FlabbergasTed

This morning I woke up and went, "Yikes!"

Because of all people to dream about, I dreamed about Ted Cruz.

I dreamed we were friends!

I do not even like Ted Cruz. However I do not particularly like Barack Obama either and that did not stop me from dreaming I was friends with Obama, remember?

My dream about Ted Cruz was kind of like the one about Barack Obama, though, in that my dislike was swept aside and I found myself having a good time. I was comforting Ted Cruz in his defeat. I was telling him he had a promising future, hang in there.

And together we went here, and we went there. And I spoke to him about Leonard Pennario.



As we were hanging out I felt kind of uncomfortable, though, because I was afraid he would ask me, "Mary, you did vote for me in the primary, didn't you?" And I did not!

It is funny with your dreams, you find yourself hanging out with people you never would, you know? God knows what reasons your subconscious has about matching you up with these people, but perhaps there is a reason somewhere.

I think in this case the reason is clear. I can interpret this dream.

It means: Step away from the media.

I am paying too much attention to the news!

Kicking my cold

Today I am feeling much better. I am kicking my cold! But I am still, as we say, convalescing. I did convalescent things. Isn't that a great picture up above? I found it on the Internet. It is called "A Convalescent."

I went walking in Delaware Park today with a friend from work who was kind enough to call me up. I wrapped myself up warmly.

A couple visiting the bison exhibit asked that we take their picture which we did. Tourists! They are everywhere!

Back home I did cooking chores and worked on my Leonard Pennario book which is coming together fast now. It is like a jigsaw puzzle, you get enough pieces and then it all starts coming into focus. That is the way I am thinking anyway! Watch, it will be five years from now and I will be writing the same thing.

Also while I was on the phone I made vanilla extract. You take two vanilla beans which somehow I had ended up with after my scrambled evening Christmas shopping last week. You cover the vanilla beans with vodka. Voila!

The only trouble with the vanilla extract is now it sits in a cupboard undisturbed for a month. I do not like things that sit for a month without my doing anything to them. It is just how I am.

Maybe I can at least shake the jar daily.

Anyway. So there was that. After I worked on my book for longer than I thought was healthy I did a little Web surfing. I read up on the Republican candidate Rick Santorum. I like that Rick Santorum goes to the Latin mass and I do too. I mean, a candidate who goes to Latin Mass, what are the odds?

If I ever meet him I will say, "Dominus tecum, Rick."

And he will say benevolently:

"Mary, et cum spiritu tuo."

Ha, ha! That was fun. What else did I do? I made a pot of lentil soup.

I made a pot of chili.

I think tomorrow I will be totally back to normal.

Brought to you by the letter P

Today my friend Emma, who works with me, is going with me to Pilates class at the Buffalo Athletic Club. I love that august name, the Buffalo Athletic Club. Leonard Pennario liked that I belonged to the BAC. He was a member of the New York Athletic Club and they honored his membership at the BAC so when he visited Buffalo he would stop in.

Our Pilates class at the BAC is the greatest. We have this instructor, Jim. You can remember his name because of Jim/gym. Anyway, Jim is this muscleman who can do all these unbelievable things. It is like watching a cirque artist.

At the end of the class I cannot take my eyes off him because here is what he does. We do this thing called the straddle stretch. You swing your legs out into this wide V and then you have to bend your middle forward. "Float your body forward," is how Jim puts it. As if it is the most natural movement in the world.

Which, I can do that about six inches. Then it's University Station, end of the line. Jim just keeps going. He bends forward until his head and his chest are on the floor. That is something to see!

Jim told me I was going to be able to do that if I kept practicing. He said it would be no problem.

"OK, how long will it take?" I bugged him.

I think he said six weeks. That was about two years ago.

Well, it is hard to work on that stretch when I am so busy watching him. Once after class another student and I were asking Jim some questions and as he answered them, he went through this unbelievable series of twists and turns. By the end of it he was standing on his hands with his body twisted into this pretzel shape. We were just staring. He is like the Rubber Man in the Jim Rose Circus. I wonder if the Jim Rose Circus is still rolling. That is really old-time vaudeville.

Jim is in the reserves and every now and then he goes to Germany and when he comes back he is all jazzed up. He counts our exercises in German. I like how his class if full of talk about Joseph Pilates and what Joseph Pilates believed and what he would want. I love when people are passionate about what they do.

How many people knew Pilates was a person? He was sickly and weak and he came up with these exercises to strengthen himself and they worked. Then in World War I he was a prisoner of war in England and he taught the exercises to everyone in his camp and that was the only camp in which no one caught tuberculosis. Something like that. It has been a while since I read up on him. It could be time for a refresher course.

Oh my gosh! Look at that business about how Joseph Pilates was bullied as a kid because his last name reminded his classmates of Pontius Pilate. In all these months of doing Pilates that association has never occurred to me. No wonder he learned those exercises.

Holy cow. It appears Sarah Palin has also been likened to Pontius Pilate. See for yourself. Those mean nasty Democrats will stop at nothing!

Sarah Palin should take Pilates too, to defend herself.

I like the calm of Pilates class. The BAC's gym is beautiful, with shining wooden floors and glass block windows, and everyone sitting on mats moving in synch like dancers. My friend Gary who teaches dance at Niagara University says that dancers have been doing Pilates for decades, that they knew about Pilates long before everyone else did.

Then there is the music. In Pilates they do not torture you with hip-hop as they do in Body Sculpt, which can be like a kind of prison boot camp. In Pilates I have developed an affection for certain monotonous singer/songwriters like Ben Lee and Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen. Well, that is what our teacher Susie plays. Jim must consider even them too distracting. He gives us rustly, jingly New Age music. Once we had the soundtrack to "The Mission." That was fun.

OK. Now I am psyched. Today is the day that I will make progress in that stretch. Today is the day I will touch the floor.

What if someone likens me to Pontius Pilate? You never know if that will happen. And it's always good to be ready, just in case.

My sister, the left-winger

A few days ago when I introduced a bunch of people in my life, I forgot to introduce my sister Katie (above left, with author). She lives in East Aurora and is a left-wing liberal. I live in the City of Buffalo and am a right-wing Republican. Naturally we are best friends. I mean, we slept in the same bed -- that bed you see in the picture -- till we were 14. That was back when kids didn't have their own separate suites the way they do now.

Anyway, I can write freely about my relationship with Katie because she will never see what I write. "I've got this new blog," I told her. But when I tried to give her the address she put her hands over her ears. "Everyone's trying to get me to read someone's blog!" she yelled. "Margie called up and told me to read one of her friends' blogs. I told her no." Margie is our other sister. She lives on a cul-de-sac in New Jersey and is a whole other story.

So, about Katie. There are topics we have to avoid. Global warming is one. Wal-mart. I don't tend to shop there but I back its right to exist. Urban concerns, like our church closings. When I got mad about the diocese closing my church, Gerard's, she said, "Well, our church (in East Aurora) sends money to a church in Haiti and that's more important, so Buffalo's East Side can go to hell." OK, she didn't put the part about the East Side exactly in those words. But that is how I heard it. Oh, and I prefer not to talk about East Aurora. East Aurora gets on my nerves, I'm not sure why. And I think my sister prefers not to talk about Leonard Pennario. I tend to talk too much about Leonard Pennario because he is on my mind all the time with this book I am writing. I think that's why my husband bought me this blog.

The good news is sometimes I am amazed by how much Katie and I agree on. We hate kids having I-Pods and having their own separate suites. And we think Williamsville was crazy to make its Main Street into a five-lane superhighway. We have long discussions on how to keep trashy music at bay. We deplore how our mom has been known to recycle coffee grounds.

Perhaps when the presidential election gets even uglier than it is now all the candidates could be made to sit down and confer on subjects like that.

Maybe we could also ask them what they think about Leonard Pennario.

Why didn't someone warn me that writing a book would give me a one-track mind?