Still The Drag King…

As I waited with the cart inside Costco this afternoon—the Spouse Thingy was getting me a Diet Coke out of a vending machine probably to shut me up on the drive home as I would have likely whined about being thirsty for the 4 minutes it would take to get there—two women walked past me. One snickered and leaned toward her friend, gesturing towards me with her head and said, “She is totally the dyke!”

Granted, I was wearing men’s jeans, men’s dress shirt, men’s leather blazer…hell, everything except my underwear—turned right side out today, I checked twice—was purchased in the men’s department. So I can see where she’d assume.

But dammit, I missed an opportunity. She was out of earshot before I wanted to blurt out “Yeah, baby, stick a finger in me, I’m leaking!”

Leaky dike…dyke…ah, yeah, it was funnier in my head.

But my reign as Drag King Extraordinaire still stands. I’m sure my mom is so proud.

You figure out why a day went the way it did when you realize around 6 p.m. that when you got dressed for the day, you put your underwear on inside out.

Look familiar?

It came to my attention that the "new" template I've been using for the past couple of months (and I thought was kind of original, having come to me late one night, so I tweaked an existing template to make it look like legal paper on a wood table) was strikingly similar to one already out there, in use by a fairly high profile blogger...in case there might be "issues" with it, I'm reverting back to an old template (which took a freakishly long time to get back to usable order!) for the time being.

I like this one...it just doesn't feel you-neek enough. I'll ponder something better and hopefully be able to cough a new one up. Kinda like a hairball, only prettier.

I was very proud of myself this morning; not only had I remembered to defrost meat in the refrigerator overnight, I remembered to get it into the crock pot this morning. I was thrilled because we were going to have a nice, hot, home cooked meal tonight, and we could have it when we were all hungry, not after I scrambled to throw something together.

I plopped that very thinly cut London Broil into the pot, added some soup--because that makes it all nice and tender and gravy-covered--and put the lid on, then flipped the switch on “low.”

There were errands to be run, so I double checked to make sure I’d put it on low and not high, and went about my business for the day.

Yay! I remembered dinner, which for me is actually Something Special. I ran around town, here and there, comforted in knowing dinner was already cooking. Super Mom would be feeding her men tonight! The Spouse Thingy would head off to work with a wonderful meal inside him. Very Special Indeed.

I suppose it would have been even more special if I had thought to see if the damn thing was plugged in…

Okay, I have no idea what he was thinking, but he managed to get into the laundry room while I was taking clothes into the bedroom, and was curled up in there when I came back.

Of course, he gets up and is heading out by the time I grab a camera.

Either he enjoyed the fact that it was nice and warm in there, or he wanted to go for a ride.

Either way, I didn't kick the door shut and turn it on. Granted, the thought flitted through my head, but only for half a second, and vanished as quickly as it came.

I know someone who did that. Not on purpose, but still. Kitties + a running dryer = heartache.

But he's still cute...

Bulleted For Your Pleasure^*

• Jamba Juice has an awesome low calorie smoothy that has become my new favorite, but I feel a little odd asking for “Berry Fulfilling.”
  
• I’ll get over that feeling because it has half the calories of my other favorite, “Orange Berry Blitz.”
  
• Buddah plays fetch.
  
• We’re pretty sure Buddah is part canine.
  
• We’re also pretty sure that we think so offends him.
  
• I still don’t have super powers.
  
• And I’m still not glowing in the dark.
  
• Dammit.
  
• My old Scrabble^TM software won’t run on my computer.
  
• This bums me out.
  
• I can get a new version for $10.
  
• But I am cheap.
  
• I agree with Max, THIS is a crazy idea and he would claw my eyes out if I tried to use it on him.
  
• I had to mention him, since I mentioned Buddah, because his nose would get out of joint.
  
• Of course my cats can read.
  
• Ok, if you read this far, you get to pick up 2 cookies on your way out.
  

^*…and because I’m lazy and my brain is frozen

What “5 Days” Means In the Military Medical Sector

So we’ve already defined 72 hours in military medical terms. It works out to roughly 33 days. So let’s define 5 days in military medical terms.

I went in to be turned into WundaThumpa at 8 this morning; it took about 2.5 hours from start to finish. They said, pretty much to the word, “It will take 5 days for your doctor to get the results; you can call her then and find out.”

Four-thirtyish the phone rings; I’m huddled under blankets in bed because I’m still chilled from being nearly frozen to death in the Room Of Radiotherapy And Puckered Nipples and don’t even hear it, so the Spouse Thingy answers.

It’s my doctor.
She has the results.
Already.

She is amazed and astounded that I got the test the day after she ordered it; she expected it to take up to 30 days (because she has been around a while and knows how long chit takes.) She is also amazed at the results.

I have a perfectly normal gall bladder.

So you know what this meant, right? It meant returning to McD’s and really having fries. Fear-free fries. Greasy, fried, so-not-good-for-you fries. And I was not afraid of them. I enjoyed them. Immensely.

And I am now so over the compulsion. I love fries, yes, but now that I can have them….eh, no big deal. The easiest way to get me to want something is to say I can’t have it. If I can have it…it’ll always be there another day.

So the working theory on What Is Wrong With Da Wabbit is back to the ER doc’s notion of it being an ulcer. I’ll take Prilosec every day and we’ll see. That may manage the pain, and if it never comes back, we have a winner. If it does come back, they may grab a garden hose and shove it down my throat. They say its to see what’s in my stomach, but I really think it’s just Something To Do To Shut The Patient Up. And because they think it’s really, really funny.

So.

72 hours=33 days
5 days=5.5 hours

Ya gotta love military math.

Hello, I’m Thumper, The Human Pin Cushion…

So. The techs in the lab don’t like me. The techs in the ER don’t like me. And now the techs in Nuclear Medicine really don’t like me.

I warned them up front, I’m a hard stick. But they hear that all the time and then pop the IV in with no problems, so when they heard it this morning, I’m sure the first guy was thinking “suuurrrrrrrre you are.”

Then he tried to find a vein.

Ha.

In comes the 2nd tech. He’s Super Vein Finder, able to stick a catheter into a vein in a single blink. He snapped on his rubber gloves with an “I’ll find it!” attitude and proceeded to probe my arms for the Perfect Vein.

Ha.

Okay, not “Ha” so much as “Yikes” when he’d stuck me for the 4th time. So in comes tech #3. I don’t think he’s Mega Super Vein Finder, just the unlucky sap who was next in line. He finds a vein--yay--but as soon as he jabs the needle in, it collapses.

By now there are 4 techs standing around this furry little medical freak show, because none of them can believe how long it’s taking to do something they usually do in less than 3 minutes.

After sticking me for the 7th time and getting nothing, they decided that I must lie flat on my back with my arm extended beyond the capabilities of human ligature, while two of them rubbed and poked and slapped my poor flesh…whereupon they found a vein. And they scrambled to poke that sucker before it decided to hide.

It took 40 minutes, but they finally had an IV in.

Oh, and to give them credit, I only felt one of those pokes. They used tiny little needles and catheters, so it wasn’t as if I was in agony. I simply made them earn their pre-tax $16.50 for the day.

The rest of it was anti-climactic. They injected me with a radioactive tracer material—and I am waiting my Super Powers to show up any second now—and I spent the next hour lying flat on my back in a wickedly cold room. This was followed by another half an hour of lying in the same wickedly cold room, but with a blanket (nice tech realized I was shivering and covered me up and tucked me in before starting the next phase of the test. I big pink puffy heart’d him right then…)

The goal was to make my gall bladder spew forth its contents while they took not-so-technicolor pictures, in order to figure out if it’s working right. I was afraid that last part of the test--which mimics having eaten a fatty meal--would send me into insane amounts of pain, but it was fine. It may attack me later, but up until now it's been fine.

Oh, and last night’s fries weren’t that great. I was actually afraid to eat them, so I only had a few with my plain McD’s burger. Yes, I was a weenie.

Now I wait. The results should be in within 5 days.

Hopefully by then I’ll have my Super Powers, and will be able to glow in the dark at will.

Oy.

So now we’re back to thinking it’s the gall bladder. Tomorrow brings a new test, one where they inject me with something radioactive and turn me into a glow-in-the-dark superhero, capable of leaping over gurneys in a single bound, just so they can get a better peek at it…and so they can make it do tricks, which could very well hurt like hell. Presuming they can get an IV in to do all this…

I am so looking forward to it.

So. Tonight I’m suppose to eat a fatty meal to get the bladder to dump any stored bile. That means FRENCH FRIES. I might pay for it later, I might wind up howling in pain tonight, but dammit, I get FRIES!

ER…Not Just A Tired NBC Hit Show…

I have very small, shy, uncooperative veins. The lab techs at the base hospital don’t like me, and I don’t blame them. Who wants to stand there and dig and dig in a patient’s arm, trying to score enough of the good red stuff for basic lab work? It frustrates them and they really don’t (well most of them) enjoy hurting the people they’re trying to suck dry.

It really frustrates techs and nurses in the ER. They have to get a good vein, not just to get a tablespoon of blood, but to stick that IV in so they can also give fluids and meds.

Last night (well, this morning, technically) it took 3 people a total of 5 tries to get a useable vein on me. The first tech tried once and when the vein blew she got a passing nurse—same guy who had been there last time I was in the ER, and who remembered me—to come try. He tried 3 different veins that seemed promising, but refused to put out for him once he’d stabbed me. The last guy—he was offered all kinds of goodies if he could find vein on the first try.

And thank God, he did.

So yeah…I was in the ER all night, accompanied by the Boy. All morning? We got there at 1:30 and left at 6:30.

This was the worst pain yet, bad enough I’ve had to readjust my personal 1 to 10 scale. Since I hadn’t clawed my eyes out or just passed out cold in a puddle of my own vomit, I’d give it a 9.3 at its peak. There was no position that relieved it in the least, and leaning back felt damn near impossible so I sat there on a not-very-comfortable ER bed with my legs crossed, leaning forward, head in hands with fingers clutching my hair, and I rocked back and forth, hoping that if nothing else the rhythm would distract me.

Yeah, didn’t work.

Since I had the abdominal ultrasound done last week, the ER doc was able to pull it up and get a good look at it. This is when Thumper found out that there appears to be nothing wrong with her gall bladder. No stones, no sign of inflammation. Slightly fatty liver, but no gall bladder problems.

So they gave me morphine and phenergan for the touch of nausea I was having at that point, and we waited for the lab to do all my blood and urine work. And then the blood work came back showing everything normal except for one very slightly elevated liver thingy, and a slight increase in leukocytes. By then I was loopy and sleepy but still hurting too much to sleep, so when the IV bag ran out they started another and gave me more morphine.

(This is the same drug that had me crying after the surgery to remove the pituitary tumor. I was convinced that it was going t make me stop breathing, and I didn’t want it, not at all. Knowing better now, I welcomed it last night.)

After dose #2 the pain settled into a mid 5, low 6 range. Pretty much what they let me go home with the last time I was I the ER. But not this time…Next on the agenda, a G.I. cocktail of Maalox, lidocaine, and some anti-spasmodic drug.

Bingo.

Pain free in 3 minutes.

We don’t know if the morphine finally did its job, or it the anti-spasmodic did it, or if it was the combo of Maalox and lidocaine, or all of it, but I felt fine after that.

And we were still waiting on the urine sample.
We waited.
And waited.
And waited some more.
And surprise, the doc came back and said I have a UTI. I have no symptoms of a UTI, but have one I do, apparently.
The ER doc surmises I may have an ulcer.
Oh joy.

They sent me home with Zantac and Bactrim, and come hell or high water my doc is seeing me on Monday.

I felt bad for the Boy, who was just getting ready to go to bed when I asked him to take me to the ER, and who sat there in the World’s Most Uncomfortable Chairs ™ all night. But thank God he was home, because that really was the worst pain I’ve ever felt.

I need new innards.

After we’ve gotten the tax crap squared away, I may start look for some on EBay.

‘Cause EBay has everything.

Right?

In No Particular Order

• Costco has awesome fat free frozen chocolate yogurt
  
• It’s still too cold to drive with the top down, no matter how sunny it is
  
• The pharmacy tech at WalMart likes it when your response to her worried “It’ll take an hour” is “That’s ok, I’ll pick it up tomorrow.”
  
• I have hit a 6 week plateau in weight loss and it sucks
  
• Oranges are coming into season here and that makes me happy
  
• I ordered a copy of my own book(s) and thought it was spiffy looking
  
• I need to do some serious pimping
  
• I apologize now if it becomes annoying
  
• I need to start going through my crap to find Ebayable stuff
  
• I luvs Ebay
  
• I got a $200 leather blazer there for $30
  
• I don’t want to know if it’s hot
  
• It is definitely spiffy
  
• Buddah is part canine, I think; he fetches
  
• The Boy made fun of me for worrying about the whereabouts of a dark chocolate bar just 2 bites into dinner
  
• It was in the trunk of the car
  
• I used to hate dark chocolate, until I realized just a bite or two satisfies my choco-cravings, whereas it takes a lot of milk chocolate
  
• Yeah, I’m boring me, too…
  
• I’ll stop now
  
• But I’ll leave you with this pimp:
  

Back in July I ordered myself some vanity plates for my spiffy new car.

In October I got excited when the notice arrived via USPS that the plates were waiting for me at the local DMV.

I was verrrry disappointed that my THMPR plates were spelled THMBR; the DMV clerk, who felt very sorry for me indeed, reordered them.

Last week, the notice arrived; my plates were in.

Now, given how things have gone lately, we decided right off the bat the something would go wrong. We were prepared for it. Heck, we even prepared for the potential 2 hour wait, because we did not have an appointment. The Spouse Thingy had his PDA upon which to play games, and I brought a notebook in which we could write cat haiku.

Yes, cat haiku.

Shaddup.

We got there and mused that the parking lot didn't seem too bad. We got inside and mused that, while the Take-A-Number thingy was missing, it didn't look too bad. We got in the START HERE line and mused that it moved pretty freaking quick. And we got our number and sat down, and mused that Hey, We're Next!

Less than 5 minutes later, we were at the counter.
Less than 5 minutes after that, we had my plates.
My beautiful, spiffy TYPO-LESS plates.

Because we had to turn in the old plates (and dammit, I had finally memorized them!) the Spouse Thingy out them on my car right there in the parking lot. And then we drive up the Interstate to show them off (well, no, really we went up the Interstate because my car had not been driven in 3 weeks, but what the hell, let people admire my shiny new plates...)

But hey, I have new plates.
And something went right for a change!

I should run out and buy a lottery ticket. I might be on a roll...

The Toys R Us near us is closing. So if you live nearby, now’s a good time to stock up on toys. They still have lots of stuff, but it’s going fast…

We went in there today in search of a gift. And as we wandered around I knew why the company as a whole is going downhill and needing to close several of their stores: it’s not just WalMart’s intrusion into the market, it’s the moronic way they redesigned all the stores about a decade back.

You used to be able to walk into any Toys R Us and wander up and down real aisles, and it was easy to find the toys appropriate for your child and his/her age. Now it’s done in all these clusters that make navigating the store a pain in the butt. It’s not fun anymore. There’s no mindless wandering up one aisle and down another, which does tend to inspire a few impulse purchases.

There’s no joy in trying to figure out what cluster is for which toys, and it’s mostly a “Oh heck, find the damn toy and let’s get out of here” feeling.

When the Boy was just a boy and we were stationed out here, we spent many afternoons in that very store, looking for gifts for friends and rewards for him, and times when he had his own money saved up to buy himself something. Those were shopping trips we looked forward to. If he were little now…I suspect we’d be heading towards WalMart instead, where he could wander up one aisle and down another, musing and thinking and wishing, instead of trying to navigate.

Take heed Toys R Us head honchos. Stop blaming WalMart. You sucked the joy out of toy shopping by design.

Time Keeps On Ticking…

Ok, so 72 hours military was previously defined as from the 21st of one month until the 17th of the next.

We can now stretch that to the 21st of one month to the 23rd of the next.

All hail the mighty military medical machine.

I arrived all spiffy and in proper hygienic orientation 25 minutes early for my 1:50 appointment with my never-seen-before regular doctor, ready to be told that my innards are about to implode and I need to have my gut split open and parts interred removed. Not only was I ready, I was looking forward to it. Let’s get this sucker taken care of!

So I walked up to the check-in desk, presented my ID card and informed the clerk I had a 1:50 appointment with Dr. New-Doc, and he looked at the computer, frowned, and said, “There’s no appointment scheduled for today.”

Oh hell no.

He looked again. “Dr. New-Doc isn’t even in the clinic today,” he mumbled as he looked again. “Who made the appointment for you?”

I gave him the short version; he got on the phone to call the on-duty tech locked behind the heavy metal doors, and explained. While he waited for an answer—she was going to find out what was going on—we were instructed to sit down and wait.

So we complied. Both the Spouse Thingy and I were sputtering and muttering and surely both had spiking blood pressure, but we sat down to wait. While we waited we grumbled about the direction military medicine is going these days, and mused over shifting our care to a civilian doctor, because frankly, my trust in the base hospital is waning.

As we waited, other people arrived to check in. Guy #2 stepped up and presented himself for an appointment that didn’t exist. He rescheduled. Elderly Guy #3 stepped up and presented his even more elderly father’s ID for an appointment that didn’t exist. He didn’t go away. He, too wanted an explanation, and for his father to be seen by someone.

I’m pretty sure they arranged for another doc to see him; I got the impression he needed to be seen today and would do best if not dragged off to the ER.

Anyway…

After 2 previous cancellations that were not my choice, I did not see Dr. New-Doc today. Supposedly I will see Dr. New-Doc next Monday.

Supposedly.

We’ll never really know what happened to the appointment, other than the presumption that some med tech—whom we only know as being female, and idiot me didn’t get her name—screwed up royally and scheduled people for appointment times that weren’t available.

When they find her—and they want to know who she is—she is so screwed.

So. I did not see a doc and I still can’t have a freaking French fry!

This seemed like a good idea at the time.

That is, the box Buddah is on, not Buddah himself.

It’s a spiffy carpeted litterbox container. I figured it would perform two jobs: hiding the litterbox (which is in my office) and giving the cats something to sit on to look out the window.

It works really well as a perch.

For the litter box…not so much.

If functions like it should—it hides the box—but it’s not what I hoped for. What I hoped for was to not realize the box was even there, except once a day when I wandered over to clean it out.

I realize the box is there even more than I did when it was in the open, tucked into a corner.

The thing about this box is that it contains all the smell. And eventually the smell seeps out the opening and the cracks, and just lingers there in the air. Beforehand it would dissipate; now it just hangs there.

Did I mention it’s in my office? There’s no other suitable place in the house we can figure a litterbox would work.

Febreze Air Effects has been my friend.

I’m thinking, though, that the litterbox is going to have to come out of the big box, and will be tucked into the corner once again. And the cats can have the carpeted box as a Kitty Klubhouse—something I think they wanted right from the start, as evidenced by both of them running inside and curling up before we had a chance to stick the litter box in there.

In an odd way, I feel like a failure, and the damned cats have won…

But yeah, if you have cats and are thinking how spiffy something like this would be…ahhh, no. It just makes things smell worse. But your cats will surely love having it to play in.

There’s this commercial that has always bugged the bejeezuz out of me. A woman is sitting in bed with her husband (or significant other...I should not assume) and his nose is buried in a book. She begins to extol the virtues of a particular personal lubricant, and when she mentions it’s a “warming” lube, suddenly his nose is out of the book and he raises an eyebrow.

It bugs me; I don’t know why. But nearly every danged time I see it my immediate thought is “Lady, grab some Ben Gay and slather that on his goodies. Not only will he put the book down, he’ll probably make a whole lot of noise and will even dance for you!”

He would, too. I have it on good authority that Ben Gay in the crotch is An Experience. One you never want to have more than once, and ideally, never.
But oh. Warm lubricant, that’s a whole other thing. Quite different than warming lubricant... Yesterday I encountered some of the warm slippery stuff, and it was NICE.

Yesterday I had an abdominal ultrasound. They peeked at just about everything in the general area: pancreas, liver, kidneys, and gall bladder, but in truth we really just want to know if my gall bladder is loaded with stones or sludge or tiny little men with lit matches and sharp knives.

I won’t know the results until next week when I see my brand new “regular” doc, but damn...the tech doing the exam used very warm KY Jelly, and that was nice.

Really nice.
Ultra-terrific nice.

Between it and the wand she had to rub all over my abdomen and side, it felt like getting a nice massage, without the obligation to leave a tip.
I am totally in favor of warm lubricant.

Stupid commercials, not so much.

And avoid the Ben Gay thing. Grown men especially aren’t very attractive when they’re crying like babies, holding onto their goodies while jumping around the room.

Amusing, yes; attractive, no.

WooHoo!
$50 down.
$7950 to go...
We be smokin'...

What “72 Hours” Actually Means In The Military Medical Sector

Ok. Let’s follow the timeline.

December 20th, the Spouse Thingy takes me to the ER because I’m in a heckuva a lot of pain. One of those things where when they ask you how bad it is on a scale on 1 to 10 you want to grab the technician by the nads, squeeze, and seethe, “Define that on your scale, Bucko!”

We’re there until 4 a.m., when the ER doc declares it to be my gall bladder, sends me home with instructions to not eat anything fried or greasy, and to see my primary care doc within 72 hours, and to arrange for an abdominal ultrasound.

December 21st, the Spouse Thingy is out of bed by 7:30 a.m. to call the base clinics to arrange the followup appointment, and the ultrasound appointment (he lets me sleep. Yay.) They have no record of my ER adventure, so they’ll “get back to us.”

December 22nd, my regular doc’s (whom I have never seen) tech calls to schedule an appointment. For January 4th. Slightly longer than 72 hours the ER doc wanted, but hey, I’m not bleeding from every orifice, so it’s not an emergency. They’ll call back to let me know about the radiology clinic and the ultrasound.

December 24th, they call back. No available ultrasound appointments until January 12th. At 10:15 a.m. So there’s no point in seeing the doc until that’s done, and the appointment is re-scheduled for the 12th, too, in the afternoon.

January 6th, the base clinic calls. My doc will not be available on the 12th, for whatever reason. She can see me on the 17th (and now I know, my “regular” doc is female. Imagine that!) But do keep the ultrasound appointment! And no greasy, fried, or gassy foods for 2 days before!

Yeah.

So at this point, 72 military medical hours is defined as “Eh, maybe a little less than a month, unless something more interesting pops up for us to see. Like a toe fungus.”

We sooooooo need to find a civilian doc. I talked to a woman online who was in the ER for the same problem on the same night; her gall bladder was removed within a few days.

But you know what gets me more than anything? All this time, since December 20th, I haven’t been able to have a single French fry!

I want my freaking fries!<sup>*

*and fajitas, and bacon, and a burger, and...and...and...</sup>

Questions today...

1. If you've ever used H&R Block or Jackson Hewitt, was it pricey? Ball park figure?
2. What would you pay for a used CD online?
3. Why is it that the place that itches the most on your back is the one place you can't reach?

Pimp, Pimp, Pimp, Pimp, Pimp…Or How I Once Won An Award For Biggest Attention Whore

By popular demand---
Hush, 4 people IS popular demand
---there is now an all-in-one edition of my three novels, Charybdis, As Simple As That, and Finding Father Rabbit. It weighs in at a hefty 525 pages, and at $29.95, that’s less than ten bucks a book.

Now there’s a bargain.

There are also editions of the books singly that are slightly cheaper than what you’d pay for on Amazon or B&N.com, the big difference (aside from the cheapo covers) is that I get $3 a book instead of 50 cents… the smaller difference is that you’ll get it a lot faster than ordering from the Big Online Bookstores (don’t get me wrong, I do love them but the wholesale discount they take is huge.)

And there’s all those spiffy t-shirts and stuff in my store. YOU WANT ONE!

Yes, Thumper is pimp, pimp, pimping, ’cause Uncle Sam wants an insane amount of money this year. Pretty soon I’ll probably be pimping some Ebay auctions, too. Lots of CDs, a digital camera, a laptop that is of questionable use…

Really, right now I am so totally in favor of abolishing the income tax in favor of a federal sales tax. It freaking gets freaking worse every freaking year. Freaking. That beats the word that’s really tumbling around in my head.

So, we’re sitting in a very public place, having a soft drink, making a mental list of the things we need to pick up, lest we get home and realize we’ve forgotten the One Thing we really needed.

There’s this guy nearby. He’s on his cell phone, and he’s not only speaking very loudly, he’s obnoxious and throwing variations of the f-bomb around like candy, being belligerent and berating someone for the behavior of their cat, who he wants out of the house by tonight.

No one else cares about the cat, but we’re sure getting an earful about it. He’s just mean enough that I’m not about to confront him, and I’m sure everyone else was steering clear for the same reason. The guy is clearly either a lunatic, an idiot, or both.

We’re all suffering through his cell phone conversation, cringing over the language and the venom behind it. And then his cell phone rings.

He’s “talking” to someone, yelling, and the damn thing rings. He’s doing this for whatever perverse reason, which makes approaching him an even worse idea. No telling what he’d do.

But…damn. If you’re going to be an unbearable pretentious, performance artist jerk, at least turn the freaking phone off.

Ok, it's stopped raining and probably won't--at least not REAL rain--for a long time. Because we now have flashlights in case the power goes out, and my car is in the garage. There's nothing like being prepared to make things not happen...

See the spastic kitty over there? I knew you did. The kitty points to the new Thumper Thinks Out Loud Storefront; all the t-shirts formerly located at Thumpatees are now there, all in one place, for your one-stop shopping convenience. And wow! There are more than just t-shirts! With more stuff coming! Like, maybe, BOOKS!

Yeah...I have to pimp myself. Taxes and bills coming up, you know.

It's still raining.
I have not looked in my car today.
I think it would make me sad.

Garage is on the agenda for tomorrow, at least starting on cleaning it out. I suspect 90% of what's in there will win up in the trash. There may be stuff that's been in boxes for over 20 years...

Anyone want a table and bench set? I know that's in there, buried under tons of junk...

Rain, Rain, Go Away...

Don’t get me wrong—I am very grateful that we didn’t get whammed by the heavy rains that flooded out our former apartment yesterday, nor the hellacious rains that followed today. My ex-neighbors are probably dealing with lost possessions, soaked carpet, mud, stink, and God knows what else.

That didn’t stop me from saying a few choice words when, in a nice long lull in the rain, I went out to my car to discover puddles on the rear floorboards.

Now, I knew that there’s no such thing as a leak-proof convertible, and we have a garage in which I should be able to park it. But was it there?

Phffft.

No, the garage is full of all the crap we were formerly paying good money to store when it turned out the apartment was too small for everything we’ve accumulated over the years. We surely intended to clear it out and make it usable for our cars, but you know the saying.

Good intentions. Pathway. Hell. That kind of thing.

So this week, if the rain lets up, we will clean that garage out, at least enough to park my pretty toy. And hopefully it will dry out (without damaging the carpet) and won’t stink…