Sunday, December 29, 2013

Not dead, but almost

OH thank jeebus that the holiday season is over.  I realized finally, FINALLY, this year, that I have 'issues' with Christmas.  Deep-seeded (seated?) wretched, I HATE CHRISTMAS feelings.  And while I know those feelings need to be explored, can I just take a moment first and say HALLELUIA (<--ha see what I did there) it's OVER!?!

So, to recap:

There was a wedding, and Mike was Best Man.  Looka my son!
Yes that's me in the green dress - running...?

(also he got his grades from his first semester of college and it was 2 A's, 2B's.  He thought maybe he wasn't as smart as he used to be.  He's stupid for thinking that.)

I was starting to feel a cold or something coming on at this point, but pushed through it.  This wedding took place outside (San Diego, but it was still cold) and here you should hear foreshadowing music. Then the day after this wedding Jeff and I left for Idyllwild, a wonderful, small mountain community about 1.5 hours away from SD.  I was feeling sick with a real cold by this time, but a romantic cabin!  A week with my husband!  A HOT TUB on the deck!  Both dogs!  I pushed through.

Yeah.  I was so, so sick.  I had a sore throat like never before, and recognized my old friend Chronic Sinus Infection.  I didn't realize until the 3rd day that the romantic comfy fires we had blazing were making me SO MUCH WORSE.  By the third day I told Jeff (croaked, really) that it felt like I had one of these in my throat:
I cried every time I swallowed.  It sucked.
 
He looked up an Urgent Care that was about 35 miles away and we got ready to go - on a whim he called the place just before we left and uh, Xmas eve, it was CLOSED.  So sorry you are deathly ill, move along.  We went to the town pharmacy and I bought one of everything and went back to the cabin.  I soaked in the hot tub (so romantic what with the honking and coughing and gasping and crying) which helped because of the steam. 
Christmas morning, 2013 *honk*
 
We spent Xmas eve and day watching AMC holiday movies and he drank his beer and I had soup and I felt SO very ill, it's hard to describe how awful it was.  My throat was so sore.  I was taking 3 advil, then 2 hours later 3 Tylenol, then 2 hours later 3 advil - etcetera.  Yeah, it was FISTFULLS of pain relievers but if I didn't do it that way I cried until the next dose.  I used my neti-pot and ugh.  We left the day after Christmas, 3 days early.
 
$1,500 spent on a vacation cabin for me to be sick as fuck.  I did get dressed (xmas eve, the day we thought we were going to urgent care) and we took the dogs on a short walk:

My ears felt like they were going to burst blood like in a horror movie and I thought maybe there were a couple of very angry cats covered in lemon juice and hot sauce in my throat.  Awful.
 
The day we came home we dropped the dogs off at the house and went directly to an urgent care (rather than the VA, trying to avoid a throng.) (that didn't work out as planned.) we waited 2 hours to be seen at urgent care, with me collapsed on Jeff's shoulder the whole time.  (surrounded by a crush of humanity that was equally as sick) (luckily there were no sick children, my god the misery that would have been for everyone).  Diagnosis?  Yes yes, bad sinus infection, but also?  Strep throat.  With canker sores and *pus* on my throat.  Scrip for amoxicillin and Flonase and off we went.
 And here is what I've looked like for the last few days.  Today I'm finally up this morning, but not planning on doing anything more than washing sheets and throwing used tissues away. 
 
I haven't been this sick since before I quit work.  I remember that last sickness - you don't forget shit like this.  CHILDBIRTH was easier- I at least got a kid out of that!  I've had sinus infections every year, but not like this.  This was one for the books.
 
I hate taking antibiotics.  I refuse to go to doctors.  In fact the urgent care doc I finally saw agreed with me, at first, that maybe just the Flonase (steroidal nasal spray, anti-inflammatory) would work.  She didn't see anything on my throat at first.  I asked her to look further back, where my ears/throat/sinuses meet.  That's when she jumped back like she'd seen her grandmother naked and made a screechy noise and said (pointing at me like I was a witch) PUS!  SORES!  and I said *croak* *wahhh!* and so, there ya go.  I surprised the doc.  Moral?  Have them look again.  It was at that point that she said "sometimes antibiotics are the only way" and I said "gimme" and that was that.
 
So anywhozle, I'm back, and I'm alive.  I'm so incredibly glad the holidays are over.  I want to plant my patio and buy a new bike at the Walmart and get some new dishes (I'm giving my vintage dishes away) and just get going on the new year.
 
BTW - there is going to be a full moon - a NEW MOON! on  January 1.  How very serendipitous.  This was a fantastic year, full of really, really wonderful things.  I moved from Maryland, spent a huge amount of time reconnecting with Mike, we live in a great apartment overlooking the pool, right on the river-bed, near the ocean, in San Diego.  My life is so very blessed. 

My patio this morning, 12/29/13
But December can kiss my ass.

Monday, December 16, 2013

Grain (and glucose) free diet crap update


Still working the no grains diet.  It is STILL about the best thing I have ever done for myself.

For anybody finding this by searching grain free, gluten free, paleo diet, zero carb diet - here are my factoids.  For the rest of you, go read this instead.

I started zero-carb eating on June 19th of 2013.  As of August 5th of 2013, I had already lost 25 pounds.  2 months, 25 pounds.  By simply cutting out grains.  This was my progress picture in August.  (Before pic is from prior year but I remained the same gigantic tub of fat for the entire year - scales don't lie.)


I've lost another 10 pounds since then.  As of today, I have lost 35 pounds.  I went from 185 pounds down to 150 pounds, from a size 16 to an 8/10.  By removing all grains from my diet.  My weight-loss slowed down in September, because I relaxed my vise-like grip on ALL THE FOOD - and I let myself have French fries, or rice along with my bacon cheese burgers.  I ate a bean burrito (or twelve).  I managed to prove to myself that I could maintain my weight-loss and still have SOME carbs.  But I am not satisfied with my weight yet, so I decided to crack down and get down to 145 pounds.  Reason?  ha, not vanity.  Or not ALL vanity.  I've had a front-row seat to watching my husband's parents' health take a nosedive - all of it exacerbated by their refusal to lift a finger nutritionally to help themselves.  I'm 5 pounds away from that goal.

ALSO - more to the point - when I started allowing even those few types of carbs into my diet, I noticed an immediate uptick in the following:
Rash - uncontrollable itchy skin, again.  In my elbow crease, on my back, on my stomach - it's horrifying.  Not alleviated by cortisone lotions or anything - only by clearing out the glucose in my system.
Insomnia - it's bad at the best of times.  With grains/glucose it's insurmountable, even with Ambien.
Gout - which can be caused by a fructose intolerance.  Also the foods that are typically thought to cause gout (raising your purine levels) have been proven to not necessarily cause it - red meat does not cause gout.  Neither does fat.  It's an inflammatory reaction in your system to something that your body hates and is allergic to.  In ME, high-fructose-corn-syrup (HFCS) is the cause of my gout - it is the absolute devil, it is evil, and I am very careful about allowing it in my system.
Depression - what carbohydrates do to my brain is not funny.  They function as fake dopamine and serotonin, for a small time.  Then they crash you into depression.  If you are prone to depression and you are fat, there is a reason.  The SAD (standard American diet) is BULLSHIT.  And it is killing you totally dead.

I refuse to be SICK when all I have to do is stop ingesting certain 'foods'.  I put 'foods' in quotes because grains are completely horrific for some people.  Carbohydrates are what cause obesity and diabetes - not fat or doughnuts or candy. 

Here I am just the other day:
 
I cut off my head because nobody needs to be subjected to my morning hair.  I am STILL 5'4", and 150 pounds.  I am still far to overweight to be called 'healthy' - yeah, the picture looks great but why do you think I chose THAT one?  I still have 2 chins, I still have a fat belly, my back fat still swells up around my bra straps.  But hey-yo - 35 mother freaking pounds, right?
 
Please - if you have realized that you may need to quit grains - if you have researched and come to the conclusion that a carb-free diet may be for you, if you are mostly BELLY fat and cannot lose it, please clicky the links in the linked entry.
 
ALSO - if you are researching depression, hormones, menopause - well, email me and I will send you some info, and some links.  I will direct you to places to DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH.  YOU can figure your way out of the hell you're in - your doctor most emphatically WILL NOT. 
 
Losing weight hasn't made my husband love me more (he adores me as I am! *snort*) (ack shoo lee, he does.) It hasn't made men flirt with me (I'm still 53 years old).  It hasn't made me richer.  Or any of that crap.  But the research I did on how my body reacts to certain foods and the subsequent changes I made in my diet has helped my HORRIFIC depression.  It helped me discover which anti-depressant would work for me, which I then demanded from my doc, which has since been MIND BLOWINGLY FANTASTIC for me.  Losing weight has helped my knees.  Eating this way means my skin doesn't itch.  My sinuses don't drip.  I never fart anymore.  On that subject - no, eating a mostly all meat diet will NOT make you poop all the time.  And it does NOT cause constipation.  Just FYI - veggies have all the fiber you need.  And your body uses almost ALL of the nutrients in the food you do eat, so waste production is minimal.  Energy wise - I wake up at about 6:00 am and actually get out of bed.  I'm able to walk 5 miles, 4 or more times a week - which helps weight loss AND dopamine production.  I'm able to be around (some) people and not want to claw my own brain out. 
 
YOU are the only cure for your health problems.  The internet is a valuable, gigantic tool.  USE IT.
 
Go here:
 
 
Scroll to the bottom of that entry, all the links are there.  It's worth it.  I wish I had started 10 years ago when menopause and depression started in on me.

Thursday, December 12, 2013

♪ A flibbertijibbet! A will-o'-the wisp! A clown! ♫

HEY yo.

Who knows what this is?
 
Here's a hint:  "But somewhere in my wicked, miserable past,  There must have been a moment of truth" 
 
MAYBE you need another hint.
 
FA!  a note to follow SO!
 

Guess what.  The next Giant Meeting Of Government Contractors is going to be in MOTHER FUCKING VIENNA!  *ahem* I prolly should say it with prettier words because LORD that place is beautiful.

I am blown away.  Do you guys know how lucky I am?  I've been to freaking PARIS.  I went to Sweden.  Now I (might) go to Vienna.  VIENNA.  I have so much reading to do!  I know there was a gorgeous opera house.  It was (is?) a Monarchy, so there are castles to visit.  There are Vienna Sausages to eat.  It was home to FREUD, for chrissakes.  For a confirmed romance-novel-junkie like myself, this is the place where the upper crust went to balls and met their various Lords and Barons.

NOT TO MENTION, the Von Trapp Family home.  Do you know that story is real?  They really did flee the Nazi's and they ended up in Vermont, where you can go stay and hear all the family (new and whats left of the original) sing.  (Turns out the real Maria was a horrific bitch, who's surprised...)

I'll be researching.  I'll be reading and spreadsheeting and planning.  I'll have about 10 days mostly to myself to wander all over Vienna and Salzburg and wherever else I want to go.  Europe has the (hands down) BEST public transportation, and I have no fear.  I will walk and train ride and bus ride and be exhausted and holy cats y'all - VIENNA.

We aren't even sure Jeff is going to be going.  But I have confidence!
 
*my sisters are going to be SO JEALOUS!!  I am going to sing every damned song from that movie with GUSTO.  heh, I bet THAT's never happened in that town..*

Monday, December 9, 2013

Liebster Award - 10 questions with a crazy person!

I won a PRIZE!

You LOVE me!  You REALLY LOVE me!
 
I have seen these types of things all around the webz, and never even thought I would win one.  It is amazing to me that anyone reads my curse-filled diatribes - my made-up words, my CAPITALIZED FOR YELLING stuff.  *sniffle*

 
I was invited by Mulder Fan (http://muldrfan.blogspot.com/2013/12/liebster-award.html) to answer the following questions.  I am so pleased that she would think of me, so thank you Mulder. 
 
So, because you know my answers will be titillating and scintillating and incredibly eeenteresting, here we go:
 
1) Where would you like to travel to and why?
Easy.  Ireland.  I absolutely LOVE the language (but haven't learned it except a really great, non-annoying gaelic accent that is totally not annoying.  At all.)  I love the faerie tales.  The lore.  I LOVE the music - it filters down and over through American Appalachian and Bluegrass. I love the small villages - I don't want to stay in Dublin, I want to go to a small village and stay for a week - get to know the people at the pub, at the grocery store, at the restaurants...  then move to another village and do the same thing in a different place for another week. 

2) If you could share just one book with the world what would it be?
ONE book!?  I weep.  I can't do just one.  So of course I break the rules in the second question:
  • Jane Eyre.  Good LORD, this book takes you on a journey-and only part of it is romantic.  She's sort of an anti-heroin - small, and plain - with no illusions about herself.  She starts out the step-child of a narc and by the end you are just amazed at where you and she have been and done. 
  • The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.  Written as a series of letters between a young-ish female newspaper writer and the people of Guernsey in the aftermath of WWll - I had NO IDEA about this part of the war, although I did know that English children were removed to the country to get them out of London (and evidently Guernsey) - this book is sweet, wonderful, and wide - there is a love story in it but it's not mushy at all.  I've re-read it a couple of times, and I'm thinking of trying to find the hard-cover.  PLEASE take a chance and read this. 

3) If you could talk to anyone from anytime, who would you choose and what would you want to talk about?
OH hell.  Honestly?  I'm still chewing on the mystery that is my life, and the lives of my DNA parents.  I'd talk to Kaye (my mother).  Or even Alex (my dad) - but you know, since this is MY fantasy I'd have rules like oh, telling the TRUTH and all.  I want to know what in the fuck really went down.  The mystery bugs me enough to really piss me off sometimes.  There is a little 'woo-woo' thrown in there too - I still have to relate some of that to y'all.  So getting answers to these damned mysteries is my fondest hope.

4)  What is your favorite recipe?
HA.  Since all I eat is meat and eggs anymore, this question makes me DROOL.  I used to make a bundt cake - a 'Harvey Wallbanger Cake' - that was to DIE for.  It's a vintage recipe from my mother's generation - it has vodka and Galliano in it and good lord, it's moist and stand back - you will have none left.  http://www.gonnawantseconds.com/2013/03/harvey-wallbanger-cake/

5)  What makes you laugh? 
Quick wit.  Puns, twisted song lyrics, Monty Python.  When I yell out 'Marco?!" in a store looking for Jeff, and three other people call out 'POLO!" because they all get it.  My dogs, the way they wag their tails and barkbarkbark and love people and ham.

 6)  Would you share 3 things from your 'bucket list'?  'Bucket list' is those things you would like to do before you kick the bucket (die). (more than 3 sorry)
Get to Ireland for two weeks or a month.  Find true lasting peace with my body and my brain. Stop feeling like an outsider.  Stop feeling broken.  Get our retirement "savings" into a place where I'm not terrified of getting old.  Hold Mike's babies.

7)  If you could start a museum, what would you want to collect?
My house was a sort of museum for decades.  I don't want to collect anything anymore.  But there are SO MANY things I find so lovely.  Anything from the 20's - martini shakers that look art deco.  50's 'Mid Century Modern furniture.  I would collect all the abused stray dogs ever in the world.  Foster kids being abused in the system and tossed out at 18 with no futures.  Fancy purses because I have a SICKNESS for a $400 bag.

8)  What memory brings a smile to your face every time you think of it?
I had spilled a diet coke on my shorts and yanked them off & tossed them in the dryer, tied a beach towel around my waist while I waited.  Mike (5-yrs old) came scittering around a corner, took a look at me and stopped dead and said "MOM.  Dance all shakey-shakey like a jungle girl!" so I did!  Felt like 'The Road to Bali' right there in my mother-in-law's kitchen.  Mike watched, nodded, and went back to his Legos.

9)  What Bookmark on your browser would you like to share?
http://postsecret.com/.  People write their inner-most secrets on a postcard and mail it in.  They update it every week on Sunday.  It's haunting, sometimes funny.

10)   If you could take a class in anything, what would it be?
A writing class that didn't feel like a Narc Festival.  A Wicca/Nature Magic class that didn't feel like a 70's Love In.  I'd like to learn Gaelic.  Archetecture appreciation - not the HOW, but maybe the why and the woods and the materials and where the secret cupboards are in an English country house like Downton Abbey.  Classes are those things that make me feel ooogly because there are so many PEOPLE at them.  Maybe a class in how to be around people...?


Thank you Mulder.  That was fun. 

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Birthday Greetings from My Birthday!

Sorry to have gone a bit AWOL but it's been busy up in this berg.  But today is my birfday!  Sing and dance!

So far, my 40's and 50's are turning out to be the best times of my life.  I'm 53 today, and I've never been so calm and SANE (which, y'all know, is saying something).

I know - people (women) are always saying "My 50's are the best time of my life!" and when you're Cher or Suzanne Sommers, with money and natural talent and good looks, well.  SURE.  Your ANYTHING's are gonna be good.  But you know what?  It's really true.  Lookit how many of us (men too, Q - don't think you're outta this) have finally come to terms with so much in our lives?  Childhood trauma, failed and working relationships, the size of our asses, addictions, all of that.

It's wonderful.  It's freeing.  It's WEIRD.  Yo, I'm OLD.  Freaking FIFTY THREE.  That is a number I never imagined during my lifetime.  53.  Wasn't Aunt Bea something like 50? (Wiki says 57, but still)  It truly is odd how many things change while so many stay the same.

Por ejemple:  I still color my hair, still vain enough to not want grey.  But I go out of the house OFTEN without worrying about what I look like.  I go to the grocery store in my yoga pants and a sweatshirt almost every day.  It's weird and WONDERFUL to be so relaxed about stuff like that.  It just don't matter no more.  Wait - I mean, it matters sometimes!  But other times?  pffft.  I'm old, bitches, I don't HAVE TO worry anymore.

I loved raising Mike, he's the bee's knees.  But JEEBUS CHRIST ON A MATSO CRACKER I am so damned glad he's grown.  I love kids, love the way they play and the way they sound, but I also want them to go HOME at the end of the day.

I love holiday lights and stuff - OUTSIDE.  I am not decorating my house for about the 3rd year in a row.  It's awesome.  I don't feel like Scrooge, necessarily, I just have always sort of resented the frantic pace of the holiday season, and now I can listen to great holiday jazz (Ella Fitzgerald!  Frank Sinatra!) and not worry about plastic holly and the dogs eating the ornaments. 

It's the best of all worlds, this age.  I was terrified of it.  Who wants to get old?  But I am digging the hell out of my life these days.

WRT Jeff's parents:  Oh holy hell.  That situation is FUBAR.  They are old and ill and refuse to do even the most basic things to alleviate their own suffering.  There is still MRSA and blood infections and cellulitis and Grovers disease and edema so bad that her legs LEAK WATER.  They are in turns assholes and then vague and fluffy.  It's passive-aggression at it's worst and I have told Jeff I refuse to play anymore.  After all that rigamarole with the hosue cleaning (and they have commented more than once that the housecleaners did a shitty job!) and hospital rescues and all that - nothing has changed.  Thanksgiving was fraught.  I'm over it. 

And see?  I get to say that.  Because I'm old and I get to pick who/what/where I spend my time.  And I'm bitchy enough to enforce my boundaries these days!  When I was younger I wouldn't have been able to do it.  PLUS the drama would have fed my inner adrenaline junky. 

I need to put up a real blog entry, but this will have to do it.  I'm feeling too mellow to do justice to the story of the old folks, and there isn't much else to talk about.  Mike is taking me to lunch tomorrow!  He really IS the bee's knees.

I'll leave you with this:

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

It's 'Just A Dinner In Uncomfortable Clothes' time!

It's busy around here, I'm sure it's the same with all of you.  Even if you aren't having the traditional turkey dinner thing, there is the 'getting ready for winter' thing, the 'decorate for Yule' thing.

The 'try and shop for paper towels while the rest of the world is stocking up on chicken broth and boxed stuffing' thing.

 
This was taken yesterday while I was walking at Pacific Beach.  It was about 70 degrees and a little breezy.  Yeah I know - remind me of this picture next summer when I hate San Diego again.
 
If you are ever coming to visit Southern Calif, do it in October/November.  The place is deserted and still warm and gorgeous.
 

That's the path that goes for about 4 miles right there.  Usually FILLED with bikes and weirdos with parrots on their heads.  Still, the scent of some pretty good weed found me 3 or 4 times along that walk :) 

PEACE.  That's what I'm trying to convey here.  Peace.  Tis the season when the narcs come out to play, as some in our group are finding out already.  So, try and find the sunshine wherever you are, try and wrap yourselves and your families in tranquility.
Doesn't my life look so peaceful?  lol - the hot mess portion of the program is easy to filter out for a blog post.  So, because I love you, here is the actual picture from yesterday that shows the real ME:
Yeah.

Happy Turkey Day y'all.  I'll be at the MRSA Castle, battling skin diseases and blood infections and talks about bowel movements.  I'll actually be running out for 'things I forgot' and walks around the block.  Mike has graciously decided to be with me because he knows he needs to keep an eye on my CrAzY level and get me in a choke-hold if necessary.  So that'll be nice.

PEACE.  My wish for you and yours.  From this stupid fucking family dinner in uncomfortable clothes.




Thursday, November 21, 2013

Happiness isn't very titallating

I don't have anything to talk about. 

Like, at parties or social gatherings - I'm stumped.  I like talking about woo-woo stuff, or funny things or ideas or inventions and cool stuff, even that Jean-Claude Van Dammit video that you should totally watch:


I like science, and history.  But when it comes to politics or current events, I'm out of the loop.

See, here is where Imma sound stupid and crazy.  I absolutely refuse to watch the news.  Not CNN, not FOX, not any of it.  I think it's fear mongering and polarizing and I refuse to participate in it.  Here's the big shocker:  Jeff and I?  we don't vote.  At all.  Haven't for years.  Because we both went through a period of paying WAY A LOT OF attention to politics for YEARS (I used to listen to Rush Limbaugh.  Jayzhus what in the fuck?) and we both really CARED through Clinton and CARED through both Bushes and aside from a couple of policy changes and bills that passed or didn't pass, nothing seems to really ever change.  Obama was sposed to bring CHANGE and huh.  It's all the same crap.  Not that the man didn't try, not that they all didn't try (or really didn't try), but *shrug* nothing changed.  blah blah mistakes were made.  Blah blah taxes, more or less?  blah blah cut funding!  AHHH!  WAR!

When I saw Sarah Palin interviewing in her run, I just threw my remote.  Honestly - John McCain was this staid, middle-aged white man and they put this woman next to him to bring in the 'people' - it seemed to ME.  Her hokey 'good-old-gal' schtick seemed like acting to me and I think that's when I just gave up on politics.

Manchurian candidate and all that.

("If you don't vote you can't complain!) <--I don't.  I don't talk about politics, I don't sweat that shit.  I'm not interested, and couldn't tell you who is who in DC.  Don't. Give. A. Fuck.  I KNOW!  You're supposed to really care!  It's YOUR FUTURE and scary and AHHH!  yeah - it's fear mongering and polarizing.  ALWAYS only two candidates (really, has there ever really been a third?) and always only two sides to a story/issue.  Bullshit.

I don't listen to news for the same reasons.  It's the biggest pile of SCARY SHIT!  Hurricanes, disasters, murders, child molesters, stay inside!  lock your doors!  walk your kids to school and walk them home!  I mean, shit, I fell for it.  Mike's precious feet barely ever touched the damned ground.  He might get snatched! 

I got exhausted watching the news, and when we lived in Maryland and hurricane Sandy was headed right for us and all I could watch was the weather channel and I PANNICKED.  Annnd, it blew past us.  Not that it wasn't serious for the poor people who got hit, I just mean if I had just heard it may hit, prepared like a sane person, and just watched Law & Order and calmed the fuck down, I would have been better off.  News channels show the same horrific scenes over and overandover and it's all very chest-clutchy and provocative, but nah.  I read about major events online and then go over to y'all's blogs and read about stuff that matters to ME.  And I don't talk narc stuff with people at parties because NEGATIVITY.  I get it all out here!  Sunshine!  har.

Which is shit that doesn't matter to anyone else I meet. 

And I don't WORK *gasp*! which is just about a fucking SIN these days.  Seems people cannot grasp 'happiness' and 'serenity' and all that as an emotion.  Everyone MUST be stressed about something, lets all clack and talk and complain!  My worry is bigger than your worry! and I don't have any worries. 

I mean, yeah, I might get cancer or Jeff might have a heart attack or Mike may get hit by a meteor, but I don't have any real stressors.  We aren't in debt up to our eyeballs.  Our cars are older and paid off.  We pay cash for just about everything, and what we do use our one credit card for is FUN stuff like vacations, and we pay it down fairly fast.  We have a tiny little savings account and a retirement account, we have health insurance (all hail the VA!) and a pretty nice apartment in Mission Valley.  Our lives are so quiet that people think I'm a stooge, lol.  EP France has the same complaint - she works in banking but she doesn't give two fucks about news or politics either.  Her husband is a conspiracy theory nut (makes me look positively SANE next to him) so her interest in politics went out the window a long time ago.  I'd like to take a class, but a class in history (war of 1812!) or a cooking class to learn the science of cooking a la Alton Brown.  Not like, an accounting class or current events class.

All anyone seems to want to talk about is stress and money.  Work, or politics, or god forbid RELIGION (lol see what I did there?) and so I wander off to find their dog or their kids and talk to THEM.  If I say something like 'oh, we had so much fun the other day doing blah blah blah' I get 'how much did it cost?' or some other STRESS question.  I probably had a coupon for whatever it was and why not ask about the actual event? 

oh hell, this blog post went down a rabbit hole and I can't seem to get back to my point.

From Kelly's Heros 1970:
Oddball: 'Why don't you knock it off with them negative waves? Why don't you dig how beautiful it is out here? Why don't you say something righteous and hopeful for a change?'
Moriarty: 'Crap!'

EGG ZACK LEE.

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Fort Brags-a-lot

Mike updated his blargh.  It's been a while so I thought I would give y'all a heads up.

I think he's pretty neat-o.
"go read me words, or get a face full of me boot!"

http://apassingflightofinsanity.blogspot.com/2013/11/acquire-knowledge-stop-learning.html

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

I hope I die before I get old

Jeff's parents are both in the VA hospital.  They are busy NOT DYING, fyi


Both of them have tested positive for MRSA.  Which means Msomething Resistant Strain of Ainfection that cannot be cured by any known antibiotic.  Maybe I don't have that exactly right but you get the fucking DRIFT.  Do not go look up images of MRSA if you ever want to sleep again.

His dad also has 3 kinds of cancer.  Yeah, we tell him he's a goddamned over-achiever all the time - taking chemo drugs, so he is immune compromised in a big way.  ALSO?  His dad contracted cellulitis (deep tissue skin infection!) and that turned into gigantic boils on his neck, which led to a blood infection!  He ALSO has Grovers Disease which is a skin rash that is not curable.  Like a cold, they can use palliative measures (it puts the lotion on or it gets the hose) but they can't make it go away.

His MOM, otoh, has the MRSA, with an added soupçon of thyroid problems (the problem is she wasn't taking her fucking meds), extremely low blood pressure (down from extremely high!  wheee!  roller coaster!) AND A SKIN RASH OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN.  SHE is in a negative-pressure room in the DOU.  What that means is she has her own room because they have no idea what this rash is and the DOU is Direct Observation Unit.  They have ruled out scabies (oh jeebus hold me) and an allergic reaction and now it's an episode of House or Monsters Inside Me up in that ward.

Jeff's brother, the Intrepid Keith (who is 56 years old and still lives at home, but la la I don't care because he) is the caregiver of these two, and has tried to get tested for MRSA but because he has no fever (and no health insurance *ahem*) they wont test him so he could be a disease-bag-carrier, but who knows? 

The two parents have had infections of one kind or another (including the MRSA) for over a year.

Do you itch yet?  Are you fucking creeped out yet?  Because here is the icing on that infectious disease cake:

-->WE ARE HAVING THANKSGIVING DINNER AT THEIR HOUSE <-- 
  1. We decided long ago to just order pre-cooked dinners from the grocery store because none of us wanted to cook that day anyway, and:
  2. I am working on getting a housecleaning service in there to disinfect the whole place (gasoline and match, anyone?) and:
  3. I don't know what 3 is.
  4. OH the nurses and doctors aren't really concerned, they say you can 'acquire' MRSA from the grocery store and that everyone is probably a carrier, so it's not that big of a deal.  EXCEPT they gown up and glove up whenever they are near these two.
  5. I am advocating a Skype Thanksgiving but everyone feels like this may be the last one (insert inappropriate joke on my behalf) and seem to feel that simply disinfecting the place will be enough.  I am not pleased.
 They are on different floors in the hospital, and they both seem to be really enjoying the whole thing but in different ways.  Jeff's dad LOVES the attention from all the nurses and doctors (because several docs have looked at him because *see above list of disgusting ailments*) and his mom is kind of a Blanch Dubois type.
 
Keith is loving it because he gets the house to himself for a week, with no medication schedules, no falling old people, and no talk of disgusting sores.
 
None of the 3 of them were concerned about these infections until old Gladys The Logical stormed in.  I have LONG taken a back-seat on his parent's health issues because I hate my own parents and have no idea how to effectively deal with anyone else's, and it's (really, sincerely) none of my business.  But this is ridiculous and I was the one who insisted that mom go to the hospital, and I AM THE ONE who takes notes and talks to the doctors and nurses.  And so I am now the one in charge of this mess and if you missed the Alanis Morrissette Irony of the whole I HATE MY PARENTS thing then go re-read that paragraph.
 
I have washed their sheets in hot water and bleach but like I said, we are going to get a housecleaning service in there this week before they get home.  I need a Shark Steam Cleaner thingy.  FOR MY SKIN.
 
So anywhozle, I'm a little busy is all.  I've been reading y'all but no time for comments I have to go take another hot shower with bleach and put on my sexy new outfit.
 


Monday, November 4, 2013

Woo woo stuff - the weird tale of the bobby pins

(**I have updated this post**)

I decided to start telling the tales I have of the weird stuff I have that happens to me.  I'll start with the ongoing weirdness of the bobby pins.

For the last 3 months or so I have been finding a random bobby pin just about every single time I go for a walk.  The first one I just noticed and probably thought 'huh' and I kept walking.  The next day I saw another one, this time in the elevator.  And I remember thinking 'hey! another bobby pin!'.  Then the third one I was with Jeff and I made him look at it and he said something profound like 'we are in the middle of the street woman keep walking!'

It wasn't until like 6th one that I started picking them up.  It was getting ridiculous and it was the first weird thing (in a long line of weird things) that I had something tangible to show.

I now have this pile of abandoned bobby pins:

I've lost some, because while I'm walking for exercise I attach them to my sleeve and they fall off sometimes.  It's a bummer that I don't have ALL of them, because that would have made quite the impressive pile.  I find them when I'm with Jeff, when I'm with France, when I'm with Mike, when I'm alone.

Today I was walking at Mission Bay and I was writing this blog post in my head.  I was thinking hard about the pins and since I was thinking about it and LOOKING for one I figured (laughing) that I wasn't ever going to find another one now.  Just then I looked down and bam.


I said 'woot!' and snapped a picture and kept walking and three steps later bam:

It's an unbent one, right there in the middle.

I took a couple more steps, and BAM:

Lying directly along the grass line, almost hidden, center of picture, above disgusting gum blob.

Now see - you can tell by the pictures that these pins are sometimes hidden and rather hard to see.  I have no idea why my eyes are drawn directly to them.  They are brown - they're meant to be unseen in your hair.  Sidewalks aren't exactly swept clean of sticks, twigs and leaves.  It's bizarre, is what it is.  I'm also (usually!) looking at the scenery, illustrated here:


It's distracting and all, being at the beach or by a lake or, most especially, behind both dogs and being yanked and pulled in two different directions.  Something always draws my eye directly to them.

Logically?  Scientifically?  OBECTIVELY?  these things fall out of girls hair when they're walking/running and it's just a coincidence that I find them. 

*ahem*

Do YOU think you personally, would find a bobby pin every day?  Every. single. day.?  Yeah.  I don't believe in coincidences, I know most people DO but I don't.  Something is trying to get my attention and I seriously have no idea who or what.  It's so frustrating, to be constantly *poinked* in the eyeball with these things and have no context.

Which - hello stupid spirit from the other side.  I need just a skosh more information please.  For ME, bobby pins are a vintage item.  I remember my DNA mother and her aunt, my Aunt Kay, using them.  Both women are dead.  If they are indeed the ones contacting me, I am not getting the fucking message.  This is useless communication, unless they just want to say "hi, I'm here" in which case, I get a LOT of those kinds of things.  Nice and all, but ultimately useless.

I know, I know - it's just trash and a coincidence and all that.  But that's not the feeling I get from it.  I'm certain I sound crazy pants - but there it is.

It's not the weirdest thing that has happened to me, but I thought I'd start with something small.  Get you used to the fact that I'm just exactly that weird.

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

For Lizbeth, a fellow ULB. I've got your back.

Just in time for All Hallows Eve! 
 
Lizbeth Borden, ULB Pioneer
 
I was watching a ghost hunting show the other day and they were in the Borden house (now a B&B – fun vacation!), trying to solve the murders and prove the place was haunted.  The psychic came up with an interesting theory and I thought I’d investigate it myself.
 
We all know this rhyme, right?

“Lizzie Borden took an axe
Gave her mother 40 whacks
When she saw what she had done
Gave her father 41”

I am always intrigued by stories that seem to have an undercurrent – I feel that if you follow the goddamned facts, you will get to the truth even if you cannot prove it in a court of law.  There are no giant leaps of logic.  What did Sherlock Holmes say?  “when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth”.  My theory is more like, when you follow the facts and you remember to employ common sense, you will come closer to the truth than anyone else.  In this case, I wondered what would drive a woman to violently hack, dozens of times, at the heads of her parents?  It's an interesting story, even if my synopsis is a bit long...

(please remember this is ME, I use internet info and much like my Jesus exposés, I began this with absolutely zero knowledge of the crime other than that poem at the top and a ghost story on tv.  I researched the story to my own satisfaction.  You want more info?  Go look for yourself!  It’s a big world, baby.)

Lizzie Andrew Borden was born in 1860.  (she renamed herself ‘Lizbeth’ after the murders, and I am going to respect her choice from here on out in this telling).  Her mother, Sarah, died about 2.5 years later.  Her sister Emma was 9 years older, effectively making her a ‘little mother’ of the baby since the father was working all day, every day.  He routinely worked 14-hour days.  Please notice that Lizbeth’s middle GIVEN name was Andrew.  That is just creepy.

Andrew Jackson Borden, the father, was a wealthy citizen of Fall River, MA.  Andy had no fortune from his own parents – he grew up very poor.  He was a ‘self-made man’ and probably fucking pissed off at the world about that.  He had made his fortune in manufacturing (furniture and caskets) and then in textile mills.  He also owned a lot of commercial properties and was president of two banks.  He had made his gigantic fortune through a cunning combination of ruthless financial practices and maniacal thrift.  At the time of the murders he was retired and had assets estimated to be worth at least five hundred thousand dollars.  Remember this was in 1892 - I think that is close to 10 MILLION DOLLARS by today's standards.  Dude was rich, is what I’m saying.  RICH.  And normally, rich people in that town lived on ‘The Hill’ – which would make sense because a mill town would smell absolutely wretched.  You would want to be on a hill, with the possibility of a breeze, away from the center of all that crap, and honestly, away from the lower-class and homeless (and again, a mill smells worse than 10 dead bodies) that would no doubt plague the city center.  But Andrew kept his smaller home which was near the mill – because he was ‘frugal’.  This smaller home was not a hovel, but it was not great.
 
Borden House.  Two chimneys for the whole place.  brrr.
 
‘Frugal’ in old Andy’s case means he kept his family in absolute tight-fisted miserable poverty.  In their house they used what were politely called ‘excrement buckets’.  There was no indoor plumbing, so not only the poop factor but also bathing, washing dishes, water for food,  washing clothes.  There was also no electricity.  That would be exactly the same as today, when your neighbors and friends have bathrooms and light switches and YOU are still dumping your shit buckets in the back yard.  Makes growing up in elementary school and high school sorta torturous, no?  Plus the added fun of full skirts and corsets.  High necks and long sleeves.  Basically, you have to do all of this heavy manual labor while you are dressed in bindings – these girls had the social restrictions of their class and yet none of its benefits.  AND, this was during the last years of industrial revolution (1760-~1830) and these “miracles of science” were very standard, especially in a prosperous mill town like Fall River.  But not for old Andy.  It would cost money to upgrade the house, and to HELL with his daughters he wasn’t going to spend it.  But I’ll just betcha he demanded his 3-piece suits were clean every day (he wore a black suit every day, winter and summer).  I’m sure he demanded dinner on the table at a certain time and a bath when he wanted it.  This is the same thing as a hoarder – the other side of the same coin.  It’s all about power and control, and the misery of anyone they control is what gives these people satisfaction.  It’s narcissism, plain and simple.  Also – he was a ruthless businessman.  OF COURSE.  He was a complete bastard and the people of the town pretty much hated him.  It wasn’t like he gave money to charity or loans to needy hard working families, or gave raises to the worker-bees or anything.  And imagine what the conditions were like for employees working in a factory in that time.  Yeah.

This may not sound so bad from the outside.  Anyone who hasn’t lived with a narc cannot know the fear, anxiety, and stress that comes with living like that.  Being frugal didn’t mean he wanted to clip coupons or cut corners.  NO - they were eating week-old lamb stew (no refrigeration, remember?) and this was Massachusetts.  Bitter horrible cold in the winter with no heat (who needs coal or blankets and warm coats?  Not a frugal person!) and summers plagued with humidity and bugs and unrelenting heat.  No electricity means no fans, no ice.  This wasn’t being poor – this was intentional abuse from someone who had all the power to make things better.  But he relished the power and control he had, and the misery he created.

The property had originally been constructed to hold two families, with separate entrances.  To get from the upstairs master bedroom to say, Emma’s bedroom, one would have to go downstairs, through a hall, and then back upstairs.  Very private.  While there is no reliable evidence suggesting that Andy was molesting his daughters (but plenty of supposition and theories), I think the murders themselves speak to some pretty grave abuses.
Sarah and Emma.  boy howdy they look happy.

Again, Emma was 9 when Lizbeth was born, and their mother died a little over 2 years later.  So Emma was almost 12 years old by that time.  According to all reports, as an adult and even after the murders she was a quiet person, given to take life as it came.  She had been trained for 11 years to take the abuse (in whatever form) from her father.  Her mother, certainly, had to simply accept his narcissistic rages, and modeled this behavior to her daughter.  Emma, as a little girl, would be especially vulnerable to a bully like Andy.  Once Lizbeth was born, and Emma became her caretaker, we can imagine the HUGE problems that would have gone on.  Baby crying?  Who does Andy hit and yell at?  This is reminding me of Sonny Liston.  And if our friend LOGIC is by our side, this Borden story is almost as horrible.  Even without the sexual abuse angle, but I’m not going to count that out.  The mother died of what they called ‘Uterine Congestion’ with back problems - which sounds fake, but here is a link http://www.pelvicpain.org/news/pdfs/vol4_no2.pdf  which is a pretty thorough explanation.  Here is a quote from that link:  {...number of women describing] post coital ache (65%). Majority of women give a history of emotional disturbance originating in their childhood. ßso it hurt her to have sex with Andy and she was probably molested as a child.  See how this is making more and more sense?  He married her because she was the perfect treat for a narc, needy and mentally unhealthy and easily tormented.  He was probably molesting Emma, since his wife would scream in pain from sex, and she had gone to doctors so it was known around town that she had ‘female problems’.  And a man needs relief, right?  Couldn’t go to a whore because of his social standing.  After his wife died, Andy turned down any offers of help from other family members, including his sister. He instead opted to keep his household his own private domain, thereby establishing the kind of family isolation well documented by incest survivors.  He kept it all in the family.

After Sarah died, Andy (I’m sure the name 'Andy' pisses him off, it makes me giggle) was remarried to a woman (already an old maid at 35 so she was ‘on the shelf’ as they say, and he knew she would be compliant and grateful) in 1865 who was the daughter of a push-cart peddler.  She wanted status, and marrying into this family gave her that.  Andy wanted a housekeeper.  Turns out she wasn’t so compliant and grateful.  The Borden sisters eventually refused to call her ‘mother’ and finally refused to even speak to her.  She was (by accounts) power hungry and money hungry and either she was Andy’s right-hand man or his enabler – or both.  Hey!  A flying monkey enters the story!  Emma was 14 and Llizbeth was 5 when her stepmother came to live with them.  They had been kept in this level of poverty and abuse and isolation and despair for all that time, and another woman steps in and takes over the house.  Emma had probably been running the house for years due to her mother’s illness – this is a bad situation.  Emma had most likely probably been sexually abused by the father for years, which would make her weirdly feeling like HIS WIFE, and then he marries someone else, and hello mind-fuck.  Did I mention they hated their step-mother?   Here is a quote about Lizbeth: 


When [she was] a young girl, she accompanied her parents to Chicago and was there a member of the Sunday school class and punctual in attendance.  She was, however, a girl with anything but an enthusiastic idea of her own personal attainments.  She thought people were not favorably disposed toward her and that she made a poor impression.  This conduced to the acceptance of this very opinion among church people, and consequently the young woman was to some extent avoided by the young women of the church.  She had horrible self-esteem issues and had no reason to believe that people would like her, so they didn’t.  Sounds VERY familiar to me, achingly familiar.

Andy never (ever) allowed his daughters to date or socialize outside of school or church.  They weren’t allowed the funds for nicer clothes, or to go to parties.  So, here they were because of social constraints, not allowed to work and earn their own money, and their father kept them from having any normal way out – normal being marriage.  He kept them all to himself.  Ominous foreboding, right?  Yeah, it gets worse.  Emma stuck around the house, being the good girl, but Lizbeth managed to join a couple of church groups (religious or not, if that’s where you are allowed to socialize then damn if you aren’t converted).  By all accounts Lizbeth was close to her father.  She gave him a ring on the occasion of her high school graduation, that he was wearing on the day he died.  Some say this isn’t consistent with the theory of sexual abuse – but us ULBs know that is a false assumption.  There can be a trauma bond created that surpasses all logic of anyone outside the abuse ring.  She was his special chosen girl – oh gag.  She was still in the FOG and it was very bad.  These girls were isolated from almost everything outside the house, certainly from any other male/sexual influence.  He had gone from Emma to Lizbeth.  Emma was probably in a horrible place of being glad and guilty and horrified all at once.  The step-mother never had any children – at 35 she was almost but not too old to have children – possibly the marriage wasn’t sexual in nature.  Given that he had Emma and Lizbeth for that.  The brutality of her murder would indicate a personal vendetta against the step-mom.  She (in my opinion) had been abusing and domineering the girls for years, and enabling Andy in HIS abuses.
Emma Borden, War Hero
 
In 1884 (Lizbeth was then 24, Emma was 33) their father gave his wife’s half-sister a house.  GAVE A WOMAN HE DIDN’T REALLY KNOW A HOUSE.  To say that his daughters objected would be calling Hiroshima a small bang.  It was at this point they started calling their step-mother ‘Mrs. Borden’.  Andy tried to make peace by giving his daughters some money and allowing them to rent out one of his other properties.  He – he threw a little money at them and then ALLOWED them to be landlords of a house he owned.  How big of a nuclear bomb must have gone off in that house for Andy to capitulate to ANYTHING.  The girls must have completely gone bat-crap crazy.  They were always mild-mannered outside the house - there are NO stories of craziness or bad behavior about either one of them.  The maid wasn't gonna talk.

This, of course, would not be the only story of financial manipulation.  There are MANY – with the upshot in each case that the girls were deprived while others reaped the benefits of knowing their father.  Sound familiar?  Over, and over, and over – shown how little they are worth, how his opinion and regard for strangers is higher than of them.  They are not good enough, even though they give everything, every last thing, to this man.

In spring of 1892 – there was a pivotal incident.  Lizbeth kept pigeons in a barn loft, I think as pets?  She was 32 years old.  Possibly they also ate these pigeons, but she loved them – the girls were obviously not allowed to have pets (frugal!).  At some point her father got angry and decided that the pigeons were attracting neighborhood boys and he went out to the barn and massacred them all.  Some reports say he did it with a hatchet HA HA OH REALLY?!  Talk about the straw that broke the camel’s back.  These birds were something she doted on, poured her love into – I mean, she was not allowed around any men.  You want to have a hatchet, motherfucker?  I’ll give you a hatchet.  To the face.  (also – the pigeons were attracting boys?  Can’t have THAT.  Maybe she was caught with a guy and told her father ‘he wanted to see the pigeons!’ and that would be all the excuse Andy would need to kill those birds.  Perhaps this was also her 'space' - a place she had carved out to get away from both of them.  Can't have that either).

And so, 3 months later, the two Borden elders are very, very dead.  The rhyme is wrong:  Mrs. Borden received 19 blows to the head.  I think the back of her head.  She (Lizbeth) just wanted the bitch dead and gone.  Andy received 11 blows, chopping his FACE up beyond all recognition.  She hacked his fucking face off.  Sounds like a crime of passion to me.  And that passion would be RAGE, with a side of HATE.
Andrew Borden.  He has a bit of a headache.  A SPLITTING headache, if you will.
 
HA HA bitch is dead with her ass in the air
 
Abby (left) and Andrew Borden - skulls.  Yeeowch.
 
Emma was not home at the time.  Lizbeth and the maid were the only ones home.  Mrs. Borden was the first one killed, in the upstairs bedroom.  Then approximately 90 minutes later Andy came home and fell asleep on a downstairs sofa, and his face was hacked to pieces.  How well planned was this coup that someone could wait an hour and a half for the second murder?  No blood was found at the crime scene (my limited knowledge of science via CSI episodes says this cannot be the case unless the face/body was covered with something).  An axe head was found and the handle had been broken off/pulled out and was thought to be found later, rubbed with dust and with no blood on it.  Emma and the maid both testified and were calm, saying that someone besides Lizbeth must have done it.  The crime is written about in a gabillion places, you can take a look at all of it. 
 
My theory?  It was done with a hatchet, not an axe.  I've tried to lift an axe - they're fucking heavy.  Plus the pigeon episode.  Yeah, I think it was a hatchet.  More lady-sized.  Lizbeth and Emma and the maid were in on it.  The maid had seen the abuse - she was a live-in maid, did I mention, and was most likely abused, verbally and physically, if not sexually - it was an incredibly sick household.  Emma supposedly had left town, and I guess that was a good cover story.  Lizbeth took the heat for a while (she was in prison until the trial concluded, and in 1892 that had to be pretty bad) because she would have been far better able to withstand prison and the stress and ugliness (press) of a trial than Emma would have been.  Part of Lizbeth’s defense was that she was in the barn loft at the time of the murders.  The BARN LOFT, where the pigeons were killed.  Good one Lizbeth, I see what you did there!  A big LOL to you, sister. *21st century fist bump*

She was aquitted.  The girls inherited whatever portion of the estate they were entitled to, which was most of it.  The maid left  town after the trial and went to live in Anaconda, Montana.  Up to the day she died she maintained her story as testified at the trial.  Lizbeth changed her name (from Lizzie, probably her father's pet name for her *shudder*) and started hanging around theatre people - she joined the drama club, y'all!  How much fun were these people?  A LOT of fun, I would bet.  No more sexual constraints, no more social requirements, just FUN.  By many accounts she took a lesbian lover – well, more power to her, and while I don’t think you can ‘turn’ anyone gay, I do think that she wasn’t likely to get involved with any MEN in that lifetime, you know?  She bought a house on ‘The Hill” in the rich section and hired maids and probably took hot baths and had iced lemonade every fucking day of her life.  She and Emma were eventually estranged (the lesbian thing was difficult for Emma) but they never hated each other.
 
On her death Lizbeth left a good portion of her estate to an animal shelter place.  Still feeling guilty for the pigeons, probably, and for no good reason ANDY.

Listen up narcs.  Ye reap what ye sow, you fucking bastards.  If I was to re-write that poem: 

Lizbeth Borden took an axe
Put it to the skulls of both those whacks
Who tortured her, & her sister too
If it was me I’d have done it too.

Well played, Lizbeth Borden.  Rock on.  RIP.