sigh. Because one more sample of my (~ahem~) brilliance has been lost in the dark netherworld of my memory. Will I ever be able to retrieve it? Who knows?

On a more positive light, I DID remember enough to write this post. Yay for me!

Gray Tuesday

It's gray outside, cold, rainy, threatening to turn to ice.  This day rather matches my mood.  Not the best.  

The commute this morning was okay, but I'm a little bit worried about tonight. S had a 'mandatory appearance' at Cobo this morning (her employer is so heavy-handed about these sorts of things).  After than, she then must jump in the car and drive 90 miles for a late afternoon doctor's appointment.  AND then drive 90 miles back home to the pied-a-terre.  All while it's gray and raining and treacherously turning to ice.  ICK is all I can say.   And BE CAREFUL!  (sigh)

Note to self:  your hormone replacement stuff has worn out.  I can tell. You're bitchy and on edge.  Get some more hormones and rejoin the happy human race.

Maybe then the grayness will stop.  And the sun will come out.

As Easy as Sending an Email

In the hopes that I'll blog a bit more, I am testing out the capabilities of composing an email and sending it to Blogger.  If all the technological ducks are in a row, it will then appear as a blogposting at Calypso Dragon 13.

Will it?  Let's give it a try and keep our cyber fingers crossed.

Chanel No. 5

Dragon Mood? -- reveling in the fragrance

Scientists say that some of our earliest memories involve smells. Smell of skin, smell of milk, smells of a place that evokes safety and security, they all are forged early in a person's life.

One of my early memories as a child was going into my grandma, Nana's, bedroom and being enveloped in this sweet fragrance. I later learned the fragrance was the perfume, Chanel No.5. Whenever I smell Chanel No. 5, I think of Nana. I can immediately feel the little girl part of me and I feel, sigh, all is well, with the world.

Having recently learned that I'm going to be a grandmother, I asked my partner, S, for 'grandma' perfume for Christmas. Bless her heart, she came through like a champ. I am now the happy owner of a classic, luxe bottle of Eau de Parfum, Chanel No. 5.

I can't wait to wear it as I hold The Colonel.

Transition

Dragon Mood? -- still in the early stages of adjustment

So, I told you in my last posting, that I'm going to become a grandma.

It's no small matter transitioning from non-grandma status to being a GRANDMA! Even the fact that I feel the need to capitalize Grandma tells you something about my internal process.

Like my most people, I had two grandmas. One, Granny Kunze, I knew very little, because she lived at the Texas farm and we lived up north. I have a few hazy memories of her in the kitchen, baking and cooking, but I can't recall a single conversation that she and I had together. She died in a car accident when I was ten.

My other grandma, whom I called Nana, is the grandma that informs my sense of who and what a grandma is. I always felt her delight in me. With Nana, I felt absolutely SPECIAL. Again, with the capitals. She and I had a Mutual Admiration Society that knew no bounds. Even in her last years of life, I can remember visiting her one night, unexpectedly knocking at her door. She opened the door hesitantly, cute as a bug in her flannel PJs, cotton robe and thick Coke-bottle glasses, looking more like a little girl than a mid-eighties grandma. I walked in and she bear-hugged me, like I was the only person on this earth. I hugged her back with just as much intensity.

So, as my grandbaby gestates and incubates inside my daughter, Caroline, I too am changing, slowly making the transition from mom/mother/Mamacita to grandma/grandmother/Nana. And what will my grandma name be? I'm kind of liking "Grandberry."

The Day before Thanksgiving

Dragon Mood? -- life changing feelings

While I am woefully late blogging about this, I learned something life-changing the day before Thanksgiving.

I had just pulled into my usual parking spot at work and was walking into the building when my cell phone rang. It was Caroline. I knew that she, Ron, Josh and Leah were all flying to Arizona that morning to spend Thanksgiving with Greg and Colleen.

We exchanged greetings and pleasantries and then she said, "Mamacita, I'm sorry to do this over the phone, but ..." And shame on me, I didn't even give her the chance to say the words before I interrupted and asked, "Are you preggers?" I think she was taken aback either by my interruption or the word, "preggers," but after a second or two, she answered, "Yes!"

So, Mary. You are going to become a grandma. A GRANDMA! Imagine that!