A little R&R with Ramon

Still feeling quite sore from my attempts at doing The Worm last Friday and exhausted after two weeks of teaching, I booked an 80 minute massage today with a gift certificate received at Christmas. I usually prefer females masseuses, but none were available. I gave the "ok" to a man named Ramon. He did a lovely job, although I was never able to fully relax because the little voice in my head kept screaming, "There's a strange man touching me! There's a strange man touching me!"

But, I really do recommend a long massage if you want to treat yourself. The extra time allowed Ramon to spend about two minutes on my right pinky toe alone.

Sore little glow worm...

Sometimes you exert yourself physically, and you're sore the next day. Sometimes, like in the instances of waterskiing or Taebo, you exert yourself physically, and you're sore for two days. Very rarely, do you exert yourself physically and remain sore four days later. But, this is what happens when you spend three hours - rather unsuccessfully - trying to do The Worm.

I can barely raise my arms to shampoo my hair.

Moving on up...

We met as shoe slangers, now we've graduated to part-time rinky dink columnists. My friend Kara now has a column on InsideSTL on Thursdays. She will continue to be the master of all things celebrity. Check out her first column here.

Getting ready to ride the hobby horse (as soon as I get some time)...

My mom and dad bought me a trumpet for my birthday. I used to play the trumpet in the jazz band over ten years ago. I can play a C major scale, but the high C is now hard to get. And I know nothing about tuning, oiling, or cleaning my new piece of brass.

My friend Suzanne bought me some taps that I can attach to a new pair of split soles. I took dance classes for fifteen years, but I haven't officially tapped since I was eighteen.

Look out world.

Sidenote: Speaking of hobbies, one of mine is reading. I just read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, and it was wonderful. I read it in a day.

What will drunken Salukis eat at 3 A.M. now?

My friend Kerri got a text on Saturday letting us know that Winston the Bagel Man was dead. If you've ever partied in Carbondale, Illinois, you probably know who Winston is. Or was. He made really good bagels.

I immediately called my brother, who is a recent graduate of SIU-Carbondale. He gasped and immediately followed up the news by asking, "How did you find this out?"

And on and on, that was the question of the day. How did we know for sure that Winston the Bagel Man had died?

We decided that we probably wouldn't find out if Dan the Preacher Man or Spare Anything or Cleve died.

And I guess that's just as well. I'd like for those legends to live on forever. Even Cleve, despite his unfaltering yet inexplicable hatred for me.

This kicks ass...

The Music Genome Project. Check it out.

They say it's my birthday...

But, I'm in total denial about turning 27. I think I'll do another year of 26.

The meaning behind candied orange slices...

The summer after my Grandma Ree died, I worked at a hospital gift shop a few days a week while I took summer college classes. It was a fun job; I got to blow up bouquets of balloons when babies were born and gift wrap get-well-soon presents.

One day, I had the task of restocking the candy selection. As I refilled rows and rows of Snickers and Skittles, I came to the Sunkist candied orange slices, and I immediately gasped and dropped the package of sweets.

I could always count on a full supply of orange slices snuggled in my Grandma Ree's fancy crystal candy dishes. Regular visits to her smoky kitchen were the only reason they existed in my life; the only reason they mattered was because she took such great care in the maintenance of her candy inventory. She did not eat these things, and we didn't particularly like them. But because they were her careful selection for us, we ate them and loved them. And we probably should have savored them.

Today is the seven year anniversary of my Grandma Ree's death, and as usual, my thoughts are with her. The memories are mostly bittersweet now, as time and distance have been helpful and necessary aids in the healing process. But every once in awhile, I'm attacked with a seemingly ordinary piece of nothing, like a candied orange slice, that becomes absolutely everything in mere seconds when my brain makes the right connection.

It's taken awhile, but I realize that I'm lucky. Not only is my Grandma Ree in my dreams and my memories and my pleasant conversations with family and friends...she is in standard, boring, routine items, imbued with significance from my skewed perspective.

She's in wooden salad bowls, Breyer's ice cream, and Mike Shannon's voice on the radio. She's in The Price is Right, As the World Turns, and Miss America pageants. She's in organ music, RC Cola, and Solitaire. She's in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, The General Lee, and The Last Supper. She's in ceramic Christmas trees, ripe tomatoes, and ashtrays.

And so, I will think of her today, as I do every other day. And I will wonder where she's going to pop up next.