Snow What?
I should be working right now; I have a half dozen things to do, but I’m not managing to get to any of them. I have submissions for an upcoming anthology to read and a book layout to work on, and I have my own book whispering to me, telling me it’s not finished and needs to get out of my head and onto paper.
But it’s snowing outside, and it’s that nice, fluffy, come-outside-and-play-with-me kind of snow. It’s the kind of snow that, even though it’s only 18 degrees outside, doesn’t feel all that cold, and shoveling the driveway isn’t a chore.
I opened the window shade this morning and saw the first flakes starting to fall (and consequently wound up laughing at the cat, who seemed to think the sky really was falling), and knew my work day was trashed. I ventured out to buy stamps (the bills have to be paid and mailed in, dangit, no matter what the weather), then came home and had lunch, watching as the snow fell layered gently across the lawn and driveway, until it was a good three inches deep.
Knowing the Spouse Thingy would be getting off work soon, I decided to go out and shovel the driveway—my across the street neighbor was doing the same thing, only she was bounding from driveway to driveway, doing them all. She sighed and said (as she heaved a shovel full onto her yard), “Isn’t this just so beautiful?”
I had to agree. It is absolutely beautiful.
Now, I’ve been fairly certain all winter that I did not want snow, I’d had enough in North Dakota, and that we could remain gray and dry all season long. But watching this snow fall, I remember what I loved about winter in ND; it’s just pretty.
I reserve the right to complain in 3 or 4 days, when it’s old snow and not so pretty anymore.
Thursday
Monday
Bowling For Pizza, Bowling For Fun
Every Sunday the bowling alley at WPAFB has “Family Day.” For $6.00 per person you get 3 lines of bowling, shoe rental, a slice of pizza, and a small soda. Sounds like a lot, but when you factor in the real costs – games are normally $2.45 a line, shoes $1, pizza $1.25 slice, and a small soda is $.75, it’s a bargain.
Yesterday the place was packed; Family Day starts at 1pm and we got there at about 1:05, when there was already a long line at the counter to get a lane. We counted the people and determined we’d have no problem getting a lane right off, so we waited, paid our money and got our Free Pizza ticket, then got our balls and shoes out of the locker (yep, the free shoe rental is wasted on us; we’re the geeky people who try to bowl at least once a week) and started to bowl.
It was a good bowling day. Unlike last Sunday, when I couldn’t seem to get the ball off my hand without turning my wrist or crossing my arm in front of my body (and the scores showed it), everything felt right. I was hitting my mark, my delivery felt smooth, and I was picking up spares.
I even got one terribly ugly split, the kind you expect only people with 200+ averages to pick up (and that is so not me), and told the Spouse Thingy that if I picked it up, he owed me dinner out. It was a safe bet; I left a 4-7-9-10 split. We both knew I could get the 4-7, but tip the 4 over into the 9 and have it take out the 10? No fricking way.
Oh yeah. He owes me dinner out.
We got halfway through our second game when a family took the lane next to ours. They had with them a little girl, about 3 or 4 years old (so, of course, the bumpers went up). We both like watching little kids bowl; they try so hard to mimic the adults, right up to sticking their ball-side leg out after rolling the ball.
This little girl, though, wasn’t intent on mimicking anyone. She just wanted to have fun.
Every time she rolled the ball, she squealed “YAY!!!!” and clapped her hands.
Every time her mother or father rolled the ball, she squealed “YAY!!!” and clapped her hands.
Every other roll or so she added “I did it!” or “Daddy did it!”
It didn’t matter whether or not any pins were knocked over. She had no concept of the score or who was winning. It didn’t matter. She got to use a bright orange ball, and she got to go out there and set it down, then push it with both hands, and she got to watch it roll. If it hit pins, great. If not, that was fine, too.
We spent more time watching her, laughing at her sheer joy. We paid less attention to our own scores, mostly because we didn’t care. We were having too good a time watching this little girl have the time of her life.
I can clearly remember thinking that I wish I had ever had that much fun playing a game. The things I do, I want to do well. I want to break my average every time I bowl (which, when you think about, is borderline stupid, because breaking it just makes it go up every time, and ceases to be “average.”) When I’m involved any game—Scrabble or Monopoly or golf or fricking Tiddly Winks—I want to win.
It clicked.
That’s not playing.
That’s working.
The best thing… when I stopped paying attention to my own game, which was actually going pretty well, and started enjoying this little girl’s sense of fun and accomplishment, I started doing even better. I topped my average by at least 16 pins.
I was actually playing at the game, not working at it.
Yay!
Every Sunday the bowling alley at WPAFB has “Family Day.” For $6.00 per person you get 3 lines of bowling, shoe rental, a slice of pizza, and a small soda. Sounds like a lot, but when you factor in the real costs – games are normally $2.45 a line, shoes $1, pizza $1.25 slice, and a small soda is $.75, it’s a bargain.
Yesterday the place was packed; Family Day starts at 1pm and we got there at about 1:05, when there was already a long line at the counter to get a lane. We counted the people and determined we’d have no problem getting a lane right off, so we waited, paid our money and got our Free Pizza ticket, then got our balls and shoes out of the locker (yep, the free shoe rental is wasted on us; we’re the geeky people who try to bowl at least once a week) and started to bowl.
It was a good bowling day. Unlike last Sunday, when I couldn’t seem to get the ball off my hand without turning my wrist or crossing my arm in front of my body (and the scores showed it), everything felt right. I was hitting my mark, my delivery felt smooth, and I was picking up spares.
I even got one terribly ugly split, the kind you expect only people with 200+ averages to pick up (and that is so not me), and told the Spouse Thingy that if I picked it up, he owed me dinner out. It was a safe bet; I left a 4-7-9-10 split. We both knew I could get the 4-7, but tip the 4 over into the 9 and have it take out the 10? No fricking way.
Oh yeah. He owes me dinner out.
We got halfway through our second game when a family took the lane next to ours. They had with them a little girl, about 3 or 4 years old (so, of course, the bumpers went up). We both like watching little kids bowl; they try so hard to mimic the adults, right up to sticking their ball-side leg out after rolling the ball.
This little girl, though, wasn’t intent on mimicking anyone. She just wanted to have fun.
Every time she rolled the ball, she squealed “YAY!!!!” and clapped her hands.
Every time her mother or father rolled the ball, she squealed “YAY!!!” and clapped her hands.
Every other roll or so she added “I did it!” or “Daddy did it!”
It didn’t matter whether or not any pins were knocked over. She had no concept of the score or who was winning. It didn’t matter. She got to use a bright orange ball, and she got to go out there and set it down, then push it with both hands, and she got to watch it roll. If it hit pins, great. If not, that was fine, too.
We spent more time watching her, laughing at her sheer joy. We paid less attention to our own scores, mostly because we didn’t care. We were having too good a time watching this little girl have the time of her life.
I can clearly remember thinking that I wish I had ever had that much fun playing a game. The things I do, I want to do well. I want to break my average every time I bowl (which, when you think about, is borderline stupid, because breaking it just makes it go up every time, and ceases to be “average.”) When I’m involved any game—Scrabble or Monopoly or golf or fricking Tiddly Winks—I want to win.
It clicked.
That’s not playing.
That’s working.
The best thing… when I stopped paying attention to my own game, which was actually going pretty well, and started enjoying this little girl’s sense of fun and accomplishment, I started doing even better. I topped my average by at least 16 pins.
I was actually playing at the game, not working at it.
Yay!
Friday
ValiumIsMyFriend
Ok… I was supposed to have an MRI in November; I showed up for the appointment, feeling fairly confident that in spite of some mild claustrophobia, I could handle an hour in a loud, uncomfortable, giant lipstick tube.
I was wrong.
Fifteen seconds after the technician slid me into the tube, I was clamoring to get out. There was no way I was lying there for an hour. She slid the table back out, and without any trace of amusement or sarcasm, said it would be no problem to reschedule; I could get a scrip from my doctor, something to keep me relaxed.
I was rescheduled for December 17th, but someone else’s emergency took precedence, and the little I have learned about it, this person definitely needed to be there more than I. It was scheduled again for January 9th—and I showed up right on time, with my bottle of two tiny little Valium in hand.
Fifteen minutes after I took it, Spouse Thingy and a medical technician had to help me walk down the short hallway to the MRI room (ST, as I took it: “you know, your legs might feel a little wobbly in a few minutes.” Really? Just a little?); Spouse Thingy had to stop just short of the door because he had a stethoscope and other metal thingies that could have quickly become lethal flying objects once near the MRI machine. I was plopped down on the table and shoved in… no problem.
One thing Wright Patterson AFB Med Center has that Travis AFB didn’t: they could play music for me while I was shoved in there. I brought my John Barry Moviola CD… Best. CD. Ever. I listened to it through clunky rubber earphones, not caring about a thing, not even when the machine broke down for twenty minutes. Hell, I didn’t even realize it was twenty minutes. I knew it had gotten quiet for some time, but phfft, so what? Soooo freakin’ what?
I love valium.
I’m pretty sure that after I got home (Spouse Thingy was able to get off the rest of the day to drive me home, leaving my pretty purple toy car in the hospital parking lot) I got online and stared posting on WWDN, but I wasn’t banned, so it must not have been too bad.
Valium… Best.Drug.Ever.
Ok… I was supposed to have an MRI in November; I showed up for the appointment, feeling fairly confident that in spite of some mild claustrophobia, I could handle an hour in a loud, uncomfortable, giant lipstick tube.
I was wrong.
Fifteen seconds after the technician slid me into the tube, I was clamoring to get out. There was no way I was lying there for an hour. She slid the table back out, and without any trace of amusement or sarcasm, said it would be no problem to reschedule; I could get a scrip from my doctor, something to keep me relaxed.
I was rescheduled for December 17th, but someone else’s emergency took precedence, and the little I have learned about it, this person definitely needed to be there more than I. It was scheduled again for January 9th—and I showed up right on time, with my bottle of two tiny little Valium in hand.
Fifteen minutes after I took it, Spouse Thingy and a medical technician had to help me walk down the short hallway to the MRI room (ST, as I took it: “you know, your legs might feel a little wobbly in a few minutes.” Really? Just a little?); Spouse Thingy had to stop just short of the door because he had a stethoscope and other metal thingies that could have quickly become lethal flying objects once near the MRI machine. I was plopped down on the table and shoved in… no problem.
One thing Wright Patterson AFB Med Center has that Travis AFB didn’t: they could play music for me while I was shoved in there. I brought my John Barry Moviola CD… Best. CD. Ever. I listened to it through clunky rubber earphones, not caring about a thing, not even when the machine broke down for twenty minutes. Hell, I didn’t even realize it was twenty minutes. I knew it had gotten quiet for some time, but phfft, so what? Soooo freakin’ what?
I love valium.
I’m pretty sure that after I got home (Spouse Thingy was able to get off the rest of the day to drive me home, leaving my pretty purple toy car in the hospital parking lot) I got online and stared posting on WWDN, but I wasn’t banned, so it must not have been too bad.
Valium… Best.Drug.Ever.
Wednesday
The Fear Of Movement
Everyone is afraid of something—everyone. Even the most macho, testosterone-laden tough guy out there has his fears. Some fears are silly, and we know it, but that doesn't keep them from haunting us, lurking there in the shadows of our brains, making our guts churn and burn. I have a sibling who is deathly afraid of bugs—any bugs. I honestly think she would call a total stranger to come in and squash a tiny little spider if there was no one else to confront the little household intruder. She knows it's silly, but she can't help it. She hates and is afraid of bugs. I have a friend who is afraid of the dark. He's over 40 years old and knows there's nothing there in the dark that wasn't there when the lights were on, but he can't help it. His house has a nightlight in nearly every room.
The things we are most afraid of have a root cause. We can't always identify that root, but we're not born afraid. Fear stems from something. Sometimes fear is a good thing—it sharpens your instincts for what doesn't feel right and for when your guard should go up (pick up a copy of The Gift Of Fear by Gavin DeBecker). That deep down gut fear can help you avoid dangerous situations, and should be listened to carefully.
Fear is also what keeps a lot of people out of the martial arts and in their own safe little world. Fear can also keep someone with a lengthy background in the martial arts from stepping back into training. Training can be painful. You get hit, you get thrown, you use muscles you forgot you had, you burn, you ache, you sweat in rivers. You may have been very good at one time, with that strong, enviable shoulder high side kick and a lightning fast back fist that had people seeing stars, but after such a long time out of the arts, you're afraid to go back in. You know that it will be like starting over. You know the pain you'll feel, and the abilities lost to disuse.
It's just easier to find a less involved physical activity. Take up aerobics, or line dancing. Swimming takes pressure off the muscles and joints, free weights don't hit back... Those activities might not be as interesting, but at least they're less painful and no one in the jazzercise class is going to toss your over their shoulder.
Something I've learned over the past several years: easy isn't always the best. Safe isn't always as interesting. Pain free isn't necessarily better.
A little over five years ago I justified my lack of training as taking the time to heal—and that's exactly what I was doing, on medical advice. Allowing a battered body the necessary time to get better, to heal, to be stronger so that I could get back into life and train hard without having to back peddle three steps for every 2 I was taking. When it was later realized that this body wasn't going to get any better, that I was stuck with what is, and that I should consider backing off and finding less strenuous physical activities, I took that to heart—and I became afraid of the very thing I loved so much. I was willing to listen to that fear and back off from even thinking about training in a martial art.
At the time I wouldn't have chalked it up to fear—I chalked it up to common sense. After all, a workout routine that involved letting people batter me with fists and feet and my already aching body flying through the air and slamming down on to the floor could not be a good thing. I'd have to be nuts to keep doing it. With regret—deep regret—I resigned myself to a nonmartial arts lifestyle.
Backing out of the martial arts is not an easy thing to do when several of your closest friends remain in training, and teach as well. They know how to teach around someone else's limitations and don't see you as any different. They're full of advice, and sometimes other things that stink. But, they care, and they don't give up on you. They just hammer away, day after day, with a multitude of well intentioned suggestions and training tips. You might have left training for your own good, but it's just not leaving you.
You find yourself wondering, "Don't they get It!!! Don't they understand I can't do this anymore????"
They do get it. They know that you hurt, you loved what you did, and you won't be happy unless you find a way back, and they're willing to help. And until you take a better look at it, they're just going to keep on being royal pains in the behind.
I really did think I had stepped back for my own good.
The logic was simple: with my condition, repeated injury can cause clusters of trigger points, which refer pain all over the body. The more trigger points, the more pain. The more pain, the lower the quality of life. Sparring can cause trigger points. Self defense training, throwing and being thrown, all those joint locks and shoulder throws, can cause trigger points. That means more pain. No thank you.
What I resolved for my own good was thrown back into my face by a well intentioned friend... "So... just what are you afraid of?"
Well, duh!
I am, still, afraid of the pain. I'm afraid of making it worse. I'm afraid of winding up with pain searing through every fiber of my body, unable to walk, or move without crying. I'm afraid of pain so intense I can't think clearly or focus on anything more than the moment. I'm afraid of the unknown.
"Ok... but can you really see your life without it? Is the treadmill enough? I mean, if you could leave it all behind, why do you still think about it, why do you still scour martial arts bulletin boards, why do you still ask questions and ponder training routines? Why?"
Then came the offer out of nowhere: write down every limitation you feel you have, all the things your doctors say you can't do, and all the things you want to be able to do but can't because of pain. Tell me what hurts and where, how it hurts more when you move certain ways. Find your comfort level, tell me all about it, and we'll see what we can come up with. Videotape yourself, show me what you can do now... Let me help.
Even when you're swimming in the pity pool, an offer like that is hard to ignore. Not "if you want me to I'll help" but Let me help. Please. Let me. Let me do this for you. Let me help you get stronger and get back to where you were.
Every fear I had was shooting through me like electricity: this was one of those offers only a moron would pass up, but it also meant confronting my pain, admitting that it was getting the best of me and beating me down in ways I never thought I'd allow anything to. I used to have little fear in the ring.
Suddenly, I was afraid to move.
I wrote what amounted to a dissertation, everything I could think of, I poured into it. I can't jump, not because I don't want to, but because my knees and hips and back can't take it. I can't spar. I can't pick anyone up, or let them pick me up. I can't be caught in a hold. I can't even let someone gently place their hands on my shoulders without getting sick from the pain. I can't run, my knees swell up like basketballs. I can't run from it, I can't hide.
Now, tell me what you can do...
I can still kick. I can still punch. I can still do forms and I can go through defense techniques if no one touches me. I can control my reactions to the pain if I have to. I can still learn.
I can confront what scares me the most...
As of January 31, 2003, I will have spent 6 six years in varying degrees of pain. Oddly enough, the pain is something you get used to. You know, before you put a foot on the floor in the morning, that something is going to hurt. You accept it.
The thing is, I allowed that pain to rob me of myself; even with all the prodding from friends, I never returned to my martial arts training. I wanted to, deeply and passionately wanted to. But even with accepting the pain and getting used to it, the very idea of placing myself in the position of making it worse made me back away from it. I know what I can do, but that doesn’t mean I do it.
I’m afraid to move.
Still, after all these years, I’m afraid to move. I’ve made stabs at it; I took a body conditioning class and thoroughly enjoyed it. I joined the YMCA and made use of their warm water pool, and exercised in it. I tried doing the Body For Life program, but the cardio portion damned near killed me. I tried a lot of things, but it always came back to the fear of moving, the fear of how much extra pain I was going to be in.
So I’m afraid, but this morning I finally said to hell with it. I’m tired of it. I have to do something, before the not moving kills me. I can live with pain, obviously. But if I don’t so something to get back into shape and lose the body fat that has accumulated through the last six year, it will kill me.
I fear death more than I fear movement.
I have to find something and stick to it. I have to push past the pain, past the fear, and do something before the damage is permanent. I just have to.
We're all afraid of something. I am not alone.
Everyone is afraid of something—everyone. Even the most macho, testosterone-laden tough guy out there has his fears. Some fears are silly, and we know it, but that doesn't keep them from haunting us, lurking there in the shadows of our brains, making our guts churn and burn. I have a sibling who is deathly afraid of bugs—any bugs. I honestly think she would call a total stranger to come in and squash a tiny little spider if there was no one else to confront the little household intruder. She knows it's silly, but she can't help it. She hates and is afraid of bugs. I have a friend who is afraid of the dark. He's over 40 years old and knows there's nothing there in the dark that wasn't there when the lights were on, but he can't help it. His house has a nightlight in nearly every room.
The things we are most afraid of have a root cause. We can't always identify that root, but we're not born afraid. Fear stems from something. Sometimes fear is a good thing—it sharpens your instincts for what doesn't feel right and for when your guard should go up (pick up a copy of The Gift Of Fear by Gavin DeBecker). That deep down gut fear can help you avoid dangerous situations, and should be listened to carefully.
Fear is also what keeps a lot of people out of the martial arts and in their own safe little world. Fear can also keep someone with a lengthy background in the martial arts from stepping back into training. Training can be painful. You get hit, you get thrown, you use muscles you forgot you had, you burn, you ache, you sweat in rivers. You may have been very good at one time, with that strong, enviable shoulder high side kick and a lightning fast back fist that had people seeing stars, but after such a long time out of the arts, you're afraid to go back in. You know that it will be like starting over. You know the pain you'll feel, and the abilities lost to disuse.
It's just easier to find a less involved physical activity. Take up aerobics, or line dancing. Swimming takes pressure off the muscles and joints, free weights don't hit back... Those activities might not be as interesting, but at least they're less painful and no one in the jazzercise class is going to toss your over their shoulder.
Something I've learned over the past several years: easy isn't always the best. Safe isn't always as interesting. Pain free isn't necessarily better.
A little over five years ago I justified my lack of training as taking the time to heal—and that's exactly what I was doing, on medical advice. Allowing a battered body the necessary time to get better, to heal, to be stronger so that I could get back into life and train hard without having to back peddle three steps for every 2 I was taking. When it was later realized that this body wasn't going to get any better, that I was stuck with what is, and that I should consider backing off and finding less strenuous physical activities, I took that to heart—and I became afraid of the very thing I loved so much. I was willing to listen to that fear and back off from even thinking about training in a martial art.
At the time I wouldn't have chalked it up to fear—I chalked it up to common sense. After all, a workout routine that involved letting people batter me with fists and feet and my already aching body flying through the air and slamming down on to the floor could not be a good thing. I'd have to be nuts to keep doing it. With regret—deep regret—I resigned myself to a nonmartial arts lifestyle.
Backing out of the martial arts is not an easy thing to do when several of your closest friends remain in training, and teach as well. They know how to teach around someone else's limitations and don't see you as any different. They're full of advice, and sometimes other things that stink. But, they care, and they don't give up on you. They just hammer away, day after day, with a multitude of well intentioned suggestions and training tips. You might have left training for your own good, but it's just not leaving you.
You find yourself wondering, "Don't they get It!!! Don't they understand I can't do this anymore????"
They do get it. They know that you hurt, you loved what you did, and you won't be happy unless you find a way back, and they're willing to help. And until you take a better look at it, they're just going to keep on being royal pains in the behind.
I really did think I had stepped back for my own good.
The logic was simple: with my condition, repeated injury can cause clusters of trigger points, which refer pain all over the body. The more trigger points, the more pain. The more pain, the lower the quality of life. Sparring can cause trigger points. Self defense training, throwing and being thrown, all those joint locks and shoulder throws, can cause trigger points. That means more pain. No thank you.
What I resolved for my own good was thrown back into my face by a well intentioned friend... "So... just what are you afraid of?"
Well, duh!
I am, still, afraid of the pain. I'm afraid of making it worse. I'm afraid of winding up with pain searing through every fiber of my body, unable to walk, or move without crying. I'm afraid of pain so intense I can't think clearly or focus on anything more than the moment. I'm afraid of the unknown.
"Ok... but can you really see your life without it? Is the treadmill enough? I mean, if you could leave it all behind, why do you still think about it, why do you still scour martial arts bulletin boards, why do you still ask questions and ponder training routines? Why?"
Then came the offer out of nowhere: write down every limitation you feel you have, all the things your doctors say you can't do, and all the things you want to be able to do but can't because of pain. Tell me what hurts and where, how it hurts more when you move certain ways. Find your comfort level, tell me all about it, and we'll see what we can come up with. Videotape yourself, show me what you can do now... Let me help.
Even when you're swimming in the pity pool, an offer like that is hard to ignore. Not "if you want me to I'll help" but Let me help. Please. Let me. Let me do this for you. Let me help you get stronger and get back to where you were.
Every fear I had was shooting through me like electricity: this was one of those offers only a moron would pass up, but it also meant confronting my pain, admitting that it was getting the best of me and beating me down in ways I never thought I'd allow anything to. I used to have little fear in the ring.
Suddenly, I was afraid to move.
I wrote what amounted to a dissertation, everything I could think of, I poured into it. I can't jump, not because I don't want to, but because my knees and hips and back can't take it. I can't spar. I can't pick anyone up, or let them pick me up. I can't be caught in a hold. I can't even let someone gently place their hands on my shoulders without getting sick from the pain. I can't run, my knees swell up like basketballs. I can't run from it, I can't hide.
Now, tell me what you can do...
I can still kick. I can still punch. I can still do forms and I can go through defense techniques if no one touches me. I can control my reactions to the pain if I have to. I can still learn.
I can confront what scares me the most...
As of January 31, 2003, I will have spent 6 six years in varying degrees of pain. Oddly enough, the pain is something you get used to. You know, before you put a foot on the floor in the morning, that something is going to hurt. You accept it.
The thing is, I allowed that pain to rob me of myself; even with all the prodding from friends, I never returned to my martial arts training. I wanted to, deeply and passionately wanted to. But even with accepting the pain and getting used to it, the very idea of placing myself in the position of making it worse made me back away from it. I know what I can do, but that doesn’t mean I do it.
I’m afraid to move.
Still, after all these years, I’m afraid to move. I’ve made stabs at it; I took a body conditioning class and thoroughly enjoyed it. I joined the YMCA and made use of their warm water pool, and exercised in it. I tried doing the Body For Life program, but the cardio portion damned near killed me. I tried a lot of things, but it always came back to the fear of moving, the fear of how much extra pain I was going to be in.
So I’m afraid, but this morning I finally said to hell with it. I’m tired of it. I have to do something, before the not moving kills me. I can live with pain, obviously. But if I don’t so something to get back into shape and lose the body fat that has accumulated through the last six year, it will kill me.
I fear death more than I fear movement.
I have to find something and stick to it. I have to push past the pain, past the fear, and do something before the damage is permanent. I just have to.
We're all afraid of something. I am not alone.
Saturday
Seeing Red
It never fails.
If I forget a load of laundry in the washing machine, it will contain two things: several light colored shirts, and one fairly new red sweatshirt.
Not only will I forget this load, but when I remember it, the day after or the day after that, it will need to be re-washed, and I will forget to peek and see if the requisite light colors and red sweatshirt are there, thereby washing them together a second time. While they sit in the washing machine all night, all wet and icky, the red sweatshirt will, invariably, rest upon the lightest and most favored shirt, leaving large pink splotches on one side of the shirt only.
If it were on both sides, I could pass it off as some kind of fashion pretense. But no, the splotch will be single sided, and in a manner that suggest “this loser can’t do her own laundry.”
The rest of the clothes will have this faint, but obvious, pinkish glow.
You know, the same pinkish glow most people wind up with once, maybe twice, over a life time of doing laundry. The same pinkish glow that many men purposely attain in order to convince their female significant others that laundry is best left out of their hands.
You know, the thing a moron can avoid doing more than three times.
I’ve done it at least 50 times.
Over a 20 year period.
I’m not even a moron.
Dammit.
It never fails.
If I forget a load of laundry in the washing machine, it will contain two things: several light colored shirts, and one fairly new red sweatshirt.
Not only will I forget this load, but when I remember it, the day after or the day after that, it will need to be re-washed, and I will forget to peek and see if the requisite light colors and red sweatshirt are there, thereby washing them together a second time. While they sit in the washing machine all night, all wet and icky, the red sweatshirt will, invariably, rest upon the lightest and most favored shirt, leaving large pink splotches on one side of the shirt only.
If it were on both sides, I could pass it off as some kind of fashion pretense. But no, the splotch will be single sided, and in a manner that suggest “this loser can’t do her own laundry.”
The rest of the clothes will have this faint, but obvious, pinkish glow.
You know, the same pinkish glow most people wind up with once, maybe twice, over a life time of doing laundry. The same pinkish glow that many men purposely attain in order to convince their female significant others that laundry is best left out of their hands.
You know, the thing a moron can avoid doing more than three times.
I’ve done it at least 50 times.
Over a 20 year period.
I’m not even a moron.
Dammit.
Sunday
The Good, The Bad, and The Sad
The Good
The Boy arrived on the 22nd of December and spent Christmas with us. We had a good time (well, the Spouse Thingy and I did, I can’t speak for the Boy, who may have been simply humoring us…) We saw a couple of movies, ate out a lot, laughed a whole lot (especially when the Boy clobbered the Spouse Thingy with a gigantic snowball right upside the head), and had a very nice Christmas Day – complete with 5 inches of snow. Which is, thankfully, already melting. I wanted a White Christmas but have no desire for it to stick around.
The Bad
We completely trashed the house. Now, I’m not the world’s greatest housekeeper by any stretch of the imagination, but since we moved in here we’ve managed to keep it looking halfway decent. But, the day before the Boy got here the vacuum cleaner broke, and with a dog that sheds like crazy, that’s a bad thing. Everything is covered in a thick layer of golden dog hair. And we left things laying around, didn’t really pick things up… so there’s quite a bit of housework to do now. And the Boy went back home yesterday.
The Sad
Today is the one year anniversary of the death of one of my most treasured friends, Moe Brennan. She was far too young to die, only 50, and left a huge hole in not only my life, but the lives of many others who were drawn to her sparkling personality, and the love of her life, Rick.
Moe was an amazing person; she lived with incredible amounts of pain due to a long list of medical problems, but she somehow managed to be completely supportive and positive, even though her life was lived through a cloud of pain. I miss her still, and can’t imagine how much Rick must miss her. And how hard this day must be hitting him.
Most days I think of Moe with a smile, but I think I’ll let myself feel a little sorry for myself today, sorry for no longer having her in my life. But only for a little while, because if she could, she’d kick my ass if I dwelled too long on things I can’t change. But damn, I still miss her.
The Good
The Boy arrived on the 22nd of December and spent Christmas with us. We had a good time (well, the Spouse Thingy and I did, I can’t speak for the Boy, who may have been simply humoring us…) We saw a couple of movies, ate out a lot, laughed a whole lot (especially when the Boy clobbered the Spouse Thingy with a gigantic snowball right upside the head), and had a very nice Christmas Day – complete with 5 inches of snow. Which is, thankfully, already melting. I wanted a White Christmas but have no desire for it to stick around.
The Bad
We completely trashed the house. Now, I’m not the world’s greatest housekeeper by any stretch of the imagination, but since we moved in here we’ve managed to keep it looking halfway decent. But, the day before the Boy got here the vacuum cleaner broke, and with a dog that sheds like crazy, that’s a bad thing. Everything is covered in a thick layer of golden dog hair. And we left things laying around, didn’t really pick things up… so there’s quite a bit of housework to do now. And the Boy went back home yesterday.
The Sad
Today is the one year anniversary of the death of one of my most treasured friends, Moe Brennan. She was far too young to die, only 50, and left a huge hole in not only my life, but the lives of many others who were drawn to her sparkling personality, and the love of her life, Rick.
Moe was an amazing person; she lived with incredible amounts of pain due to a long list of medical problems, but she somehow managed to be completely supportive and positive, even though her life was lived through a cloud of pain. I miss her still, and can’t imagine how much Rick must miss her. And how hard this day must be hitting him.
Most days I think of Moe with a smile, but I think I’ll let myself feel a little sorry for myself today, sorry for no longer having her in my life. But only for a little while, because if she could, she’d kick my ass if I dwelled too long on things I can’t change. But damn, I still miss her.
Tuesday
Wednesday
Return To Sender
Today I made a woman cry at the post office. Oh yeah, Merry Christmas from me!
I got there right at noon; normally they have 3 or 4 clerks at the counter, but with it being lunch there were only 2; one of them was helping a person who had about 15 packages they were trying to get off. The other was taking the trickle of people; there was only one person in line ahead of me, so I figured I’d hit the post office jackpot.
I got in line, and within a minute there were 15-20 people behind me. I felt even luckier, if I’d hit one more red light along the way, I’d be at the end of that line.
And then it happened. The lone person ahead of me got to the counter, and immediately started to whine. I kid you not, this was a fully grown woman whining in the voice one might expect out of a very tired and cranky 4 year old. She’d gotten an envelope from the wall display, where she saw a sign that said “39 cents.” The envelope she’d chosen, however, was 99 cents. And she didn’t want to pay the difference. She really didn’t want to pay the different. She let everyone know she didn’t want to pay the difference.
The clerk very patiently tried to explain to her the cheaper envelopes were right under that sign and she’d picked one from the display just under that, and showed her where, on the envelope, the price was clearly marked.
Well, now she didn’t want it. Not at 99 cents.
Sorry, m’am, but you already addressed it, you have to pay for it.
For three or four minutes, she argued. She demanded to see a supervisor. The poor clerk’s eyes got wide, and he said—nicely—it’s only 60 cents difference. It didn’t matter; she wanted that envelope at 39 cents.
He went to get a supervisor; she, too, told the woman she was sorry, but she’d written on that envelope and had to pay for it. And again the woman whined but I don’t waaaaaant it now.
This is when I’d had it. I wasn’t especially nice, but I piped up, “Look, if it’ll speed things up, I’ll give you 75 cents for the envelope.”
If looks could kill. She spun around and whined “It’s not the money, I have the money, it’s the point.”
“But it’s just sixty cents.”
“It’s the point!”
Thumper no longer cared; I took a deep breath and seethed, “The point is that you’re holding up an entire line of people who are holding heavy packages over sixty cents. Either take it from me, or pay it yourself, just pay it already.”
At least ten people behind me were snickering. The clerk was trying not to smile.
Envelope Lady burst into tears. “But the sign says it’s thirty nine cents!”
Okay, this is when I started to feel like perhaps I’d made a huge mistake. Here was a woman who looked to be about thirty years old crying over sixty cents. She either wasn’t quite stable, her emotional age was not the same as her chronological age, or she was completely stressed out and was about to go postal in the post office.
I felt bad, yet I also didn’t. Kind of that, ohhhh, I should have been more patient and/or kept my mouth shut feeling. Yet if I hadn’t said anything, we probably would have been there an hour later while she argued in that spoiled little-kid voice about having to pay for an envelope she’d written on.
I probably ruined her day.
Or maybe she got to her car and realized how foolish she’d sounded to the entire post office. Over sixty cents.
Probably not.
OTOH, after I left there I went to buy doggy toothpaste (poultry flavored, yum… anything has to smell better than the poop-breath he already has) and decided to buy the PsychoKitty his Christmas present. I’d been eyeing it but it was more than I wanted to spend. I decided the hell with it, Max was getting it no matter that it costs too much.
I got to the self-cashier thingy, scanned it, and it was on sale. Half off.
Yay.
Today I made a woman cry at the post office. Oh yeah, Merry Christmas from me!
I got there right at noon; normally they have 3 or 4 clerks at the counter, but with it being lunch there were only 2; one of them was helping a person who had about 15 packages they were trying to get off. The other was taking the trickle of people; there was only one person in line ahead of me, so I figured I’d hit the post office jackpot.
I got in line, and within a minute there were 15-20 people behind me. I felt even luckier, if I’d hit one more red light along the way, I’d be at the end of that line.
And then it happened. The lone person ahead of me got to the counter, and immediately started to whine. I kid you not, this was a fully grown woman whining in the voice one might expect out of a very tired and cranky 4 year old. She’d gotten an envelope from the wall display, where she saw a sign that said “39 cents.” The envelope she’d chosen, however, was 99 cents. And she didn’t want to pay the difference. She really didn’t want to pay the different. She let everyone know she didn’t want to pay the difference.
The clerk very patiently tried to explain to her the cheaper envelopes were right under that sign and she’d picked one from the display just under that, and showed her where, on the envelope, the price was clearly marked.
Well, now she didn’t want it. Not at 99 cents.
Sorry, m’am, but you already addressed it, you have to pay for it.
For three or four minutes, she argued. She demanded to see a supervisor. The poor clerk’s eyes got wide, and he said—nicely—it’s only 60 cents difference. It didn’t matter; she wanted that envelope at 39 cents.
He went to get a supervisor; she, too, told the woman she was sorry, but she’d written on that envelope and had to pay for it. And again the woman whined but I don’t waaaaaant it now.
This is when I’d had it. I wasn’t especially nice, but I piped up, “Look, if it’ll speed things up, I’ll give you 75 cents for the envelope.”
If looks could kill. She spun around and whined “It’s not the money, I have the money, it’s the point.”
“But it’s just sixty cents.”
“It’s the point!”
Thumper no longer cared; I took a deep breath and seethed, “The point is that you’re holding up an entire line of people who are holding heavy packages over sixty cents. Either take it from me, or pay it yourself, just pay it already.”
At least ten people behind me were snickering. The clerk was trying not to smile.
Envelope Lady burst into tears. “But the sign says it’s thirty nine cents!”
Okay, this is when I started to feel like perhaps I’d made a huge mistake. Here was a woman who looked to be about thirty years old crying over sixty cents. She either wasn’t quite stable, her emotional age was not the same as her chronological age, or she was completely stressed out and was about to go postal in the post office.
I felt bad, yet I also didn’t. Kind of that, ohhhh, I should have been more patient and/or kept my mouth shut feeling. Yet if I hadn’t said anything, we probably would have been there an hour later while she argued in that spoiled little-kid voice about having to pay for an envelope she’d written on.
I probably ruined her day.
Or maybe she got to her car and realized how foolish she’d sounded to the entire post office. Over sixty cents.
Probably not.
OTOH, after I left there I went to buy doggy toothpaste (poultry flavored, yum… anything has to smell better than the poop-breath he already has) and decided to buy the PsychoKitty his Christmas present. I’d been eyeing it but it was more than I wanted to spend. I decided the hell with it, Max was getting it no matter that it costs too much.
I got to the self-cashier thingy, scanned it, and it was on sale. Half off.
Yay.
Saturday
Ahem... Well... Apology Retracted
Of all that snow and ice predicted for yesterday we got... nothing. It rained all day, never got cold enough for ice, not even at 2 a.m. when I was up checking on why Hank was whining (bad dream, I suppose; he was alseep when I got down the stairs and seemed fairly annoyed at being woken up).
For that we didn't go see the new Star Trek movie.
Blah.
So, I'm not sorry, Dayton! Cuz we didn't bring bad things this time around!
Of all that snow and ice predicted for yesterday we got... nothing. It rained all day, never got cold enough for ice, not even at 2 a.m. when I was up checking on why Hank was whining (bad dream, I suppose; he was alseep when I got down the stairs and seemed fairly annoyed at being woken up).
For that we didn't go see the new Star Trek movie.
Blah.
So, I'm not sorry, Dayton! Cuz we didn't bring bad things this time around!
Friday
I’m Sorry, So Sorry…
Everywhere we go, something happens. As high schoolers in Northern California, there was drought. Water was rationed, lawns went brown, and Folsom Lake began to shrink. The few odd rainy days were quite the treat, though never quite enough to make up for the dry days.
Then we went to Utah. They got enough snow that come spring, the runoff was so strong that the Jordan river overflowed and went right down the middle of State Street in Salt Lake City. That wasn’t too bad; the city sand bagged and kept the damage to a minimum.
In San Antonio flash floods whipped through the area, including one sorrowful incidence of a school bus caught in the path of the Guadalupe River as it swelled suddenly, sweeping several kids away.
Back in CA, we were there when San Francisco was hit with a huge earthquake. The damage was severe; a double decker freeway system collapsed, crushing the cars on the second level. I don’t remember how many people died, but it was far too many.
We took floods back to San Antonio with us, and then up to Saint Louis. Twice flood waters lapped up the steps leading to the Arch while we were there.
In 1996 we headed for Grand Forks, North Dakota. That winter they got 100+ inches of snow, several blizzards, including one that knocked the power out for a week (life is kinda chilly when ice is floating in your toilet.) That was a late season blizzard; just a couple weeks later it all melted, flooding the city to the point it had to be evacuated. Entire houses were under water. People lost everything.
You see the pattern here, right?
When we got orders to Wright-Patterson AFB, people told us the winters wouldn’t be bad; they get an inch here and there, but it melts after a day or so. Nothing major. Our neighbors all assured us the last few winters had been pretty mild; one said that if they got an inch of snow all totaled last year, he’d be surprised.
Well, we’ve had snow a couple times already, and some ice. Today it’s been raining, and as the temperature drops, that rain should turn to sleet, then snow. Anywhere from 2-6 inches. Lots of snow on top of ice. Should make driving fun in the morning.
Daytonians… this is our fault. If we had stayed in CA you’d be having a nice, mild winter, like last year. Since we’re here, tonight’s snow will probably hit the 6 inch mark, and it’ll be like this all winter.
We bring bad things.
If it’s not snow, it will be floods or fire, quite possible some famine and pestilence.
We’re sorry. Really.
It should only be 2-3 years. We’ll probably leave after that.
Unless we like it here, then we’ll retire and Dayton will just have to suck it up.
Everywhere we go, something happens. As high schoolers in Northern California, there was drought. Water was rationed, lawns went brown, and Folsom Lake began to shrink. The few odd rainy days were quite the treat, though never quite enough to make up for the dry days.
Then we went to Utah. They got enough snow that come spring, the runoff was so strong that the Jordan river overflowed and went right down the middle of State Street in Salt Lake City. That wasn’t too bad; the city sand bagged and kept the damage to a minimum.
In San Antonio flash floods whipped through the area, including one sorrowful incidence of a school bus caught in the path of the Guadalupe River as it swelled suddenly, sweeping several kids away.
Back in CA, we were there when San Francisco was hit with a huge earthquake. The damage was severe; a double decker freeway system collapsed, crushing the cars on the second level. I don’t remember how many people died, but it was far too many.
We took floods back to San Antonio with us, and then up to Saint Louis. Twice flood waters lapped up the steps leading to the Arch while we were there.
In 1996 we headed for Grand Forks, North Dakota. That winter they got 100+ inches of snow, several blizzards, including one that knocked the power out for a week (life is kinda chilly when ice is floating in your toilet.) That was a late season blizzard; just a couple weeks later it all melted, flooding the city to the point it had to be evacuated. Entire houses were under water. People lost everything.
You see the pattern here, right?
When we got orders to Wright-Patterson AFB, people told us the winters wouldn’t be bad; they get an inch here and there, but it melts after a day or so. Nothing major. Our neighbors all assured us the last few winters had been pretty mild; one said that if they got an inch of snow all totaled last year, he’d be surprised.
Well, we’ve had snow a couple times already, and some ice. Today it’s been raining, and as the temperature drops, that rain should turn to sleet, then snow. Anywhere from 2-6 inches. Lots of snow on top of ice. Should make driving fun in the morning.
Daytonians… this is our fault. If we had stayed in CA you’d be having a nice, mild winter, like last year. Since we’re here, tonight’s snow will probably hit the 6 inch mark, and it’ll be like this all winter.
We bring bad things.
If it’s not snow, it will be floods or fire, quite possible some famine and pestilence.
We’re sorry. Really.
It should only be 2-3 years. We’ll probably leave after that.
Unless we like it here, then we’ll retire and Dayton will just have to suck it up.
Wednesday
Ice, Ice, Baby
We had warning last night it was coming, freezing rain coating the streets, driveways, and porches, that would solidify even further during the cold night hours to form a slick layer of ice. We pulled the truck into the garage so the Spouse Thingy wouldn’t have to spend half an hour scraping the windshield off at 5 am, enjoying the knowledge that all but one of our neighbors would be out there in the cold, trying to create a decent sized visual field on their respective vehicles.
Wives were surely complaining to their husbands, “Their garage is cleaned out enough to park. When are you going to clean out ours?”
Sooner or later one of the husbands will wise up and point out that gender knows no bounds when it comes to cleaning out a garage; after all, most of them saw me hauling stuff in and out, creating ample truck space soon after we moved in. They know who did the grunt work.
Heh.
Like the weathermen promised, there was ice when I got up this morning. While Hank had his breakfast, I grabbed a king sized sheet and went outside, covering the back patio so that he wouldn’t slip. The guy that lives behind us was outside smoking his cigar, watching me, with that look of “what the heck are you doing?” And later, “you did that for your dog?”
Well, yeah. Hank is very old and falls a lot. A slip on the ice might be the last move he makes. I’d rather ruin a sheet than break the dog. And new sheets might be nice. Something bright purple. That would be cool.
Hank dutifully used the sheet as a mat, walked across it to the lawn, and walked back, avoiding the cement on either side. When he was done he came back in to the warmth of the living room, curled up on his big fluffy bed, and went to sleep. I peeked outside occasionally to see how bad it was getting; it never got really bad, but an hour later my neighbor was back outside with his dog. And a sheet on the patio.
It’s nice to start a trend.
By late afternoon it warmed up enough to melt the ice, but after eating dinner, when Hank goes out again, he waited at the back door, and looked up at me expectantly.
“There’s no more ice,” I told him. “Go on. It’s okay.”
He looked up.
I went and got the sheet, and spread it out for him again. As I was pulling the edges out, my foot hit a slippery patch and I almost went down. So I apologized to him for not wanting to get the sheet, his eyes are obviously still better than mine.
Or he’s just spoiled, and it was a coincidence.
Tomorrow it’s supposed to be near 40 degrees, so we’ll see if he sits by the door and waits for the sheet.
Watch him pee on the floor. Or worse.
At least there won’t be any ice. I need to go places, and I’m too big a wuss to drive on it. The effects of having flipped a truck over on the ice, I suppose.
But I’m still a wuss.
We had warning last night it was coming, freezing rain coating the streets, driveways, and porches, that would solidify even further during the cold night hours to form a slick layer of ice. We pulled the truck into the garage so the Spouse Thingy wouldn’t have to spend half an hour scraping the windshield off at 5 am, enjoying the knowledge that all but one of our neighbors would be out there in the cold, trying to create a decent sized visual field on their respective vehicles.
Wives were surely complaining to their husbands, “Their garage is cleaned out enough to park. When are you going to clean out ours?”
Sooner or later one of the husbands will wise up and point out that gender knows no bounds when it comes to cleaning out a garage; after all, most of them saw me hauling stuff in and out, creating ample truck space soon after we moved in. They know who did the grunt work.
Heh.
Like the weathermen promised, there was ice when I got up this morning. While Hank had his breakfast, I grabbed a king sized sheet and went outside, covering the back patio so that he wouldn’t slip. The guy that lives behind us was outside smoking his cigar, watching me, with that look of “what the heck are you doing?” And later, “you did that for your dog?”
Well, yeah. Hank is very old and falls a lot. A slip on the ice might be the last move he makes. I’d rather ruin a sheet than break the dog. And new sheets might be nice. Something bright purple. That would be cool.
Hank dutifully used the sheet as a mat, walked across it to the lawn, and walked back, avoiding the cement on either side. When he was done he came back in to the warmth of the living room, curled up on his big fluffy bed, and went to sleep. I peeked outside occasionally to see how bad it was getting; it never got really bad, but an hour later my neighbor was back outside with his dog. And a sheet on the patio.
It’s nice to start a trend.
By late afternoon it warmed up enough to melt the ice, but after eating dinner, when Hank goes out again, he waited at the back door, and looked up at me expectantly.
“There’s no more ice,” I told him. “Go on. It’s okay.”
He looked up.
I went and got the sheet, and spread it out for him again. As I was pulling the edges out, my foot hit a slippery patch and I almost went down. So I apologized to him for not wanting to get the sheet, his eyes are obviously still better than mine.
Or he’s just spoiled, and it was a coincidence.
Tomorrow it’s supposed to be near 40 degrees, so we’ll see if he sits by the door and waits for the sheet.
Watch him pee on the floor. Or worse.
At least there won’t be any ice. I need to go places, and I’m too big a wuss to drive on it. The effects of having flipped a truck over on the ice, I suppose.
But I’m still a wuss.
Thursday
Ho, Ho, Ho, It’s Just Snow
When it snowed in San Antonio, January 1985, it was understandable that a mere 13 inches shut the city down. After all, snow is not what you expect in southern Texas, and the city has no snow removal equipment. Nor do many people there know how to drive in it. Closing schools, businesses, even the Interstate, makes sense when a foot of snow hits in a normally warm place.
Now, this being Dayton, Ohio, you’d think a little snow would be no big deal. At least I wouldn’t think so. Maybe I’m just a little surprised, having lived in North Dakota for three years. When they got snow, they got snow. Three foot drifts across the driveway were nothing unusual. The Boy was 14 and learned to drive in snow there; when he was 15 he was driving after 5-6 inches had fallen with no appreciable problems. He slid off the road once, but that was on ice and a sharp curve, and there was a lot of snow at that point.
Last night we got maybe two inches of snow. It’s kind of pretty outside, but it’s nothing to blink twice at. Just little bit of nice fluffy white stuff.
Schools were delayed a couple of hours today, if not completely closed. Kids were outside playing, throwing snowballs, knocking our Christmas decorations over, sledding down the hill behind the house. They were home, having fun, and not in school, learning about math and English and the science of 1 small hill + 2 kids on slick cardboard = smashing into someone else’s fence.
(There’s a guy on TV who just said “Ice and snow are slippery.” No! Say it isn’t so!)
I wonder what’ll happen if we get a foot of snow here…
Spouse Thingy and I may be the only two brave enough to venture outside ;)
When it snowed in San Antonio, January 1985, it was understandable that a mere 13 inches shut the city down. After all, snow is not what you expect in southern Texas, and the city has no snow removal equipment. Nor do many people there know how to drive in it. Closing schools, businesses, even the Interstate, makes sense when a foot of snow hits in a normally warm place.
Now, this being Dayton, Ohio, you’d think a little snow would be no big deal. At least I wouldn’t think so. Maybe I’m just a little surprised, having lived in North Dakota for three years. When they got snow, they got snow. Three foot drifts across the driveway were nothing unusual. The Boy was 14 and learned to drive in snow there; when he was 15 he was driving after 5-6 inches had fallen with no appreciable problems. He slid off the road once, but that was on ice and a sharp curve, and there was a lot of snow at that point.
Last night we got maybe two inches of snow. It’s kind of pretty outside, but it’s nothing to blink twice at. Just little bit of nice fluffy white stuff.
Schools were delayed a couple of hours today, if not completely closed. Kids were outside playing, throwing snowballs, knocking our Christmas decorations over, sledding down the hill behind the house. They were home, having fun, and not in school, learning about math and English and the science of 1 small hill + 2 kids on slick cardboard = smashing into someone else’s fence.
(There’s a guy on TV who just said “Ice and snow are slippery.” No! Say it isn’t so!)
I wonder what’ll happen if we get a foot of snow here…
Spouse Thingy and I may be the only two brave enough to venture outside ;)
Tuesday
Tis The Season To Be…
…mean? Roughy over at Unrealistic Expectations had a Really Nice Idea -- use his website to start a little fundraiser, and collect $500 for people who really need stuff this time of year.
It is a nice idea. It’s a pretty bowl of Holiday Cheerios that a few people seem to have some pressing need to pee in. They’re harping at him, suggesting he should just cough up the $500 himself and quit bugging everyone else for donations.
Eh? In what world does putting a suggestion on a website and inviting people to participate constitute bugging? It’s a simple enough idea: If you want to kick in $5, then kick in $5. If you don’t, that’s fine, too.
I just don’t understand people sometimes.
…stupid? I was at a store (not to be named 'cause some people don’t need to know where I was shopping) yesterday, and overheard a woman talking to her small child. It was late afternoon, and I gathered from what the child was saying that they had not yet had lunch. The kid was hungry, and was letting her know in a typical 4 year old way: he whined a little. Just a little. “Mommmmmmy, can we go eat now? I’m hunnnngry.”
He didn’t cry. He didn’t stomp his feet. He didn’t scream or kick or hit or bite. He just asked, with a tiny little bit of whine in his voice, if they could go eat.
Her answer? “If you don’t shut up I’m telling Santa what an awful little boy you are, and you won’t get anything for Christmas.”
I don’t care if the kid had been a pain in the ass all day. You don’t talk to a kid that way and you don’t threaten them with cruelty. Sure, my kid drove me nuts a few times over the years, but it never would have occurred to me to be so snotty to him. I saved “Santa is watching you” until he was well into his teens.
Just… damn…
…cute. The other day I went to McDonald’s to have a soda, and sit at a table in the corner to work. I take a notebook and make notes about the manuscript I’m working on; changing my environment helps quite a bit, so I tend to go sit in fast food places to work.
While I was sitting there, an older woman and her two granddaughters sat at a nearby table. I was engrossed in my notes until my ear perked up at one of the little girls talking. She asked of the older woman, very sweetly, “do you have someone who loves you?”
“Yes,” she answered, “Grandpa loves me very much.”
The little girl clenched her hands to her chest and squealed “Oh, that is just so wonderful!”
I was not the only one trying not to laugh out loud. Ten tables all around me erupted in hushed snickers.
Yep, kiddo, that is so wonderful.
…funny. We put up 95% of our outside Christmas decorations the other day (and yes, it was cold! We try to do it up right – we have 5 artificial trees that we light and place in the yard, we string lights along the gutters, we have a snowman and penguin and polar bear that light up and are in front of the tree. By the time we’re done, there are enough lights for an airplane to use as a navigational point.
While the Spouse Thingy was staking the last tree into place, a neighbor’s kid opened their door too peek outside; he turned around and yelled into the house “Dad… they’re gonna make us look bad!”
Heh. That wasn’t intentional, but it’s nice to know, anyway.
…kind. Just be kind. Don’t let people piss you off, don’t get mad even if you feel rushed. Just let the season happen. Drop a quarter into the red bucket even if the bell ringer annoys you. Hold doors for people.
And smile. ‘Tis the season, after all.
…mean? Roughy over at Unrealistic Expectations had a Really Nice Idea -- use his website to start a little fundraiser, and collect $500 for people who really need stuff this time of year.
It is a nice idea. It’s a pretty bowl of Holiday Cheerios that a few people seem to have some pressing need to pee in. They’re harping at him, suggesting he should just cough up the $500 himself and quit bugging everyone else for donations.
Eh? In what world does putting a suggestion on a website and inviting people to participate constitute bugging? It’s a simple enough idea: If you want to kick in $5, then kick in $5. If you don’t, that’s fine, too.
I just don’t understand people sometimes.
…stupid? I was at a store (not to be named 'cause some people don’t need to know where I was shopping) yesterday, and overheard a woman talking to her small child. It was late afternoon, and I gathered from what the child was saying that they had not yet had lunch. The kid was hungry, and was letting her know in a typical 4 year old way: he whined a little. Just a little. “Mommmmmmy, can we go eat now? I’m hunnnngry.”
He didn’t cry. He didn’t stomp his feet. He didn’t scream or kick or hit or bite. He just asked, with a tiny little bit of whine in his voice, if they could go eat.
Her answer? “If you don’t shut up I’m telling Santa what an awful little boy you are, and you won’t get anything for Christmas.”
I don’t care if the kid had been a pain in the ass all day. You don’t talk to a kid that way and you don’t threaten them with cruelty. Sure, my kid drove me nuts a few times over the years, but it never would have occurred to me to be so snotty to him. I saved “Santa is watching you” until he was well into his teens.
Just… damn…
…cute. The other day I went to McDonald’s to have a soda, and sit at a table in the corner to work. I take a notebook and make notes about the manuscript I’m working on; changing my environment helps quite a bit, so I tend to go sit in fast food places to work.
While I was sitting there, an older woman and her two granddaughters sat at a nearby table. I was engrossed in my notes until my ear perked up at one of the little girls talking. She asked of the older woman, very sweetly, “do you have someone who loves you?”
“Yes,” she answered, “Grandpa loves me very much.”
The little girl clenched her hands to her chest and squealed “Oh, that is just so wonderful!”
I was not the only one trying not to laugh out loud. Ten tables all around me erupted in hushed snickers.
Yep, kiddo, that is so wonderful.
…funny. We put up 95% of our outside Christmas decorations the other day (and yes, it was cold! We try to do it up right – we have 5 artificial trees that we light and place in the yard, we string lights along the gutters, we have a snowman and penguin and polar bear that light up and are in front of the tree. By the time we’re done, there are enough lights for an airplane to use as a navigational point.
While the Spouse Thingy was staking the last tree into place, a neighbor’s kid opened their door too peek outside; he turned around and yelled into the house “Dad… they’re gonna make us look bad!”
Heh. That wasn’t intentional, but it’s nice to know, anyway.
…kind. Just be kind. Don’t let people piss you off, don’t get mad even if you feel rushed. Just let the season happen. Drop a quarter into the red bucket even if the bell ringer annoys you. Hold doors for people.
And smile. ‘Tis the season, after all.
Saturday
Jack Frost Nipping At Your…
It’s cold. I mean really cold. It’s so cold that if I were to start sweating, I’d probably have icicles hanging from my nipples. It’s cold enough I remember the One Bad Thing about living in North Dakota – all that shivering. You’d think the more one shivered the warmer one would get, but no. I shiver and my goosebumps just grow more goosebumps.
If we were in North Dakota, I’m sure it would be even colder. Right now it’s 25 degrees Fahrenheit outside, that’s cold enough, dammit. It can warm up now. I’ll forgo a white Christmas (which sounds like it’s hit and miss here for that anyway) to be warm. We want to put up Christmas decorations tomorrow, but sheesh, it’s gonna be cold again!
The one nice thing was snow today. It was fluffy and white and pretty and it didn’t stick to the roads. Little kids were outside, running with their little arms flung wide and mouths open, trying to catch snowflakes on their tongues.
But, trust me… don’t try that in the mall parking lot. People look at you funny and the Ricky Rangers start watching you very closely.
Eh, think how closely they’ll be looking when I start pulling those icicles off my nips…
It’s cold. I mean really cold. It’s so cold that if I were to start sweating, I’d probably have icicles hanging from my nipples. It’s cold enough I remember the One Bad Thing about living in North Dakota – all that shivering. You’d think the more one shivered the warmer one would get, but no. I shiver and my goosebumps just grow more goosebumps.
If we were in North Dakota, I’m sure it would be even colder. Right now it’s 25 degrees Fahrenheit outside, that’s cold enough, dammit. It can warm up now. I’ll forgo a white Christmas (which sounds like it’s hit and miss here for that anyway) to be warm. We want to put up Christmas decorations tomorrow, but sheesh, it’s gonna be cold again!
The one nice thing was snow today. It was fluffy and white and pretty and it didn’t stick to the roads. Little kids were outside, running with their little arms flung wide and mouths open, trying to catch snowflakes on their tongues.
But, trust me… don’t try that in the mall parking lot. People look at you funny and the Ricky Rangers start watching you very closely.
Eh, think how closely they’ll be looking when I start pulling those icicles off my nips…
Thursday
Monday
Drip, Drip, Drip...
I’ve written a little bit about having diabetes insipidus; I don’t think I’ve touched on any of the details, other than it was a symptom of the pituitary tumor and it basically meant I peed a lot. An awful lot. The last week or so people googling for information on symptoms of thirst and frequent urination have emailed me, wanting to know what it was like. What it is like. How they can differentiate between those symptoms and just a bad stretch of dehydration or peeing a lot.
The truth is, I have it and I don’t know a whole lot about it, other than how it affects me. The frequent urination came first – I think. I’m sure the rate increased and I didn’t pay particular attention until I was getting up five or six times a night and searching for the nearest restroom every hour. Then came the thirst. We’re not talking “I’ve been working out and I need extra water” thirst. We’re talking extreme thirst.
Violent thirst.
Painful, painful thirst.
I’m not sure I can do justice to a description of what this type of thirst feels like. I can tell you that I would drink until my stomach could hold no more, and I’d be miserable until enough left my stomach that I could drink more. I can tell you that we’d be out driving and I’d have to stop at the first soda machine we could find and I’d buy 3 cans of cold tea and down them all in about 4 minutes, and want for more. I can tell you that we’d be in a fast food place and the Spouse Thingy would get in line while I sat down and fidgeted endlessly, like a junkie waiting for a fix, until he could pay for a drink cup – then I’d be able to get unlimited refills. I never got ice; ice took up precious beverage space.
Imagine the worst sunburn you’ve ever gotten. Your skin flaming red, searingly hot, blistering, peeling in drying, blackened layers. With untreated diabetes insipidus your mouth and throat feel like that, and no matter how much you drink, how often you try to sooth the pain, it doesn’t go away.
So you drink. And drink. And drink.
Then you have to get rid of what you had to drink. In copious amounts. Every 15 –30 minutes.
The average adult urinates 6 times a day and drinks 2 liters of fluid. If you’re going 20 times or more and drinking a couple of gallons a day, there’s an obvious problem that needs to be addressed. The first thought is probably diabetes mellitus (“sugar” diabetes) but if your blood sugar levels come back normal, investigating diabetes insipidus (“water” diabetes) might be worthwhile.
I wish I knew more and could be more helpful; mostly what I know is that I have it, I can manage it with a daily dose of DDAVP (Desmopressin), and I know what it feels like when the medication wears off. I know I have to monitor my weight for sudden fluctuations and pay attention to how much fluid I take in. I know what will happen if I stop taking the DDAVP and don’t keep hydrated (blood sodium levels will skyrocket, and if that doesn’t kill me, thickening blood might). I wear a medical alert bracelet in case I’m unconscious and can’t tell an ER doc I have it – something that would be important were the DDAVP to wear off while under emergency care.
A good place to start looking for information is The Diabetes Insipidus Foundation.
And if you have symptoms of extreme thirst and frequent urination, don’t take a “wait and see” stance. Get it checked out. Now.
Please.
I’ve written a little bit about having diabetes insipidus; I don’t think I’ve touched on any of the details, other than it was a symptom of the pituitary tumor and it basically meant I peed a lot. An awful lot. The last week or so people googling for information on symptoms of thirst and frequent urination have emailed me, wanting to know what it was like. What it is like. How they can differentiate between those symptoms and just a bad stretch of dehydration or peeing a lot.
The truth is, I have it and I don’t know a whole lot about it, other than how it affects me. The frequent urination came first – I think. I’m sure the rate increased and I didn’t pay particular attention until I was getting up five or six times a night and searching for the nearest restroom every hour. Then came the thirst. We’re not talking “I’ve been working out and I need extra water” thirst. We’re talking extreme thirst.
Violent thirst.
Painful, painful thirst.
I’m not sure I can do justice to a description of what this type of thirst feels like. I can tell you that I would drink until my stomach could hold no more, and I’d be miserable until enough left my stomach that I could drink more. I can tell you that we’d be out driving and I’d have to stop at the first soda machine we could find and I’d buy 3 cans of cold tea and down them all in about 4 minutes, and want for more. I can tell you that we’d be in a fast food place and the Spouse Thingy would get in line while I sat down and fidgeted endlessly, like a junkie waiting for a fix, until he could pay for a drink cup – then I’d be able to get unlimited refills. I never got ice; ice took up precious beverage space.
Imagine the worst sunburn you’ve ever gotten. Your skin flaming red, searingly hot, blistering, peeling in drying, blackened layers. With untreated diabetes insipidus your mouth and throat feel like that, and no matter how much you drink, how often you try to sooth the pain, it doesn’t go away.
So you drink. And drink. And drink.
Then you have to get rid of what you had to drink. In copious amounts. Every 15 –30 minutes.
The average adult urinates 6 times a day and drinks 2 liters of fluid. If you’re going 20 times or more and drinking a couple of gallons a day, there’s an obvious problem that needs to be addressed. The first thought is probably diabetes mellitus (“sugar” diabetes) but if your blood sugar levels come back normal, investigating diabetes insipidus (“water” diabetes) might be worthwhile.
I wish I knew more and could be more helpful; mostly what I know is that I have it, I can manage it with a daily dose of DDAVP (Desmopressin), and I know what it feels like when the medication wears off. I know I have to monitor my weight for sudden fluctuations and pay attention to how much fluid I take in. I know what will happen if I stop taking the DDAVP and don’t keep hydrated (blood sodium levels will skyrocket, and if that doesn’t kill me, thickening blood might). I wear a medical alert bracelet in case I’m unconscious and can’t tell an ER doc I have it – something that would be important were the DDAVP to wear off while under emergency care.
A good place to start looking for information is The Diabetes Insipidus Foundation.
And if you have symptoms of extreme thirst and frequent urination, don’t take a “wait and see” stance. Get it checked out. Now.
Please.
Friday
=:-(
=sigh=
Ok, I’m a wimp. A big one.
I had an MRI scheduled for today; I even went, all by myself, no problems. I sat there in the waiting room, calmly, watching CNN. The tech told me they were running a few minutes late; that was no problem. I had nowhere I had to be. When they were ready for me I handed her my Bare Naked Ladies CD, locked up my watch and other assorted crap in a locker, and went into the room, where I plopped my ass down on the table and laid back, let her slide me into the tube…
…where I promptly freaked out. I lasted a grand 15 seconds in that tube.
The nice med tech didn’t laugh at me, she just let me reschedule for mid-December, leaving me enough time to get a scrip for valium from my doc. The last MRI I had, I’d been given valium and did fine. I thought I could get through it by closing my eyes, but that didn’t work out at all.
Wuss.
=sigh=
=sigh=
Ok, I’m a wimp. A big one.
I had an MRI scheduled for today; I even went, all by myself, no problems. I sat there in the waiting room, calmly, watching CNN. The tech told me they were running a few minutes late; that was no problem. I had nowhere I had to be. When they were ready for me I handed her my Bare Naked Ladies CD, locked up my watch and other assorted crap in a locker, and went into the room, where I plopped my ass down on the table and laid back, let her slide me into the tube…
…where I promptly freaked out. I lasted a grand 15 seconds in that tube.
The nice med tech didn’t laugh at me, she just let me reschedule for mid-December, leaving me enough time to get a scrip for valium from my doc. The last MRI I had, I’d been given valium and did fine. I thought I could get through it by closing my eyes, but that didn’t work out at all.
Wuss.
=sigh=
Thursday
The Tooth, The Whole Tooth, and Nothing But The Tooth
Bleh.
One of my biggest phobias is going to the dentist. Usually I have someone go with me, mostly to make sure that I actually go, that I don’t get to the parking lot and chicken out. And if I were to have a full blown panic attack, complete with passing out or curling into a tight, wimpering ball, it would be nice to have someone there to throw a glass of water on me.
I had to go today. Having an escort wasn’t an option. The Spouse Thingy had to work, and the Boy is clear across the country, so I had to suck it up and bravely venture out on my own. Chickening out wasn’t an option, either; I have a broken tooth that needs to be taken care of.
So, I went. I got in my little purple rolling grape and drove to a dentist I was assured was great with complete wusses. The entire appointment took only about 20 minutes, just long enough to be x-rayed and told “the tooth cannot be saved.”
Well, that’s just craptastic.
My options? Have it extracted, either at her office or by an oral surgeon, then get an implant onto which a crown can be placed. This not only means I have to go back, but I have to endure Really Painful Things. Being the World’s Biggest Dental Weenie, this is a problem. I’ll probably go catatonic two weeks before I have to have the tooth removed.
Double bleh.
Tomorrow I have a MRI, just a peek inside my head to make sure there’s nothing growing there that shouldn’t be. I’m not worried about this one, mostly because the tumor they yanked out in June was a type that never (ever?) recurs.
But the dental thing…
=sigh=
Idontwannagoagain…
Bleh.
One of my biggest phobias is going to the dentist. Usually I have someone go with me, mostly to make sure that I actually go, that I don’t get to the parking lot and chicken out. And if I were to have a full blown panic attack, complete with passing out or curling into a tight, wimpering ball, it would be nice to have someone there to throw a glass of water on me.
I had to go today. Having an escort wasn’t an option. The Spouse Thingy had to work, and the Boy is clear across the country, so I had to suck it up and bravely venture out on my own. Chickening out wasn’t an option, either; I have a broken tooth that needs to be taken care of.
So, I went. I got in my little purple rolling grape and drove to a dentist I was assured was great with complete wusses. The entire appointment took only about 20 minutes, just long enough to be x-rayed and told “the tooth cannot be saved.”
Well, that’s just craptastic.
My options? Have it extracted, either at her office or by an oral surgeon, then get an implant onto which a crown can be placed. This not only means I have to go back, but I have to endure Really Painful Things. Being the World’s Biggest Dental Weenie, this is a problem. I’ll probably go catatonic two weeks before I have to have the tooth removed.
Double bleh.
Tomorrow I have a MRI, just a peek inside my head to make sure there’s nothing growing there that shouldn’t be. I’m not worried about this one, mostly because the tumor they yanked out in June was a type that never (ever?) recurs.
But the dental thing…
=sigh=
Idontwannagoagain…
Wednesday
But I Don't Do Anchovies...
Apparently, the inside of my nose smells good.
That’s the only conclusion I can come to, after being woken up the past three mornings by the cat trying to stuff his face up my nose, while sniffing as if a fish factory had opened up for business in my sinuses. The notion was just reinforced; the little furball was lying on the bed and I bent over to pet him, and =wham= his little nose was trying to jam its way into mine.
One of these days he’s going to do that and sneeze, I just know it…
Apparently, the inside of my nose smells good.
That’s the only conclusion I can come to, after being woken up the past three mornings by the cat trying to stuff his face up my nose, while sniffing as if a fish factory had opened up for business in my sinuses. The notion was just reinforced; the little furball was lying on the bed and I bent over to pet him, and =wham= his little nose was trying to jam its way into mine.
One of these days he’s going to do that and sneeze, I just know it…
Sunday
It’s Cold, and My Balls Are Blue
Ok, I only have one blue ball, but it weighs 16 pounds. And it was cold, very cold, when the Spouse Thingy and I decided to play with it today. I jammed two fingers and a thumb into that sucker, took a few steps, and let it fly.
Get your mind out of the gutter. I’m not equipped for those kind of balls…
We went bowling today. It’s fricking cold outside – there are even a few snow flurries in the air – and there was nothing playing at the theater we wanted to see (other than the new Harry Potter movie, but we’re not nuts enough to try to see in on the opening weekend), so we decided to pick up our balls and go bowling.
When we bowl frequently, we’re both decent bowlers. Not stellar, but we don’t suck either. I think we both have averages around 155-160. The problem is, because of my health problems, we haven’t bowled much over the last few years. We wanted to get into a league at the beginning of this fall, but I was still recovering from surgery and wasn’t sure I could safely fling a 16 pound ball around. I had visions of flinging the ball down the lane and having my brains squirt out my nose and ears.
Today was Family Day at the base bowling alley. For $6 each, we could bowl 3 games, and get a free soda and slice of pizza. That’s a decent deal, when you consider that other wise it would have been $2.40 a game. Yeah, that’s way too expensive for bowling, but I suppose the days of a dollar a line are long gone – and crud, I remember when that was considered too much.. We paid our $12, put our ugly-ass shoes on, grabbed the balls, and started to play.
When my hands are cold, they shrink. I think. All I know is that I can’t grip the ball well and it slips quite a bit – a few times in North Dakota I lost the grip on my ball on the back swing and sent people scurrying for cover. Today it just resulted in 2 sucky games, and one decent one.
Still, sucky games and all, it’s a fun way to spend an hour or two, even better when you get free pizza. Better still when the pizza doesn’t suck anywhere near as much as your game does.
With the cold weather – aside from not being able to grip my ball very well – we were both reminded that the holidays are zooming in on us. We started Christmas shopping, and have picked up a few gifts for the Boy that we’re pretty sure he’ll like. This is my favorite time of year, the smell of winter in the air, finding the perfect gifts for people, watching little kids get excited in the mall when they spot Santa sitting there, waiting to hear their wishes.
I wonder if Santa can bring me a decent bowling game…
Ok, I only have one blue ball, but it weighs 16 pounds. And it was cold, very cold, when the Spouse Thingy and I decided to play with it today. I jammed two fingers and a thumb into that sucker, took a few steps, and let it fly.
Get your mind out of the gutter. I’m not equipped for those kind of balls…
We went bowling today. It’s fricking cold outside – there are even a few snow flurries in the air – and there was nothing playing at the theater we wanted to see (other than the new Harry Potter movie, but we’re not nuts enough to try to see in on the opening weekend), so we decided to pick up our balls and go bowling.
When we bowl frequently, we’re both decent bowlers. Not stellar, but we don’t suck either. I think we both have averages around 155-160. The problem is, because of my health problems, we haven’t bowled much over the last few years. We wanted to get into a league at the beginning of this fall, but I was still recovering from surgery and wasn’t sure I could safely fling a 16 pound ball around. I had visions of flinging the ball down the lane and having my brains squirt out my nose and ears.
Today was Family Day at the base bowling alley. For $6 each, we could bowl 3 games, and get a free soda and slice of pizza. That’s a decent deal, when you consider that other wise it would have been $2.40 a game. Yeah, that’s way too expensive for bowling, but I suppose the days of a dollar a line are long gone – and crud, I remember when that was considered too much.. We paid our $12, put our ugly-ass shoes on, grabbed the balls, and started to play.
When my hands are cold, they shrink. I think. All I know is that I can’t grip the ball well and it slips quite a bit – a few times in North Dakota I lost the grip on my ball on the back swing and sent people scurrying for cover. Today it just resulted in 2 sucky games, and one decent one.
Still, sucky games and all, it’s a fun way to spend an hour or two, even better when you get free pizza. Better still when the pizza doesn’t suck anywhere near as much as your game does.
With the cold weather – aside from not being able to grip my ball very well – we were both reminded that the holidays are zooming in on us. We started Christmas shopping, and have picked up a few gifts for the Boy that we’re pretty sure he’ll like. This is my favorite time of year, the smell of winter in the air, finding the perfect gifts for people, watching little kids get excited in the mall when they spot Santa sitting there, waiting to hear their wishes.
I wonder if Santa can bring me a decent bowling game…
Friday
:::Scratches Head:::
Okay... yesterday I tried to make a very small change in my blog template -- I tried to add a bold tag -- and the whole thing hosed up. I managed to out the template back the way it was, but for some reason on 2 out of 3 browsers I viewed the page in, the typeface is suddenly huge. I can't figure out why; the code is identical to previous blog versions. I personally don't like the larger font, but until I can figure it out, I think I'm stuck with it.
If you have a clue what went wrong, please let me know.
Okay... yesterday I tried to make a very small change in my blog template -- I tried to add a bold tag -- and the whole thing hosed up. I managed to out the template back the way it was, but for some reason on 2 out of 3 browsers I viewed the page in, the typeface is suddenly huge. I can't figure out why; the code is identical to previous blog versions. I personally don't like the larger font, but until I can figure it out, I think I'm stuck with it.
If you have a clue what went wrong, please let me know.
Thursday
Gr8GrapeOnAnAxel!
Finally. I have a car. Wheels. Something to get me from point A to point B without having to wait for the Spouse Thingy to get off work.
We almost missed the ad for it; I’d read the comics and was casually going through the classifieds, looking for the big “New Today” icons. It was in a list of cars available at a local dealership, listed right after a 1985 Honda Civic for $495.
Heck, we had to go just to see what kind of car can be found at a dealership for under five hundred.
Think rust. And lots of it.
I thin they keep the Civic there to show people so that when they turn around and see the other cheap car, they feel much better about it. In our case, the other cheap car turned out to be a very nice looking ’95 Hyundai Accent. Only 78,000 miles. Ran very well, has a gas friendly 4 cylinder engine. And it’s purple.
Not just purple, but purple. Zooming down the interstate, it must look like a Concord Grape on wheels.
It’s not perfect; it runs like a 7 year old cheap-ass car, lots of noise, but it runs well. The brake pads probably need to be replaced. And it’s not a convertible, something I still covet. But it’ll get me to doctor appointments and dentist appointments (broke a tooth, dammit), and it’ll get me out of the house.
Ooh yeah.
Look out Dayton.
Thumpa’s got wheels.
Finally. I have a car. Wheels. Something to get me from point A to point B without having to wait for the Spouse Thingy to get off work.
We almost missed the ad for it; I’d read the comics and was casually going through the classifieds, looking for the big “New Today” icons. It was in a list of cars available at a local dealership, listed right after a 1985 Honda Civic for $495.
Heck, we had to go just to see what kind of car can be found at a dealership for under five hundred.
Think rust. And lots of it.
I thin they keep the Civic there to show people so that when they turn around and see the other cheap car, they feel much better about it. In our case, the other cheap car turned out to be a very nice looking ’95 Hyundai Accent. Only 78,000 miles. Ran very well, has a gas friendly 4 cylinder engine. And it’s purple.
Not just purple, but purple. Zooming down the interstate, it must look like a Concord Grape on wheels.
It’s not perfect; it runs like a 7 year old cheap-ass car, lots of noise, but it runs well. The brake pads probably need to be replaced. And it’s not a convertible, something I still covet. But it’ll get me to doctor appointments and dentist appointments (broke a tooth, dammit), and it’ll get me out of the house.
Ooh yeah.
Look out Dayton.
Thumpa’s got wheels.
Wednesday
Friday
Good Manners 101
By the time my son was two years old, he had learned some basic etiquette. Don’t pick your nose in front of Grandma. Don’t show us the chewed food in your mouth. Don’t take someone else’s toy without asking first. And don’t talk during a movie unless your hair is on fire.
It was easy enough to teach him this. We looked down at that little face, smiled nicely, and said “Don’t talk once the movie starts. If you need to, whisper, and we’ll take you to the lobby.” It was that easy. If he’d talked, we would have left the theater. Once or twice would have drilled the lesson in.
The Spouse Thingy and I went to see a movie today. Santa Clause 2. Fun movie, a good sequel… that would have been better if not for the chatter behind us.
Now, we knew going in there would be a lot of kids there. It started at 3:30, a perfect time to bring kids. Right after school and before dinner. Kids whispering and giggling and laughing out loud doesn’t really bother either one of us, especially when it’s an appropriate movie for kids and it’s just downright funny. And kids sometimes have questions, and don’t stop to think… they just ask.
Behind us sat two adults and two kids. The kids were pretty good. Laughed a lot, whispered a few times. Tolerable.
Their mother, however, would not shut up. She spoke loudly, commented on stupid little things in the movie – “oh, no, he’s going to run out of magic!” – and laughed far too loud than was appropriate – a “oh, kids, this is funny and I think you’re too stupid to figure that out on your own, so let me show you!” kind of laugh. She was verbal enough that I was starting to get pissed off, truly pissed off, and the Spouse Thingy was visibly annoyed. At one point he finally turned around and asked her to turn the volume down.
It worked for about 10 minutes.
This was not a child, this was a grown woman who had kids of her own. Kiddie matinee or not, there was no excuse for it, and the only thing she’s teaching her kids is that it’s perfectly all right to disrupt someone else’s good time, even when they ask you, fairly nicely, to stop.
In any case, the movie was good. I coulda bitch-slapped the lady, but… The holidays are coming, I don’t want to spend them in jail.
By the time my son was two years old, he had learned some basic etiquette. Don’t pick your nose in front of Grandma. Don’t show us the chewed food in your mouth. Don’t take someone else’s toy without asking first. And don’t talk during a movie unless your hair is on fire.
It was easy enough to teach him this. We looked down at that little face, smiled nicely, and said “Don’t talk once the movie starts. If you need to, whisper, and we’ll take you to the lobby.” It was that easy. If he’d talked, we would have left the theater. Once or twice would have drilled the lesson in.
The Spouse Thingy and I went to see a movie today. Santa Clause 2. Fun movie, a good sequel… that would have been better if not for the chatter behind us.
Now, we knew going in there would be a lot of kids there. It started at 3:30, a perfect time to bring kids. Right after school and before dinner. Kids whispering and giggling and laughing out loud doesn’t really bother either one of us, especially when it’s an appropriate movie for kids and it’s just downright funny. And kids sometimes have questions, and don’t stop to think… they just ask.
Behind us sat two adults and two kids. The kids were pretty good. Laughed a lot, whispered a few times. Tolerable.
Their mother, however, would not shut up. She spoke loudly, commented on stupid little things in the movie – “oh, no, he’s going to run out of magic!” – and laughed far too loud than was appropriate – a “oh, kids, this is funny and I think you’re too stupid to figure that out on your own, so let me show you!” kind of laugh. She was verbal enough that I was starting to get pissed off, truly pissed off, and the Spouse Thingy was visibly annoyed. At one point he finally turned around and asked her to turn the volume down.
It worked for about 10 minutes.
This was not a child, this was a grown woman who had kids of her own. Kiddie matinee or not, there was no excuse for it, and the only thing she’s teaching her kids is that it’s perfectly all right to disrupt someone else’s good time, even when they ask you, fairly nicely, to stop.
In any case, the movie was good. I coulda bitch-slapped the lady, but… The holidays are coming, I don’t want to spend them in jail.
Tuesday
Diabetes Insipidus 101
I’ve spent the last couple of days surfing for information on Diabetes Insipidus. I know the basics from experience: you pee a lot, it dehydrates you, makes you incredibly thirsty, so you drink a lot, and then you pee a lot. Pretty simple.
And I know what caused it for me – the pituitary tumor. The mass was on the stalk of the pituitary, which inhibited its ability to produce Vasopressin, which is the body’s antidiuretic hormone. Without it, the kidneys don’t know when to hold water – so they just release it. A lot of it.
I learned quite a bit while surfing for DI info.
I thought that it was really only something people got who had pit tumors or brain injuries. Yet 25% of all DI cases are idiopathic – meaning there is no apparent cause. Some are genetic. DI appears in animals. And sadly, in small children who often go a very, very long time without being diagnosed.
Knowing how uncomfortable untreated DI is, this really breaks my heart. The thirst you get with this is like no other thirst there is. Nothing quenches it – you can drink until you throw up, and you still need to drink more. Little kids, who pee a lot and have accidents anyway, are often tormented by having liquids withheld – the idea being that if this kid doesn’t drink so much, he won’t pee so much.
That’s like torture. Some of these kids get so desperate for liquid they get caught drinking out of the toilet.
It’s been a sort of running joke that if my medication wears off I’ll stick my head in an aquarium in a store and suck all the water out, leaving only an inch for the fish. I never thought about a small child, frantic for something to drink, in those terms. Can you imagine? Being so completely desperate that you’d stick you head inside a toilet to drink? And you’d drink it dry, and still want more…
Frequent urination and increased thirst are signs of both diabetes mellitus (the more commonly known diabetes, sometimes called “sugar diabetes”) and diabetes insipidus (sometimes called “water diabetes” and “diabetes sip and piss.”) Both require medical attention. Both can kill you if left untreated.
If you have these symptoms, see a doc. The first thought will be diabetes mellitus, but if your blood sugars come back as normal, press for further testing. Find out the cause. And especially, most especially, if your child just can’t get enough to drink and pees like crazy, fight until you know why.
I know when my medication wears off, it becomes more than just a little uncomfortable. I can pee off 2-3 gallons a day and just can’t drink enough. I don’t sleep much because I get up every 30-45 minutes to use the restroom. The thirst hurts after a while. But I’m a grownup, I know why this happens and what I need to do to fix it. A child doesn’t.
I’ll be on the medication for the rest of my life. Every day. But at least it’s not as painful as not having it.
Damn. Poor kids.
I’ve spent the last couple of days surfing for information on Diabetes Insipidus. I know the basics from experience: you pee a lot, it dehydrates you, makes you incredibly thirsty, so you drink a lot, and then you pee a lot. Pretty simple.
And I know what caused it for me – the pituitary tumor. The mass was on the stalk of the pituitary, which inhibited its ability to produce Vasopressin, which is the body’s antidiuretic hormone. Without it, the kidneys don’t know when to hold water – so they just release it. A lot of it.
I learned quite a bit while surfing for DI info.
I thought that it was really only something people got who had pit tumors or brain injuries. Yet 25% of all DI cases are idiopathic – meaning there is no apparent cause. Some are genetic. DI appears in animals. And sadly, in small children who often go a very, very long time without being diagnosed.
Knowing how uncomfortable untreated DI is, this really breaks my heart. The thirst you get with this is like no other thirst there is. Nothing quenches it – you can drink until you throw up, and you still need to drink more. Little kids, who pee a lot and have accidents anyway, are often tormented by having liquids withheld – the idea being that if this kid doesn’t drink so much, he won’t pee so much.
That’s like torture. Some of these kids get so desperate for liquid they get caught drinking out of the toilet.
It’s been a sort of running joke that if my medication wears off I’ll stick my head in an aquarium in a store and suck all the water out, leaving only an inch for the fish. I never thought about a small child, frantic for something to drink, in those terms. Can you imagine? Being so completely desperate that you’d stick you head inside a toilet to drink? And you’d drink it dry, and still want more…
Frequent urination and increased thirst are signs of both diabetes mellitus (the more commonly known diabetes, sometimes called “sugar diabetes”) and diabetes insipidus (sometimes called “water diabetes” and “diabetes sip and piss.”) Both require medical attention. Both can kill you if left untreated.
If you have these symptoms, see a doc. The first thought will be diabetes mellitus, but if your blood sugars come back as normal, press for further testing. Find out the cause. And especially, most especially, if your child just can’t get enough to drink and pees like crazy, fight until you know why.
I know when my medication wears off, it becomes more than just a little uncomfortable. I can pee off 2-3 gallons a day and just can’t drink enough. I don’t sleep much because I get up every 30-45 minutes to use the restroom. The thirst hurts after a while. But I’m a grownup, I know why this happens and what I need to do to fix it. A child doesn’t.
I’ll be on the medication for the rest of my life. Every day. But at least it’s not as painful as not having it.
Damn. Poor kids.
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