You Give Me Fever

When I worked at the law firm there was a parking lot on the adjacent block that was developed into an office building. (Dec 2007.)

I’ve never been able to understand people who get sick all the time and say things like, “this is my fourth cold this winter.” How can you get 4 colds in one winter?

It took forever for them to pound those beams into the ground. (May 2008)

I’m the kind of person who gets sick about once a year. Sometimes I go an entire year without getting sick and every once in awhile I might get sick twice in one year. Once I get sick I know I’m done with it for awhile which is why my entire world was turned upside down when I woke up a couple of nights ago coughing my face off and discharging quarts of goop into tissues that piled in a heap by the bed.

I haven’t been back over there in awhile and walked over there last week.

Remember I just did this? I was sick for most of the month of November. Never in my life have I been sick for 3 1/2 weeks and then healthy for 2 weeks and then gone back down again. There I was, back on the couch, nostrils returned to their chapped state. I huddled under my blanket, whining and complaining, and drinking peppermint tea.

And it’s not like I’m engaging in high risk activities. I don’t run around outside in the middle of the night in my bare feet, eating Doritos and drinking beer. I don’t let small children put their fingers in my mouth. I don’t suck on the door handles of public places.

Building is finished and there are people in there. They’ve got a Starbucks which is a huge relief because it means that in a 5 block strip of that street, there are 3.

I do not understand how this happened. I’ve been going over it in my head and trying to figure out what’s different. Aging? Well, maybe. But you know what else?

I quit taking vitamins.

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Violent Pink Popcorn

This is cinnamon flavored popcorn that came in a giftbox to the office. Normally I’m all grown-up and formal about such things like we need to eat all the pretzels before we open the cheese corn. Not this time. We’ve opened every single thing and tried it, often before 8am and once after we ate a giant lunch. It’s never too early to start packing on the holiday handles.

I wrote out a long story about how my health insurance had been making me insane the past couple of days. But I think its too long to be interesting so I’m going to give the short version.

I need some basic information so I logged into the main website which was totally worthless. Then, anxious to share these feelings, I clicked on the Feedback tab. The Feedback tab wanted me to create a feedback account, which obviously I am not going to do, and then if I understand correctly, I was going to be posting my feedback on a community board.

In what Universe is that going to do anything?

Later I found a different URL and tried to login but it didn’t recognize any of my numbers that it asked for. (And zeroed out the form each time so I had to re-complete all the fields . Thanks for nothing.) It said if the numbers didn’t work to call the phone number.

I called the phone number and guess what? It was a phone tree that demanded the same numbers that didn’t work on the website. No work around that I could discover.

It took a half hour and a giant bag of chocolate-caramel popcorn before I could stop foaming at the mouth. I don’t want to talk about work here but there are good reasons I didn’t ask someone there first. But I finally did and got enough info to proceed.

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Hamburg Hauptbahnhof

This is one of those “make it look like a miniature” tutorials. But it’s kind-of a cheat because the photo looked like a miniature before I did my magic.

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Turns Out This Tutorial Has A Page 2

I’ve been repeating the tutorials a bunch of times to help me learn better. Most of the time I understand how to do the steps but I’m not always sure what each step accomplishes.

I did this tutorial three times before I realized there’s a page 2. I still haven’t done page 2.

This one gets me practice with the pen tool. Luckily I remembered pretty quick because pen tool is a pain to learn. The hard part, which I’ve written about before, is that I mouse right-handed. I would love to go back in time and figure out why I did that. But after 20 years, I can’t mouse with my left hand.

I got the tablet out and tried to just use my left hand but it was hopeless. So I’m currently doing this crazy two-handed thing where I draw left-handed on the tablet but do all other clicking with my right hand.

If I get good at it there might be a documentary about me some day.

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Bottles of Pills

I’ve never been a diehard vitamin taker but I’ve been a fairly regular vitamin taker. Several days a week I’d knock back a multivitamin and mineral and a vitamin C the size of school bus plus a few other nutrients in a pill. Some article would tell me how one vitamin would make me age backwards and another would reduce moodiness and combination of a bunch would help me remember things that happened before 1975.

Then I read an article that said that after tons of studies, scientists determined that vitamins don’t do anything.

So I stopped taking vitamins. Instantly. Just like that.

I also quit making a point to eat breakfast when I read an article that said breakfast is not the most important meal of the day.

When I had the idea for this post I’m not sure where I wanted to go with it. Mostly I think it’s funny that I will alter my behavior after simply reading an article.

But then I’ve read lots of health-related articles that I completely ignored. I guess I listened to these two because I never noticed a measurable benefit from vitamin taking or eating breakfast. In fact, a lot of classic breakfast foods make me sleepy.

I have no concluding sentence.

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Remember Summer





Awhile back I read this news story about a guy who died and was cryogenically frozen. He was being stored with his wife who died before him and was cryogenically frozen and also his second wife who died before him and was cryogenically frozen.

Isn’t that going to be awkward? What was the second wife thinking? Obviously the first wife isn’t going to be too happy when she’s thawed out and finds out there’s a new wife. And no doubt there will be a high profile lawsuit because the first wife is no longer a wife. Or is she? Will new legal definitions need to be created for people who are cryogenically frozen? But then if the first wife is still the wife then the second wife is going to be pissed. Those ladies are both going to want something their troubles. I hope he has a lot of money set aside.

Maybe the guy arranged for a “complication” so that one of the wives can’t be unfrozen. But if that backfires then he’ll be up for murder. Or he could not thaw them out concurrently. I guess that depends on what the future of health care is like. If they all died of old age and are then thawed out, does that mean that old age has been cured? He’d just have to keep one frozen. Or he could thaw both and try to keep them a secret from each other and have to run back and forth between two households.

I don’t think he planned this very well.

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Can’t Even Close My Eyes

My early days of gardening with my Mom.

I’ve woken up at 3am for 27 consecutive days. Is there an award or medal for that? Is it a medical condition? Can I work it into some sort of super power? I was thinking of setting my alarm for 3am to trick myself into not waking up at that time. But then I was afraid I’d wake up at 1am. (Which I also did last night.)

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Shrinky-Dink Feet

I have three pairs of shoes in my closet that are more than twenty years old. My glittery boots and my party girl shoes from the 80’s and those clunky things in the middle that I got right before I moved up here. I’m certain that’s the last pair of non slide-on shoes I bought. (Besides exercise shoes.)

My feet have changed too much to wear the heels. The shoes are gigantic now. I can’t even fake it. I once desperately needed some heels and I thought I’d wing it with those but they don’t work. It’s hard to believe I used to wear those for a late night out. I could run uphill in those things. (Not that I ever needed to … )

I wore the boots a couple of years ago to a fancy function. They fit okay. I should wear them again.

The middle pair I decided to wear on Friday for no particular reason. They were perfectly comfortable but felt weird on my feet.

Other than exercise shoes I only wear Danskos. I like to be able to slide my shoes off. I don’t wear shoes when I drive. I kick my shoes off at the office or pretty much any place I can get away with it. I like to sit with my legs folded under me which I’m sure is the source of most of my back trouble but I can’t get comfortable with my feet on the floor.

I still need heels but I hate shoe stores. You have to have someone help you. They hover. And it’s hard to tell if something is comfortable just by trying it on and taking a lap around the store. I don’t need to wear heels much but it would be nice to have one pair of shoes that isn’t frumpy.

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Short People Got No Reason

Yesterday at the movie theater they had a display for Phantom Menace 3D.

Take my picture! I shouted at Bob and sprinted across the lobby.

I guess they aren’t expecting many kids to want to get their picture taken.

Bob said: Can you be taller?

Me: I’m on my tiptoes. My calves are cramping. Hurry up.

Then I tried to jump.

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Poolside

Look at my adorable sister! 1968? I bet this is at the Alyn’s pool. Possibly not how you spell their name – I can’t remember and haven’t talked to any of them for over 20 years. But if one of them sees this I’m sure they’ll let me know.

I’m on the last few boxes of slides. Scanning is tedious work so I try to do a little bit every week. I think I have about 40 slides left with this batch. I’m sure there are stacks more at the homestead.

Yesterday’s dinner turned out fantastic which is a relief because I’ve been blooping-up most of my big cooking projects lately. I was losing confidence in myself.

And while I’ve been making faces at the oodles of emails I’ve been getting begging me to buy things, I have to admit the coupons work! I bought a ton of books, new shoes and an audio course I’ve had my eye on for ages. Once I download it I can put it on my list and never get around to listening to it. It’s so refreshing to be in touch with your shortcomings.

Yesterday my magazine advised me that there was no shame in sitting around with a book and a hot toddy. To which I replied, “Gee thanks for permission.” But what makes it funny is the lady in the picture is looking at a book about guns.

I’m off. Bob and I have a movie date to see the new Pedro.

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