frazzled and bedazzled

Celebrating My Independence

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 17:11:52 GMT

A little later today I'll indulge in my favorite 4th of July ritual. Not watching fireworks or soaking up sun or eating too much, but reading the Declaration of Independence. Besides, I did two of those things yesterday.

Friends formerly of Portland, now of Los Angeles, are in town and I got to meet up with them yesterday. We went to Portland's annual Waterfront Blues Festival and walked around in the sun, checking things out, occasionally listening to music (the Zydeco was my favorite - there's something about it that seems about as opposed to the blues as you can get, but I wasn't complaining), and mostly just talking and enjoying one another's company. They were staying at a newly opened hotel in downtown called the Nines and after the festival, they invited me back to check it out. It's one of those weird things about hotels that they have public spaces so a person can go look them over or meet people or have dinner, but it's pretty rare that you actually do. So it was great having an excuse to be able to give in to my curiosity, not to mention possession of a room key which allowed access to the non-public floors. We went to the restaurant area (which reminded me of the restaurant I visited in Honolulu that is accessed by going through a furniture store) and sat for a happy hour drink, then my friend's husband left to pick up some of her family to bring them to the restaurant for dinner. It worked out that my family couldn't make it, so I stayed on and had a fabulous meal and got to catch up with her mom, aunt and uncle. (I spent a lot of time with these people in high school - her family (well, pretty much everyone's family) were so much more agreeable to be around than my own.) Since I don't eat beef - and that is a heavy feature of the menu - I had chicken for my protein and it was terrific. I also tried a green bean dish I'm going to have to try to replicate - they were sauteed quickly with thinly sliced onions and almonds. Then the icing on the cake for the carbohydrate lover that I am was the pureed potatoes which were obviously made with cream. Ho man, so good! I don't eat like this often and my stomach is still recovering. I don't know how many hours in a gym it would take to burn all that off - and I really don't care. One of life's great pleasures, so far as I'm concerned, is a good meal in happy company and I'm a firm believer in setting aside the internal calorie-counter every once in awhile and enjoying food in a way that we don't in our day-to-day lives. Oh! I was wrong about something...the icing on the cake wasn't the potatoes (though, did I mention?, sooooo good!), it was the Cakebread Chardonnay. I've said before how I'm not one for Chardonnay, but I'll certainly make an exception for Cakebread any time. I had a water bottle in my purse from the earlier time out in the sun and at the end of the meal hated wasting the final glass left in the bottle so much that we were very uncouth and smuggled it out in my plastic bottle. It's sitting in my refrigerator right now; I don't think it'll be there long.

I was so replete that I had a hard time sleeping last night. Even had I not been planning to go to the gym this morning, I think I'd be going anyway just to wake myself up. I feel like an utter slug this morning and I think if I don't do something to force myself to move around today, this gorgeous and clear 90 degree day will see me sitting in front of a fan napping away the hours, maybe breaking up the time with some reading. Not that that's a bad thing, but living in the Pacific Northwest has taught me not to take a sunny day for granted and to get out there and enjoy each of them as much as possible.

I've had my morning tea, I'm sort of vertical, and it's time I got this holiday started by giving thanks for all of the things I get to do and be as a result of the untolled sacrifices made by many other people - both past and present.

Have a happy (and safe) 4th!

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 16:46:25 GMT

This morning, while performing The Macaroni-and-Cheese Experiment - Part II, I thought of that phrase which is a favorite of dieters everywhere, "Nothing tastes as good as being thin feels." If referring to the mac-n-cheese I was tasting at just that moment, I would have to agree. But if referring to the fresh-from-the-fields strawberries I bought yesterday, well. Then there could be some debate.

While out and about last week-end, my family pulled up the drive of what used to be a small family farm near our house. Since living in this neighborhood, I've gone there in June for strawberries, in July for blueberries, in August for corn, and during the growing season in general for tomatoes, cucumbers, apples, and pears. The family has moved to another farm and that berry stand wasn't open any more, so the next day we tried a couple of other places. One is quite popular locally, but even though the produce is freshly picked, I've never found the flavor to be worth a damn. What's the point of going to the source (and paying more per pound, I might add) if I can get the same, nearly flavor-free food at my grocery store? Obviously, this particular farm grows for bulk sales and not for quality of taste, and I don't see the point of going back. A few miles down the road we tried another one and this time had more luck. We picked up a half-flat of strawberries, and oh!, they were good. They tasted like strawberries should taste, bursting on the tongue with that bright sweet-tartness that tell you, "Here is a worthwhile berry!" and justified every one of those times I've passed on having one of those reddish things you find everywhere that have been bred for looks. Like everything else where the looks are more important than the substance, they are but a pale imitation of the real thing, and only wish they were good enough to be pretenders to the throne.

Well, anyway, despite the fact that my husband doesn't love berries as much as I do, he ended up eating most of that batch. Don't get me wrong, I ate quite a bit, but I wasn't quite in the mood for them, as awful as that sounds. I know, I know: the season to get a true strawberry is so short, and here I was letting it pass me by. This week-end, however, the tide had turned and I was very much in the mood. During the middle of last week, my husband had gone back to get some more, but was seduced by some Hood River cherries instead. You see, we used to take a day and drive to Hood River to a farm to get The Best Cherries Ever Grown on the Planet Earth, and one of our greatest disappointments came on the trip when we found that farm is no longer open to the public. We ended up getting some sorry road-stand version of cherries and have not had a truly fantastic bunch of cherries in all these years since. But last week, my husband tried one, it was good, and he brought the half-flat home. Only to realize he'd been hornswoggled: He'd managed to get the one and only cherry with any flavor out of that entire batch. So there we were with a bunch of flavor-less cherries and no strawberries.

The strawberry season is drawing nigh and now is not the time to dilly-dally, so I went back yesterday for more. These were even better than the first batch, and I gorged on them all the way home, not caring about the stains on my fingers and under my nails, nor any potential stomach-aches. I cut up a bunch and we had Strawberry Shortcake for dessert last night. That dessert will be one of the culinary highlights of my year, it was just so quintessentially what Strawberry Shortcake is supposed to be. It was perfect.

There might be a week or so more when the valley berries will be around (that's what we call them locally; I live in the Willamette Valley), then it'll be time for the cane berries to take the stage: first raspberries, then marionberries, and finally - my favorite - blackberries. Blackberries really are the perfect way for summer to come to a close: they distill the hot, sunny days of summer into a deep, sweet, dark taste that's like nothing else on earth. While perfect picked warm off the vine, they're also good cold over ice cream, or hot in a cobbler. They encapsulate the delights of summer into a flavor that you wish could last forever, even while knowing that part of what makes it so good is the very brevity of its availability.

Every summer I wonder the same thing: how is it I manage to eat the rest of the year? Sure, there's good stuff growing at other times, but the foods that truly delight me, the ones that need so little work to taste so good, the things that make me wish I could wax poetic, are the foods of summer. It always feels like the rest of the year is "feeding a little life with dried tubers" while this... This is living.

ETA: Ha! And then I start catching up on what I've missed last week and see this. I guess this means there is some debate on the mantra.

Don't Get Me Started...

Sun, 07 Jun 2009 18:25:03 GMT

I came to post about something else entirely (my daughter is extraordinary - I guess I'll leave it at that for now), then I caught this post-prompter on my way in:

If you had to choose between your friends and your significant other, who would you choose?

I'd say, if you're in a situation where you had to choose between one or the other, you've made some bad choices already with either the spouse or the friends.

This stirs up more fodder for the "Marriage Manifesto" that I've been developing subconsciously for several years and which I've been thinking of lately anyway thanks to the dissolving marriage of some people I know.

The thing that bugs me about this divorce is that it's not even final and the wife just moved in with another man. I'm the first to admit that no one outside a marriage can know everything that's going on inside of it, so outsiders truly don't get to judge. And in this case, while the guy she's divorcing is nice and dependable and has a sense of humor and all of that, he also has some tendencies to see a woman in a light straight out of the 1950s that I know I could never live with. BUT. It just seems to me that there's a striking inability for someone to take adult relationships or marriage seriously when she's moving in with another man before the divorce of a relationship (of somewhere in the 10-year neighborhood) is over. It would bug me no matter what, but what's really irritating me in this situation is that there are children involved. Not just the three from the couple getting divorced (or, more accurately, I should say one of the children came from a prior marriage, but that father has been out of the picture for years; two came from the one now ending), but the new man in the picture has a child as well.

I can see already that the oldest girl, a teen-ager now, has a distinct lack of interest in boys. And I don't mean this in the "she may be gay" way. I mean it in the "she doesn't see the point" way. From her point of view, these men in her mom's life have meant moving when she had just made friends (and she's a very shy girl), being told what to do by people who are but temporary placeholders so why bother, a mother who goes through periods of being down that she can do nothing about. In other words, getting involved with a man means feelings of helplessness, sadness, and losing one's power of self-determination. It makes me sad to think how hard it will be for her to ever trust a man, or to trust her own ability to choose wisely.

While I don't believe every person needs marriage or that every woman needs a man to have a fulfilling and interesting life, I do think it's sad to have that option taken away from you. I see a future for her of never being in a truly special relationship either because she'll hardly ever let a man in long enough to give him a chance or because she'll treat relationships in the same way her mom does.

In all, it's frustrating to see. And of course takes me one step closer to understanding parents are, after all, just people. You spend years and years thinking they have some special wisdom or power that you don't, that the ways in which they messed up your life had to be done deliberately somehow, when really they're stumbling around trying to figure things out just like everyone else is.

It's a strange quirk of human evolution, isn't it? How much a person needs from her parents to survive childhood, and how much she'll need to be a parent to forgive how her parents accomplished that survival?

You Glorify the Past When the Future Dries Up

Sat, 06 Jun 2009 18:59:55 GMT

Just back from my Saturday morning work out and I'm all sweaty and starving, so this will be quick. On my way home, I had an urge to hear the School of Fish song Three Strange Days. When I checked the video out from that link I saw this comment: "the 90s was my favorite decade for music - and i've been alive since 1952".

Generally speaking, I try not to think in those terms when it comes to music and art because these are things in constant flux: an artist is inspired by something personal, something happening in the wider world, something some other artist did and there always seems to be something of value there to appreciate even if it's not your favorite thing. Having said all that: man, I miss the music of the 90s, too! I've really been struggling with this lately because my daughter is into the Top 40 kind of music right now and I swear so many things sound the same to me. I tell myself every era has its sound, its quirks, its exceptional musicians who will stand the test of time and the ones who merely move things along in very (very!) small ways.

I remember reading a Newsweek article around the beginning of the 90s about how rock-and-roll was limping along and the music industry was struggling to find a way back to the heyday of growth in sales they experienced in the 80s (I'd like to see that article again; wonder if I can google it?). The gist of it all was that rock was dead, killed off by the soft rock that did so well in the 70s and the New Wave and hair bands of the 80s. And then grunge hit. I know for a lot of people, it was Nirvana that kicked all that off. For my husband and me, it was more Pearl Jam, Temple of the Dog, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, et al; Nirvana were pretenders to the throne and we bought Nevermind because people kept telling us it was so good, not because we had come to that conclusion ourselves. Plus of course U2 kicked off the decade with Achtung Baby and it's one of the best rock albums. Ever.

So now the 00s are nearly over and for me the 90s have it all over this decade of music. On the one hand, I think it's probably natural to have strong feelings about the music that got you through the years before marriage and kids and career take over your life; the years of relatively little responsibility coupled with lots of free time. But on the other hand, I truly believe - objectively speaking - there was some damn good music going on back then. Don't get me wrong, there's still lots to love going on these days. But that era will always hold a special place in my heart.

And so, off to the shower where I expect something from the 90s will be on the set list.

Faster than a Speeding Bullet

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 05:15:36 GMT

Man, time has been flying lately. I've been on the hamster wheel of up early, off to work, taking short lunch breaks, rushing home, rushing off to softball/gym/wherever, and moseying back home to drop into bed for a short spell before doing it all over again. Sadly, the softball games will be all over with next week since my daughter chose not to play post-season this year (teary face). On the other hand, that's more time for the "wherever" part of the equation and what's lovely about summer in Portland is the long, long days and so many nooks and crannies to discover.

Anyway, I'm waaaay behind on looking at posts. I'm obviously delinquent with posting. And I've got topics and thoughts stacking themselves up, waiting to be off-loaded, cluttering up my brain. I need to say something about them so as to clear the decks, but who knows if I'll actually get around to that before the pressure to speak dissipates. So, anyway, there's that sob story.

Meanwhile, we had a wicked thunder and lightning storm here today. As I left work there were the high winds with leaves, branches and dust flying hither and yon. During the bumper-to-bumper drive home there was the pouring rain. As I neared home there were the amazing streaks of lightning and booms of thunder right above and all around me. Then I made it home and it was nearly over (where we are - it was just making its way north and west to spread cheer up and over to the coastal area). Of course, that kind of weather seems to wake up my molecules and get them hopping, so I was loving every electrifying minute of it. I expect I'd be one of those idiot storm chasers if I didn't have the small supply of common sense I have because I find storms like that loads of fun. But after all the action, it's still humid as hell, which is most unusual for this area. At some point I expect it'll break and I'll be able to wear my wedding ring again. I hope.

Now I've exhausted what was left of today's meager mental abilities and it's off to bed for me. Take care and enjoy the summer, everyone.

There's Almost No Mood So Bad that a Walk in the Woods Can't Make it Better

Sun, 17 May 2009 05:01:41 GMT

It's been a beautiful day here in the Portland area. Low- to mid-80s in temperature, blue sky, flowers blooming, and birds chirping. At one point today, I was at a loose end for about 2 hours, so decided I *had* to get outside and enjoy the day. I was a bit on the fence about hiking by myself (due to the on-going ankle issue, time, etc.), so in the end I compromised with myself and went off to a place in Portland called Hoyt Arboretum. My daughter and I have been there many times together. Trails named Magnolia, Hawthorn, Wildwood, Fir, Creek (and many, many more) criss cross one another up and down the mountain. There are so many ways to go, it's like the choose-your-own-adventure-story of hiking. I don't know if anyone's done the math, but I'd have to guess there have to be at least 100 variations one can hike. For the most part, my daughter and I like to try a new combination on each visit, though when time is tight we have a couple of loops where we know the approximate length and time involved and will stick to those.

Today I went about 1/2 way on a section I've done a few times before and the other 1/2 on an area that's new to me. There are benches and picnicking areas sprinkled throughout, and groups and singles were out in force enjoying the day, making the human element as effervescent as the one provided by nature. I was very glad I decided to go up there, and was reflecting on the way home that every time I doubt whether it's worth it to do whatever it is I have to do in order to get myself outside for a walk, I need to remember that IT IS. Today's walk was worth how I had to squeeze it in between other obligations. And it's even worth the extra ache in the ankle I'm feeling tonight. It's always worth the effort I put out and then some.

I was kicking myself for not taking the camera as there's so much of interest (and it's so different on every visit) to memorialize. At the top of this trail is a vista across the city of Portland to the Cascade Mountain Range beyond, and on a down-swing for that trail is a panorama of trees, bushes and grasses that display more nuances of green than all the world's languages combined have words to describe.

Tomorrow we'll be able to spend the day as a family, and as the weather is predicted to be more of the same, we'll come up with something to do to enjoy it. I'm voting for a drive and a hike, with lunch al fresco on the banks of a stream. In other words, more of today, only supersized.

Here's hoping....

Family is FUNdamental

Thu, 14 May 2009 22:54:57 GMT

On my daughter's 8th birthday, my husband and I woke her up early in the morning. We had her open a couple of small gifts (clothes), then gave her the big one: we were taking her to Disneyland that day.

My husband and I had talked for awhile about when the right time to take her would be. Since going for us involves plane rides and a hotel stay (aka a not-insignificant outlay of money), plus a coordinated stint of time off work, we wanted to make it count. So it had to be when she was old enough to really remember it, yet when she was young enough to still be into all of the things designed just for kids. Around the time she turned 6, we decided to make it her 8th birthday gift.

It turned out to be the perfect time to take her as respects all of the things we hoped she would get out of it, plus the things we hadn't really thought about, like her stamina to make it through the hours of walking around and waiting in line and her ability to maintain a good mood without getting cranked out too soon.

It was a terrific vacation and at the end of it we decided that, unless there was some other reason we'd be in the area, we wouldn't want to come back until about 5 years had passed. That way the park could develop some more (as it always is), giving us new things to see, and it would still be something special for us to look forward to. Eventually we hit upon the idea of taking her back for her 13th birthday, hence the trip last week.

Once again, it was terrific. As my husband and I were discussing yesterday, it felt as though we had our little girl back. She really is a delight for us to spend time with - smart and funny with a unique way of seeing the world - but of course at this age she is pulling away to spend more and more time with her friends, so we don't have the same kind of connection that we once had. Though we're probably about as close as any parent can hope to be to a girl entering her teens these days, we're not the center of her universe any more. It was great to have that again, if only for a short time.

She's completely fearless when it comes to going on the rides, and as she's always been kind of tall for her age, even at age 8 she was big enough to go on anything she wants. And she wants to go on them all. For the most part, her dad will go on the rides with her that I ~~can't~~ won't, but there's even a couple that scare the crap out of him that she has to go alone. With the exception of a few times where we split up for rides (and an evening where she was dead tired so my husband and I went to Shakeys without her (we couldn't pass up the opportunity to have the fried chicken and mojo potatoes)), we spent the week together.

As my husband and I both had childhoods that made us think the word "family" actually meant "stress", it's so lovely to find that word can actually mean a lot of really great things. It also means we realize how lucky we are. At some point last week we saw a guy who looked to be in his mid-30s with a black t-shirt that showed a couple getting married. The male in the picture had a ball and chain around his ankle and it read "The Party is Over". My husband saw the shirt, then my face, and immediately moved to pat my back and say, "I know. I know," in a soothing manner. That kind of thing is insulting to me on a variety of levels, starting with the fact that our culture doesn't require marriage in the same way as it used to and therefore it doesn't need to be any kind of ball-and-chain obligation and ending somewhere around the fact that there are plenty of gay couples who would like nothing more than to be married and are denied the right. In the end, though, I suppose what I feel most for people with an attitude like that is pity because they will always associate marriage and family with negative things and therefore miss out on the good stuff. Those people will never feel that getting lucky will mean anything more than winning some money.

Spending a nice chunk of uninterrupted time like that together can't be beat as far as my family is concerned. So the trip was supposed to be a gift for my daughter, but really, it was a gift for all of us. Now I'm thinking it would be great to make the every-5-years a tradition and take her again when she turns 18. Even if we don't, it feels so great to think that we could probably take her camping for a week when she turns 18 and we'd all get just as much out of it.

Next up: more specifics on what we actually did.

I Drive Myself Crazy, I Really Do

Tue, 12 May 2009 17:06:20 GMT

I really hate this "I'm starved but nothing sounds good to eat" mood that I'm in. It leads to bad food choices. I'll try a little of this and a little of that, and nothing will quite hit the spot. So I'll have some additional this-n-thats and those won't work, either. In the end it seems like I could've done better with a plate of Fettucine Alfredo chased with some onion rings and beer and polished off with a large slice of chocolate cake as respects consumption of fat, salt, sugar, and non-refined foods. Yeesh!

The only thing working for me now is the Vanilla Ceylon Iced Tea I'm drinking (picked up a tin while in California last week). It's so good. So, sooooo good. Why can't I find the food equivalent of this tea to hit the spot right now?

I have a couple of good vacation stories to tell, so will be back for that soon. For now I'm off to try to find something good to eat, if such a thing exists.

It's so Gay!

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 16:57:44 GMT

My husband saw a version of this Quiznos commercial for the first time last night.

Neither of us can believe this made it past the censors and we can't help but wonder: did the censors not get the innuendoes, or is our culture coming to an acceptance of homosexuality?

I Break this Radio Silence Just to Say...

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 19:52:36 GMT

My carpal tunnel issue has been causing me some pretty intense pain lately, hence the extended absence here. I've started to think that Twitter might be more in my line right now since about 140 characters would be just about right for me to type at one time.

And it's not that there aren't things I'd like to be talking about - like what fun Candy Tan's reading and signing of Beyond Heaving Bosoms was at Powells recently. And how I couldn't think of a question until my drive home (natch). (I'll give you a hint about the question, it was inspired by these Dame Sally Markham sketches.) And how I got to meet up and chat with lilithsaintcrow and Meljean Brook and a few others. Candy told the story (thanks to a question asking for the "early warning signs" of a person getting into romance novels) of how she first read a romance and it was awful and she couldn't help but wonder at the intelligence of anyone who liked them - which is a pretty good parallel for my own first romance-reading experience - along with the subsequent revision of that opinion upon finally reading a good one. Candy read from the choose-your-own-adventure chapter of the book, which I highly recommend. (Not just that chapter mind you, but the entire thing.) The book is entertaining and true and the kind of thing I'd induce my husband to read, if it were truly possible to induce him to read anything. (He won't even read any of Wodehouse's Ukridge stories, just so you know what I'm up against here.)

There's also been my contemplation of impactful story endings and how they can be an important and significant in their own way as the first impression. I mean, obviously a book needs to give a first good impression or the reader won't give it much of a chance. But I find I hold stories with an ending that can't be improved upon - the kind that practically smack you upside the head they pack such a wallop and are just so perfect in their way - are the ones that keep me pondering a story for weeks thereafter, that make such an impression that there's never a question to myself of "did I read this or not?" when I come across it at some future point again, and that can even get me to hold off on reading or watching any other stories for awhile so I can really savor that one. And those are pretty rare, if you think about it. I mean, it's not as if any story that doesn't do that isn't worthwhile or terrific in its own way. It's just that those stories that can be terrific all the way through from start to finish yet hold back until the final moment what will elevate that story from damn good to genius don't come along all that often. Complicating it further is the fact that the elusive genius-making element is all in the eye of the beholder. For example, when I say that I find the endings of One Hundred Years of Solitude and My Antonia to be superlative, I can also acknowledge that other people may not find the endings to be anything special. But to me, the endings can't be improved upon, they were perfect for the stories, they had me just sitting there savoring them for a long while afterwards and made the next things I read or heard or saw pale and insignificant little things. Not many stories can do that, you must admit.

There's the amazonfail fiasco, which at the moment I'll only say astonishes me (since I don't have the hand power to say everything I'm thinking) from the point of view of their complete inability to handle the public and their perception of what happened and why. As a company completely founded and run within the internet age, and thus one would imagine more than savvy in knowing how the internet and its rumor mills works, it is utterly baffling how/why they *still* haven't made any overtures to the public. Utterly amazing.

There's also how my family is going to Disneyland next week to celebrate my baby's 13th birthday. Egads! 13! It just doesn't seem possible. My sweet little snuffling infant, always so ready to smile (except right after waking - can't say I can blame anyone for that), always wanting to be with her mom and dad, entering the snarling teen-age years where mom and dad are such idiots that it's some kind of miracle to her adolescent mind that we can walk and talk at the same time. Anyway. We've been planning on this particular celebration for years and booked/paid for the trip last year, which kind of worked both for and against us given the current economy. Nevertheless, we're all looking forward to it - not least because the weather is rumored to be quite warm and we're freezing here in Portland at the moment. I tell you, one is just not meant to be wearing 5 layers of clothes to a softball game, and that's what we've been doing about half the time this year.

OK, my hand it starting to cramp significantly, so time to pull the plug on myself. Back to reading old Agatha Christie mysteries and a book I picked up last week-end at Powells: Love My Rifle More than You. Here's the first sentence: "Sometimes even now, I wake up before dawn and forget I am not a slut". Sounds promising, no?

I'll just close by apologizing for my radio silence, which I suspect will be ongoing for awhile to come. It makes me feel a bit ghoulish, reading all of your posts, getting little insights into the goings-on in your lives while not saying anything myself. Just know I appreciate your posts, even if I'm not reciprocating in kind.

Well, That Was a Mistake

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 14:36:20 GMT

I swam for about 20 minutes last night. I found I couldn't go anything above super-slow or it would hurt, so I kept it to super-slow and made my way up and down the lane for a short while, figuring I'd better see how the after-effects came on with a short and easy stint before going for a longer bout. It was nowhere near my usual aerobic level, but it felt good to just be moving, you know? Then I got out of the pool and holy cow! Insta-pain all over again. By the time I got home the whole foot, ankle, and lower part of my leg were on fire. I broke out the ice and kept that going throughout the night, but it's still throbbing. This is probably another scenario where being able to use Tylenol or Advil would come in real handy, but since I can't Plan B (aka suffering through) is my only option.

I think I may have set myself back a bit.

It's a mystery to me how this could have set it off so severely - like how I don't get why the shin splints hurt so much while running but didn't bother me at all with other activities that seemed just as hard on the legs. However, the why doesn't matter as much as the fact that it just *is*, so I need to deal with that.

I've been sitting here with a mug of tea and a baggie of ice for about 30 minutes. I'm still not too awake and my ankle still feels a if it's aflame (while throbbing to a nifty disco beat). Ugh. I'm usually at work by now and here I still am, not really sure what to do with myself.

Grrrr! I really hate not feeling 100%.

Because Life is a Barrel of Laughs

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 20:14:42 GMT

When I was finally just about back up to speed with life and exercising and work and cleaning my house after the many weeks of nasty illness, I went and sprained my ankle about 10 days ago.

Step class was just getting going and the instructor was teaching us a new twist on a move where you leap over the step. I performed it fine the first few times. Then disaster! I was in the midst of my leap, didn't lift my right foot high enough, caught it on the step, and boom! Pain explosion. I knew instantly that it was the worst sprain I've ever suffered, and let me tell you, I've suffered several.

I'm not quite sure how I made it home since walking and driving were agonizing. I think it was only because the swelling and bruising hadn't made it to full fruition that I could hop to my car (at the far end of the lot, naturally), get myself home, then hop to the couch. I spent that Saturday and Sunday with a bag of ice and pillows to elevate, and by Monday things were not much better.

My doctor's office couldn't see me, so my husband took me to the emergency room. He grabbed a wheelchair and drove me up to the counter where someone waited to check me in. I nearly burst out laughing because the look on the receptionist guy's face was exactly like that episode of Little Britain (the U.S. version) where the medical receptionist watches an old man slowly make his way across the lobby with his walker, step by slow and painful step. She gets impatient that it's taking him so long, rolls her eyes, and exclaims, "Oh, for fuck's sake!" He finally makes it to the counter and tells her his name and appointment information. She pounds away at the computer keyboard, looks at him, and says, "Computer says no". All of that was absolutely broadcast on this man's face.

After the check in was the wait in the lobby. After the wait in the lobby was the wait in the examination room. After answering a few questions for the doctor and trainee was the wait for getting an x-ray. The x-ray technician came to get me and didn't believe I was the person indicated on his paperwork (per him, I don't look my age) and for a second there I thought I was going to be accused of medical fraud or something. He wheeled me to get x-rays, then there was the wait for those to develop. Then there was the wait for the doctor to look at them, decide she couldn't tell if there was a fracture or not, and call for a consult. This of course led to the wait for the consult until, at last, the diagnosis: severe sprain.

I never realized sprains could be this bad. There's swelling and bruising and pain, and that's even with staying off my feet. After the visit to the emergency room, my husband and I picked up some crutches for me, then I was back at home again. With the exception of that time out of the house on Monday, I was sitting around home from Saturday morning until the following Thursday morning. It still hurt significantly and driving is still complete torture, but I couldn't take the boredom any more so worked most of Thursday and Friday last week.

I had been planning to be off most of this week as it is spring break and my daughter was counting on me being with her so didn't make other arrangements. When I suggested the possibility of maybe perhaps taking half days this week since I'd been out unexpectedly last week, the reaction was as if I'd not shown up for work one day then re-appeared 6 months later with no explanation and every expectation that my job would still be there waiting for me. Guess that means no for using my carry over vacation time.

Recovery is apparently going to take at least a month. Grrr. Years ago I read an interview of The Edge where he talked about how he gets this build up of adrenaline before performing and when on the road, finds there's a cycle to it where nearly every day he's practically abuzz with the need to do something dramatic about the time they'd usually take the stage, even on days with no shows. Once the tour is over, that adrenaline build up still happens for awhile and he feels like he's losing his mind (and can be difficult to live with) every night. I think I'm feeling some version of that with not being able to exercise. I feel this nearly constant kind of buzzing - sort of like when you have too much caffeine or sugar - that has me practically bouncing in my seat. And I have no outlet for it. I did limp around and lift weights last Saturday morning in the hopes that it would take the edge off the buzzing. It kind of helped. I intended to go back again last night, but after a visit to the dentist had a rip roaring headache so lazed on the couch instead. I'll try again tonight. I'm not sure what else I can do. Swimming, perhaps? I don't know what else to try for an aerobic kind of outlet that doesn't call for putting any weight on one foot. I'm not much of a swimmer, but it's definitely better than doing nothing.

So far I can't say I'm all that impressed with 2009.

What's the Cure for This?

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 19:37:25 GMT

It's a Friday afternoon. I've got plenty to do. I don't want to do any of it.

And I'm bored.

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 16:44:09 GMT

Thanks to a post by stoney321, I'm thinking of this quote from The English Patient:

"We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed into as if trees, fears we have hidden in as if caves."

I love how he puts that: "tastes we have swallowed".

Anyway, more specifically, I'm thinking of foods that I've eaten over the years that I'll never get to eat again: my mom's biscuits (oh! and the biscuits and gravy!), my dad's cream of potato soup (with corn bread), a pasta dish I used to have at a restaurant near my house that has since gone out of business, a cream of chicken & wild rice soup with soft and doughy-fresh garlic & cheese breadsticks from a cafe that has gone out of business, a tomato soup with dill I had once while on vacation...

I sometimes ponder the aphorism "you are what you eat". If true, I am the sum of home cooked meals, popcorn (microwave, stovetop, air popped, movie theater style), fresh fruits and vegetables, a sad volume of fast food, and fantastic, gourmet-level occasional meals out at wonderful restaurants. When I die, will I be thinking of these foods and regretting the things I shouldn't have eaten so much of as well as the ones I should have eaten more often? Will I be remembering what was going on when eating those foods - the meals with family, including the experiments gone wrong, the dinners from childhood that could be fun and light-hearted, but were most often dour and tense, the romantic meals out with my husband, or the joyful, hours-long ones sitting around a large table in good company, the lunches on my own where the food was inconsequential and taken in absent-mindedly while reading a newspaper or book?

Food can bring such joy. Food can meld people together and provide a nourishment to the spirit as well as nourishment to the body. And yet, so often, it's just a kind of object like any other of a million objects we don't pay any attention to because we are surrounded by so many objects. I have a suspicion sometimes that problems with weight aren't all due to eating too much or eating the wrong foods; I have this notion that part of our health issues aren't all from what we eat, but includes how we eat it. If we savored food all of the time, paid attention to every taste and texture, made each meal an event to be enjoyed with people we loved, would anyone ever be overweight?

Don't Bring Me Down Today

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 21:13:09 GMT

Oh, Friday, you are not going to bring me down. You can bring me nonsensical communications from the Indian Accountants (that would be accountants located in India), you can bring me e-mails that cause me to do work which someone else should be doing (after all, it is in his job title and he is getting paid for it while it's not in mine and I'm doing it for free), you can bring me math puzzles that I'll make more puzzling thanks to my general non-affinity for math, and you can show me a new web-based system for doing work that was obviously either not tested at all, or tested by people who have no idea what the hell they are talking about, but it's not going to work. Why? Because I'm finally feeling better!

I worked out last night, and for the first time in five weeks (count 'em: 5!), I had that little buzz at the end that I love - the one that tells me I could go longer and do more and which helps melt away stress and ramp up my energy. Yay! Yay yay yay! Plus the new U2 album is officially out, which means I can finally listen to it on my stereo with the big speakers and not the crappy computer ones which barely even hint at what's really going on. And my boys have been on Letterman all week (Cool Name: The Edge, Uncool Name: Sting FTW!), something I longed for back in the Unforgettable Fire and Joshua Tree and even Achtung Baby days and feared I'd never see.

Not to mention, it looks like it's a really pretty day, the kind that hints that spring just might be coming after all. And topping it all off, the killer PMS of last and this week is finally calming down my inner fury and letting *me* resurface again.

As you can see, Friday, I'm determined to be bouncy today and you can take this repeat of Monday you are attempting to pull off and move it along elsewhere. Ha!

Desperate Times Call for New Measures

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 23:14:54 GMT

For a variety of reasons (really late at work, didn't catch my bus, had to take my daughter out to get something for school, etc.), I missed Obama's address to the nation last night. When the 11 o'clock news did their obligatory surface analysis and brief clip, they also went directly to the obligatory person of the opposing party complaining about how Obama's plan would grow government and cost pots of money and put future generations of Americans in debt. As you may have noticed from my post yesterday, I spent a lot of yesterday in a rage. I was finally calmed down and about ready for bed when I saw that. It instantly flipped the switch back to anger and I had to walk away. My husband taunted me with how ignorant of current events it would make me to not know what was going on, but I knew it was head to bed right then or risk spending at least half of the night all hopped up on mad again and miss a decent round of sleep.

Now that I'm a bit calmer, it's a little easier to approach it with some reason and logic. The thing that flipped the switch last night was the hypocrisy of a Republican complaining about costing the taxpayers money after that very party managed to come into power with a surplus and turn it into the most massive deficit we've ever known, one that (by the way) will be putting several future generations of Americans in debt. This does bug me a very great deal, but it's also true that many politicians excel at utilizing selective memory, nonsensical rhetoric, and hypocritical thinking - it's nothing new and I suppose everyone is used to that by now and should mostly ignore it.

What bugs me far more is how people can't seem to see that this way of doing things isn't going to work. This is a massive problem and doing things the way they've always been done - immediately digging in and pointing out differences of opinion instead of building from areas of common agreement - isn't going to cut it. It irritates me no end that despite the loud and clear message American voters gave to our political representatives at the last election that we don't want this old way of doing things to continue, there are still so many hold outs that plan to ignore all that and just toddle along with business as usual.

There are a lot of tough choices to be made. I see news today that despite the fact that AIG's insurance carriers are holding their own, the parent is sinking fast. There are many more stories just like this waiting in the wings. We need to ask ourselves when enough is enough and when it's too much, we need to ask it fast, and we need to agree on an answer immediately thereafter. Approaching every problem from a stance of "you're wrong, I'm right, let the chips fall where they may" is a cop out from doing the job and it's a cop out from honoring the wishes of the people who gave you that job.

I'm not saying there shouldn't be dissent and there shouldn't be disagreement. I'm a believer in the notion that if a concept can't stand up to criticism, it's not a worthy concept and that including naysayers in a process works to make the final product stronger. But there's a way to register disagreement that's productive and there's a way to do it that is really nothing more than making a grab for power and attention. We need more of the former and less of the latter and we need it right now. We need fewer people concerned about walking in lockstep with their party (seemingly protesting just to protest) and more people concerned about doing what is right.

And if only I knew the guy's name that bugged me so much last night, I'd send this message directly to him.

Ranty McRantypants

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 23:24:18 GMT

Some of my colleagues have officially stepped on my last nerve today. After stepping on it, they proceeded to do a jig. I really need a sound proofed room right now that I can use for some primal screaming.

I'll start by cursing out the lazy fucking jerkoff that told us he would get some things done last week while having no intention of actually doing them. And is it HIM that's going to look bad in front of the client? No. Will the client go and complain to HIM about the tardiness of this job being completed. No. All blame will come to my office which, I might add, did its fucking job and did it on time.

Next are the people who are so fucking useless that they can't even look something up in the place they work from every single day before asking me for additional information. No, instead they felt the need to waste my time and ask me to go input information THAT WAS ALREADY THERE. This system is a pain in the ass for me to access, on top of which the website was moved and no one had published the new location, making an even bigger pain in the ass to work with, while they are automatically in it all of the time. Is it that fucking difficult to check to see if you are missing critical information before you ask someone else for it? I know *I* make sure I really need something before I ask for it. As it is, this all comes off as nothing more than a wasted attempt to not do something that really needs to be done and push it back off onto me.

Fucktards.

If this was a first (or maybe even second or third) occurrence for either of these places I might have a little more patience with the laziness. But the fact is, it's merely the latest in a long string of incidents where *I* have to both work harder and do more (read: their fucking jobs) and I really resent it.

Fuck!

I'm guessing this day is going to end on a note called alcohol.

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 17:04:40 GMT

I did the grocery shopping after work last night. I got home and left most of the unpacking to my family then dived face first into bed. I briefly considered eating some dinner, but decided I just didn't care about food at that moment as much as I cared about sleep. I think I was out by 7pm.

I had some terrific dreams about traveling to China for a client. There are probably some deeper meanings in there I should be examining, but I really enjoyed my dreams (I really enjoy travel) and am instead choosing to dwell on the happy notion of traveling to China for work. How do I get that job, I wonder? That's the kind of job I'd really love. Towards the end of my dream the client mentioned that they'd like us to also visit a location in Belgium and as I surfaced back to consciousness we were leaving the details on making that happen to our travel agents. Why travel to China and Belgium? I have no idea. I haven't exactly been thinking about either of those places lately which kind of adds to the charm of the whole thing.

I'm feeling a bit better today than I have since Valentine's Day. That was the time I felt pretty all right, went to step class, went out at night despite a sore throat, and awoke the next day feeling as awful as ever. I am planning to work out tonight, but have learned my lesson: if I'm not quite up to it, I'll skip it and sleep instead. My husband heard that today is National Pancake Day and proposed going to dinner at a local place that serves breakfast all day and that wouldn't be a bad way to spend the evening, either. Eating pancakes is kind of the opposite of working out as far as physical health is concerned, but it's possibly just about equal in the mental health category.

Thinking of food has had me pondering the pork shoulder I bought last night. It is to be tossed into a Crock Pot with salsa verde for a leisurely cooking, then will be chipped into bite sized pieces for use in enchiladas - or something kind of close to enchiladas. We use flour tortillas since neither my husband nor I can stand the texture of the corn tortillas (yes, we realize this is both Bad and Wrong). Anyway, in a large baking dish we have tortillas rolled up with refried beans, the cooked pork, and a sprinkling of cheese. Once the dish is filled with these little burritos, in goes the salsa from the Crock Pot. That gets baked for a bit and then YUM! ensues. It's been a few months since we've had that and winter is the perfect time for it. I can't wait.

In other news, this online article on skiving caught my attention. As someone who's been working while ill for weeks (with the full support, not to mention encouragement, of my employer) I have some obvious feelings on the subject. I notice that they mention people who are nurses and policemen average the highest number of days off of work. This makes perfect sense to me. Not only do these people work in high stress jobs that take a lot out of a person, they are also exposed more than most people to all of the germs and other bugs that make us sick. There was a 'scandal' a couple of years back in Portland about police using cell phones paid for by the city to call home and other personal places. For myself, I couldn't figure out why this was a big deal. First of all, if the city doesn't have some sort of unlimited calling plan given the hundreds of people on the cell phone plan, the people administering the program are idiots and that's hardly the fault of the policemen using the phones. Second of all, I would presume that's the kind of job where you may think you're going to get off at a certain time or be able to do something you had plans for, but find that's not going to be the case. I don't begrudge a policeman a few phone calls home in the least and can't understand why it was made out to be such a big deal. If they were talking about excessive calls, that would be different, but that wasn't the case at all. Anyway, I'm of the opinion that there are certain jobs where a little extra leeway with days off or personal phone calls are in order. Nurses and doctors both fall into that category as far as I'm concerned. Give 'em a break, people.

OK, that came from nowhere and sort of dimmed the glow I had all morning thanks to my happy dreams. Which I suppose makes this a perfect time to find someone who's late in getting something done and ~~make some threats to something precious to him~~ follow up nicely.

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 00:55:27 GMT

Today I received an internal memo that discusses the latest information concerning AIG's financial status - most specifically, how the insurance carriers are doing (very well).

Then there was information on a new financial scandal involving Sir Allen Stanford. I found this sentence particularly interesting: "Stanford also donated almost $1m in contributions to US politicians, including George W Bush and several others who helped scupper the introduction of tough new legislation against money laundering proposed by the Clinton government." To borrow from Bill Maher, I'd like to propose a New Rule: if the company you're planning to invest your money with is lobbying against money laundering laws, you don't get any sympathy from me (or bailouts from anyone) when it turns out the company you were investing with was crooked.

More information on the Madoff securities scandal keeps coming in as well and that looks to be a situation that'll be going on for many years to come.

This confluence of information on big money schemes that have gone belly up have put me in mind of those old black and white movies from the 1930s that featured a hard working farmer burying his stash out in the backyard then protecting it with a shotgun. I'm starting to see the attraction in that investment philosophy.

The people I do feel sorry for are those who gave their money to some local group they trusted that in turn invested in an insitutional fund which in turn bulk invested its money with Madoff. Unfortunately, those people who put in their money with some trustworthy company (or seemingly so, depending on whether they performed their due diligence when they gave the funds over to the institutional fund) have no way of knowing that it's been blended with money from their stream plus a few others to create a river flowing straight to a thief.

I'm too tired to go into a full on rant on this topic (though it's inside itching to burst free...fair warning), but I am coming more and more to the point of view that if some investment scheme doesn't make any sense on the surface, it's going to be even less meaningful once you scratch the surface. I'm thinking I need to go back to the one-by-one way of thinking and pick the companies and public entities I'd like to invest in personally and leave the "experts" with their big conglomeration of funds out of it.

It will be interesting to watch this all develop. It's starting to feel like sooner or later every single person who ever put a dollar in the bank will be affected somehow as these houses of cards tumble down. And that's really rather depressing.

***
In more cheerful news, best birthday wishes to adriana_is. Hope it's been terrific!

The Good, The Meh, and The Monday

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 19:26:08 GMT

Cut for rambling...

As with most week-ends, mine was over too soon. I went to step class Saturday morning and that was an interesting experience. The class goes for 75 minutes, with 60+ minutes making up the step part, a few minutes for cool down and light weight lifting (time permitting), and the rest for final stretching. Usually with this instructor, I'm enjoying the class so much that if I have any thought at all as to the time, it'll be just around the 60 minute mark - I'll think it has to be close to ending and will pour on a little extra steam at the end to finish on a high. This Saturday was quite different. I started feeling weak and shaky, but figured it was probably close to the end of class so if I just dialed it down a little I'd be fine (this was my experience on the prior Saturday). A few minutes later it occurred to me that I was really struggling and felt like I could drop. I maneuvered myself so I could peek at the clock and got quite a shock: We were only 30 minutes in. I really don't know how I made it through the entire 60 minutes, as I was seriously ready to stop at that 30 minute mark. At that point it was sheer stubbornness that got me through a modified version of my usual weight lifting routine. I think I must have been on some other mental plane because I don't know how I did it and can't imagine doing it again. Thankfully I've taken to having a protein smoothie ready in the car on my weight lifting days, so I made my way outside on incredibly shaky legs and sat there to drink it for a few minutes before starting for home. The fruit in the smoothie helped my blood sugar in an immediate way and the protein helped tone down the shakes until I could eat a real meal. I felt better after eating, though nowhere near normal.

In fact, I was completely wiped out and wanted nothing more than to have a shower then crawl into bed for a good 18 hours. However, I had to take my daughter to the batting cages for a chance to hit a few balls before softball try outs later in the day. It was really hard for me to get dressed and leave the house, but I did it. I took her and a friend who is going out for softball for the first time. Ho boy, that was kind of hard. My daughter is a natural when it comes to hitting. She hasn't played at all since last June's All Star tournament, but it came right back to her. She had a little bobble with her swing where she was doing that classic thing of reaching the bat back farther after the ball was one its way to her, but her stance and eye-hand coordination were still there and she was hitting them a good distance right from the start. Unfortunately, the cages only have slow pitch softball to practice and reserve fast pitch for baseball only (with these warnings on the door that make it seem no one less than a professional athlete should even think to step inside). She tried the fast pitch baseball, but didn't do well there and we didn't have time for her to stick it out at the time (she was so close to getting it, too). Meanwhile, the hard part: the friend. As I said, she's never played before and I admire her courage in starting now while so many of the other kids started years ago. She kept leaping in the air to take swings, wouldn't keep her feet planted and kept taking steps before and during her swings, and couldn't seem to grasp what I was pointing out to her about how my daughter and the other people there would transfer their weight from back to front when swinging in order put more power into hitting. I'm no coach and this wasn't my daughter and after awhile I didn't know what else to do or say to help her get it, or how much to push to make her see. No matter what my daughter and I said, she continued to do the same thing and, so far as I know, never hit a ball more than a few feet.

I think I've spoken before about how I never played sports as a kid and never paid much attention to them, either. Because of that, I never really knew all the ways in which playing team sports can instill or reinforce some good life lessons. One thing you learn early on in sports is that when the coaches are telling you to change an ingredient in what you are doing, it really is meant for your own good. They know something or can see something you don't, and they are passing on their knowledge to you to help you improve. Being able to take constructive criticism with grace and in the spirit it is intended is a skill just about everyone needs, and I've noticed that those kids that don't or won't pay attention or who feel resentment at getting instruction are the ones who don't do well, don't enjoy playing, and drop out as soon as they can. My daughter does pretty well with accepting and utilizing this kind of feedback and I'm proud of her for it. I think this other girl is pretty brave to go out for this at her age, but I fear she's not going to do well and she's not going to enjoy it if she can't learn - immediately - to pay attention to and do what the coaches ask of her.

After the batting, we went to a field to work on throwing and catching. This one kills me with my daughter because by the end of every season she does very well. At the beginning, however, it's a though she's learning all over again. It was actually a little better than usual, but I do think she has some muscles to build up again so will need to spend extra time on these things just like every other year. The friend...well, it was the same as at the cages. And she wouldn't even *try* to do things any way besides the way she was (unsuccessfully) doing them.

Despite everything, I really had a lot of fun with the girls. While at the park we ran into a kid they know from school who was there rollerblading. After a few minutes, he came over and pitched and it was actually quite helpful having that extra person there. It allowed the girls a chance to try to hit off of a real pitcher plus gave them the opportunity to do more realistic catching and throwing drills. It was a sunny and mild winter's day and there are certainly worse ways to spend time on a pretty day than the All American past time.

At the try outs, they kicked out the parents and had the girls go in alone. The friend's dad agreed to bring my daughter home afterwards, so I went on home and (finally!) collapsed into bed. I got up a few minutes before my husband got home from work to see what I should make for dinner. He came in, took one look at me, and sent me back to bed. I guess I looked like I felt.

During this long illness, my house has been less than clean. Far less than clean. It's been driving me crazy, but beyond doing about 1/5th of what needs to be done whenever I have some spare energy, I just haven't been able to do more. I spent a good five hours cleaning on Sunday (which took so long partly because things needed extra time and partly because I was moving so damned slow) and even though things still weren't done, I was. I was again shaky and ready to collapse just from doing laundry and dishes and floors and a bathroom. I usually make a nice family dinner on Sunday, but I just couldn't do it last night. I was totally out of gas and wanted nothing more than to head to bed for the night at about 6:45 pm.

Alas and of course, that didn't happen.

Thanks to my husband's snoring, I got only a few hours sleep last night. He's been to see a few doctors, has participated in a sleep study, and pretty much knows what his issues are (sleep apnea plus some other things), but the treatment he chose seems to be doing the opposite of working. It could be I'm just a little hysterical and ultra-sensitive due to several weeks of illness and thus really needing my sleep right now, but I swear he's getting worse and not better. Frankly, it seems unbelievable that it's possible for the human body to generate the level of noise he's generating by virtue of breathing. What really kills me is that most of the time he makes me out to be the bad guy for needing to leave the room to have even the tiniest shot at getting any sleep.

With my 3 hours of sleep, I overslept and got a late start. It's getting harder and harder as I get older to get through a day (then two days, then most of a week) with just a few hours of sleep each night. I'm exhausted when I wake up in the morning and that's not a nice way to start a day. Could be this chronic tiredness has helped this illness hang in there as long as it has, but it's equally likely this is just how long this illness hangs on for everyone. Still, it's not helping to be miserably sick while being held back from sleep.

On the bus this morning I sat next to a guy who bathes in nicotine, washes his clothes in a detergent made of tobacco, sprinkles ground up cigarettes on his food for seasoning, and tops all that off by smoking as often and as much as possible. Or at least that's how he smelled. Now I keep catching whiffs of all that tobacco-y goodness on myself.

My computer is working at the speed that those punchcard machines did in the 70s - you know, those ones that filled up an entire room yet took 20 minutes to calculate the kind of simple equation a human can calculate in less than a blink of the eye. This speed of operation led to many a nail-biting episode of The Bionic Woman that I quite enjoyed when I was a kid. Sadly, I can't say it's doing much for me now.

The people I sit near who don't have any volume control over their voices are carrying on a long and impassioned conversation. They are not sitting in the same room.

The banana I carried in my purse to work burst open and spread it's sticky deliciousness just about everywhere.

The shirt I am wearing for the first time appears to be one of those I'm going to have to watch for spontaneous button opening. The shirt is not tight and I'm not that large in the bust. Nevertheless, thus far I've caught the button that goes across the chest completely open once and nearly open a few more times.

In short, I'm crabby today.

Start Me Up

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 16:30:37 GMT

When my alarm went off at 5:04 this morning, I turned it off as quickly as possible. I was puzzled as to why I had set it. When I woke up again at 5:38, I was irritated that I was awake again so early on a day off. I was utterly convinced it was Saturday.

About 2 minutes later the disappointing truth came to me. It was Friday and I needed to get out of bed.

After a few nights of less-than-stellar amounts of sleep, I had a great snooze last night. Still, it didn't seem like even remotely enough. This virus of doom continues apace and I think I could be happy only if I were allowed to sleep the day away.

I had my annual visit with my allergist yesterday, and as always, it was a comfortable and informative appointment. He and his staff dress comfortably in jeans, sit on counters or chairs or the exam table when speaking with me (and I presume other patients), he draws molecules and diagrams on the exam table's butcher paper to illustrate what he's explaining*, and they all take the time to really talk something through and ask lots of questions. It probably adds 5-10 minutes to every person's exam time, and it never fails to amaze me how much more I get out of visits with him than I ever have with any other doctor. That little bit of extra time makes a big difference, I think. I leave with a thorough understanding of my condition(s), what medications work or don't work for my scenario, and why certain treatments are recommended over others. That in itself is a singular thing in my experience with doctors. Generally I leave a doctor's office with instructions to do something and I'll do it, but I'm doing it because "(s)he said so" without any real understanding of what it's doing for me. He's near the top of the list of the best doctors in Portland (as voted by his peers) and I certainly understand why.

We talked a bit about this thing that has taken over my body for over 3 weeks and how I was feeling better going into last week-end, then had a sharp turn for the worse shortly thereafter. He explained that given my symptoms, it's very likely I have an acute sinus infection. It may not have started out that way lo those many weeks ago, but the feeling-better-no-feeling-terrible thing is a classic sign of sinusitis. He also told me that studies have shown that of people who get sinus infections, 80% of them will be symptom free without antibiotics in 4 weeks. Of those that are still ill after 4 weeks, the majority of people need antibiotics in order to get rid of it. So at this point, I've got about a half of a week to see if this will be leaving on its own before I have to consider seeing my usual physician. I've been avoiding the thought of antibiotics partly because I didn't think I needed them (I didn't realize that you don't necessarily have a fever throughout a sinus infection, they can come and go as has happened with me) and partly because I was on them for 6+ weeks when I had pneumonia - in gradually stronger and stronger types - and I worry about using them indiscriminately then having nothing left to try should I really need them.

So here I am with my head still swimming, so very tired that I think if I just set my head on my desk for even a moment I could pass right out, sore throat, stuffed up and yet constantly draining, with a dry cough that goes nowhere...and a very challenging mental puzzle to solve this morning. I'm not really feeling on my game or in the least up to it, but today's the deadline and it needs get done.

I guess I'd better start taking a stab at it. Though perhaps another cup of tea is in order first.

_____
*He's also kind of a strange animal in that he's this classic Pacific Northwesterner strain of guy who's down home and hardy and hunts and fishes and drives a gas guzzling monster of a vehicle because that's the kind you need for holding rifles and hauling home a buck, but he's also quite obviously a science nerd. I haven't met too many like him - it's usually a one or the other kind of deal around here.

Days of Wine and Whining

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 21:12:17 GMT

This virus is like the mafia: every time I think I'm getting away from it, it pulls me right back in again.

I was finally beginning to feel better at the end of last week. On Friday I was pretty crabby at work, but that was mostly to do with the Loud Mouths Who Wouldn't Shut Up and the Computer That Moved in Super-Slow Motion All Day. Other than that, I wanted to run down the street exclaiming, "I don't feel sick. I don't feel sick!" Or maybe go to Disneyland or Vegas or whatnot. You know, have some fun. On Saturday morning, I woke up excited because I felt good enough to go to the step class I love so much. I was about ready to drop by the end of class and didn't lift weights as much as I usually do, but still - I did it and figured in a couple of weeks I'd be back to my pre-virus vigor. I was shaky, but it was all good.

My husband and I had plans to go out Saturday night, so I took a nap in the afternoon. And wouldn't you know it, I woke up with a sore throat and was a touch out of it. I didn't want to skip going out, though. Partly because my husband and I hardly ever get out, partly because he had been invited by people he used to work with and he wanted to see them again (but wouldn't go without me), and partly because it was Valentine's Day. So I put on the big girl pants, ignored the sore throat, and went for it. My husband had given me a bottle of wine by a favorite vintner for Valentine's Day, so I brought it along and paid a corking fee at the bar in order to drink it. I figured of all alcohols to drink when feeling a bit dodgy, wine might be the best choice. Because there's, um, vitamins and stuff in there. Right? Plus I could cork up the left overs and take it home. The first glass went down so well that I said yes to a second. By the time I was mid-way into the third, I was sloshed. A combination of drinking liquor rarely plus wavering on the edge of illness got me staggeringly drunk on less than three glasses of wine. It was pathetic. Really pathetic.

Despite the fact that I didn't know anyone besides my husband all that well, I had a good time. I'm sure that's no surprise considering I just said I was drunk and things tend to take on a rose-tinted glow in that condition. But really it was fun meeting people he's talked about so I could knit his anecdotes to my impressions. Also, they like my husband so much they were predisposed to like me and went out of their way to make me feel welcome. Many of them mentioned that they remembered me from when we had met before, but beyond a couple that I remembered (for the most part, these were people my husband had talked about and I met after that so when I was meeting them I was putting a face to the stories), I had to smile in a vague and theoretically non-insulting way and hope for the best when I couldn't say I remembered them in return. How else do you handle that scenario?

Anyway, there was karaoke (which I didn't sing due to the ~~terror~~ ~~of singing alone in front of an audience after many, many, many years of not doing that~~ sore throat), there was pool (which I didn't play because I ~~suck at it~~ was too busy advising my husband on the shots he should take), there was dancing (which my husband did with me even though he was sober), and there was a lot of good laughs. There was also a person singing a song he wrote that, despite the fact that it contains just about the filthiest lyrics I've ever heard, was completely boring. It was hilarious, though, because it was like that scene in Old School with the person singing the Bonnie Tyler song and throwing in the cuss word every so often: people were kind of shaking their heads like a dog not sure of what it just heard and looking at one another quizzically as if to say "did he just say what I think he just said?" I was looking at the lyrics as they scrolled along the prompter and can say "Yes. Yes, he did".

When we arrived home, I kind of collapsed on the couch - fully clothed, contacts in, teeth unbrushed - and found I couldn't really move. My husband undressed me right there, gave me a pillow and a blanket, and toddled off to bed alone. I woke up a few hours later, still tipsy, and weaved my way to the bathroom to take care of my evening ablutions. We had somehow blown the circuit for the bathroom, so I did all that tipsy AND in the dark, and was pretty proud of myself until it occurred to me the next day that all I had to do to get light was flip the breaker. I considered going to bed, but then realized my husband was snoring in a very annoying fashion and that I could possibly get sick and I didn't want to disturb him with that, so collapsed once more onto the couch.

I can't say I was happy to see morning when it came. I didn't really feel hung over, but I did feel ill. Miserably, horribly ill. The sore throat was back with a vengeance and it brought all the other bad stuff I've been feeling for weeks along with it. Oh, how I wished to at least be able to take a Tylenol for the fever and the pain. Sunday passed by in a series of whining complaints (I had less than 2 days of feeling good!, why?why?why?, it's so unfair!, repeat), naps, and pleas for fresh herbal tea and iced water. Monday (thank heavens it was a holiday for my office) was more of the same.

I'm glad to say that the pain is mostly gone, but it seems as if I'm right back where I was about 3 weeks ago. My head is swimming, my throat is sore, I have a cough, there's significant sinus drainage that's making me nauseous, my vision is blurry, and I wish like hell I could be at home sleeping this off.

My husband is telling me this is what I get for pushing myself. But as I've never had a rebound illness like this, I have to say, in fairness, how was I to know that exercise and a few glasses of wine would get me here? If I'd ever gone through something like this before and had any notion I should have expected it, I certainly wouldn't have had so much fun on Saturday. It really isn't fair, damn it!

The Brainstorming Results of a Few Mornings Worth of Showers

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 15:49:07 GMT

Things I'd like to see....

Cereal manufacturer's taking advantage of our culture's awakening awareness to sustainability issues and offering some innovation in the area of delivering Cheerios and Cap'n Crunch to me. That is, I think it would be fantastic if they could work out a system where people could purchase a permanent type of container and when they go to the grocery store instead of having to pick up a box they could go to a dispenser that would dole out the right amount of cereal. If they still give out prizes for the kids, a little machine could do that as well, popping it into the container automatically for every x amount of cereal purchased. It seems to me there's a lot of area for flexibility in this concept: companies like Kellogg could create a container that includes the nutrition information for several of their cereals right on the outside or they could do something like create one for each of their cereals with their logo and branding symbol for that item on it (e.g. the rooster for corn flakes). There could be some creativity in the areas of whether the container is clear yet still offers protection against staleness or how the container opens up to dispense the cereal.
Solar powered ice chests. I would love to go camping and not have to replenish the ice just about every day. Plus it would leave so much more room for food if the chest didn't have to be 3/4 filled with ice in order to chill the remaining 1/4 of the contents of the chest.
Solar powered Christmas lights. Think how great it would be to not have to tie back all those cords to a power source, especially for outdoor applications.
An iPod that automatically includes the ability to publish itself to a radio. There is a little plug you can purchase to do the job, but it seemed to suck the battery dry on my iPod every time I used it plus didn't work all that well.
Me remembering to take all the bags I've purchased for the purpose of carrying my groceries into the store with me instead of forgetting them at home or in the trunk of my car.

ETA something completely off topic of the original post: I find it weird that yesterday morning I heard Sinead O'Connor's song The Emperor's New Clothes on the radio and this morning I received an e-mail that included a quote from that story. Like I said the other day, I do try to find meaning in the little and the large events of life and things like this happen with me all of the time. I never know what to make of them. According to that article I linked to the other day, I suppose I'm not to make anything of them - I'm supposed to accept that they are completely random occurrences with no inherent meaning. Still, I can't help myself from wondering if this concurrence of references to that story isn't the universe trying to tell me something.

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 17:53:50 GMT

Illness: day 14. I feel like I should be doing diary entries like those ones you see in SciFi movies. You know, where's there's a voice-over telling you about some experiment someone performed on himself (it's always a guy, isn't it?) and how it has changed and continues to change his body. Today continues much like yesterday. There's this feeling of tiredness so profound that caffeine can't penetrate it which is accompanied by ringing in the ears, dizziness, sinus pain and pressure, drainage down the back of the throat, an occasional cough, and a notion that the only hope of getting over it is about 72 hours of uninterrupted sleep. In fact, I did sleep Saturday away and actually had some energy on Sunday. Then, in the words of my husband, I overdid it and slingshotted myself right back to where I started with what seemed like a very little bit of activity at the time. On Sunday we did a few chores around the house, went out to lunch, I did grocery shopping, and my daughter and I went to a movie. Not much at all, really. But by Sunday evening I was all done in and on Monday morning back to being utterly miserable.

Meanwhile, I've been having weird dreams that I can't quite recall when I wake up, and they chafe at me over the course of the day that follows because I can sense they stirred up some strong emotions, but I don't know exactly what the emotions are or why I'm feeling them.

This is a very frustrating illness.

Also meanwhile, I'm pondering a couple of things I've read online in recent days.

First, here's this article at NewScientist that goes into experiments that have the goal of answering the question of why humans believe in god(s): Born believers: How your brain creates God. Here's one of the things which caught my attention:

"Jennifer Whitson of the University of Texas in Austin and Adam Galinsky of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, asked people what patterns they could see in arrangements of dots or stock market information. Before asking, Whitson and Galinsky made half their participants feel a lack of control, either by giving them feedback unrelated to their performance or by having them recall experiences where they had lost control of a situation.

The results were striking. The subjects who sensed a loss of control were much more likely to see patterns where there were none."

I find that final sentence spellbinding: "The subjects who sensed a loss of control were much more likely to see patterns where there were none." This intrigues me in part because I've long had these notions that kind of skirt around that idea, but which never actually came right to that point. That is, I see this link between little superstitions that a lot of people believe in and perform and the rituals that make up such a large part of religion (i.e. "if I/we do this, then that thing I/we desire will be the outcome"). I think now that the notion at the heart of both of those is that people are trying to use whatever tools they can to gain control over a situation where it's not possible to have true control. It also intrigues me because I've also observed over the years that the people I've known who have the strongest belief in their religion also seem to have this air of unconcern about them over the ups and downs of life. It's as though they've given up on the need to control their life to their idea of God so completely that they don't feel the need to worry or care about whether their situation will end up good or bad. Then there's how the concept of seeing patterns where there are none also dovetails into how people need to feel there's a meaning or higher purpose behind things when something horrible happens.

I find the fact that I find myself looking for meaning in both the significant and the mundane things that happen to me both frightening and fascinating and it moves me simultaneously both further away and closer toward believing that people have free will. In other words, as with many things surrounding the notion of God, I find my beliefs are at the intersection of a contradiction and about the only positive thing I can say about it is that at least I can see the contradiction which many people can not.

The second thing that caught my attention is this article about Free speech on the internet. I do agree with this statement: "The Internet is a culture of rights rather than responsibilities. We have no coherent theory of digital responsibility", though I don't know what kind of limits we, as a society, can or should put on people as respects what they say on the internet. I suppose I would like for the same standard of care to apply that applies to our free speech rights in general (of course, this is speaking to the United States - and how we apply the US rights to people from other countries is just as difficult to conjure as applying the rights other countries allow onto people in the US). That is, free speech is one thing and can/should be allowed, but we also have a responsibility to use due care in what we say. I try to have that standard of care govern the things I say when I'm making statements hither and yon around the blogosphere, and I've seen many other people appear to be doing the same. But I've also seen many people saying things without any apparent regard as to whether what they are saying is true, hurtful, or legal as well as how those things can be incredibly harmful. I'm sure anyone who has hung around the internet for awhile can recall at least one situation where a comment has spawned the swarm of locusts descending to lay waste to all in its path. It truly appears about as thoughtful and responsible as that. Meanwhile, people who sometimes don't deserve to be mowed down are completely decimated. (It's kind of interesting, actually, how one can see this very thing occurring with people making statements without any regard for the sensibilities of others at that site with the article about the brain and God. I could probably get lost in those comments if I wanted to, but I'm choosing to keep hold of my sanity and bypass that whole morass.)

It's just occurred to me that it's probably no wonder I'm feeling so darned dizzy with God and internet free speech twirling around in my head, but really, I do believe it's the Illness of Much and Varied Suffering more than these topics. Like a bad houseguest, it is more than time for this Illness of Much and Varied Suffering to take its leave. If only I knew how to evict it...

>:( <--Today

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 17:22:29 GMT

This Friday appears to have case of the Mondays. One indication of its Monday-ness is how three (emergency) e-mails will come in for every one e-mail I'm responding to. And the person calling me to ask me to change something which I don't know how to do, and she has no idea how to change it either, so we have the blind leading the blind through a system that's about as sideways from intuitive as it's possible to be. Plus there's my daughter calling to tell me she got to her bus stop on time, but there were no people around as there usually are and no bus in sight. Best of all is my very Monday-esque mood thanks to still feeling wretched, which is ~~nicely~~ exacerbated by the very poor night of sleep I got last night.

WTF, Friday?

About the best that can be said for all of this is thank heavens it is Friday because I really wouldn't want to be in a reality where there are four more work days like this to face right after this one.