BEING WELL GROOMED IS AN ASSET

When I was a kid , there was this old man who drove a beater station wagon and lived near me in the hills and made his living selling eggs from his chickens.He had a bumper sticker on the back of that wagon that is the title of this post.He hated that the boys of my generation wore their hair long , pierced ears mortified him ... he was old school.
I used to hitch hike a lot (because I was too cool to ride the bus) , and sometimes he would drive past my outstretched thumb like I wasn't there and on the days he was inspired he would pick me up and try to convince me to change my heathen ways.
His wagon reeked of chickens and dirt , the odor of a poultry farm ...he was a nice enough old man , he just didn't cotton to us hippies.
The first few rides he lectured me on the virtues of being well groomed ... and I would shoot back my opinion on that subject and after a while we would just talk about "stuff".
I remember him because in retrospect I think maybe he picked me up because he wanted to understand and connect with a generation that was obviously alien to him and beyond his grasp. I don't think he ever understood , but he tried and we connected on some level ...
And after a time I didn't see that old station wagon on Bee Caves road anymore and it made me sad ... he was gone.
But the memory remains 35 years down the road and I think I understand that old man and his bumper sticker now , being well groomed is an asset. But it's more a state of mind than a standard of hygiene.

STORIES ABOUT BEING 'FACED

Way...and I mean WAY back in the day some friend's of mine were visiting from Colorado for the pecan street festival here and we had consumed mushrooms , weed , alcohol and we were basically trippin' balls when one of my friends busted out some ginseng extract. evil energy in a little glass vial.
We were eating pizza at the time and laughing so hard...I shot one down and then had to have another.And then it was technicolor yawn time...instantly...I jumped from my chair and made a break for the half bathroom...as soon as I ran into the laundry room I was Linda Blair in the exorcist and projectile vomited the entire contents of my gut on the washer and dryer...the walls... the doorway to the half bath...the walls...the toilet seat...the sink...it was everywhere.and then I was done.
I stood there for a minute and started laughing again...looking at the pizza / frozen marg /stems of mushrooms / and the black satan that is ginseng extract. I made everyone come and look at it...at that moment it was some mad art.
After some teasing with my then girl about who was gonna clean it up , I cleaned it up.
We then attempted a game of darts in the back yard but ended up throwing a claw hammer at a tree branch...with the goal of hanging the hammer claw side in to the tree.
One of my friends broke his wristwatch , which was exceedingly funny under the circumstances.
We lived in a duplex and the back yards were separated by a chain link fence covered in vines...an adult brother and sister lived next door and I was loudly talking about my imagined incestuous relationship they were having to my friends..."Oh...no doubt...they are fucking each other BIGTIME..all the time".
Turned out the brother was sitting on his patio and heard every word
not to mention witnessing our kill the tree with the claw hammer game.
At some point my girl herded us back inside.
One of my prouder moments.
Not really...but when you are young and crazy...damn.
The memories.
:)

Better
That last post was pretty negative, but no doubt it was due to the fact that I was physically exhausted, grumpy, and very sleep-deprived. I managed to get a bit more sleep/rest this weekend with a bit of fun thrown in and that makes for a better outlook at this moment. It's not that the situation has changed much, it's just that it all looks better from a more rested perspective. That said, it's gonna be another hell of a work week, much worse than last week, but I'm optimistic that I'll have a better handle on things this go around.

Interesting times
Juggling two jobs has proved challenging. It's not the number of hours worked so much as it is the coordination of the work hours between the two. And even that wouldn't have been a problem if my scanning job workload hadn't suddenly and unexpectedly tripled. I'm grateful for the extra hours, but it's caused me to end up with no days off for the next several weeks. Ah well, it's only temporary and I'll muddle through somehow.

In other news, the call center where I work has decided to start doing random drug testing. I wouldn't have any problem passing the piss test since I don't use any illegal drugs, but it's bothersome to me as a matter of principle. People sometimes wonder why I'm so against drug testing since I don't smoke pot or do any other illegal drugs, but to me it's an invasion of my privacy and what I do on my personal time is none of my employer's business. Ah well, drug testing by employers is so commonplace these days it's probably getting hard to find a company that doesn't do it. This will be the first time I've ever worked for a company that did drug testing and while I don't like it, I need the money too much to quit. Never thought I'd see the day when I'd be sacrificing health, happiness and now principles for the sake of earning $8 an hour. Fuck this economy - someone send me a winning lotto ticket!

SOMETIMES IT'S THE SMALL STUFF THAT COUNTS THE MOST




The look on Layla's face just kills me...so very sweet and full of wonder / mischief.

F*CK IT

Have you ever just come to the conclusion that everyone and everything is completely and totally full of shit? For example...I used to be very political , hopefully so , advocating for change and to throw the bastards out and recently it occured to me that they are all bastards and it doesn't matter really how many you toss, another bastard will take their place...doesn't matter what party...they are all the suck.
The right wing pundits are all spewing hate and vitriol non stop...such blatant complete horse shit and the sheeple eat it up allowing themselves to be whipped into a frenzy by the likes of Beck and Limbaugh and their minions in the press / media.
There are local radio personalities I would love to meet in a dark alley with a sock full of wood screws...they make me angry...no , they fucking enrage me...they make me want to shit in my hands and rub it in my hair (sgt. sam I'm talking to you). Nothing but hate and prejudice veiled in the soft false horse shit of what passes for christianity in their twisted distorted view of the terrain we are currently deployed on.
So I decided to tune them out and focus on my little microcosm of that same terrain.
Instead of talk radio in the truck between pools it's music...Slayer , Ministry , Melvins , loud and angry...but the difference is it makes me smile rather than want to drive into a ravine.
This hope and change thing has disintegrated into the same old song and dance...what a bunch of fuck ups...pandering to the same special interests only in a different , yet somehow similarly slimy way.
I have adopted a new perspective...and it boils down to this : I'm fucked , you're fucked , we are all fucked , so leave me the fuck alone while I try to navigate the mess that my life is and somehow stumble through it and (hopefully) the light at the end of the tunnel isn't a train bearing down on me.
There is no more sense of community anymore...only cliques of people intent on slandering and defeating other cliques of people with a different ( and oddly, completely full of shit) agenda that has nothing to do with the fundamentals of being in this world.
"why can't we all get along"? is a fucking joke...it's just Rodney King being a titty baby after he got his ass kicked for being a baghead...nobody wants to "get along"...they just want to get over.
As much as I've tried to not draw a line in the sand...here is my line. Clear...defined...don't fuck with me.
You will be sorry if you do.

Plastic Easter
One of my jobs involves seeing which products are on the shelves at grocery and drug stores. Every week I check the seasonal aisles and when I started back in October it was the Halloween candy that was stocked on those aisles. I was pretty amazed at the amount of plastic that was going to be handed out since half the candy seemed to be in some sort of plastic container. Some examples would be a couple of pieces of candy in a hand-sized plastic pumpkin or some M&Ms in a plastic tube with a plastic character on top. This kind of packaging held constant over Christmas and Valentine's day, but Easter has taken it to new heights. I assume this is because hiding plastic eggs in the backyard now takes preference over the old-fashioned hard-boiled kind. But this goes beyond the old empty plastic eggs that you filled up with candy out of a bag and then reused those same plastic eggs from year to year. No, these egg shaped plastic containers already have candy in them and don't appear to be reusable. Buy a bucket of them, throw them out in the yard and you are done. Perhaps it's convenient, but all that plastic seems so wasteful and unnecessary. Is a plastic egg really more fun to find than a hard boiled one?

Printing, Don't Shoot!
I've been really busy lately and neglecting the blog, but decided to do a quick post to share with you something funny that happens here at our house. Our printer is located right by the front door and when it starts to print, it sounds just like someone trying to open the door when it's locked. After a couple of times of freaking Rob out late at night, I realized that I needed to warn him when I was about to print, something along the lines of yelling "Fore" in golf. And my phrase of choice is... "Printing, Don't Shoot!"

THE FUN JUST NEVER STOPS



Just as my foot issue was getting better my knee blew up last thursday to thrice it's normal size.I have been in constant pain for what seems like an eternity , but let me tell you , the foot drop thing pales in comparison to the pain in my knee.They fixed me up at urgent care on saturday and gave me a script for vicodin and naproxin.
By fixed me up I mean they aspirated 60 cc's of fluid from my knee with the biggest needle / syringe combo I have ever seen.
yesterday I spent time with an old friend and he gave me a cane to assist my walking , which was a very thoughtful and kind thing for him to do.
Annabelle has taken very good care of me as well. And the dogs have been very protective and concerned.
While it's been a trauma , it's comforting to have so many friends and family backing me up and supporting *sometimes literally* me.

Not my typical Saturday morning
I spent this morning sitting in the waiting room at the Victory Medical Center due to this:


That picture of Rob's knee is from yesterday - it was much worse this morning. He has either acute patellar tendonitis or bursitis of the knee. The doctor aspirated 60 ccs of blood and prescribed Naproxyn for the inflammation and Hydrocodone for the pain. Hopefully tomorrow he will be able to hobble about with less difficulty.

This was a four hour long ordeal due to the nature of the walk-in situation - no appointment and we had to wait for a doctor to become available. And on a Saturday no less. But folks, I'd so rather spend four hours here than at a hospital's emergency room any day and besides, previous experience has shown that the wait at the ER would have been much longer. Here you have comfy couches and chairs plus a very nice coffee shop. And it's much, much cheaper than the ER, with or without insurance. Total out of pocket expense for the visit plus prescriptions was $40 (with insurance.) But all of the credit for making this experience better than the usual misery one gets in these circumstances goes to the clinic. And Rob says to add that "Jim was awesome!" That's Jim Howard for anyone local that is looking for a new doctor.

Fifteen plus years of software...
Today I dismantled and flattened over fifteen years worth of boxes of computer software. Over the years I had saved every box that every piece of software originally came in. From computer games to programing languages, the box that once contained the CD (or floppies in the case of older stuff) was stored away on shelves in a closet. I also had some stored in large boxes - yes, I had boxes full of boxes! It took me a good part of the day to break all those boxes down, make sure there wasn't any non-recyclable material in them and squish them flat. After I was done, the pile of flattened boxes, cardboard inserts and user manuals was about three feet high!

The pack rat part of me was sad to see them go. The practical part of me is happy that a large amount of useless clutter now resides in the recycling bin.

A computer keyboard for those of us from the old school?
I've been typing for a long time. I learned how to type on a scaled down portable manual typewriter when I was about 5 years old. I used that typewriter for many years, then moved to a full-size manual once my hands grew large enough. Eventually my mother went electric with her typewriters, but I never liked them much. And when I entered the workplace where they were also using electric typewriters, I wasn't too impressed with any of those until I had the opportunity to type on an IBM Selectric. That machine was a typist's dream come true until, of course, computers replaced them all.

Not surprisingly, IBM's first computers came with a keyboard that had a similar touch and feel to the Selectric and while it wasn't quite the same, it was still pretty enjoyable to use. Maybe the "quiet touch" revolution put an end to all that or true touch typists fell by the wayside or died off. I'm not sure what happened, but it seems that keyboards just gradually became worse and worse over the years. I certainly have hated every one that I have bought recently and the one I have right now has got to go. I did a little internet research and I think I have found my next keyboard purchase. A little company in Lexington, KY still makes the original style IBM computer keyboards. Yes, complete with the spring technology that makes a click when you press a key like the old Selectric (or you can get a quiet touch version.) Check it out at Unicomp's online store.

Back to the call center
Yep, it's true; I am going back to work for my old employer in a couple of weeks. There are quite a few advantages to this particular job over anything else I might do at this time. There's the flexible scheduling and the weekend workhours that dovetail perfectly with my other job that I love, but doesn't pay enough to meet my needs. It's a job that is not only familiar, but is also is something that I do very well and that greatly reduces the amount of stress I would feel from having a new second job. I still have friends that work there and if I decide I want to work from home again, then I can do so. But regardless of any pros or cons that I might weigh, mostly it was that the decision to do this just felt right. There is this "knowing" that this is the right job for right now. It may not be the right job six months from now, but for this exact moment in time, it's the right job. And I'm not even thinking about it as a "job", but as as tool that will allow me to accomplish some other things I want in my life. That's a real different attitude than I usually have about a job so it will be interesting to see how this all plays out.

Don't judge a book by it's cover
I'm a redhead, but not a natural one. I was born blond and stayed that way until a good chunk of my hair turned grey in my mid-twenties. The grey happened practically overnight, after a particularly grueling work project that had me working 18+ hours days for about a month. Yes folks, stress really can give you grey hair.

So I did what most women in their mid-twenties would do if they suddenly had grey hair; I had my hairdresser dye it back to blond. I did this for a few years until she suggested I go red instead of blond since it would match my skin tone better. I thought, what the heck, it's the same price so why not give it a try? And she was right, it did match my skin tone better than the blond. So much so, that people have a hard time believing me when I tell them I'm not a natural redhead and that I don't have a drop of Irish blood.

Anyway, I spent one half of my life dealing with the assumption that I was a dumb blonde and the other half dealing with the assumption that because I have red hair, I have a temper. And quite frankly, if people are going to assume anything, I would prefer they assume I have a temper.

I drink a beer unlike any beer I've ever tasted before
I was at the Flying Saucer tonight with my friend working toward my plate on the wall when the waitress suggested I try a certain beer. I'm all for trying a new beer so I went for it. I took the first sip of it and thought, "This is beer?" It was sweet, very sweet, but also sour and just sour enough that I didn't mind the sweetness so much. And what a nose, though I'm not so sure nose applies to beer so much as wine, but in this case, this beer was extremely fragrant and had a hell of a nose. I'm thinking at this point that it was the sort of beer I might have for dessert and would probably only ever want to drink just one. Then about half way through the glass, it's starting to grow on me and I can see myself drinking more than one, maybe two. By the bottom of the glass, I had decided that it was damn tasty, and could probably drink quite a few of them. However, I did not order another one or two or three since I was driving home later and it's a pretty expensive beer and out of my price range for more than just one. Still, I enjoyed it and will add it to my list of luxuries to have one I've won the lottery.

Here's the information on the beer from the print out that the waitress handed to me that I couldn't read at the time without my glasses:

Deuchesse de Bourgogne (BTL); Flemish Sour Belgium
Clear tawny reddish-brown with a sedate tan head. Sourish malty nose with a medium smooth body. Hits your tongue with a quick sweet and sour flavor. Very candylike. Smoothly transitions and leaves your mouth with a fruity syrupy flavor that hangs around for the next sip.

It's an odd beer (to me, anyway) and probably not the last odd beer I'm going to be tasting at the Saucer. I'm looking foward to the next odd find there.

Update on the mom situation
My mom is doing okay. The blood clots are a concern, but they are not deep vein clots so they did not do surgery. She is getting Lovenox shots and taking Coumaden pills and if she stays off her feet like she is supposed to then she should be just fine. The home health care folks will be stopping by daily to check vitals and test her blood each day which eliminates the need for her to stay in the hospital while we wait for the clots to dissolve.

I spent the afternoon there today and can see that the biggest problem is going to be keeping her lying down or sitting with her leg propped up. She is as independent and stubborn as I am and definately not good at letting other folks do things for her. I'm hoping her brother will knock some sense into her when he gets into town later tonight.

Serendipity
I've been needing to get a different cell phone plan. My prepaid phone used to be a good fit since I rarely used it and $20 worth of minutes would last me more a month. Lately I've been spending $50 or more a month on minutes even though I've tried really hard to keep my minute usage down. Friends and family just don't understand why I can't spend time talking on the phone. I guess everyone else has unlimited talk time these days so they don't think about that sort of thing. Then there are the work related calls that I've tried to divert to email, but unfortunately my coworkers are not very good at email. It's not using email that is the problem, but it's their inability to compose coherent and meaningful sentences. My coworkers are not stupid and we communicate just fine over the phone, but writing skills are not a requirement for this job and I doubt that using email is ever going to work well. Now add in the fact that I'll be calling to check on my mom every single day since the rest of the family isn't going to bother to let me know when she's sick or in the hospital and I'm looking at a ridiculous amount of money each month.

Last week I had checked on a good deal I heard about for an unlimited plan with no contract, just month-to-month, but I had to buy a new phone to get it. The cost of even the cheapest phone pretty much killed that idea, but that was last week. Given the current circumstances, I decided this morning that I would just have to spend the money on a phone because it was going to be much cheaper in the long run. That's when I discovered I could now get a refurbished phone for $10 and the first month of service free (this was not an option last week.) Total upfront cost was less than I'd spend on another minute pack for my existing phone and the new phone will arrive just about the time I'd need to buy another minute pack for the old one. Perfect timing. I love it when stuff like this happens.

What we have here is a failure to communicate
I called my mom tonight and discovered she had been in the hospital since Tuesday afternoon. I last talked to her Tuesday morning and I had no idea she had been sent off the emergency room Tuesday afternoon because NO ONE BOTHERED TO TELL ME! My dad didn't call me and my brother didn't call me. And my mom didn't call me because, well, she was in the friggin' hospital in severe pain and calling anyone was the last thing on her mind. I'm pretty angry about this, but also feeling very bad that I didn't go visit her. Of course, I know that it is impossible to visit someone in the hospital if YOU DON'T KNOW THEY ARE THERE, but I still feel bad about it.

She got back home tonight and was not interested in a late night visit or I would have gone over there right now. Looks like I'll have to wait until morning. I don't have all the details of what's going on other than she went into the hospital for a a blood clot in her foot and then some other stuff happened and she may also have gout. I also found out that she is going to need home health services to help with the medical care, but I got no details on what that care will be. But it sounds like she's down for the count for at least two weeks so I'll have to make plans to help out with the household chores. Meal preparation is probably going to be the the most critical one since dad is on very restricted diet. I'm trying not to ruminate on it too much since I don't have very many details as of yet. Hope I can manage to sleep tonight.

BLOOD SIMPLE

I got my blood work back and everything was within normal limits except for my triglycerides , which were very high. I got some information on why that might be and I was batting a 1000 on causes.
-Sodas...too many cokes a day.
-fried foods...If you can't fry it I won't eat it.
-sweets...I have eaten a truckload of all kinds since the holidays started.
-alcohol...can you say screwdrivers ?
-concentrated fruit juice...screwdrivers again .
-B vitamin deficiency...alcohol depletes B vitamins
Fortunately , all of these things are easy to correct and my levels will sort themselves out quickly ( in some cases just days ).
This seems to be the likely culprit(s) and I have noticed some improvement ( albeit small )in my ability to walk normally since last Friday.

Better
I'm doing better and this won't surprise anyone that knows me well. I'm naturally optimistic and while circumstances might get me down for a bit, I always manage to bounce back up at some point. And well, if I had to choose a theme song for my life, I suppose it would be Jerry Jeff Walker's "Gettin' By".