Up until today I could not bring myself to care about the nuptials of two famous people I do not know, will never meet, and have no emotional investment in. I am told (by the Benevolent L) that I was interested in Di and Chuck's back in the day--honestly, I have no memory of it fascinating me, but then, as now, I frequently found myself fascinated by random things and people, so I believe her--but weddings and royal people are ever so much more fascinating when you are 18 and the new princess is just a year older than you are. So what I'm saying is, you'd have to be living beneath a rock to not be aware there was a big marriage set to occur this morning, but I wasn't arsed to pay much attention.
Well, this morning D came to work with me so he could get labs drawn and while we were sitting in outpatient registration at 7:10 am, all the TVs were of course broadcasting the wedding. I got to see it just in time to see Kate and Will exiting the church and getting into a horse drawn carriage that looked like nothing so much as a prop from some version of Cinderella. And all the horsemen behind them in uniform. And she was glowing and smiling and he was smiling and the crowds on the street were ecstatic. I turned to D and said, "That is SO cool."
It was! They had me at the pumpkin coach.
And that's all I have to say about that.
xoxo
Friday, April 29, 2011
Thursday, April 28, 2011
for only $195
I could get eyelash extensions. That is to say, for $195 and 90 minutes of my time, I could get approximately 120 individual lashes, applied one at a time, that will last me up to two months. This is a bargain for Rue La La members, because the normal price for this service is $395. Huh. I swear to god, if only I had a shit-ton of money, I too could be pretty. It boggles the mind. (Remember what Eminem says, boys n' girls: money doesn't buy happiness, it buys crazy-ass happiness!)
In other news (there goes my favorite transition again!), I do not *do* sudden-death overtime. I could only come back downstairs when the wild cheering coming from the TV told me it was safe.
And in other, other news, perhaps my favorite thing I have seen on CNN EVAH was the elderly lady yesterday who was telling them she is *sure* Barack Obama was born in the USA, because he in the hospital nursery with the baby she'd just birthed. She remembers very clearly, 'cause there were, like, *no* black people in Hawaii in those days. Waiting for the Republican rebuttal that discusses how much anesthesia women got in childbirth back in 1961. Lulz. Maybe the best part of this was that CNN, after the clip, soberly pulled out the statistics on how many black people there were in Hawaii in 1961. Answer: the old lady was right! Half of one percent, or something like that. Ah, I love the media.
xoxo
In other news (there goes my favorite transition again!), I do not *do* sudden-death overtime. I could only come back downstairs when the wild cheering coming from the TV told me it was safe.
And in other, other news, perhaps my favorite thing I have seen on CNN EVAH was the elderly lady yesterday who was telling them she is *sure* Barack Obama was born in the USA, because he in the hospital nursery with the baby she'd just birthed. She remembers very clearly, 'cause there were, like, *no* black people in Hawaii in those days. Waiting for the Republican rebuttal that discusses how much anesthesia women got in childbirth back in 1961. Lulz. Maybe the best part of this was that CNN, after the clip, soberly pulled out the statistics on how many black people there were in Hawaii in 1961. Answer: the old lady was right! Half of one percent, or something like that. Ah, I love the media.
xoxo
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Monday, April 25, 2011
mormon underwear and orthorexia
D had to go to the PCP this morning, so I got more kindle reading time in. I am done with my other book, and so I started reading a new one. (I would tell you what it is called, but that would involve getting my kindle out of my purse and turning it on, and that's too much work considering you all don't give a crap anyway, amirite?) The premise of the book is that the author tries a new workout program every month and reports on it. In a humorous, though informative, manner. I literally LOL'd in the waiting room, to the point of slightly embarrassing myself, so yeah, it is funny. The author also has little essays intermixed, dealing with related factors, including her struggles with disordered eating and her anxiety disorder and such.
In the foreword, the author mentions that she had three children when she was in the midst of this experiment and now has four. This struck me as...slightly unusual? I dunno. You just don't see that many educated middle class young women having big families these days. Well, in one of her essays, the shoe drops and she mentions she is Mormon. That made perfect sense in the four kids arena. It did showcase my own prejudices, however, because I was surprised then that this Mormon lady was a gym rat. Which is silly. I mean, they're all about the clean living, what with the no alcohol and the no caffeine, so why wouldn't they be into exercise too? Plus, I'm sure all those women come from hardy pioneer stock. If their great great grandmothers built their own log cabins by hand, why the hell shouldn't they be able to do pullups? (The reason I can't do pullups is that my bulgy Polish catcher's thighs weigh down my bottom half too much. I'm built for squatting in fields and/or blocking the plate, not feats of upper body strength. God. And, yes, I am sticking with that excuse.)
Oh, Andrea, does this post have a point? Not really. But I did want to discuss/ask/ponder an important question. In the essay in which the author first mentions she's of the Mormon religion, she's discussing how long it took her to get comfortable with changing out in the open in the locker room, and she mentions one of her embarrassments with that is that she wears special Mormon underwear. Underwear that is somehow a symbol of her faith (like a yarmulke or chador). Seriously? I had never heard of this. And then she doesn't specify what the special Mormon underwear consists of. I had to know. Thank god there is wikipedia. The ladies wear little undershirts and what look like bike shorts. It's fascinating. (Don't roll your eyes at me. It is. And consider this your multicultural lesson for the day.)
I also found the author's discussion of her battles with both orthorexia and over-exercising really interesting. You people know, if you've been paying attention, that with my own semi-disordered relationship with my body and with food, I am always kinda checking myself to make sure I'm staying on the normal side of the eating disordered/non-eating disordered line. I am certainly not anorexic or bulimic or at danger of being so, nor am I an over-exerciser. But I kinda worry about something akin to the orthorexia. I have, since last September/October, logged my food into fitday almost every single day. I was doing it more often than not before that, but once I started lifting weights and I realized I needed to eat enough calories and protein to support that, I have gotten semi-obsessive.
I weigh my food. I weigh my food enough that when I don't eat at home, I can make a pretty good guess of how much that restaurant has served me. Liz and I were talking about weight loss on Saturday--she's lost 20 pounds since Christmas and she was all excited in buying jeans the other day that were a size smaller than she thought she could now fit into--and she mentioned she's been trying to measure out her portions. I then made a pitch for my food scale and my lurve for it. She said she had thought about buying one and someone told her to knock that off, that it was obsessive. Oops. What can I say, all the chicks and the guys on my weightlifting boards think it's perfectly normal. I also noticed that the other day when fitday was down for awhile, I got really cranky that I couldn't log what I'd eaten. That's kinda...not good, right?
But I'm not sure it's really orthorexia when what you're weighing on your food scale is your third portion of cheese for the day. C'mon now. I just am trying to make sure I'm eating enough, not trying to restrict. I gotta get points for that. Anyway, I have got to finish reading Mormon chick's book and see what other insights I glean from it. And/or just continue laughing at her stories in public and making people look at me funny. Whatev.
xoxo
In the foreword, the author mentions that she had three children when she was in the midst of this experiment and now has four. This struck me as...slightly unusual? I dunno. You just don't see that many educated middle class young women having big families these days. Well, in one of her essays, the shoe drops and she mentions she is Mormon. That made perfect sense in the four kids arena. It did showcase my own prejudices, however, because I was surprised then that this Mormon lady was a gym rat. Which is silly. I mean, they're all about the clean living, what with the no alcohol and the no caffeine, so why wouldn't they be into exercise too? Plus, I'm sure all those women come from hardy pioneer stock. If their great great grandmothers built their own log cabins by hand, why the hell shouldn't they be able to do pullups? (The reason I can't do pullups is that my bulgy Polish catcher's thighs weigh down my bottom half too much. I'm built for squatting in fields and/or blocking the plate, not feats of upper body strength. God. And, yes, I am sticking with that excuse.)
Oh, Andrea, does this post have a point? Not really. But I did want to discuss/ask/ponder an important question. In the essay in which the author first mentions she's of the Mormon religion, she's discussing how long it took her to get comfortable with changing out in the open in the locker room, and she mentions one of her embarrassments with that is that she wears special Mormon underwear. Underwear that is somehow a symbol of her faith (like a yarmulke or chador). Seriously? I had never heard of this. And then she doesn't specify what the special Mormon underwear consists of. I had to know. Thank god there is wikipedia. The ladies wear little undershirts and what look like bike shorts. It's fascinating. (Don't roll your eyes at me. It is. And consider this your multicultural lesson for the day.)
I also found the author's discussion of her battles with both orthorexia and over-exercising really interesting. You people know, if you've been paying attention, that with my own semi-disordered relationship with my body and with food, I am always kinda checking myself to make sure I'm staying on the normal side of the eating disordered/non-eating disordered line. I am certainly not anorexic or bulimic or at danger of being so, nor am I an over-exerciser. But I kinda worry about something akin to the orthorexia. I have, since last September/October, logged my food into fitday almost every single day. I was doing it more often than not before that, but once I started lifting weights and I realized I needed to eat enough calories and protein to support that, I have gotten semi-obsessive.
I weigh my food. I weigh my food enough that when I don't eat at home, I can make a pretty good guess of how much that restaurant has served me. Liz and I were talking about weight loss on Saturday--she's lost 20 pounds since Christmas and she was all excited in buying jeans the other day that were a size smaller than she thought she could now fit into--and she mentioned she's been trying to measure out her portions. I then made a pitch for my food scale and my lurve for it. She said she had thought about buying one and someone told her to knock that off, that it was obsessive. Oops. What can I say, all the chicks and the guys on my weightlifting boards think it's perfectly normal. I also noticed that the other day when fitday was down for awhile, I got really cranky that I couldn't log what I'd eaten. That's kinda...not good, right?
But I'm not sure it's really orthorexia when what you're weighing on your food scale is your third portion of cheese for the day. C'mon now. I just am trying to make sure I'm eating enough, not trying to restrict. I gotta get points for that. Anyway, I have got to finish reading Mormon chick's book and see what other insights I glean from it. And/or just continue laughing at her stories in public and making people look at me funny. Whatev.
xoxo
Sunday, April 24, 2011
welcome to another edition of...
conversations at my house!
The other night I came downstairs and D says, "Can you make that jello for me?" [Note: a couple days before when his stomach was still funky, I had offered to do so.]
"What? You don't know how to make jello?" [Note: the statute of limitations had run out on my offer.}
With a smirk: "I looked at the box, but I'm not sure it's safe. It involves boiling water."
Okay, boys and girls, after I picked myself up off the floor from laughing, I said, "Excuse me, but you are not RETARDED. I believe you can be entrusted with boiling water." Then I made him do it himself while I stood over him, reading him the step-by-step instructions. And, et voila, no persons were harmed in the making of this (disgusting) food item. Though, watching him, he *does* have an intention tremor, which does make pouring things into and out of measuring cups just slightly dicey. Not sure if that's a med side effect or not. Some people just have a familial one, but I don't think anyone on *my* side does.
Anyway, not to speak ill of the dead, but I blame my dad for this. (The boiling water comment, not the intention tremor. Follow along, wouldya?) Once D got sick, my dad's impulse was to infantalize him. I mean, totally out of love and concern and worry, but still. D would go to do something for himself and my dad would be all, "Oh, no, let me do that." I was constantly having to say, "Dad. He's not retarded, you know. He's not an idiot." And my dad would be all, "No, no. I know. I know." Then he'd do the same thing two days later. Sigh.
Anyway, the upside is that "I'm not sure it's safe" is well on its way to being one of those private jokes in my house that makes us laugh uncontrollably for two minutes anytime anyone says it. There's an upside to everything, all y'all.
Happy Easter, if you're celebrating. Remember, always bite the ears off your chocolate bunny first. Any other method is un-American.
xoxo
The other night I came downstairs and D says, "Can you make that jello for me?" [Note: a couple days before when his stomach was still funky, I had offered to do so.]
"What? You don't know how to make jello?" [Note: the statute of limitations had run out on my offer.}
With a smirk: "I looked at the box, but I'm not sure it's safe. It involves boiling water."
Okay, boys and girls, after I picked myself up off the floor from laughing, I said, "Excuse me, but you are not RETARDED. I believe you can be entrusted with boiling water." Then I made him do it himself while I stood over him, reading him the step-by-step instructions. And, et voila, no persons were harmed in the making of this (disgusting) food item. Though, watching him, he *does* have an intention tremor, which does make pouring things into and out of measuring cups just slightly dicey. Not sure if that's a med side effect or not. Some people just have a familial one, but I don't think anyone on *my* side does.
Anyway, not to speak ill of the dead, but I blame my dad for this. (The boiling water comment, not the intention tremor. Follow along, wouldya?) Once D got sick, my dad's impulse was to infantalize him. I mean, totally out of love and concern and worry, but still. D would go to do something for himself and my dad would be all, "Oh, no, let me do that." I was constantly having to say, "Dad. He's not retarded, you know. He's not an idiot." And my dad would be all, "No, no. I know. I know." Then he'd do the same thing two days later. Sigh.
Anyway, the upside is that "I'm not sure it's safe" is well on its way to being one of those private jokes in my house that makes us laugh uncontrollably for two minutes anytime anyone says it. There's an upside to everything, all y'all.
Happy Easter, if you're celebrating. Remember, always bite the ears off your chocolate bunny first. Any other method is un-American.
xoxo
Friday, April 22, 2011
y intrigue
I dunno if I've mentioned it to all y'all,but I have nicknames for some of the gym regulars I see all the time but whom I do not know. There's Cardiac Rehab Biker Dude (i.e. the guy with the ponytail, beard, and big beer belly who I see on the treadmill, or doing the weight machine circuit, with an expression of grim determination and absolutely no pleasure, looking exactly like someone who's been told, "You, sir, must lose thirty pounds and get in shape or the next heart attack's gonna kill you.") There's Red-haired Dominican Kid (self-explanatory.) And then there's Inappropriate PDA Weightlifting Couple.
Now, I've seen the latter working out together ever since I joined the Y last summer. When I first noticed them, I was somewhat unsure what their personal relationship was. Was he training her? Was she training him? Were they a couple? I would have assumed they were a couple, but he looked considerably (like fifteen years or so) older than her. On the other hand, she is one of those women whose age is hard to determine--she could be 23 or she could be 35--and anyway, some people have no problem with a significant age difference. I don't judge. Do what you do.
Then probably sometime this past February, after seeing them in the gym together frequently for six months, I passed by them making out in the stairwell that leads from the locker rooms to the fitness center. I don't mean they were having a quick kiss. I mean he had her pressed up against the freakin' wall. Oh, I thought, so I guess they are a couple. And then, when I saw them in the exact same position in the same stairwell two weeks later, I thought less charitable thoughts. Like, "Maybe watching each other pick things up and put them down gets you excited, (I don't judge!) but save that shit till you get home. Or at least to the car. Children walk through here. God." And they became Inappropriate PDA Weightlifting Couple in my head at that moment.
Well, some time last week, or maybe the week before, I saw him on a treadmill near me. Didn't see her around. Finished up my workout, went to the mat area to stretch. He has already finished before me and is also at the mats to my right, doing ab stuff. I have my iPod in, as I usually do of course, and I am taking my time, trying to unkink my fascia. She comes in, gets on a rowing machine, to my left. I see him get up and go over to her. I can just barely hear parts of their conversation over my music. It's sorta stilted. "Oh, hi. How was your day today?" kinda thing. Not the conversation of two people in a relationship who'd planned to meet up at the gym. And then, as he was walking away from her, "Well, have a good workout."
Oh, I thought to myself, Inappropriate PDA Weightlifting Couple have broken up. How sad. And now they need to share the gym and try not to be awkward around each other. Um, awkward.
Cut to today. Almost identical set up. He's on a treadmill. I'm on the mats. She comes in and head for the rowing machine; he heads over to her. I cannot hear the entire conversation, but it is not the conversation of two people who will soon be grinding against each other in a public passage way. There's even a fist bump involved. (He's a fist bump kinda guy. Don't ask.) As he's walking away from her, past me, I do hear him say, very clearly, "Yeah, I gotta go work off the cake I ate. My girlfriend made it for my birthday."
!!!!!
Oh, Adventurers, the possibilities.
Were they in fact a couple and he has, very very quickly after their breakup, found himself a new girlfriend? A new girlfriend who is already at the birthday cake-baking stage of lurve? Is he rubbing that in the face of his former PDA partner?
Or were they just gym friends and workout partners all those months before falling into a brief torrid illicit affair, and the girlfriend existed all along? (That might better explain the hallway tonsil exploration. They couldn't "save it till they got home." They were cheating.) Maybe one of them had an attack of guilt and called it off, swearing that not only could they no longer grope each other through their Under Armour, they could no longer spot each other's bench presses.
Both scenarios seem rife with the possibility of drama. Jealousy! Or, a return to their forbidden passion! Unfortunately, unlike the catnapping story, I doubt this will be cleared up by a tidy human interest story in the local media any time soon.
Unless someone gets stabbed. You never know.
xoxo
Now, I've seen the latter working out together ever since I joined the Y last summer. When I first noticed them, I was somewhat unsure what their personal relationship was. Was he training her? Was she training him? Were they a couple? I would have assumed they were a couple, but he looked considerably (like fifteen years or so) older than her. On the other hand, she is one of those women whose age is hard to determine--she could be 23 or she could be 35--and anyway, some people have no problem with a significant age difference. I don't judge. Do what you do.
Then probably sometime this past February, after seeing them in the gym together frequently for six months, I passed by them making out in the stairwell that leads from the locker rooms to the fitness center. I don't mean they were having a quick kiss. I mean he had her pressed up against the freakin' wall. Oh, I thought, so I guess they are a couple. And then, when I saw them in the exact same position in the same stairwell two weeks later, I thought less charitable thoughts. Like, "Maybe watching each other pick things up and put them down gets you excited, (I don't judge!) but save that shit till you get home. Or at least to the car. Children walk through here. God." And they became Inappropriate PDA Weightlifting Couple in my head at that moment.
Well, some time last week, or maybe the week before, I saw him on a treadmill near me. Didn't see her around. Finished up my workout, went to the mat area to stretch. He has already finished before me and is also at the mats to my right, doing ab stuff. I have my iPod in, as I usually do of course, and I am taking my time, trying to unkink my fascia. She comes in, gets on a rowing machine, to my left. I see him get up and go over to her. I can just barely hear parts of their conversation over my music. It's sorta stilted. "Oh, hi. How was your day today?" kinda thing. Not the conversation of two people in a relationship who'd planned to meet up at the gym. And then, as he was walking away from her, "Well, have a good workout."
Oh, I thought to myself, Inappropriate PDA Weightlifting Couple have broken up. How sad. And now they need to share the gym and try not to be awkward around each other. Um, awkward.
Cut to today. Almost identical set up. He's on a treadmill. I'm on the mats. She comes in and head for the rowing machine; he heads over to her. I cannot hear the entire conversation, but it is not the conversation of two people who will soon be grinding against each other in a public passage way. There's even a fist bump involved. (He's a fist bump kinda guy. Don't ask.) As he's walking away from her, past me, I do hear him say, very clearly, "Yeah, I gotta go work off the cake I ate. My girlfriend made it for my birthday."
!!!!!
Oh, Adventurers, the possibilities.
Were they in fact a couple and he has, very very quickly after their breakup, found himself a new girlfriend? A new girlfriend who is already at the birthday cake-baking stage of lurve? Is he rubbing that in the face of his former PDA partner?
Or were they just gym friends and workout partners all those months before falling into a brief torrid illicit affair, and the girlfriend existed all along? (That might better explain the hallway tonsil exploration. They couldn't "save it till they got home." They were cheating.) Maybe one of them had an attack of guilt and called it off, swearing that not only could they no longer grope each other through their Under Armour, they could no longer spot each other's bench presses.
Both scenarios seem rife with the possibility of drama. Jealousy! Or, a return to their forbidden passion! Unfortunately, unlike the catnapping story, I doubt this will be cleared up by a tidy human interest story in the local media any time soon.
Unless someone gets stabbed. You never know.
xoxo
friday am good news/bad news
Well, the sports news was certainly good, wasn't it?
And in sports news you don't care about unless you are, y'know, me, Felix Hernandez remembered that he is not in fact James Shields, but King effin' Felix, reigning AL Cy Young winner, and decided to pitch like it. Which is good. I was beginning to lose faith in my baby Hispanic power pitchers--well, except Jhoulis***. But now I'm sure my Ubaldo will come along any day now.
In sports news you also don't care about, but which is not so positive, can I just tell you (i.e. complain to you) that in fantasy baseball, the way to make some douchebag who is in a horrible slump and who could not get a hit even if he were facing friggin' Lackey come out of it is to sit him. This will make said douchebag go three for four while hitting a two run home run. Because your fantasy players, despite not knowing of your existence, live to spite you. (That's what the voices in my head told me. Shut up.)
And in totally non-sports-related bad news, I missed my bus to work this morning by one minute--I was on the opposite side of the street, trying to cross as it zoomed by my stop--and I was so irritated, with myself if no one else, because I was up in plenty of time to get out of the house when I should have, that I walked down to Dunkin Donuts and bought a blueberry muffin. Bought and ate a blueberry muffin. Five hundred calories and my entire daily carb allowance wasted on something that sucked, just because I was in a bad mood. Grrr. I suppose being in a bad mood because you actually missed your bus is better than being in a bad mood because you had a crappy dream (which makes no sense at all) and therefore I am one up on yesterday. Go, me.
xoxo
***I don't even want to tell you how long it took me to learn to spell Jhoulis (and, honestly, I'm not even sure that's right).
Addendum: I did, however, eventually, hours later, find the mistake in this post and fix it. I may be getting stupider and I may have trouble with "Jhoulis" but there will be no homonym abuse on my watch. Dammit.
And in sports news you don't care about unless you are, y'know, me, Felix Hernandez remembered that he is not in fact James Shields, but King effin' Felix, reigning AL Cy Young winner, and decided to pitch like it. Which is good. I was beginning to lose faith in my baby Hispanic power pitchers--well, except Jhoulis***. But now I'm sure my Ubaldo will come along any day now.
In sports news you also don't care about, but which is not so positive, can I just tell you (i.e. complain to you) that in fantasy baseball, the way to make some douchebag who is in a horrible slump and who could not get a hit even if he were facing friggin' Lackey come out of it is to sit him. This will make said douchebag go three for four while hitting a two run home run. Because your fantasy players, despite not knowing of your existence, live to spite you. (That's what the voices in my head told me. Shut up.)
And in totally non-sports-related bad news, I missed my bus to work this morning by one minute--I was on the opposite side of the street, trying to cross as it zoomed by my stop--and I was so irritated, with myself if no one else, because I was up in plenty of time to get out of the house when I should have, that I walked down to Dunkin Donuts and bought a blueberry muffin. Bought and ate a blueberry muffin. Five hundred calories and my entire daily carb allowance wasted on something that sucked, just because I was in a bad mood. Grrr. I suppose being in a bad mood because you actually missed your bus is better than being in a bad mood because you had a crappy dream (which makes no sense at all) and therefore I am one up on yesterday. Go, me.
xoxo
***I don't even want to tell you how long it took me to learn to spell Jhoulis (and, honestly, I'm not even sure that's right).
Addendum: I did, however, eventually, hours later, find the mistake in this post and fix it. I may be getting stupider and I may have trouble with "Jhoulis" but there will be no homonym abuse on my watch. Dammit.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
let's talk about some more shiz
Kids, you did not pray hard enough for Ubaldo. That's all I'm sayin'. Seriously, that's all I'm sayin'.
I went to see Marcy yesterday and had my chi adjusted. It felt awesome while I was there. In fact, I was falling asleep almost as soon as she put the needles in, and I got that really heavy feeling that happens sometimes, I'm assuming when she hits certain points. It's hard to describe, but the best I can do is that it feels like you're being weighted down by a bunch of very heavy warm blankets on top of you, like you cannot move your limbs, but in a pleasant way. But unlike as is usual when Marcy tunes up the ol' chi and I feel much better, calmer, and more mentally right, last night I had a very vivid and unpleasant dream. Not a nightmare in the monsters-are-gonna-eat-me vein, just a very unpleasant dream in which a person in my life behaved reprehensibly towards me. I woke up in an unsettled and bad mood, and have not been able to shake it. Maybe Marcy over-corrected something. Sigh.
In other news (that's my favorite transition, in case you haven't noticed), I forgot to tell you about the other thing that happened in Nordstrom the other day. The Benevolent L and I saw this woman who was clearly anorexic. She was wearing a skirt with tights, and her thigh was the circumference of my forearm. Just skin over femur, no fat, no muscle. You had to look at her and look away quickly. And there she was, walking around Nordstrom, chatting on her cell phone. Scary, and scary that a person could be at that point and just be out living a life, not hospitalized. How does that happen? It kind of dovetails with a conversation we actually had later that night about the right of patients to refuse treatment (in reference to someone we know) and how that's gone too far in the opposite direction. There's got to be a point where it's recognized that you are a danger to your own life and you don't get to make those decisions any more.
Oh, and in relation to the whole Nordstrom story to begin with, and the calorie counts, I was in Starbucks yesterday and I picked up one of their nutritional pamphlets. Hey, it was by the napkins. According to them, the highest any of their drinks are is ~500 calories. Add whipped cream and it's 600. So what Nordstrom could possibly be putting in those frappaccinos of theirs to make them over a thousand calories, I just cannot imagine. Forty teaspoons of sugar? Heavy cream? Do not know. I kinda want to have one now for realz and find out!
Well, I'm sure this has been utterly fascinating to you all. I'll make up for that. Lolcats, just for you.
xoxo
I went to see Marcy yesterday and had my chi adjusted. It felt awesome while I was there. In fact, I was falling asleep almost as soon as she put the needles in, and I got that really heavy feeling that happens sometimes, I'm assuming when she hits certain points. It's hard to describe, but the best I can do is that it feels like you're being weighted down by a bunch of very heavy warm blankets on top of you, like you cannot move your limbs, but in a pleasant way. But unlike as is usual when Marcy tunes up the ol' chi and I feel much better, calmer, and more mentally right, last night I had a very vivid and unpleasant dream. Not a nightmare in the monsters-are-gonna-eat-me vein, just a very unpleasant dream in which a person in my life behaved reprehensibly towards me. I woke up in an unsettled and bad mood, and have not been able to shake it. Maybe Marcy over-corrected something. Sigh.
In other news (that's my favorite transition, in case you haven't noticed), I forgot to tell you about the other thing that happened in Nordstrom the other day. The Benevolent L and I saw this woman who was clearly anorexic. She was wearing a skirt with tights, and her thigh was the circumference of my forearm. Just skin over femur, no fat, no muscle. You had to look at her and look away quickly. And there she was, walking around Nordstrom, chatting on her cell phone. Scary, and scary that a person could be at that point and just be out living a life, not hospitalized. How does that happen? It kind of dovetails with a conversation we actually had later that night about the right of patients to refuse treatment (in reference to someone we know) and how that's gone too far in the opposite direction. There's got to be a point where it's recognized that you are a danger to your own life and you don't get to make those decisions any more.
Oh, and in relation to the whole Nordstrom story to begin with, and the calorie counts, I was in Starbucks yesterday and I picked up one of their nutritional pamphlets. Hey, it was by the napkins. According to them, the highest any of their drinks are is ~500 calories. Add whipped cream and it's 600. So what Nordstrom could possibly be putting in those frappaccinos of theirs to make them over a thousand calories, I just cannot imagine. Forty teaspoons of sugar? Heavy cream? Do not know. I kinda want to have one now for realz and find out!
Well, I'm sure this has been utterly fascinating to you all. I'll make up for that. Lolcats, just for you.
xoxo
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
let's talk about some shiz
Hey, Adventurers. Happy Tuesday that feels like a Monday!
Are we all happy the Red Sox are on a winning streak? Till effin' Lackey pitches tonight, that is? And how about my Jed Lowrie, huh? Couldn't get that boy out all weekend. In other baseball news, if Yahoo isn't lying to me, Ubaldo's hangnail is all better and he's gonna pitch tonight. Light a candle for his cuticle for me, wouldya? Who's the patron saint of manicures? You'd think they'd have taught me something useful like that in nine years of Catholic school. God.
In completely unrelated news, I had to go for my physical today and--are you sitting down? okay--my PCP was not running late. I think that is a sign of the apocalypse. When Denise, his lovely nurse, called me only ten minutes after my official appointment time, I was nonplussed. "Is he...ON TIME?" I asked in hushed and awed tones as she ushered me to the scale. "Shhh," she hissed. "If you jinx it, I'll kill you." I have to admit, I was just a teeny bit disappointed. I was planning on reading a few more chapters of "...Henrietta Lacks" on the kindle during my anticipated lengthy wait. (That's a good book, by the way.)
One more thing. The Benevolent L and I were at the Northshore Mall last night after eating at PF Changs (where we got 15% off our bill in honor of tax day--it pays to let these people spam your email, is all I'm saying) and in our wanders, we wandered into Nordstrom. She tried on some t-shirts and a little jacket, and did not buy. I tried on a little jacket and did buy. Like so:
It was 40% off. So as I was paying for my little jacket, both the Benevolent L and I were yawning like whoa. "We should hit up Starbucks," I said. And the saleswoman, who should probably be getting paid more than she does, jumped in and totally sold us on going downstairs and having coffee at the Nordstrom cafe. Where they very very helpfully had, in big red letters, the calorie counts of every one of their drinks, right next to the prices. Their version of a cookies n cream frappachino type drink? 770 calories in a small. I think the large was about 1300-something, which I am *very* sure is more calories than some of those rich, um, upper-middle-class ladies who shop at Nordstrom eat in an entire day. (This ain't your Taco Bell demographic, yo.) I bet they don't sell very many of those. Maybe I should get one some day, just to see if it makes the cafe lady gape at me in shock. Heh.
Okay, I think that is all for now. Peace, love, and calorie bombs to all! Smooch!
xoxo
Are we all happy the Red Sox are on a winning streak? Till effin' Lackey pitches tonight, that is? And how about my Jed Lowrie, huh? Couldn't get that boy out all weekend. In other baseball news, if Yahoo isn't lying to me, Ubaldo's hangnail is all better and he's gonna pitch tonight. Light a candle for his cuticle for me, wouldya? Who's the patron saint of manicures? You'd think they'd have taught me something useful like that in nine years of Catholic school. God.
In completely unrelated news, I had to go for my physical today and--are you sitting down? okay--my PCP was not running late. I think that is a sign of the apocalypse. When Denise, his lovely nurse, called me only ten minutes after my official appointment time, I was nonplussed. "Is he...ON TIME?" I asked in hushed and awed tones as she ushered me to the scale. "Shhh," she hissed. "If you jinx it, I'll kill you." I have to admit, I was just a teeny bit disappointed. I was planning on reading a few more chapters of "...Henrietta Lacks" on the kindle during my anticipated lengthy wait. (That's a good book, by the way.)
One more thing. The Benevolent L and I were at the Northshore Mall last night after eating at PF Changs (where we got 15% off our bill in honor of tax day--it pays to let these people spam your email, is all I'm saying) and in our wanders, we wandered into Nordstrom. She tried on some t-shirts and a little jacket, and did not buy. I tried on a little jacket and did buy. Like so:
It was 40% off. So as I was paying for my little jacket, both the Benevolent L and I were yawning like whoa. "We should hit up Starbucks," I said. And the saleswoman, who should probably be getting paid more than she does, jumped in and totally sold us on going downstairs and having coffee at the Nordstrom cafe. Where they very very helpfully had, in big red letters, the calorie counts of every one of their drinks, right next to the prices. Their version of a cookies n cream frappachino type drink? 770 calories in a small. I think the large was about 1300-something, which I am *very* sure is more calories than some of those rich, um, upper-middle-class ladies who shop at Nordstrom eat in an entire day. (This ain't your Taco Bell demographic, yo.) I bet they don't sell very many of those. Maybe I should get one some day, just to see if it makes the cafe lady gape at me in shock. Heh.
Okay, I think that is all for now. Peace, love, and calorie bombs to all! Smooch!
xoxo
Saturday, April 16, 2011
i r getting stupider
You people know I consider myself, by and large, an intelligent person. No one's going to hand me a Nobel Prize in anything anytime soon or ask to study my giant brain after I die, but I think I'm well above average. I always got good grades without doing much in the way of actual work. I've always been able to learn new things fairly quickly when taught and I've always been able to figure things out on my own pretty well when not taught. I can construct a logical argument. I can come up with new ideas. My point being that, really, I am not a drooling moron.
Except lately.
A couple months ago I had an appointment with Marcy. I see her every four or five weeks these days, usually on a late Tuesday afternoon. There's a regular pattern to my visits. But a couple months ago, I just completely and totally forgot I was supposed to be there. I had no inkling until I got a voicemail from her asking if everything was alright, since I hadn't shown. I emailed her back profuse apologies and she was all, "oh, don't worry about it, I was just concerned that something had happened because you NEVER are even five minutes late for an appointment." I sorta attributed it, jokingly but not, to what I've heard from other women: that the perimenopause turns your brain to mush and your memory to shit.
So, yeah, totally forgetting an appointment is not good, but I suppose it isn't totally indicative of an incipient brain lesion. The next two episodes of gross stupidity? Not so sure. And they are particularly concerning because they both occurred at work. Not only do I consider myself intelligent, I sorta pride myself on being competent at my job. These lapses into idiocy in a professional setting are, shall we say, worrisome.
A couple weeks ago, on a Monday afternoon, it was very slow and I had no one on my schedule till the last appointment of the day. Which, y'know, SIGH. But anyway, 3:30, 3:35pm comes along and I have no patient and I think to myself, well, they are half an hour late, they are not going to show, and I cannot sit around here being bored one minute longer. So I cancel them in the computer, put my coat on, say goodbye to Receptionist Without Colorful Nickname, and leave. The time I punch out is 3:42 pm. The next morning my boss says to me, "Your patient came yesterday!" "What time?" I ask. Oh, 3:40-3:45ish. Oh, well, I think/say. And then it hits me. They were supposed to be here at 3:30, not 3pm. The last appointment on a Monday is at 3:30. So basically they were a little over ten minutes late and I was gone. Oops. Luckily, Receptionist Without Colorful Nickname covered for me and invented an excuse why I wasn't there. But, yeah. Another complete and total brain lapse.
It gets worse.
So this morning I had a teenaged patient who because of HIPAA laws I shall refer to as Roger. When we were almost all done testing, I was attempting to wake him up by calling his name. "Roger! Roger!" He arouses and says (to the crazy lady calling him repeatedly by a different name), "My name's Rob." "Wait," I say. "Is your name Roger and they call you Rob?" "No, my name's Rob." What the hell? I ask myself. When he gets up from the stretcher and the lights are turned back up in the room, I pick up his registration sheet and ask him his date of birth. It matches up. (I had already, when they first came in, verified the address, phone number, insurance, etc, with his mom.) I walk him out to the waiting room and say to his mom, "We have him down as Roger, but his name is Robert?" Yes, that's his name. Very strange, we concur, especially since he was recently registered in the ED. I tell mom I will fix the mistake in the computer. They leave. I walk back into my office, pick up the registration sheet I'd just looked at, and it says his name is...Robert. OMFG. If that is not a sign of a brain tumor or big stroke, I do not know what is. I swear to god, two minutes earlier that paper had said "Roger" on it.
Now, I could attribute this all, like I said, to the perimenopause, 'cause, like I said, rumor has it it turns your brain to mush. Or I could attribute it to my being all stressed out, but seriously? While I am extremely stressed out, I have been stressed out for the better part of the last seven years and this stupidity is of recent origin. Or I could attribute it to depression, because I think that makes you not-so-bright as well, but again, see above. How is that new?
Then I remembered that Seinfeld episode. The one where George becomes brilliant from his enforced celibacy while, meanwhile, Elaine gets stupid from hers. Oooohhhh. Maybe they were on to something. (There is no event in life that cannot be correlated with a Seinfeld episode. Trust.)
In other news? Jhoulis is the new Ubaldo. And Felix Hernandez is the new James Shields. Look it up.
xoxo
Except lately.
A couple months ago I had an appointment with Marcy. I see her every four or five weeks these days, usually on a late Tuesday afternoon. There's a regular pattern to my visits. But a couple months ago, I just completely and totally forgot I was supposed to be there. I had no inkling until I got a voicemail from her asking if everything was alright, since I hadn't shown. I emailed her back profuse apologies and she was all, "oh, don't worry about it, I was just concerned that something had happened because you NEVER are even five minutes late for an appointment." I sorta attributed it, jokingly but not, to what I've heard from other women: that the perimenopause turns your brain to mush and your memory to shit.
So, yeah, totally forgetting an appointment is not good, but I suppose it isn't totally indicative of an incipient brain lesion. The next two episodes of gross stupidity? Not so sure. And they are particularly concerning because they both occurred at work. Not only do I consider myself intelligent, I sorta pride myself on being competent at my job. These lapses into idiocy in a professional setting are, shall we say, worrisome.
A couple weeks ago, on a Monday afternoon, it was very slow and I had no one on my schedule till the last appointment of the day. Which, y'know, SIGH. But anyway, 3:30, 3:35pm comes along and I have no patient and I think to myself, well, they are half an hour late, they are not going to show, and I cannot sit around here being bored one minute longer. So I cancel them in the computer, put my coat on, say goodbye to Receptionist Without Colorful Nickname, and leave. The time I punch out is 3:42 pm. The next morning my boss says to me, "Your patient came yesterday!" "What time?" I ask. Oh, 3:40-3:45ish. Oh, well, I think/say. And then it hits me. They were supposed to be here at 3:30, not 3pm. The last appointment on a Monday is at 3:30. So basically they were a little over ten minutes late and I was gone. Oops. Luckily, Receptionist Without Colorful Nickname covered for me and invented an excuse why I wasn't there. But, yeah. Another complete and total brain lapse.
It gets worse.
So this morning I had a teenaged patient who because of HIPAA laws I shall refer to as Roger. When we were almost all done testing, I was attempting to wake him up by calling his name. "Roger! Roger!" He arouses and says (to the crazy lady calling him repeatedly by a different name), "My name's Rob." "Wait," I say. "Is your name Roger and they call you Rob?" "No, my name's Rob." What the hell? I ask myself. When he gets up from the stretcher and the lights are turned back up in the room, I pick up his registration sheet and ask him his date of birth. It matches up. (I had already, when they first came in, verified the address, phone number, insurance, etc, with his mom.) I walk him out to the waiting room and say to his mom, "We have him down as Roger, but his name is Robert?" Yes, that's his name. Very strange, we concur, especially since he was recently registered in the ED. I tell mom I will fix the mistake in the computer. They leave. I walk back into my office, pick up the registration sheet I'd just looked at, and it says his name is...Robert. OMFG. If that is not a sign of a brain tumor or big stroke, I do not know what is. I swear to god, two minutes earlier that paper had said "Roger" on it.
Now, I could attribute this all, like I said, to the perimenopause, 'cause, like I said, rumor has it it turns your brain to mush. Or I could attribute it to my being all stressed out, but seriously? While I am extremely stressed out, I have been stressed out for the better part of the last seven years and this stupidity is of recent origin. Or I could attribute it to depression, because I think that makes you not-so-bright as well, but again, see above. How is that new?
Then I remembered that Seinfeld episode. The one where George becomes brilliant from his enforced celibacy while, meanwhile, Elaine gets stupid from hers. Oooohhhh. Maybe they were on to something. (There is no event in life that cannot be correlated with a Seinfeld episode. Trust.)
In other news? Jhoulis is the new Ubaldo. And Felix Hernandez is the new James Shields. Look it up.
xoxo
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
a cavalcade of wtf and r u serious?
Oh, kids. So much to relate. So much to complain about.
Went to the Sox game last night. What fun is sitting in right field if Nancy isn't playing and therefore you cannot scream abuse at him or chuck something at his stupid head and be dragged from the ballpark? I ask you. I did swear, when he came up to pinch hit, that if he got a home run, I would not say one bad thing about him the rest of the year. You know how *that* turned out. Seriously? Three consecutive pinch hitters, zero hits? Really?
The "high" point of the game, besides the on-field shenanigans that is, was the group of international students sitting directly behind us. I was contemplating whether choking the giggling, incredibly loud, incredibly shrill Asian girl whose voice probably makes dogs ears bleed (poor puppies) would get me thrown out as quickly as pegging Nancy with a cup of beer and decided not to take a chance. It was bad enough that her friend asked me twice within five minutes of my sitting down to pick up things she had dropped into our row or when all of the girls managed to smack me in the back of the head with their purses at least once in their endless getting up and down and exchanging seats or when one of the boys (British) said he'd figured out all the "anagrams" other than what RBI stood for, but that girl's earsplitting voice was a whole nother level of WTF. If you are too loud in a baseball stadium? You, madam, are too fucking loud.
Meanwhile, I had texted my son during the game and after, and he didn't respond. So I called him and it went to voicemail. I was mildly concerned. He sleeps with his phone next to him, so normally he answers even if he's asleep. I get home and he is in my bathroom. He says he feels sick to his stomach. I give him some Pepto and kick him out so I can pee before I go to bed, but when I'm done, he wants to go back and sit in there. (Why isn't he sitting on his own toilet? you ask. Well, do you remember how I told you that occasionally he will actually clog a toilet with his massive dumps? His toilet hadn't been flushing really well since the last time that happened and while I tried a plethora of home remedies on it, I'd asked him to only do #2 upstairs. If you are grossing out already, you might want to skip ahead. This story gets more disgusting, bodily-waste-wise.)
I wake up this morning early to the sounds of toilets being flushed both downstairs and upstairs. He is in my bathroom. He says he still feels sick. I go downstairs and in his bathroom there is: a discarded pair of shorts on the floor, what appears to be a bit of vomit on the rug in front of the toilet, and waste, both formed and liquidy, in the toilet. You know? The toilet that isn't supposed to be pooped in? Saying many bad words, I wipe up the vomit, put the dirty bath rug in the washer, and fish the solids and toilet paper out of the toilet with the fucking toilet brush into a plastic bag (which then goes out into the garbage immediately) because I *know* that ain't gonna flush. I go back upstairs and ask through the door what's going on in there. D says sorry about downstairs, but he couldn't make it upstairs in time. I ask if he's still going. He says "a little." I ask him to let me know when I can come in and use my toilet. I hear flushing and then, panicked, "Mom! It's overflowing!" 15 towels later, my bathroom floor is no loner covered with poopy water, but the toilet is full.
D says, and this is an almost verbatim quote, "I don't know what's wrong. I haven't gone in like three weeks and now I can't stop." WTF. WTF. You have not gone in *three* weeks and you didn't think to be alarmed? You didn't think to, y'know, mention it? I point out, with as much patience as I have left at 6:30 in the morning with two plugged up toilets, a mound of poopy towels, and the inability to void my own bladder, that if one hasn't done #2 in a week, one should probably try to take action to correct that.
I go downstairs and try to flush that toilet. It overflows. Fifteen more towels. I manage, however, to plunge it out such that it's flushing completely normally. This load of massive poop apparently pushed through the load of massive poop that was slightly blocking it for the past number of weeks. D has come downstairs and is in his bed. I tell him the good news. And slightly more calmly try to impress upon him that if he is having constipation issues, which I am sure are due to all his meds, he needs to mention that to his prescribing physicians. And that if you are not going at least every other day or so, that's a problem. (Is it my failure as a parent that my adult child *didn't* realize that you're supposed to go more than once a week and certainly more than once every three weeks? Sigh.)
Then I go upstairs and successfully plunge out that toilet. All my toilets are now working perfectly. They have both only been partially cleaned, however, until I am sure the poop extravaganza is 100% done. But at least it doesn't look like Trainsspotting in either bathroom now. And every towel in my entire house has been washed on the highest heat available. Sigh. R U serious?
=========>>>>It's safe for the weak-stomached to read again!
Meanwhile, in amongst the many loads of laundry, I hear the mail truck on our street and then I hear my doorbell. I open my front door to find a cardboard box from Amazon sitting there, being rained upon. In the 90 seconds it took for me to get there, it's already kinda soggy. Guess what's in it, boys and girls? Yup, you know. My son's birthday present. The netbook.
Yes, indeed, the USPS did leave a box containing a brand new computer out in the pouring rain, completely unprotected by plastic or shelter from the elements. If I had not been home to open that door within 90 seconds, I can only imagine the consequences. But I suppose people who opt for free super saving shipping deserve to have their electronics involved in a game of damage roulette, eh? Double. You. Tee. Eff. R U serious?
Lastly? The "g" key on *this* laptop is sticking, so if you see any typos I missed, be mentally forgiving. It's been a tough 18 hours.
xoxo
Addendum:
For reference
Addendum2:
Oh, I had signed up to get a tracking text when D's netbook was going to be delivered. I just got it, saying it was out for delivery. That's 2 1/2 hours after the USPS left it out in the rain. Oh, so helpful that was.
Went to the Sox game last night. What fun is sitting in right field if Nancy isn't playing and therefore you cannot scream abuse at him or chuck something at his stupid head and be dragged from the ballpark? I ask you. I did swear, when he came up to pinch hit, that if he got a home run, I would not say one bad thing about him the rest of the year. You know how *that* turned out. Seriously? Three consecutive pinch hitters, zero hits? Really?
The "high" point of the game, besides the on-field shenanigans that is, was the group of international students sitting directly behind us. I was contemplating whether choking the giggling, incredibly loud, incredibly shrill Asian girl whose voice probably makes dogs ears bleed (poor puppies) would get me thrown out as quickly as pegging Nancy with a cup of beer and decided not to take a chance. It was bad enough that her friend asked me twice within five minutes of my sitting down to pick up things she had dropped into our row or when all of the girls managed to smack me in the back of the head with their purses at least once in their endless getting up and down and exchanging seats or when one of the boys (British) said he'd figured out all the "anagrams" other than what RBI stood for, but that girl's earsplitting voice was a whole nother level of WTF. If you are too loud in a baseball stadium? You, madam, are too fucking loud.
Meanwhile, I had texted my son during the game and after, and he didn't respond. So I called him and it went to voicemail. I was mildly concerned. He sleeps with his phone next to him, so normally he answers even if he's asleep. I get home and he is in my bathroom. He says he feels sick to his stomach. I give him some Pepto and kick him out so I can pee before I go to bed, but when I'm done, he wants to go back and sit in there. (Why isn't he sitting on his own toilet? you ask. Well, do you remember how I told you that occasionally he will actually clog a toilet with his massive dumps? His toilet hadn't been flushing really well since the last time that happened and while I tried a plethora of home remedies on it, I'd asked him to only do #2 upstairs. If you are grossing out already, you might want to skip ahead. This story gets more disgusting, bodily-waste-wise.)
I wake up this morning early to the sounds of toilets being flushed both downstairs and upstairs. He is in my bathroom. He says he still feels sick. I go downstairs and in his bathroom there is: a discarded pair of shorts on the floor, what appears to be a bit of vomit on the rug in front of the toilet, and waste, both formed and liquidy, in the toilet. You know? The toilet that isn't supposed to be pooped in? Saying many bad words, I wipe up the vomit, put the dirty bath rug in the washer, and fish the solids and toilet paper out of the toilet with the fucking toilet brush into a plastic bag (which then goes out into the garbage immediately) because I *know* that ain't gonna flush. I go back upstairs and ask through the door what's going on in there. D says sorry about downstairs, but he couldn't make it upstairs in time. I ask if he's still going. He says "a little." I ask him to let me know when I can come in and use my toilet. I hear flushing and then, panicked, "Mom! It's overflowing!" 15 towels later, my bathroom floor is no loner covered with poopy water, but the toilet is full.
D says, and this is an almost verbatim quote, "I don't know what's wrong. I haven't gone in like three weeks and now I can't stop." WTF. WTF. You have not gone in *three* weeks and you didn't think to be alarmed? You didn't think to, y'know, mention it? I point out, with as much patience as I have left at 6:30 in the morning with two plugged up toilets, a mound of poopy towels, and the inability to void my own bladder, that if one hasn't done #2 in a week, one should probably try to take action to correct that.
I go downstairs and try to flush that toilet. It overflows. Fifteen more towels. I manage, however, to plunge it out such that it's flushing completely normally. This load of massive poop apparently pushed through the load of massive poop that was slightly blocking it for the past number of weeks. D has come downstairs and is in his bed. I tell him the good news. And slightly more calmly try to impress upon him that if he is having constipation issues, which I am sure are due to all his meds, he needs to mention that to his prescribing physicians. And that if you are not going at least every other day or so, that's a problem. (Is it my failure as a parent that my adult child *didn't* realize that you're supposed to go more than once a week and certainly more than once every three weeks? Sigh.)
Then I go upstairs and successfully plunge out that toilet. All my toilets are now working perfectly. They have both only been partially cleaned, however, until I am sure the poop extravaganza is 100% done. But at least it doesn't look like Trainsspotting in either bathroom now. And every towel in my entire house has been washed on the highest heat available. Sigh. R U serious?
=========>>>>It's safe for the weak-stomached to read again!
Meanwhile, in amongst the many loads of laundry, I hear the mail truck on our street and then I hear my doorbell. I open my front door to find a cardboard box from Amazon sitting there, being rained upon. In the 90 seconds it took for me to get there, it's already kinda soggy. Guess what's in it, boys and girls? Yup, you know. My son's birthday present. The netbook.
Yes, indeed, the USPS did leave a box containing a brand new computer out in the pouring rain, completely unprotected by plastic or shelter from the elements. If I had not been home to open that door within 90 seconds, I can only imagine the consequences. But I suppose people who opt for free super saving shipping deserve to have their electronics involved in a game of damage roulette, eh? Double. You. Tee. Eff. R U serious?
Lastly? The "g" key on *this* laptop is sticking, so if you see any typos I missed, be mentally forgiving. It's been a tough 18 hours.
xoxo
Addendum:
For reference
Addendum2:
Oh, I had signed up to get a tracking text when D's netbook was going to be delivered. I just got it, saying it was out for delivery. That's 2 1/2 hours after the USPS left it out in the rain. Oh, so helpful that was.
Monday, April 11, 2011
also, I was cheated
It is not 80 degrees today. It is not even 70 degrees today. I did not need to shave my legs, exfoliate or moisturize them, or attempt to make them a different color so that I could wear a skirt barelegged. I am wearing pants. Also, on the way to work, a raincoat. I demand my money back.
Speaking of which, yesterday the commuter rail train did not show up. Apparently it broke down somewhere along the line before it got to my station and the MBTA said, fuck it, all those people can just wait 45 minutes for the next train. So once all us disgruntled passengers were actually on a moving vehicle, the conductor informed us that once we got to North Station, those of us who were supposed to be on the 12:38 train should go pick up a something-something form and send it in and the T would give us a free ticket. Well, I am sorry, but I was already late for my effin' BRUNCH and my belly would not allow me to wait in line at North Station in order to get my 5 bucks back. So now I need to navigate the T website and see if there is a way to obtain my refund from there. Wish me luck!
That's it for today, Adventurers. As far as you know. Here's hoping y'all don't get cheated. Or cheated on. Or left standing by the train tracks. Whatev.
xoxo
Speaking of which, yesterday the commuter rail train did not show up. Apparently it broke down somewhere along the line before it got to my station and the MBTA said, fuck it, all those people can just wait 45 minutes for the next train. So once all us disgruntled passengers were actually on a moving vehicle, the conductor informed us that once we got to North Station, those of us who were supposed to be on the 12:38 train should go pick up a something-something form and send it in and the T would give us a free ticket. Well, I am sorry, but I was already late for my effin' BRUNCH and my belly would not allow me to wait in line at North Station in order to get my 5 bucks back. So now I need to navigate the T website and see if there is a way to obtain my refund from there. Wish me luck!
That's it for today, Adventurers. As far as you know. Here's hoping y'all don't get cheated. Or cheated on. Or left standing by the train tracks. Whatev.
xoxo
the kid(cat)napping story
Near my gym there is a pet boutique*** that I therefore pass by very frequently. Last autumn on Sunday mornings before they were open, I would often see a cat sitting outside their entrance. This cat was remarkable for two reasons. First of all, it was quite friendly and personable. It would meow at you as you walked past and allow you to pet it. But secondly and more remarkably, it was huge. Very furry, fat, and all-over big, it was approximately 3.5 Evil Kitty's in size. I mentioned it to D, as in "I wish you could see how big this cat is!" and then managed to get a picture of it with my phone (which was highly unsatisfactory, since without anything next to it for context, you couldn't appreciate the size.)
At some point I realized there was actually a poster about the cat in the pet shop's window, saying *his* name was Lucy, that he had a happy home in the neighborhood and just liked to come visit, and that, basically, you shouldn't be concerned if you saw him hanging out on the sidewalk. A few weeks ago, D asked me whether I ever saw him anymore and I said I hadn't, but that he was probably, like Evil Kitty RIP, an outdoor cat only in the nicest of weather. Now that the snow was gone and it was warming up, I'd probably start seeing him again.
Cut to last Friday. I was coming home on the bus, and an old man got on carrying a large, meowing cat. I sorta assumed he was taking the cat to the vet (since the bus stops directly in front of the vet Evil Kitty used to go to) and didn't own a pet carrier. Kind of weird, but both old people and people who take the bus can be kind of weird, so put the two together, y'know? The bus driver told the man he would have to sit in the back with the loudly meowing cat, which he did. Now, the thing is, when you go on public transportation with a pet, people will talk to you, even at evening commute time. People love animals. And so the other people in the back were chatting to the old man. I didn't pay much attention. I was tired and kind of zoning out, thinking about what to have for dinner and so forth.
And then I heard the old man say that, no, he didn't know if it were a boy or a girl, and that if he held it up, did he think the woman talking to him could tell him? At this point I was pretty convinced the old man's deck was missing a few aces. If you know what I mean. Then he explains that, no, the cat wasn't actually his cat. That it was wandering around downtown and that he figured it didn't have a home, so he was taking it to his house. As he was about to get off the bus, it suddenly hit me. Holy shit. That big meowing cat is probably Lucy and the old man was kid(cat)napping it!
When I was telling D about this, two thoughts came to mind. First of all, could you just imagine a stranger trying to pick up Evil Kitty and bring her on a bus? Deep bleeding multiple flesh wounds. A little evilness is protective. Secondly, where the man got off was about a mile down the road. I maintained that if the cat were able to get outside, it could probably find its way home from there. Don't they have a kind of homing instinct? (When I was a little kid, my aunt and uncle moved to Cali and left their cat with my mom. That cat kept repeatedly returning to its old house. That wasn't a mile away, but still, I think they know where they live.) D thinks I am wrong.
Anyway, I am going to keep my eyes peeled around the pet shop and the immediate neighborhood, and if any missing posters about Lucy go up, I will drop a dime. Not sure how it will help, since they can't go on a door to door canvas of the elderly housing project near where the old guy got off the bus, but at least they will know the cat's alive.
xoxo
***There's actually more than one, while the chichi baby boutique also in the immediate vicinity appears to have gone out of business. Take any sociological message from this that you wish.
At some point I realized there was actually a poster about the cat in the pet shop's window, saying *his* name was Lucy, that he had a happy home in the neighborhood and just liked to come visit, and that, basically, you shouldn't be concerned if you saw him hanging out on the sidewalk. A few weeks ago, D asked me whether I ever saw him anymore and I said I hadn't, but that he was probably, like Evil Kitty RIP, an outdoor cat only in the nicest of weather. Now that the snow was gone and it was warming up, I'd probably start seeing him again.
Cut to last Friday. I was coming home on the bus, and an old man got on carrying a large, meowing cat. I sorta assumed he was taking the cat to the vet (since the bus stops directly in front of the vet Evil Kitty used to go to) and didn't own a pet carrier. Kind of weird, but both old people and people who take the bus can be kind of weird, so put the two together, y'know? The bus driver told the man he would have to sit in the back with the loudly meowing cat, which he did. Now, the thing is, when you go on public transportation with a pet, people will talk to you, even at evening commute time. People love animals. And so the other people in the back were chatting to the old man. I didn't pay much attention. I was tired and kind of zoning out, thinking about what to have for dinner and so forth.
And then I heard the old man say that, no, he didn't know if it were a boy or a girl, and that if he held it up, did he think the woman talking to him could tell him? At this point I was pretty convinced the old man's deck was missing a few aces. If you know what I mean. Then he explains that, no, the cat wasn't actually his cat. That it was wandering around downtown and that he figured it didn't have a home, so he was taking it to his house. As he was about to get off the bus, it suddenly hit me. Holy shit. That big meowing cat is probably Lucy and the old man was kid(cat)napping it!
When I was telling D about this, two thoughts came to mind. First of all, could you just imagine a stranger trying to pick up Evil Kitty and bring her on a bus? Deep bleeding multiple flesh wounds. A little evilness is protective. Secondly, where the man got off was about a mile down the road. I maintained that if the cat were able to get outside, it could probably find its way home from there. Don't they have a kind of homing instinct? (When I was a little kid, my aunt and uncle moved to Cali and left their cat with my mom. That cat kept repeatedly returning to its old house. That wasn't a mile away, but still, I think they know where they live.) D thinks I am wrong.
Anyway, I am going to keep my eyes peeled around the pet shop and the immediate neighborhood, and if any missing posters about Lucy go up, I will drop a dime. Not sure how it will help, since they can't go on a door to door canvas of the elderly housing project near where the old guy got off the bus, but at least they will know the cat's alive.
xoxo
***There's actually more than one, while the chichi baby boutique also in the immediate vicinity appears to have gone out of business. Take any sociological message from this that you wish.
Saturday, April 9, 2011
oh, manWELL
So I am sure you've heard the big news by now. Believe me, it was big news at my house. The very first thing D said to me last night when I came home (after "hi") was, "Manny retired!" Then I checked my mail and, in an email about something else entirely, Mr Indemnity's first sentence was nevertheless about Manny. Obviously, everyone knew this would be a topic near and dear to my heart.
I cannot say I disagree with his decision. Man-well did not actually want to play baseball when he was, y'know, paying baseball. He's obviously a person who does not need to wake up every morning and go to his job in order to feel good about himself or fulfilled in life. Believe me, I can relate. If I never had to work again, I could find *plenty* of other things to keep me amused. And, please, he's got plenty o' money. What's a few more millions to him? It's probably all theoretical to him, just a bunch of numbers on a page--much like my 401k is to me!
So, yeah. Contrast this to Pedro Martinez, who I have heard is rumored to still want to pitch. Pedro, Pedro, Pedro. Can you not be happy down in the Dominican, counting your piles of money? Damn, you could swim through it, Scrooge McDuck-style. We need to get the man a hobby. Maybe he should take up golf. Or knitting. Decoupage. Something. Anything. It is not 1999 anymore, Pedro. Let us just remember you when you were absolutely unhittable.
But, back to Manny. I would like to remember him in all his dreads-wearing, fan-high-fiving, scoreboard-peeing, water-bottle-in-the-outfield glory. If you no longer wish to delight me with your ridiculous antics, Manuel Aristides, you go ahead and retire. Take Pedro golfing, would ya?
xoxo
I cannot say I disagree with his decision. Man-well did not actually want to play baseball when he was, y'know, paying baseball. He's obviously a person who does not need to wake up every morning and go to his job in order to feel good about himself or fulfilled in life. Believe me, I can relate. If I never had to work again, I could find *plenty* of other things to keep me amused. And, please, he's got plenty o' money. What's a few more millions to him? It's probably all theoretical to him, just a bunch of numbers on a page--much like my 401k is to me!
So, yeah. Contrast this to Pedro Martinez, who I have heard is rumored to still want to pitch. Pedro, Pedro, Pedro. Can you not be happy down in the Dominican, counting your piles of money? Damn, you could swim through it, Scrooge McDuck-style. We need to get the man a hobby. Maybe he should take up golf. Or knitting. Decoupage. Something. Anything. It is not 1999 anymore, Pedro. Let us just remember you when you were absolutely unhittable.
But, back to Manny. I would like to remember him in all his dreads-wearing, fan-high-fiving, scoreboard-peeing, water-bottle-in-the-outfield glory. If you no longer wish to delight me with your ridiculous antics, Manuel Aristides, you go ahead and retire. Take Pedro golfing, would ya?
xoxo
Friday, April 8, 2011
and the internet nutcases are always with you
No, I'm not talking about myself. Shut up.
I don't remember if any of you remember me talking about this, but when D first started to get really sick, his senior year in high school, he developed the delusion that he smelled bad, offensive to other people. Or only to some people. Because that's how delusions work. If he smelled fine to me and fine to his therapist and fine to his doctors, it's only 'cause we lacked the right smell receptors. Or something. And because it was 2003/2004 and we were were living in the Times of the Interweb, he was able to go online and find whole forums of other people who thought they smelled bad too. And most of whom had decided it was due to rotting fecal matter stuck in their intestines or some such (wait for it...wait for it...) shit. And so it came to be that even today I am sure, tucked away down in my basement, there's a plastic tub full of x dollars worth of "colon cleanses" that my son bought in his attempt to cure himself. Hint: Zyprexa worked better than colon cleanses.
My point being that no matter what kind of nutty ideas you have, it is entirely possible by the miracle of the internet to find other people, lots and lots of other people, who will encourage and support and add to your nutty ideas. What brings this up today, Andrea? Well, kids, there's this.
On a weight loss board where I journal and mostly just talk with a few people who, like me, keep their carbs down-ish and lift their weights, there's been a prolific poster who's had a number of distressing health problems/symptoms of late. She is one of those people who tell open forums a whole lot of deeply personal and identifying information because she apparently has no one to talk to in real life outside a semi-supportive husband and a 2 year old. (And 2 year olds don't make the best conversationalists. Or listeners.) But I mean, literally, this woman *scanned in* her EKG reports and cardiology consult, so random strangers on the internet could read them. And give advice.
And, no, SHE isn't even the nutty one.
Let that sink in for a moment.
There are also, on this board, a subgroup ofnutters people who are convinced that every health and weight problem known to man is due to unidentified thyroid problems and "adrenal fatigue" and doctors know nothing and all your woes can be fixed by diet and supplements. Especially, I gather, magnesium. Take your magnesium, kids, and all will be well. Well, one of them latched onto lady #1, who at first welcomed her advice. But then when all lady #1's test results showed her magnesium levels and thyroid were okay and she got a cardiac diagnosis, magnesium lady would not let go. She kept giving lady #1 advice to, basically, ignore her own doctors. At this point in the saga last Friday (and in the midst of PMS) I swore off reading any more of it, because it raised my blood pressure so much. Who the fuck is so arrogant as to, without any medical training, advise someone else, over the internet, to, oh, STOP TAKING THEIR MEDICATION? And who is so stupid as to take the advice of internet strangers?
Well, apparently, lady #1 *isn't* that stupid, because when I got brave enough to see what the hell these people were up to today, she was firmly asking magnesium lady to give it a rest, because her badgering her was only raising her stress levels. Magnesium lady then had a snit in her own journal about how some people won't take advice and freely offered help and how they are brainwashed by conventional medicine (or something) and won't take responsibility for themselves and woe is me. All her little friends patted her on the head and told her she was SO right. Lady #1 read this assassination of her character and responded. I expect a vicious flame war to break out any second, but I'll never know 'cause I.am.out. (I shoulda stayed out after last Friday, but man, curiosity killed the cat, y'know?)
Moral of the story: see above. Crackpots find each other in cyberspace. Also? Take your damn magnesium. You are welcome.
xoxo
I don't remember if any of you remember me talking about this, but when D first started to get really sick, his senior year in high school, he developed the delusion that he smelled bad, offensive to other people. Or only to some people. Because that's how delusions work. If he smelled fine to me and fine to his therapist and fine to his doctors, it's only 'cause we lacked the right smell receptors. Or something. And because it was 2003/2004 and we were were living in the Times of the Interweb, he was able to go online and find whole forums of other people who thought they smelled bad too. And most of whom had decided it was due to rotting fecal matter stuck in their intestines or some such (wait for it...wait for it...) shit. And so it came to be that even today I am sure, tucked away down in my basement, there's a plastic tub full of x dollars worth of "colon cleanses" that my son bought in his attempt to cure himself. Hint: Zyprexa worked better than colon cleanses.
My point being that no matter what kind of nutty ideas you have, it is entirely possible by the miracle of the internet to find other people, lots and lots of other people, who will encourage and support and add to your nutty ideas. What brings this up today, Andrea? Well, kids, there's this.
On a weight loss board where I journal and mostly just talk with a few people who, like me, keep their carbs down-ish and lift their weights, there's been a prolific poster who's had a number of distressing health problems/symptoms of late. She is one of those people who tell open forums a whole lot of deeply personal and identifying information because she apparently has no one to talk to in real life outside a semi-supportive husband and a 2 year old. (And 2 year olds don't make the best conversationalists. Or listeners.) But I mean, literally, this woman *scanned in* her EKG reports and cardiology consult, so random strangers on the internet could read them. And give advice.
And, no, SHE isn't even the nutty one.
Let that sink in for a moment.
There are also, on this board, a subgroup of
Well, apparently, lady #1 *isn't* that stupid, because when I got brave enough to see what the hell these people were up to today, she was firmly asking magnesium lady to give it a rest, because her badgering her was only raising her stress levels. Magnesium lady then had a snit in her own journal about how some people won't take advice and freely offered help and how they are brainwashed by conventional medicine (or something) and won't take responsibility for themselves and woe is me. All her little friends patted her on the head and told her she was SO right. Lady #1 read this assassination of her character and responded. I expect a vicious flame war to break out any second, but I'll never know 'cause I.am.out. (I shoulda stayed out after last Friday, but man, curiosity killed the cat, y'know?)
Moral of the story: see above. Crackpots find each other in cyberspace. Also? Take your damn magnesium. You are welcome.
xoxo
disturbing developments
I'm not going to even touch the disturbing developments in the world or the country, though there are plenty o' them. No, let's just keep this to smaller, more personal disturbing elements. Believe me, there are enough of those to fill a blog post.
1.) How bad does your team have to be for a pinch runner to make a fatal base running mistake? Think about it. You make the decision--a really bad decision--to put someone in to do one very specific task and they not only fail, they FAIL. That, my friends, is a sign. A bad bad sign. Want to start a pool on when Tito loses his job?
2.) I don't know if I have mentioned it, but I am watching American Idol with D this year. Some years I pay attention to it and others I do not and this is a pay-attention year. So, for those of you who are blissfully ignorant about how it works, at this point in the competition, the show is on two nights a week. One show is the performances and the second is the results, on which someone is kicked off. To fill out the results show--which, frankly, could actually last all of three minutes, because really Ryan Seacrest just needs to tell someone, "hey, you got the least votes, see ya, bye"--they have musical guests performing. By which I mean to say, they have people who are pimping their new releases and/or Idol alumni performing. In the results shows I have seen this season, these "guests" have been uniformly bad, almost to the point of painful. We got P Diddy or what-the-fuck-ever he calls himself these days. We got The Black Eyed Peas doing some new single which would make you change the radio station should it come on. We got the guy who won last year; we got Fantasia. A cavalcade of boring-to-awful performances.
So when my son asked me last night was I planning on watching, I said no. Y'know, just tell me later who got kicked off (hopefully Stefano, 'cause that boy's gotta go). Then I went about my evening business, doing other shit. Well, I happened to come downstairs while the show was in progress to switch my laundry over and make tea, and while I was sitting in the kitchen waiting for my water to heat, I hear them announce the next musical guest. In honor of Rock & Roll Hall of Fame week on Idol, they have special guest...Iggy Pop. Holy fuck. An actual musician? I go into the living room to watch. And the disconnect is powerful. Iggy Pop? On Idol? I suppose I would have an even more visceral reaction to this sellout if "Lust for Life" (a song about doing heroin, yo) wasn't already indelibly linked in my mind with Carnival Cruises. Sigh. Punk is dead, right?
3.) And, finally, did you hear it's going to be in the 70s--possibly 80!--by Monday? That is not so much disturbing as it is delightful, but it does cause me a certain problem. If I want to celebrate this fact by, I dunno, wearing a skirt to work on Monday sans tights and boots--and keep in mind I have only lately put skirts with tights and boots back into the rotation, because from late December to March the chances of me dressing like a girl are very very small--I will need to do something about my legs. Like (again I dunno), shave them? Put on some self-tanner and hope it doesn't streak? This whole change of seasons thing is work, lemme tell you.
So you all have a lovely Friday, Adventurers. Try to keep our own disturbing developments to the bare minimum.
xoxo
1.) How bad does your team have to be for a pinch runner to make a fatal base running mistake? Think about it. You make the decision--a really bad decision--to put someone in to do one very specific task and they not only fail, they FAIL. That, my friends, is a sign. A bad bad sign. Want to start a pool on when Tito loses his job?
2.) I don't know if I have mentioned it, but I am watching American Idol with D this year. Some years I pay attention to it and others I do not and this is a pay-attention year. So, for those of you who are blissfully ignorant about how it works, at this point in the competition, the show is on two nights a week. One show is the performances and the second is the results, on which someone is kicked off. To fill out the results show--which, frankly, could actually last all of three minutes, because really Ryan Seacrest just needs to tell someone, "hey, you got the least votes, see ya, bye"--they have musical guests performing. By which I mean to say, they have people who are pimping their new releases and/or Idol alumni performing. In the results shows I have seen this season, these "guests" have been uniformly bad, almost to the point of painful. We got P Diddy or what-the-fuck-ever he calls himself these days. We got The Black Eyed Peas doing some new single which would make you change the radio station should it come on. We got the guy who won last year; we got Fantasia. A cavalcade of boring-to-awful performances.
So when my son asked me last night was I planning on watching, I said no. Y'know, just tell me later who got kicked off (hopefully Stefano, 'cause that boy's gotta go). Then I went about my evening business, doing other shit. Well, I happened to come downstairs while the show was in progress to switch my laundry over and make tea, and while I was sitting in the kitchen waiting for my water to heat, I hear them announce the next musical guest. In honor of Rock & Roll Hall of Fame week on Idol, they have special guest...Iggy Pop. Holy fuck. An actual musician? I go into the living room to watch. And the disconnect is powerful. Iggy Pop? On Idol? I suppose I would have an even more visceral reaction to this sellout if "Lust for Life" (a song about doing heroin, yo) wasn't already indelibly linked in my mind with Carnival Cruises. Sigh. Punk is dead, right?
3.) And, finally, did you hear it's going to be in the 70s--possibly 80!--by Monday? That is not so much disturbing as it is delightful, but it does cause me a certain problem. If I want to celebrate this fact by, I dunno, wearing a skirt to work on Monday sans tights and boots--and keep in mind I have only lately put skirts with tights and boots back into the rotation, because from late December to March the chances of me dressing like a girl are very very small--I will need to do something about my legs. Like (again I dunno), shave them? Put on some self-tanner and hope it doesn't streak? This whole change of seasons thing is work, lemme tell you.
So you all have a lovely Friday, Adventurers. Try to keep our own disturbing developments to the bare minimum.
xoxo
Thursday, April 7, 2011
guess what???
ET cash-in and health care reimbursement together in today's check as predicted. Woohoo! I think I'll go right home and write my check to the city, like, immediately. But first I'm going to pretend to myself that I make that kinda money every week and daydream about what I'd do with it. Other people have sexual fantasies, I have this. Don't judge.
In other news, I am so hungry, I do not know what's wrong with me. I've had 1200 calories already today and, to be honest with you, I don't think I'm finished with lunch yet. Heh. I think this possibly means my metabolism has cranked up again and that I should keep feeding it. Or I have a tapeworm. One of the two. I was over at the cafeteria buying a drink (a drink only, because I brought my lunch) and other people's lunches looked and smelled so good, I wanted to, y'know, grab stuff off their trays. So consider this fair warning: if you eat with me any time soon, keep your fork ready to stab my hand or I *will* eat off your plate.
And this time, I'm sorry, I can't resist: How about those Red Sox? Oh, you have to laugh. What else can you do? D said, "If this keeps up, I'm going to lose interest real quick this year." I countered with the (maybe untrue) fact that the Sox had a miserable April in 2004, and that this is just a lead up to us going all the way, baby. But no one believes me when I tell them that. Sigh.
And, okay, I can't resist again: Ubaldo is on the DL *with a hangnail.* Okay, okay, not exactly a hangnail, I exaggerate, but cannot we fly Angela my magic nail lady out to Colorado to fix his cuticle right up? If you could only see the job she did with my toenail crisis, you would have faith.
And finally, another sign of spring. Salem cops on Highland Ave with radar guns. You know in cold weather, they stick to their cruisers and Dunkin' Donuts, so this is more promising than crocuses. (Crocusi?)
xoxo
In other news, I am so hungry, I do not know what's wrong with me. I've had 1200 calories already today and, to be honest with you, I don't think I'm finished with lunch yet. Heh. I think this possibly means my metabolism has cranked up again and that I should keep feeding it. Or I have a tapeworm. One of the two. I was over at the cafeteria buying a drink (a drink only, because I brought my lunch) and other people's lunches looked and smelled so good, I wanted to, y'know, grab stuff off their trays. So consider this fair warning: if you eat with me any time soon, keep your fork ready to stab my hand or I *will* eat off your plate.
And this time, I'm sorry, I can't resist: How about those Red Sox? Oh, you have to laugh. What else can you do? D said, "If this keeps up, I'm going to lose interest real quick this year." I countered with the (maybe untrue) fact that the Sox had a miserable April in 2004, and that this is just a lead up to us going all the way, baby. But no one believes me when I tell them that. Sigh.
And, okay, I can't resist again: Ubaldo is on the DL *with a hangnail.* Okay, okay, not exactly a hangnail, I exaggerate, but cannot we fly Angela my magic nail lady out to Colorado to fix his cuticle right up? If you could only see the job she did with my toenail crisis, you would have faith.
And finally, another sign of spring. Salem cops on Highland Ave with radar guns. You know in cold weather, they stick to their cruisers and Dunkin' Donuts, so this is more promising than crocuses. (Crocusi?)
xoxo
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
then i stopped myself
I was gonna talk to you about Ubaldo, Felix, and boots today. But honestly, you don't give a shit. I also promise not to mention how it's all resting on (cringe) Dice-K or any more of my feelings about foreign policy or what Liz said at the gym today. I am therefore running out of topics. Apparently I need a new life.
Instead I'll just fufill my blogging obligations by giving you lolcats.
That will have to do until I become less boring. Cheers, thanks a lot.
xoxo
Instead I'll just fufill my blogging obligations by giving you lolcats.
That will have to do until I become less boring. Cheers, thanks a lot.
xoxo
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
some updates and then something new
Don't you all love when I give you updates about shite you didn't care about to begin with? I mean, seriously. It's like self-absorption taken to a whole other level! Full service blog right here.
So, first update. Do you want to know how long it has been since I bought shoes? I haven't bought shoes in so long that in this morning's email I got a nice missive from Piperlime saying, "We've missed you! and here's a code $15 off $75, so please buy something." Well, okay, they didn't literally say "please buy something" but, god, some poor warehouse worker with five children and an elderly dog to support is probably about to be laid off because of me and my responsible fiscal behavior.
Second update. Here's an example of the depths of crazeeness that fantasy baseball is capable of driving one to when one is firmly entrenched in "not horrible!" the first week of the season. And, y'know, "one" is me. Shut up. I was online-following the last few innings of the Texas/Seattle game last night, and at one point when my boy Napoli was up, I was trying to figure out mathematically (don't you effin' say anything, Mr Indemnity) whether it would be better for me for him to get a couple RBIs, since I am just one RBI behind the league leader, OR whether it would be better for him *not* to, so Texas wouldn't get too far ahead and therefore when Neftali came in, it would finally get me an actual save from all his stellar pitching. The depths of geekery I have descended to make even me shake my head.
Third update. I ordered D's birthday present.
And now for something new, and completely unrelated. You know I hardly ever say anything about political or social issues in here, other than when I make fun of Scott Brown, whom I completely irrationally dislike, or when there's some kind of wingnut anti-women law being passed, or trying to be passed, somewhere. But I am going to break with that tradition and probably alienate most of you. Here goes.
It really really really pissed me off when General Whatshisface (I'm sorry, I can't spell it and my almost fatal Too Lazy to Google It Syndrome is acting up) apologized to Afghanistan for that fruitloop burning the Koran. Since when do governments apologize to other governments publicly for the actions of private citizens that they have no control over? Is there a precedent for this? That's point number one. Point number two--has the government of Afghanistan or any other Muslim state ever apologized to us for their imams calling *us* all infidels or putting out fatwahs on private Western citizens for not following an Islamic belief? Because that's just as religiously offensive as burning a Koran. Answer: I do not think so.
It really infuriates me that we ass-kiss and placate these people who are going to fucking hate Americans no matter *what* we do, as if we are afraid of them. It looks weak. It is weak. Knock it off.
Alright. I am done. Catch you later, bitches.
xoxo
P.S. Yes, I do realize one's credibility when speaking about world issues is somewhat undermined when one calls people General Whatshisface. Deal.
So, first update. Do you want to know how long it has been since I bought shoes? I haven't bought shoes in so long that in this morning's email I got a nice missive from Piperlime saying, "We've missed you! and here's a code $15 off $75, so please buy something." Well, okay, they didn't literally say "please buy something" but, god, some poor warehouse worker with five children and an elderly dog to support is probably about to be laid off because of me and my responsible fiscal behavior.
Second update. Here's an example of the depths of crazeeness that fantasy baseball is capable of driving one to when one is firmly entrenched in "not horrible!" the first week of the season. And, y'know, "one" is me. Shut up. I was online-following the last few innings of the Texas/Seattle game last night, and at one point when my boy Napoli was up, I was trying to figure out mathematically (don't you effin' say anything, Mr Indemnity) whether it would be better for me for him to get a couple RBIs, since I am just one RBI behind the league leader, OR whether it would be better for him *not* to, so Texas wouldn't get too far ahead and therefore when Neftali came in, it would finally get me an actual save from all his stellar pitching. The depths of geekery I have descended to make even me shake my head.
Third update. I ordered D's birthday present.
And now for something new, and completely unrelated. You know I hardly ever say anything about political or social issues in here, other than when I make fun of Scott Brown, whom I completely irrationally dislike, or when there's some kind of wingnut anti-women law being passed, or trying to be passed, somewhere. But I am going to break with that tradition and probably alienate most of you. Here goes.
It really really really pissed me off when General Whatshisface (I'm sorry, I can't spell it and my almost fatal Too Lazy to Google It Syndrome is acting up) apologized to Afghanistan for that fruitloop burning the Koran. Since when do governments apologize to other governments publicly for the actions of private citizens that they have no control over? Is there a precedent for this? That's point number one. Point number two--has the government of Afghanistan or any other Muslim state ever apologized to us for their imams calling *us* all infidels or putting out fatwahs on private Western citizens for not following an Islamic belief? Because that's just as religiously offensive as burning a Koran. Answer: I do not think so.
It really infuriates me that we ass-kiss and placate these people who are going to fucking hate Americans no matter *what* we do, as if we are afraid of them. It looks weak. It is weak. Knock it off.
Alright. I am done. Catch you later, bitches.
xoxo
P.S. Yes, I do realize one's credibility when speaking about world issues is somewhat undermined when one calls people General Whatshisface. Deal.
Monday, April 4, 2011
baseball weekend
Much like Vampire Weekend but less musical!
So, how about those Red Sox? Didn't they look like they're poised to go all the way? (Jesus wept.) I am sure they will productively use their day off traveling to Cleveland to figure out why their crack staff of pitchers suck so very very much. Can I tell you how their absolute suckitude affected me personally? Besides making me yell at the TV, that is? The Rangers kept putting Neftali in in non-save situations. If the Sox had only kept those games a little bit closer as they were losing them, that would have been two saves for me. God. Why does no one ever think about *me*?
Yeah, so let's transition to my fantasy team, shall we? It's early days yet, but I'm in 7th place out of 13 teams--right up there in "mediocre" like I swore I would be. Surprisingly, it is *my* crack pitching staff that has failed me so far, though explain this: I'm second in the league in WHIP but last in ERA. Other than Delmon Young and Adam LaRoche who are having slow starts, the rest of my losers are getting on base and scoring or driving in runs. I'm sure that will come to a screeching halt at some point, but hopefully my pitchers will have remembered how to strike people out by then and it will all balance out. That's the plan.
We do have this new rule/category this year that is pissing me off. If your guy gets caught stealing you get a negative stolen base!!!! If Mr Jose Tabata picked his spot better yesterday, I'd now have 3 stolen bases instead of 1. Grr. He went 3 for 5 though, so we won't be too mad at him. Plus, he's got a cool last name. It makes me want to go run intervals til I puke. Heh.
Okay. I'm just waiting for lunch to be delivered, so blame all this nonsense on low blood sugar.
So, how about those Red Sox? Didn't they look like they're poised to go all the way? (Jesus wept.) I am sure they will productively use their day off traveling to Cleveland to figure out why their crack staff of pitchers suck so very very much. Can I tell you how their absolute suckitude affected me personally? Besides making me yell at the TV, that is? The Rangers kept putting Neftali in in non-save situations. If the Sox had only kept those games a little bit closer as they were losing them, that would have been two saves for me. God. Why does no one ever think about *me*?
Yeah, so let's transition to my fantasy team, shall we? It's early days yet, but I'm in 7th place out of 13 teams--right up there in "mediocre" like I swore I would be. Surprisingly, it is *my* crack pitching staff that has failed me so far, though explain this: I'm second in the league in WHIP but last in ERA. Other than Delmon Young and Adam LaRoche who are having slow starts, the rest of my losers are getting on base and scoring or driving in runs. I'm sure that will come to a screeching halt at some point, but hopefully my pitchers will have remembered how to strike people out by then and it will all balance out. That's the plan.
We do have this new rule/category this year that is pissing me off. If your guy gets caught stealing you get a negative stolen base!!!! If Mr Jose Tabata picked his spot better yesterday, I'd now have 3 stolen bases instead of 1. Grr. He went 3 for 5 though, so we won't be too mad at him. Plus, he's got a cool last name. It makes me want to go run intervals til I puke. Heh.
Okay. I'm just waiting for lunch to be delivered, so blame all this nonsense on low blood sugar.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
bulking
Are we seeing any changes yet? (Forgive the one bodypart at a time deal. That's what happens when you have to do it yurself. Also, you have no one to tell you to tuck in your underwear tags. Sigh.)
xoxo
xoxo
Friday, April 1, 2011
instead of my usual whining and/or panic
Money, money, money.
I would like to share with you some good financial news. God, it might even be so good I can buy myself a dress. Probably not though.
1.) I got my electric bill for March yesterday and it was 2/3rd less than my February bill and 3/4th less than my January bill. Just let that sink in for a minute. While this bill is not what one might call "small", I paid 3x as much in January. And yet did not bottom out my checking account. That's good budgeting, Andrea. If I do say so myself.
2.) After massive mucking about, my ultimate overlords, Partners Healthcare, who did not tell me that the supporting proof for my FSA claim did NOT come through their FAX until approximately a month after I had submitted it, finally approved my reimbursement for my glasses. So I will get my $300 back, probably in next week's check.
3.) Concurrent with that, it's ET cash-in time again, so those Partners Healthcare bastids can pay me an extra two weeks pay that I did not take in vacation because a) I got no place to go and b) no money to go there. Of course when one gets three weeks worth of pay in one check, the amount of money the feds take makes one wince. But someone has got to support what-thefuck-ever we're doing in Libya and it might as well be me. And it will still be a nice check. (Since the fruit of my loins has his birthday coming up this month, I am thinking of buying him a little netbook. Shh, don't tell.)
xoxo
P.S. It occurs to me that Partners Healthcare probably has some lackey whose job is to google all mentions of them, and thus my ultimate overlords will put me on some kind of watchlist for taking their name in vain. Oops. How many "Andrea"s do you think they employ? Maybe I ought to go remove my indentifying-tattoo photos. ahahahaha
And an addendum: so I wrote this post at 3:30-something Friday and at 4:50-something I got home, opened my mailbox, and found my quarterly tax bill for the house. Oh, yeah, it's that time again! No dress for me! ahahaha
I would like to share with you some good financial news. God, it might even be so good I can buy myself a dress. Probably not though.
1.) I got my electric bill for March yesterday and it was 2/3rd less than my February bill and 3/4th less than my January bill. Just let that sink in for a minute. While this bill is not what one might call "small", I paid 3x as much in January. And yet did not bottom out my checking account. That's good budgeting, Andrea. If I do say so myself.
2.) After massive mucking about, my ultimate overlords, Partners Healthcare, who did not tell me that the supporting proof for my FSA claim did NOT come through their FAX until approximately a month after I had submitted it, finally approved my reimbursement for my glasses. So I will get my $300 back, probably in next week's check.
3.) Concurrent with that, it's ET cash-in time again, so those Partners Healthcare bastids can pay me an extra two weeks pay that I did not take in vacation because a) I got no place to go and b) no money to go there. Of course when one gets three weeks worth of pay in one check, the amount of money the feds take makes one wince. But someone has got to support what-thefuck-ever we're doing in Libya and it might as well be me. And it will still be a nice check. (Since the fruit of my loins has his birthday coming up this month, I am thinking of buying him a little netbook. Shh, don't tell.)
xoxo
P.S. It occurs to me that Partners Healthcare probably has some lackey whose job is to google all mentions of them, and thus my ultimate overlords will put me on some kind of watchlist for taking their name in vain. Oops. How many "Andrea"s do you think they employ? Maybe I ought to go remove my indentifying-tattoo photos. ahahahaha
And an addendum: so I wrote this post at 3:30-something Friday and at 4:50-something I got home, opened my mailbox, and found my quarterly tax bill for the house. Oh, yeah, it's that time again! No dress for me! ahahaha
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