My very very VERY bad habit of slinging the purse-briefcase, or the backpack, or whatever I'm carrying over my left shoulder has caught up with me, with a vengeance. The fact that I could doubtless find a kitchen sink in there if I dug deep enough doesn't help. My God-book, Daytimer, weighs a goodly amount. I don't even use it as a Godbook anymore, since I got the little electronic organizer. Mostly it contains family pictures. Plus I carry a notebook to scribble observations for this journal into (because I'm too literate, probably. I can't remember ANYTHING anymore unless it's written down!) Also in the purse, besides the Godbook and the electronic organizer and the notebook and the pen and the kitchen sink, I carry a hairbrush and change and never any Kleenex. (Well, I start with tissue but one good April does me in, and sometimes I forget to reload.) Oh, and my book, of course. It's not that it weighs all that much, 2-3 pounds, I'm guessing, but it's the carting it on the shoulder that's the bad thing.

My camera goes on that shoulder, as well. This past week my chickens came home to roost. Suddenly that arm and shoulder tell me they have a Very Bad Sprain. Or a pinched nerve. Or perhaps RSI. I try to turn on my bedside reading lamp and roll into a quivering ball. Taking off my clothes has become an adventure in misery (getcher minds outta the gutters!) And then, I can tell I'm favoring the sore side, as I find all my muscles squinched up in protective mode. I try to relax my neck and shoulders, and then discover I'm all hunched up again.

On Veteran's Day, after we stood for the two hours of the parade, we started walking. I was so stiff and sore! I was hobbling along for a few blocks till I finally remembered how. My right hip doesn't like any shoes but the Magic Shoes I wear when I walk with Sailor, and it hurt. Obviously my loafers are all wrong anyway, as I got some really bad pains across my metatarsals at home. I'm trying to behave around the 'puter, as Carpal Tunnel is the last thing I need. But everything hurts.

I may also be working on a flu bug. I've been a little sniffly, especially at night, and possibly feverish. Then last night I woke up with a killer sore throat. Actually, I suspect a cold, such timing, and post-nasal drip, how exotic.

The Veteran's Day walk was about 2 miles, I think. Then Thursday I felt so crummy I cancelled having the guru for dinner. Yesterday we walked over to the vet's to put down a deposit on Sailor's board. There's a new vet, who looks nice, and new staff, which is sad. I liked Lynn. This girl has tattoos and is a bit intimidating, though I will probably learn to like her. Sailor was pleased as punch to get out of there without getting stuck or poked. Little does he suspect. He's never been boarded. In fact, the last time we boarded any pets was before we moved to the house in Citrus Heights, in 1976. The total walk was 4 miles.

Then we drove down to the Blue Diamond almond factory to get the bread-and- butter gifts. (California is the only state to grow almonds. Almonds, they say, are the largest food export of the state.) We pigged out on the samples. I especially like the onion-and-garlic, and Rich likes the honey roast. By taking part in a survey, we also each got a free can of smokehouse almonds. They have all kinds of wonderful things. We settled on a six-can sampler and also, scary thought, the almond wafers, huge thin cookies with Sacramento on one side and California on the other. This will require some care packing, lest I end up with a box of crumbs. Meanwhile, I kept trying to carry the purse on the right shoulder and having a terrible time. I'd carried only my credit card in the fanny pack when we walked.

What curious timing deciding Saddam is a villain again. It couldn't have anything to do with impeachment hearings, could it? He's been there all along, certainly since last year, and since the Lewinsky crisis in January which fizzled out. There was the Dress-Stain anthrax crisis, as well. However, when Scott Ritter resigned, over the lies of the Administration about Saddam, Ritter was vilified. I also note that Clinton doesn't want to hit anything that might also be producing pharmaceuticals. Tell that to the Sudanese.
Meanwhile, of course, Saddam takes advantage. Here we are with the usual pre-holiday deployment. This digs away at the morale of our military, which is already low because of the Commander in Chief. And if we, once again, send the folks over and then back down, morale gets lower and lower. It's OK to miss your family at Christmas if there's some point to it. If it's only to dig the White House out of Yet Another Hole he got himself into, no one's going to like it.
The man is a disaster on the foreign policy front. All he can do, it appears, is win elections.

Yep, EVERYTHING hurts.