In an airplane, you must think like a woodchuck.
I need to stretch my legs, to keep my hamstrings from recoiling. Otherwise, on deplaning, I walk like a 500-year-old. So, in my aisle seat, I stretch my feet out into the aisle, or at least one foot, and straighten the leg and tip the toes toward me. Nice stretch.
Where’s the woodchuck you say? Every time someone goes by, I need to withdraw my leg, wait for them to pass, and stick it out again. And again and again.
Just like the woodchucks I used to have who kept trying to get into my garden. I had put up a wire fence and they got in under the gate. I put a rock there. Still too much space and fat woodchucks somehow squished themselves and got in.
I’d complain to my husband. He said: What else has he to do, but get into your garden?

Oh. In summer, woodchucks have almost nothing to do but eat and look for more to eat.
So, what have I to do on the plane but stick my foot out and pull it back in? And maybe, like a woodchuck, I eat and drink a little.

There’s a variety of items on my kitchen counter. For awhile. My jar of tartar sace is almost empty and I’ve decided to make my own. It’s only mayo with things added.
That was two weeks ago. The capers and pickles are still there. I put the one-cup measure away. I decided not to measure the mayo.
Oh! I just noticed that the skunk cabbage is up in our very own backyard swamp. Not everyone has a swamp in their back yard.
I see it’s almost time to go to yoga. Otherwise I’d be inspired to leap up and make the tartar sauce. I thought it was named for the Tartars, but one of my recipe books called it tartare sauce. The Oxford English Dictionary says tartare is a sauce. A sauce sauce? No.
Yikes! It’s time to leave for yoga.

What are yours? Mine, my most recent secret is lying to my sleep doctor. He wants me to spend no more than 8 1/2 or 9 hours in bed every night. I’ve had trouble with that. In my last sleep log, in the place where I put down my going-to-bed time, I put in a later time than I actually did go to bed.

The rules are: face the east window every morning for 20-30 minutes, listen to a relaxation tape every afternoon, don’t spend more than 8 1/2 or 9 hours in bed. Oh, and decrease my sleep meds. He doesn’t have rules like: sit up straight, or eat your vegetables. Thank God.

I’m to go to bed at 10:30 and get up at 7. If I can’t get to sleep in the first half hour, I’m to get up and leave the bedroom and read or sort postcards. Etc. Then I go back to bed and sleep. Hopefully.

It helps! I’m sleeping better and the decease in my meds means I’m not so sluggish in the afternoon. Sleepy people of the world ARISE and get help!

I ran into a car today in the BigY Supermarket parking lot as I was leaving.
No, not true. A lady backed into me and hit my car on the back door. On my grey, no, silver Honda. Luckily she had a dirty silver car also.

I leapt out of my car, saying, I’m so sorry. With my gloved hand I rubbed at the grey dust on her car: a blotch of paint made powder. On my car was a similar smudge of powdery paint.

“What do you think,” she asked. I’d noticed her in the store. She was tall with frizzy grey hair. She had red leather gloves, red sneakers and a blouse with a red collar. Snazzy.

“There’s no pucks,” she said.

“It comes right off, I don’t care,” I said.

“My son-in-law can clean it. At least there’s no pucks.”

We parted smiling. What’s a puck?

The second edition of “Sleep–A Problem No More” is up next.