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.

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.

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

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.

 



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.