Antennae-Bobber? Too Small! I Need THIS . . .

I drive a bitty car in a town just this side of "on the mountain" that's ruled by pick-up trucks and SUVs.  This is only problematic when I go to stores that have large parking lots . . . and is especially problematic when I go to stores that have large parking lots where the shoppers expect to haul their purchases.  Lowe's, for example. 

I have to "find" my car by looking for "the hole" amid all those larger vehicles.  On days when the lots aren't exactly full, looking for "empty" spots between trucks means I'm usually out there wandering between aisles trying to look like I haven't lost my own car.  AND since my antennae skims along the roof a mere 10" or so, those cute little look-for-me antennae-bobber things are completely pointless.

So my friend Amyn and I decided that I needed something bigger and more flambuoyant to make my parking space more visible.  We think one of these will do nicely:

Daniel O'Connell's (awesome pub grub in alexandria)

http://www.danieloconnells.com/history.jsp


GET.
THE.
GUINESS.
BURGER.

!!!!!!!!!!

I swear to gawd  you will never want a cheeseburger any other way again.  EVER.

In Case You Missed It (marcel the shell)

Original can be found here if youTube fails (again).

Shrimp Curry (snigger)

Yeah . . . it smells and tastes great, but it looks a little too much like baby poo not to snigger a little on the inside.

My Brilliant Cupcake Business Idea (someone already had)

During a typical "work-related" IM chat today:

Lauren says:
wish i had a cuppycake

Beth says:
oh yeah
there should be a store
with delivery service
and an online clickable menu
with paypal button

Lauren says:
yessss

***  5 mins later . . . ***

Lauren says:
http://www.curbsidecupcakes.com/
 
Beth says:
OMG---
I wonder how much we'd have to tip if we had them come to L'burg??

Address Type-o (pamdora?)

Was gearing up to zone out for hours of timesheets and graphing today (because that's what I have in store for my day) and so I pulled up the internet tab and pecked out the addy for some tunes . . . p-a-n-d-o-r-a-.-c-o-m

buuuuuuut I mispelled it and subbed an m for the n and found myself starring at someone's blog.  She takes some nice pix.  The kind of pix I'd like to take if I actually dedicated myself to doing something other than zoning out of my own life once in a while . . .

Party on Pam.  Party on.  (Click the photo to go to PAMDORA.COM--heh)

Happiness Photo Contest (pioneer woman)

My friend Lauren got me hooked on this woman's blog via the recipes (hello?!--chocolate cobbler, anyone?!).  From there it just escalated.

I love (LOVE!) the recent Happiness photos her readers submitted.  5 groups posted in all, here's a link to the last set.

I can't stop smiling . . .

My Tat (1)

My Christmas gift from my sister--she made the appointment and everything, I just sketched it up a few days beforehand on a whim while messing around with some ideas.  Will have a border with motif added to the bottom and more designwork plus a border added to top.  Text in the image says merely "live"--and appropo to the heart monitor I happened to be wearing when this was done. 

Side boob provided unintentionally, but free of charge.

And now suddenly 3 other friends are getting tree tattoos. Just call me a trend setter . . . or something. :P

Long Time, No Post!

Wow!  I can't believe it's been THREE MONTHS since my last post!  I guess you can surmise just how busy I've been . . .

"Let me 'splain . . . No, there is too much. Let me sum up . . . "

Got a tattoo
Snow-mageddon
Last straw reached for current apartment
House hunting weekend 1: FAIL
Cardiologist issued clean bill of health ("whatever's going on, it's not your heart . . . mostly")
House hunting weekend 2: FAIL
Apartment fixin's: bedroom
Fired my neurologist, hired a new one
House hunting weekend 3: SCORE!
Work trip to Texas
New meds, new seizure (on the way to the airport for . . . )
Work trip to Lousiana
House contract stuff
House inspection stuff
More house contract stuff
New meds, prescription still on the dresser: enjoying being "normal" for a while (it's only been 3 years)
Help update a kid's room
More house contract stuff
Work trip to Nebraska
Apartment fixin's: bathroom
Apartment packin's
Living off fast food for 3 months (lost: 10 lbs (go figure!); found: 2 white hairs, various achy joints, 2 under-eye bags, 1 car full of take-home bags)

Work Experience

Too much this week, brain is  . . . brain is what?  I dunno!

. . . stayed focused for about 2 hours this morning on tasks, then emergencies, craziness.  Train of thought = derailed.  Forgot what I was doing.  Forget, forget . . . find the strings again, sidetracked, forget!  Then lunch and food coma. 

What the hell was I doing?!

Ah, got it.  Only now . . . motivation has died.

R.I.P.

Traveling Cool (HA!)

Dec 26, 2009


The problem with stretch jeans is they start to shrink *up* with age . . . so even though I bought my jeans as a long-length bootcut a mere year-and-a-half ago, the cuff now sits about 4 inches above the top of my shoe when sitting.

This only bothers me when I'm trying to emit Urban Cool . . .

[insert from my inner truthsayer: HA!! Not in a *million years* will I ever attain "cool", urban or otherwise!)

. . . but I forgot I put on bright white kneesocks (with purple bands).

Time to put these in the summer jeans pile, I guess!

** **

Update: I changed my jeans and socks. Technically I can justify this by saying I cahnged into something that will keep me warmer . . . I WAS feeling a bit of a draft around my ankles and my angora green and black striped socks will squash that, sir! Now I just need some sniggering 20-something to point out that I changed and still look like a dork.

Yeah, but my hair is kickin' and now I have socks to match! LOL

Winchester (winter 2009)

From our second snowfall this winter--new record for December!  21" by the end of the day, taken in the morning 12/19/09 from my bedroom window.

**  **

Dec 20, 2009, appx 1am

The snow stopped hours ago and I'm outside in a black and white and grey world with two cardinal red envelopes in my gloved hand; I'm feeling like a colorized monochrome photo come to life. Stick those in the mailbox (one less thing to remember on Monday morning) and the silence calls me out for a quick walk.

The snow is up to my knees, and I'm retracing the pockmarks of someone else's journey toward plowed pavement.

The lights of the town advertise a night life, a need for traffic control, twinkling holiday cheer . . . but there is only me, two other night wanderers, and the sound of my own footsteps.

A silent city is disturbing; I am one of three people in the world.

Boogie with Bananas

Today the sticker on my banana says "BOOGIE with BANANAS" . . . all I can think about is this:





. . . now freestyle!!

Holiday Shopping: Seduced by Marketing Video

Was cruising through one of my favorite websites looking at the Interactive Tees and noticed they have a few videos for the products!  Thought about getting one of these for my sister, whose favorite movie is The Emporer's New Groove--we joke about the "personal theme song" bit a lot--and then I saw the video. 

EVERYONE MUST HAVE THIS SHIRT!!!  HAHAHAHAH . . .



See also their electric guitar and drum set tees . . . the original reason I was on thinkgeek.com.

i <3 u, thinkgeek  . . . wht? . . . no, i <3 U moar!!

Label Scanning and You: A Basic Health & Beauty Concept

Q.  Beth, you seem to consider yourself a Smarty Pants.  Tell me, what do I need to do to save money, be more "green", and be more healthy--all at the same time?

A.  Become an avid label scanner.

Notice that I didn't say label reader.  You don't need to be able to read through, pronounce, or understand what all those chemical names are--even folks I know who took classes on how to read those 400-syllable 3-word names struggle with them.  What you need to be able to do is look for key words based on the product.

Knowing what you're buying will help you make better consumer choices: 
1.  You'll find you spend less money on products that say they do one thing but indicate (via the ingredients list) they do something else entirely.  As pertains to health: understanding what, exactly, goes in or on your body and how it reacts with your body is a huge step in having a healthy body.
2.  You'll discover that "different" products you may have been buying are really the same thing marketed and packaged to appear specific to one application--don't buy multiple products when one will do.  Buying fewer products is a leg-up on consuming less and, later, throwing away less.

Example 1: FOOD
In many cases pre-packaged foods have added sweeteners, preservatives, vitamins or minerals in them that have both common easy-to-read names and a chemical scientific name.  Vitamins are perfect examples (e.g., vitamin E has EIGHT different chemical names!), but artificial and "alternative natural" sweeteners are a great one to start with here.  Anything that ends in "-ose" is a sugar, whether natural, artificial, or processed.  Now go amuse yourself by reading labels for things like applesauce or any "no added sugar" product and count how many "-oses" you can find.

Example 2: SKIN CARE
Your skin is your first (and largest) defense against illness, and its health depends on staying hydrated both inside the cells and out on the surface.  Alcohols are the natural enemy of healthy skin--regular use causes dry, flaky skin and can even promote conditions like contact dermatitis; dry skin is, literally, a cracked door for bacterial, fungal, and viral infections.  In my recent search for a low- or no-alcohol lotion, I've found that most commercial skin care products contain multiple types of alcohol.

The two examples above are only a couple of the easy ones to find.  It takes just a little memorization to really get going, but the important part is to get into the habit of checking out labels before you toss something into the grocery cart. 

I'll be adding specific posts as I go forward with this blog, so check back in from time-to-time and learn yerself sumptin new.  In the meantime, get into the habit by looking for sneaky sugars and alcohols.  Goest forth, my people, and scan some labels!

Anesthesia

I imagine there may be a few people who read the previous post and wondered why I requested Annie be given anesthesia before she was euthanised that night. The logic may not be scientifically sound, but I wanted there to be NO possible way that she would feel any additional pain when her heart stopped. Here are my reasons for it:

1. I once had to put an injured cat to sleep, and the process was so immediate he simultaneously stopped in mid cry and all his visible muscles (pupils, tongue, body) relaxed. I had been told that the drug used would first put his brain to sleep like an anesthetic, then it would shut down his body. I question to myself still if there really was enough time for his brain to become "unaware" or if he lingered enough to register the complete shut down of his body.

2. Although not exactly in the same vein, I myself had once been told by a doctor that the anesthesia I was going to be given for a minor surgery (compacted wisdom teeth) would turn off my mind and that I would be completely unaware of the procedure as soon as I passed out. I passed out, but then was cognizant for a few minutes more, listening to the machinery monitoring my pulse, the drills being tested, feel them shaking my head to check that I was out, and feel them wedge that darn prop into the roof of my mouth so hard I felt it cut into my palate . . . all while being unable to move my body or react in any way. THEN I was out.

3. Having your heart stop is painful. Do not ever want to feel that breath-taking crushing pressure; do everything you can to avoid it.  End of story.

Grief

Tuesday 12/1/09

Grief is an . . . interesting process. It seems to be something that is somewhat unique in its expression by an individual the same as joy, hate, fear, other emotions.

This past week I've learned something about myself: that I grieve the same way I hate. I try to reconcile through understanding (because I am a logical adult capable of reasoning most of the time), then I erase.

My cat Annie finally hit that last quick slide into kidney disease and in the space of 4 days went from climbing into her favorite window to weakly holding onto life, asking for water and then refusing to drink it. So on Wednesday 11/25 at about 5pm I held her in my arms as she first succumbed to anesthesia (I requested it) and then euthanasia.

She'd been with me for 15 years--only slightly less than 1/2 my lifetime now--and with me through so many experiences and adventures. Even now, almost a full week later after her actual death (preceded by about 3 months of illness) I still miss her so much I can't talk about her without crying.

So much of this blog is just inane, insignificant chatter about my own life as told to myself; I don't often delve into the significant except for whatever can be pulled from my angry, frustrated rants. If ever there was a significant moment worth posting, putting Annie to sleep on Wednesday was one of them. In my mind that night I could only think of one thing to say, "Tonight I had to say the last goodbye to my beautiful, brilliant girl." But I couldn't bring myself to do it, to acknowledge something that was so final, so important.

Instead I spent a quick 30 minutes cleaning up her food dishes, throwing out her uneaten food, bundling all the towels used to keep her warm into a laundry pile along with the usual bedsheets and clothes. I tidied up the boxes I'd lined up next to the bed as a "ramp" she used when she had been strong enough to walk but too weak to jump. And I threw out her unused medicine from the refrigerator. Then I went to my mom's house for our family Thanksgiving as planned and allowed myself to be distracted for the rest of the evening.

When I finally got home, I just stood in the bedroom, looking for something else to change, something else to modify so I didn't have to see all the little traces of her, all her favorite places in that one room . . . her last place in that one room. I thought about sleeping at a hotel, but I didn't go. I took a bath, and cried myself to sleep.

In the last week I've bought a new feeding bowl set for Toby, I've shopped for new towels, and I've picked all the little black cat-hair pills off the bedsheets so that at every turn I'm not constantly thinking to myself "the last time I cleaned this Annie was alive."

Tonight is the last of it--washing the litter pan as I do every month when the litter is changed. The last time I did it, Annie was alive.

I only wish it were so easy to erase from my mind the sound of her particular "chirrup", or the soft angora-like feel of her coat (which always needed to be combed, but god help anyone who tried), how she would insist I follow her to bed if I was still up around 1am, or the barely-there purr of contentment when she'd settle in for the night next to me.

I guess some things should not be forgotten.

Something Positive, Something Positive . . .

Okay, I really hate being so negative.  I mean, really.  Hate it.  It's not all that I am or am capable of . . . I just feel "there" sometimes and have a hard time getting away from it once I've soaked in it long enough that my fingertips get all pruney.  Of course, on the Keppra I need about .02 seconds to get and stay there.  I digress . . .

SO, since my last post was about my stinky little brother which morphed into an anti-family-holidays thing, I want to post positive thoughts about this time of year:

1.  Twinkle lights and evergreen twined around doors and stairwell railings
2.  The smell of applewood smoke and freshly baked something-cinnamony in the crisp evening air
3.  Good friends, good food, good laughs, good times!
4.  Fudge-covered Mint Oreos hit the grocery store!  SCORE!!!
5.  Holiday sales at the craft stores before Thanksgiving
6.  Annual puzzle of figuring out what to do/buy for xmas gifts for the niece/nephew/cousins
7.  Cranberry sauce!!
8.  The warm stiffness of a new winter coat
9.  Annual ornament shopping and the search for this year's Coolest Wrapping Paper Ever
10.  Oversized department store ornaments and snowflakes swaying in the forced-air breeze
11.  The rusty gold swirl and rustle of brittle leaves caught in a little whirlwind on a silvery overcast day
12.  Warm fresh-pressed apple cider in an oversized mug held in cold hands, mixed with spices and a tiny swirl of sweet creme and a cinnamon-stick garnish
13.  Peppermint hot chocolate with marshmallows!!
14.  The first snowfall

Figures

The ONE NIGHT I actually get online with the intention of working on getting this blog back in shape (plus I still have to add in the recipe stuff and the new travel guide/review stuff) I get sidetracked by email and editing an already existing post--now my brain is tired and nonfunctional and lacking proper punctuation and I can't think about anything except getting the circulation back in my tuchus, which fell asleep about an hour ago--which is a pisser b/c I have this (for once) timely recipe for easy Green Tomato Pickles for everyone out there who has a bumper crop of little green nubs.  Maybe Wed . . .

Declining Stability

Well, Annie is still here.  She seems to have stabilized in a sort of slowly declining way--still somewhat weak and tired (but not lethargic), still with a slightly-below-normal temp (but not requiring heating pads), still underweight (but neither gaining or losing), still has a normal appetite (but drinking lots of water), still passing blod clots occasionally (but making it to the litter box in a "no-infection" normal fashion).

There is something more going on than bladder infections and kidney disease.  I had wondered aloud to the vets if she might also have a cancer that has perforated her bladder that might be the source of the blood clots . . . it is possible, they said.  It doesn't matter for treatment, though--she likely wouldn't survive the sedation for a scan let alone any cancer treatment, and as a "new" vet pointed out last week, "we're swimming upstream at this point."

She still doesn't act like she's in pain or ready to "check out."  She bounces when she "jogs" to her dinner plate--her "happy" walk--but she has trouble maintaining her balance when she's washing her face afterward.  She actually got annoyed with me yesterday for spending too much time petting her head while she was trying to nap. . . just like normal.

We go this afternoon for another subcu fluid injection; gladly buying time at $10 a pop.