Busy week, too much drama, but I'll not go into that... We took Phoebe in for her annual physical this week and because she was so itchy. The vet didn't find anything wrong with her skin, decided it was probably food allergies and switched her to an allergen free diet, IV Green Peas and Duck, which is what she was on when we got her. But she doesn't really like it, though, so I'm still mixing the old food in with it. And the bag of Hill's Sensitive Skin food that I'd ordered a week ago still hadn't arrived so I emailed them to see if I could return it and they hadn't even sent it out yet (!). Geez, they charged my card the day I ordered it, but now they're supposed to be crediting me for the whole order, which included some feather toys too.
I'm afraid I've been giving her too much people food lately, letting her lick the bottle of my yoghurt, etc., which is like her favorite thing to do. And I give her too many treats. The vet gave her a steroid shot for the allergies, he had suggested we give her oral steroids for a week instead and now I kind of wish we'd taken done that instead of the shot. She's been so mellow and calm all week, poor thing, not herself at all. She's hardly played at all and has mostly been sitting on the floor watching us and purring quietly. She seems to slowly be getting some of her energy back, we played a little tonight. But she's not itching and her skin is healing nicely.
And the last couple of days I've been feeling really uncomfortable in my skin for some unknown reason. Wednesday night we went out and I ate pasta for the first time in like a month, maybe it's some side effect of that. I just feel really jumpy and sort of PMSy, though I shouldn't be yet. I read an article saying that the low carb diet worked better if you took a day off once or twice a month and ate semi-normal so I rationalized it that way. I also had a migraine coming on Wednesday morning and took a Maxalt, which for some reason made me really druggy feeling all day to the point where I couldn't even drive. I don't know if it's the change in diet, birth control pills, or Prozac but medicines seem to be affecting me really adversely lately. I've just been a lump. I hate this feeling and I not knowing what's causing it pisses me off. Part of it is my mitral valve prolapse, which causes my heart to beat irregularly sometimes out of nowhere, which it's doing now, but I still have that creepy crawly feeling. And I dreamed about being invaded by bugs last night, which doesn't help at all.
My attempt at running errands Friday was just an exercise in aggravation. I made it through the post office quickly, but then needed to make a deposit at my bank with a real person instead of the ATM and had to wait like 15 minutes just to get through the line of cars. Then I stupidly went out on Braeswood, enroute to Sam's Club by the Dome, straight shot, eh? Made it through Hillcroft, no problem, than bam, all the traffic stops about a block before Chimney Rock. And goes nowhere... OK, I know afternoon traffic is bad but something was definitely wrong here. Is a car broken down, what?
Oh! I get close enough to the light that I can see through the SUV in front of me's window, and the light seems to be cycling funny. Oh crap, not funny at all, the two lights that are like 100 feet apart are out of sync. First light turns green just as the second light is turning red. So three cars get to scoot up each time, hanging out into the intersection, aaagghh! Luckily I was in the first slot when it was my turn and I shot all the way through. In any kind of race I've always been able to get the "out the gate" advantage, I have to make myself stop and wait until I'm sure no one is running a light coming at me because I have had the front end of my car knocked off by an idiot doing just that. But after that it was easy, even the loop didn't back up until I got off just after Fannin. Then I got to stand in line to get my prescription at Sam's, by that time I was pretty much a zombie.
And I was starting to get really hungry, it was dinner time. A lady was giving out samples of something that smelled really good and turned out to be a chimichanga. "It's very hot", she warned, "hold it a little while". It was hot, but after about four minutes of trying to steer a giant shopping cart with one hand while my stomach grumbled out loud, I succumbed. And burnt the crap out of the roof of my mouth. I have an overbite so I'm used to having injured gums, but burned and injured, oww... But it was tasty.
I almost did it today, I almost slept for more than five hours without waking up. And I wanted it bad, I haven't slept worth a damn the last couple of weeks, as if I ever do, but instead of my normal Lorazepam and Ambien bedtime meds last night I had Valium and Ambien. I had thought I was pretty desensitized to Valium but this time it worked really well, I was OUT, dreaming like crazy, deep down in delta wave world. Nothing particularly interesting, I remember I was walking through some sort of retail store auditing prices on shelves of towels and then... whoooosh! I hear my name and have some vague semblance of Sparky standing over me telling me about something from the Social Security office I got in the mail. What the hell?
Do you ever wake up and literally can't move because your brain still has you paralyzed from dreaming? That's where I was and suddenly I have someone talking to me, holding a letter in the dark with a flashlight and asking if he can open it and read it?? NO, GO AWAY my brain screamed but all I could manage to get out was "No, don't open my mail... don't care.. not now!". Finally after repeating that for what seemed to be about a dozen times he finally went away. Now I realize I hate to pee, what time is it, 11:30 am, crap! I went to bed at like 6 am with a projected wake up time of 3 pm, so now I have to get out of bed and use the bathroom and then make myself go back to sleep for like 3 hours. Usually after five hours in bed I've woken up several times, but I was doing so well today [sigh].
As I'm dragging myself out of bed, the cat starts crying at my closed bedroom door. Being a softie, I crack it to let her in, she likes to nap with me. I got to the bathroom, and am now half awake, and all the crap in my sinuses has shifted around just enough to make it difficult to breathe properly when I lay back down. I get comfortable back in bed, and then Sparky rattles ice cubes in the other room, which sends the cat into a frenzy and she races back out of the room and knocks the door halfway open on her way out. So I drag myself back out of bed and go close the door and manage to fall back to sleep.
For some reason the dreams I have when I've been thoroughly waken and make myself go back to sleep are always the weirdest and most vivid. And it leaves me incredibly groggy all day, like when I try and take a nap during the middle of the day, my brain doesn't do well with naps. So off I go back to dream world... This time I'm working security at a department store, but I'm not really working there, but I'm going to go in to work on Easter Sunday, but then they tell me that the store will be closed that day and I shouldn't come in, as a matter of fact I'm not needed at all. But for some reason I have all this stuff there that belongs to me and I need to take with me. But I need a lowboy to move it to my car, and there's an angry rottweiler between me and the lowboy. But I've got to get to it.
Somehow I figure out that the dog only goes ballistic when you're running away from it, and it you address her nicely and talk to her she won't bite you. I'm not sure what sort of psychological issues I'm working through here, but I manage to go out to get the lowboy and pacify the dog, who turns out to be friendly in a sort of edgy way. So I get back to the store and start loading all this stuff I have on to the cart. But it looks suspicious, because it's all clothing and beauty products, which people have given me to sell on eBay, but I realize most of it is worthless and end up trying to give as much away as possible because I don't want it.
I often dream I have way too much stuff, or have to move quickly and have too much stuff to be able to pack it all. I'm apparently overwhelmed by life it seems, because in my dreams I can never manage my belongings. I feel like that in real life too, even though everything I own is nicely organized and for the first time in my life I pretty much know what I have and where everything is.
Nonetheless, I've been all druggy and groggy the entire day, like if I lay my head down for even a minute I'll be unable to move again. Not really sleepy, just out of it, with that humming feeling in the back of my head. It reminds me of when I had mono and I was too tired to even read or watch TV but couldn't stand to sleep anymore. All I've managed to do today is make dinner, relist some eBay auctions, exercise the kitty, surf a little bit and type this.
So no Valium tonight, though I really think the main reason I feel like is from my weird sleep patterns. I bitched and whined and begged Sparky to please stop waking me up and to stop opening my damn mail. I know he's bored (and on the lookout for any credit card offers, which I get daily anyway via email and my PO box, like I'm going to fall into that trap again...), and needs a hobby, but dammit, let me sleep and have a little bit of privacy. He also woke me up when the results of my physical arrived in the mail, yes the first thing I want to hear upon waking is my cholesterol is 300+, and for phone calls (take a message, please)... I know, I need to go to bed earlier and get up earlier, I am trying, but all the constant sleep interruptions make it incredibly difficult.
OK, got that out of my system, good... Not even 1 am, too early to sleep yet, but I'm not sure what to do the next few hours. I'd like to read but I'm not sure I have brains enough to even do that right now...
OK, I got a weird 4am burst of rebellion after flipping through several sites with anti-war graphics and felt compelled to post at least a few. Also this story about the Air Force releasing over 300 photos soldiers killed in Iraq being shipped home jumped out at me. The Pentagon didn't want us to see these, I wonder why?
I've downloaded and printed new stickers for my car window, Sparky insists I replace the Dean for Texas sticker so I'll put something even more encendiary on display. To download your own protest messages check out The Fair & Balanced Pretzel. For even more, don't miss their graphics links page.
I was going to put "fishy" as my current mood for tonight, but it wasn't an option. I went out and bought stuff for dinner this weekend that's not pasta, and succumbed to the pre-cooked cold boiled shrimp at Kroger's. It was really good, and easy, I just bought some potato salad and bread for Sparky to go with it, but I've had that fishy feel on my hands all night and in my mouth. I love seafood, but I don't like fish. (Huh?) Really, I like shellfish but not fish-fish, too bland and fishy tasting.
I've really got to look at some cookbooks and magazines and figure out more interesting stuff to eat than chicken breast and steak. Our nearby grocery stores are really uninspiring, I'd give anything to have a Whole Foods or Central Market nearby, just to be able to buy pre-made, healthy food that's semi-interesting. I get bored really easily with food, though I can eat the same thing over and over till I get burned out on it. I've been checking out a healthy food delivery place for my parents to possibly use while my mom heals. if I had more money I'd love to use a service like that. It would make it really easy to lose weight also. I've lost about 5 pounds so far (in about 3 weeks?), and I do feel better and am not craving sweets and carbs like I was. I've been taking two 600mg calcium supplements a day also, which is supposed to help burn fat and cut cravings, and seems to be working. If nothing else, I'll have healthy bones :-)
Mad Mad House tonight was dramatic, it's down to the point where I don't really like any of the contestants, but I'm kind of leaning toward Nichole. Eric is so manipulative, as was Leona, whose kharmic energy came back and bit her on the ass tonight. She was such a princess, even though she won some trials, she was too unwilling to try new things. Jamie seems like such a blank slate, and she was a stripper so she's not easily embarrassed, but she doesn't even seem to be trying, I kind of thought she'd be the one to go next. I think she has that "deer in the headlights" look that the producers must like. I hated Eric the first time I saw him, he seemed like such a smart ass and a player, but I have more respect for him now. My favorite was Bonnie, but she was too openminded for her own good to win. Next week is the two hour finale, I wonder how they're going to cut it down to one when there are three people left? Looks like the eliminated guests will be making an appearance, including my least two favorites, Tim and Kelly, the loudmouthed drama queens of the group. I kind of wish I'd been taping these, but I'm sure they'll come out in a nice little DVD box set after season one is over. Glad to know they're already working on season two but I'm going to miss the current Alts.
From the archives - January 10, 2003
1. Where are you right now? Sitting at my desk in my living room/office
2. What time is it? 1:15 am
3. What are you wearing? A black short-sleeved tee shirt, light grey Old Navy capri pants, black socks and navy slippers (it's wash day!).
4. Any people or animals around you? Describe them. My husband is watching a Conan O'Brien rerun in the next room, my cat is napping on top of my big CD rack. Sparky is about 6' tall with brownish-reddish and a bit of silver in his hair, he's a big boned buy, and he's probably wearing his sleep shirt and socks. Phoebe is my black smoke Burmese, she's a medium sized very athletic kitty with a dainty little face and big gold eyes which are closed right now.
5. What are your plans for the weekend? I honestly am clueless... nothing specific, I need to work on trying to sell stuff on eBay to make some money, it's so dead right now. I'd like to work on my website some also.
Here's the DNC's Earth Day Link, which for some reason is not aligning properly in my browser...
SaveOurEnvironment.org has a petition for Earth Day about the evils of mercury pollution
EnviroLink has info on related events for this weekend
As does EarthDayNetwork, and they have a link to register to vote
Greenwatch is tracking the Bush administration's environmental misdeeds (glad someone is...)
Even if we were given a clean slate today I wonder if we'll ever be able to recreate some semblance of the world as we knew it even 30 years ago? Yes, there has been pollution and deforestation for many years before that, but we're just so damned efficient at it now.
I can't make it to Washington, but for anyone who can, the March for Women's Lives is this weekend. I hope it accomplishes something, give them a few bucks if you can afford it, I did ;-)
Had to make a new category, I look at a lot of blogs but don't have as much time to read them all as I wish, but better to be a good blogger and pass them on than just store them in my ever-growing bookmark list. I'm afraid I'm still stuck in the "website" mindset when it comes to links, etc., even though I've had this blog up for over a year.
Flipping around lately I've found some really great ones. SistersTalk is a black lesbian woman's astute observations on the insanity going on politically in our screwed up world.
A View From A Broad is the LiveJournal of a female soldier in Iraq who is also a fan girl, which makes for some interesting reading. I scared the crap out of my parents in high school by talking to Army recruiters (who called the house repeatedely), but decided any job that makes you get up at the crack of dawn daily would not work for me. In high school I had no clue what to do for a career, I graduated in 1980. Signed on for Computer Science like most of my friends, but after failing Calculus three times decided I really hated the sciences, and, at the time, really sucked at computers. (We're talking punch cards here, folks).
Baghdad Burning is another perspective on the war from an Iraqi woman's point of view. Eerie and enlightening, like reading Anne Frank's journal online in real time.
Feministe is a mom who defends abortion rights in a common sense & logical fashion. (I'm all for logic & common sense, not nearly enough of it out there to go around these days)
I don't really understand I Am Eating My Husband's Soul, sort of an ongoing fantasy scenario thing, but it's damned funny and the writing is first rate.
WitchyBitch has a pagan point of view and a great name ;-)
Late as usual, so I'm postdating this one by a few hours to be on the right day...
Sparky and I had our 14th anniversary today, or our 7th in my parents and the state of Texas eyes. We got married on the same date we met so we could keep it simple in our mind. We went to the same seafood restaurant that we did last year, and I ate the same thing, broiled shrimp, scallops, oysters and a stuffed crab. And I broke my diet a bit for a piece of their key lime pie ;-) My parents gave us a "universal gift certificate" (cash) to eat at Macaroni Grill also, but I think we'll do that next week because farfalle alfredo con pollo is really off my diet. So we've officially been married now longer than we lived together, which was already the longest relationship either of us had survived. It's a nice feeling, we've got the house, no kids, and can work from home without too many worries (knock on wood). We exchanged cute cards, and he proudly wrote on mine the first thing I said to him this morning, 14 years later, and her only request is "Don't fart on me". OK,I did say that, but I prefaced it with "please".
Then we drove around the Westheimer area, which we hardly ever go to anymore because of all the traffic and construction, and went to a new & used DVD store that some of Sparky's friends had been telling him about. He ended up buying one DVD and I bought three CDs. I have a "look for cheap" list for when we go shopping to replace some of my old cassettes and things and managed to get two of my Pixies CDs new for $10.99 each (Surfer Rosa and Trompe le Monde) and the latest David Bowie CD Reality, which is playing now and sounds very much like Heathen, which is next up on the CD changer. Hmm, Amazon has the same price on the two Pixies CDs and the Bowie CD for a buck less, oh well. I have a huge Amazon wishlist, lots of things to get when I get a windfall, or business gets better. I'm glad they let you rate the items now, because I have lots of "maybes" on my list and it's nice to be able to see the "must haves" first... Damn, Amazon's selling diamond jewelry now?
Time to take Phoebe in for her annual checkup, she's got some itchy spots that don't look like fleas, poor thing. I changed her food last time from the Hill's Science Diet for Sensitive Skin to the new one they just came out with the Advanced Protection one, but I'm going to switch her back. We killed another feather toy last night and they're hard to find in stock at Petsmart so I looked them up online and found them at a place called PetfoodDirect.com. Shipping was like $6.99 for just a couple of them or a lot, so I picked four and then wondered how much more it would be to order her food and it was only another dollar so I added it on also. And got an extra 5% off (and after I checked out got a pop-up for 20% off, dammit!). I've never bought pet food online before, this is a new experience. I really like that brand of feather toy, though, it has the nicest wand (doesn't hurt my hand) and the feather swivels nicely and makes little swooshing sounds.
Oh yes, bad news, turns out my mother does have a small fracture in her hip but the doctor says it's already mending and won't need surgery. I've been trying to figure out what I can do to help them the next month or two while my mom has to rest and stay off her feet. I've looked into meal home delivery for them, I know when I worked downtown a lot of people would have their lunches delivered daily. She didn't sound too enthusiastic when I mentioned it, but two months is along time for my dad to have pick up their dinner daily and I'm not much of a cook at all. I'm still trying to figure out what we can eat regularly to substitute for the pasta I'm not supposed to have anymore. I love beef, but chicken bores me and I'm not a fish fan. I'd eat shrimp every day if I could but we'd go broke ;-)
Spent all night listing DVDs on eBay and I think I'm officially braindead now... Sparky went to a film party so it was just me and Phoebe, we had a nice quiet no TV evening. Started the new birth control pill last night, not freaking out yet but I didn't take a break so I still feel all PMS-ey.
Listened to my new CD tonight, Horace Silver's Song For My Father, which I've been looking for on and off ever since I heard it playing in a book store one night (Rikki, don't lose that number...) very nice album. I like my jazz with a lot of piano, a few songs are heavy on the brass but not too much. It's weird, it took me like 30 years to realize how much I like to hear piano music especially, Elton John and Vince Guaraldi have always made me irrationally happy and improve my typing, which was awful tonight. I always wanted to learn to play and was jealous of my friends who actually had pianos in their houses. I had three guitars and sucked both acoustically and electrically :-(
I bought the CD when I bought the GoLive book, which I returned last night. I hope my manuals from Adobe come soon, I paid for 2 day shipping on a whim, if they show up Monday I'll be amazed. Adobe didn't bother to provide me with any tracking info, however. We went to see Kill Bill Volume 2 last night, really good movie but not quite as much fun as the first one, more story, less action. Still a really good movie, though, great fight scene with Daryl Hannah. Quentin Tarantino's amazing, Pulp Fiction is one of those movies I can't flip past on TV without mindlessly sitting and watching the whole thing. We got Kill Bill Vol. One on DVD when it came out, there is the cutest picture of Uma Thurman's Bride action figure, and a Go-Go figure too, where would I put them though?
From the archives of my birthday:
January 3, 2003
1. Do you wear any jewelry? What kind? I always wear a watch, I have like half a dozen, mostly Fossils and one really nice Citizen, it depends on the weather if it's hot or cold because of the change in fit, I have small wrists. If we're going out somewhere nice I'll wear my wedding ring, which is a 1920's white gold european cut small diamond in a filigree setting. I have a quartz crystal on a herringbone silver chain that I've been wearing non-stop since I got it in about 1985. I used to wear at least little tiny hoop earrings regularly when I had a 9-5 job, but now I have to remind myself to wear them from time to time so my ears don't close up. And I went nuts on Italian charm bracelets earlier this year and try and wear them when I think about it, I like them because they're not dangly and they're so much fun! I have tons of costume jewerly and barely wear any of it, I need to sell some more off on eBay...
2. How often do you wear it? If I'm leaving the house the watch, crystal necklace and maybe a charm bracelet are the first things I grab, I go nuts without a watch. I don't wear my wedding ring most of the time because I'm afraid I'll lose it or break it, I'm hard on jewelry. I used to wear a lot of rings, but I have big knuckles and a lot of my old ones don't fit anymore, I have one from the 70's that been repaired and resized like six times.
3. Do you have any piercings? If so, where? Just my ears, once. Didn't get it done till I was in my mid-twenties when I found a gorgeous pair of amethyst earrings and I told myself it they went on sale and I could afford them I'd get my ears pierced. I rarely wear the earrings anymore, though.
4. Do you have any tattoos? If so, where? No, if I did it would be something spooky, like a bat or the bat symbol.
5. What are your plans for the weekend? Put stuff up on eBay Saturday night, read a little bit, work on my website and play with GoLive some more.
OK, now I feel really foolish. After reading the horrific reviews of Adobe GoLive CS Classroom In A Book and flipping through the thing, I figured I'd just wasted $45. So I went to the Adobe user forums to see if I even needed a new manual for 6.0 to CS/7.0 (still am not sure what's new in in other than the interface) and came upon many more critics of how useless the book is and how the SAM's people are putting out a book within a month or so on the whole Creative Suite release and that I could buy a normal old-fashioned printed reference manual directly from Adobe and it was supposed to be much more useful. So for $29 I could get just the GoLive manual, but for $59 I could get the manuals for the other CS programs (Photoshop, ImageReady, Acrobat, InDesign, Illustrator...) so I opted for the whole set (plus delivery plus tax. I already bought a Peachpit InDesign manual since I was switching from Quark Xpress, but actually found InDesign to be much more intuitive than Quark and barely used the manual. I'm clueless on Illustrator, I never used it or Freehand enough to know what I'm doing, so it will be nice to have a manual for it, and you can never have enough Photoshop manuals ;-) I've got to have an eBay sale on outdated computer manuals again, my shelves are overflowing...
So off I go this weekend to return the book I drove all over town looking for tonight, no wonder my husband thinks I'm wacky... SO glad I didn't open the CD. As soon as I started flipping through it I realized it was basically a rehash of the manual that actually came with my version of GoLive 6, same tutorials, and the illustrations didn't seem to match up to the new version, they looked like they were taken from 6.0.
Finally made it to Sam's Club to pick up my $100+ worth of prescriptions that I dropped off earlier this week. I had told my doctor I wanted to up my Prozac from 30 mg a day (3x10) for 40mg (2x20) and she wrote the prescription out for one 40mg pill a day, yikes... I thought the pharmacy had shorted me when I checked the receipt because it was only $11 and for 30 pills, but no, apparently 30 40mg pills are less than half the price of 90 10mg pills, huh?? Well, OK, I figured they would cost more but who's complaining?
Got a new birth control pill too, decided to switch to LoEstrin from LoOvral (which I've been on for like 15 years) after seeing the following on the Family Practice Notebook's website (which is fabulous, BTW):
1. Breast Tenderness (lower Estrogen)
2. Headaches (lower Estrogen)
3. Moodiness (less Estrogen or more Progestin)
4. Weight gain (less Estrogen or more Progestin)
5. Libido decreased (more androgen)
OK... I can do without all of the above and it said LoEstrin is better for women over 40 so I'll let you know how it works out, I'm starting it up tomorrow night and am going to try skipping my period for the three months on/one week off deal since I'm not having a period anyway, just lots of migraines in my week off.
We went out to eat tonight and I blew my high protein diet at IHOP with french toast, but at least I had eggs and bacon with it. I couldn't finish the french toast, though, which is a good sign. I was going to have an omelette but my eyes were itching already (I'm allergic to eggs) and I want to see Kill Bill Vol. 2 tonight so I figured I'd better not chance more than one scrambled egg. I've lost about four pounds so far since I've dropped my carbs again, though, so I'm trying to behave.
My mom made it back to the doctor for another x-ray and apparently her hip is not fractured just bruised badly, thank goodness. We went to Luby's last night and got take out and brought it to them so she could have something other than Chinese delivery food, my dad's not the greatest cook and he can't stand for very long and now she can't either. I feel like I'm not doing enough for them, but I couldn't think of anything else to do, if I was a good cook I would have brought her a casserole... She says it feels a little better so maybe it's starting to heal.
Annoying item for tonight... I was watching Oprah today and saw Chris Rock and Jon Stewart and they also had SNL's Maya Rudolph on, who is Minnie Riperton's daughter, which would explain why she's so good at playing black ladies. So after the show, Sparky whips out one of his 70's Number One Hits albums and starts playing "Lovin' You" over and over. Sort of a frightening thing to have stuck in your head, especially at bedtime. Oprah mentioned that she was "the late" Minnie Riperton, which makes the song both annoying and sad at the same time if you know the lyrics, which, unfortunately, I do. Her fansite said she died of breast cancer in 1979, at 32 years old, even sadder, I did not know that. Apparently she was a pioneer in breast cancer awareness, damn, where was I in 1979? Oh, yeah, in high school, unaware and self-absorbed. I probably heard about it at the time but my memory is shot now. But Maya does look like her and certainly has her pipes ;-) The site says "Lovin' You" started out as a lullaby for Maya, I was thinking earlier today, weirdly enough, that perhaps it devoted to her husband or children, but that chorus might be a little alarming. [She says as the piercing sound echoes through her brain, over and over...]
Wow, I learned something new tonight. You shouldn't use image file names longer than 8 spaces without putting an underscore in them. My best friend was looking at my revised website tonight on her husband's PC and my banner wasn't loading (gulp). I tried redirecting the URL, etc., but it turned out it was because I used too many characters in the name, she said it causes some sort of UNIX error. It looked fine on my Mac, but apparently PCs aren't as forgiving. So I shortened it and it's fine now. Apparently that was the cause of my little glass brick spacer gifs appearing incorrectly also under Netscape & Mozilla, I changed the name on them and now they are invisible as they are supposed to be. I have lots of work to do on updating image names... when you have a Mac you forget that not everyone can use 15 and 20 character long file names, I haven't used a PC in so long I guess I figured they probably overcame that barrier but not so.
I went on a search tonight for a manual for GoLive CS. I figured I'd have several to choose from, so I tried Microcenter first and they didn't have one. The guy said he hadn't even seen one, which is crap because Adobe makes a manual for everything they put out. So I went to Borders books and looked it up on their listings and there is just one manual available for the new CS version, published by Adobe and I got their only copy in the store. I was hoping for one of the Sam's 24 Hours manuals instead (which are half the price and are easier to use) but I just checked Amazon and this is the only one out there, and dammit, Amazon has it for $15 less with free shipping! I think I'm going to hang on to my receipt for this one and leave the CD untouched, it has some really bad reviews it looks like [sigh]. I have a good Sam's book for GoLive 6 but Adobe decided to move all the buttons around with CS/7 so I thought it might be nice to have a paper manual to refer to because I'm still not real comfortable with GoLive after using Pagemill for so many years...
Well, last night I sayed up till 7am working on my main website and got a new home page and two new indexes up, one for all my TV & movie pages and one leading to my weblog and my personal info area. I had made lots of little rollover GIFs and ending up not using any of them, just plain CSS script, which seems to finally be working OK on my Mac version of IE. The visited links weren't lighting up all day, but now they are. I still haven't gotten a manual for GoLive CS, I'm having to refer back to my GoLive 6 book, where everthing is slightly different. When I bought the programs the guy told me it would have manuals, but they're all online or PDF which are a pain, IMHO.
I opened it up in Netscape and all looks fine except I can see my spacer GIFs in the main menu. Looks OK in Safari also, though my version of Safari keeps changing some of the test on pages (not just mine) into something that looks like Beatnik font. No, my preferences aren't set for anything but Helvetica & Courier, so I don't know what the deal is.
I'm trying to streamline and simplify the entire site while not losing any of my Google listings. I wish I could use text links for my webrings to make everything more attractive, but webring.com has that stupid javascript (which still doesn't show up correctly on my home page, the "Welcome you are surfing etc. ring click" text isn't showing up just the word "here" which looks very odd just dangling. When I originally set it all up years ago, I didn't make folders for two of the large categories, but it's not too badly organized. I'm moving all of the TV/movie pages into one category, and putting my book & music review pages, miscellaneous pages and weblog into another. And I'm moving the Gothic Artwork page into the Gothic category. I'm also adding an "About Tish" page, but I haven't got it done yet. Also make new banners and put a linkage page up. I figured while I had the motivation I'd better just start throwing things up and I'll work on redesigning & updating the rest of the site as I go. I want to make my images all pop-ups, add lots of new images, change layouts around, add something more personal to my witchcraft pages... Lots to do!
Well, as usual we didn't do anything of significance over the weekend, we're not church goers and don't have kids. It rained from Saturday afternoon on through Sunday and actually got pretty chilly. so I didn't even want to get out of bed today when I woke up.
My dad called last night to let me know they had spent five hours in the emergency room because my mother had fallen the day before and they wanted to make sure her hip wasn't broken. I wish they'd let me know when things happen instead of after, we only live like a mile away. Her stupid doctor changed her blood pressure medicine (again) and she said when she woke up in the middle of the night to go the bathroom she blacked out when she sent to stand up and fell. Which is exactly what my dad was going through about a month ago and the reason was exactly the same. I hate doctors. But she was smart enough to switch back to her old medicine right after that happened and is, at least, not feeling faint anymore.
Her x-ray didn't show anything and they wanted her to wait around another few hours for an MRI, but after five hours in an ER full of screaming children she decided to just go to her regular doctor to get one done later this week. I hope she hasn't damaged anything, she bruises really easily, I told her that Sunday would be the worse day, being three days after, and she called me today to tell my I was right. Luckily, my parents are like me and stockpile pharmaceuticals for emergencies, so they already had some Vicodin for her to take.
Being flat footed, hyperactive and then having coordination problems due to MS, I've injured myself so many times it's not funny. I also worked under hazardous conditions working security for most of my twenties, it's amazing I never broke anything (knock on wood). Just last night I had to go out to run an errand in the rain and a huge wind came up out of nowhere and slammed my umbrella into my forehead, but things like that happen to me. I was at a Pagan fest with some friends a few years ago and had opened a bottle of essential oil to smell it and when I put the stopper back on a drop of it flew up and hit me right in the eyeball. I seriously think I'm cursed sometimes, I used to blame it on my ex-husband (who really was cursed with having serious freak accidents) but I think it's probably just me, because I've been tripping and falling since I was a kid.
I did well yesterday with my eating, but dinner tonight was ravioli, which we'd already bought and is one of my favorites. I looked at the back of the package and almost fainted myself when I saw how many servings there were in each package (we buy it at Sam's Club). I had four Pepperidge Farm cookies left that I'd bought, I made Sparky split them with me to get rid of them. I've been trying to ignore two packages of the "two bite scones" that I've been addicted to for about six months now, hoping they'll just go bad on their own. I've been trying to add some yoghurt into my diet the past few months, I like the little tiny Dannon Light & Fit Smoothies the best, they're just the right size but I had a coupon for the bigger Yoplait Nouriche smoothies and bought three last time I went shopping. I started off Saturday by drinking one for breakfast and then ended up burping up iron all day, it had added vitamins, which sounds like a good thing, but doesn't taste good (bleecch). And I have two more in different flavors, I think I'll stick with the Dannon from now on, coupon or not.
I felt all shaky after eating the pasta tonight, even though I only ate half of what I usually eat. I've noticed carbs tend to make me either nervous & irritable or sleepy. We're trying to figure out what to eat nightly that's not made of pasta, if I had a chef or we could eat out every night it would be easier, I don't mind eating meat every night, I just don't like having to cook it. We have a George Foreman grill, but there's only so many ways to make chicken and steak before I get really bored. And most of the vegetables I like I'm either allergic to or they have lots of carbs. Sam's Club has some wonderful tropical chicken salad right now that I've been buying, it tastes good and seems healthy, if I could figure out a way to freeze it I'd stock up on it because I know they won't have it too long (sigh). I like meat with fruit, which completely grosses Sparky out.
2 am, I've spent the entire night listing eBay stuff (you want a tan? check my auctions!), hope it sells well. I think I'm going to take the rest of the night off to work on my website and then pack everything to mail tomorrow, I'm pooped! I'm in between novels, just finshed Charlaine Harris's Living Dead in Dallas (fun Southern vampire romance mystery) and haven't gotten the third novel in the series Club Dead yet, so I'm still debating between vampires and werewolves to start as my next before bed book. I've pulled Dr. Phil's weight loss book out (that I bought like six months ago, also at Sam's), I probably ought to start on it too ;-)
On a more serious note, I'm afraid I've gotten a real wake-up call medically. I've always had bad health. so I'm sort of just used to it and accept it, but after my physical last week I discovered:
I've had a tendency to have high cholesterol for about 15 years now, but it usually never goes over about 260 and my HDL (good) is usually pretty high. I'm adopted so new health problems are always a surprise to me, my mom has been battling high cholesterol and hypertension for most of her adult life and I don't want to have to do the same thing. The only time I've ever been able to get my number below 200 was when I had been seriously following the Atkins diet for several months. I'm supposed to still be on it, but I've fallen way off the wagon the last six months or so, eating way too much bread and sugar. I was on a low fat diet for years and my cholesterol kept going up, so I'm going to have to try the low carb route again. Apparently I'm insulin resistant. My husband is proportionately as or more overweight than I am, and his reading is 169. He's lucky to have great genetics. At least my blood pressure is still lower than normal.
Having MS, it's hard for me to exercise regularly, actually it was hard before also, I've never had any aerobic endurance at all. The only thing I've found I'm good at, like and work well for me is anaerobic exercise, i.e. weightlifting. I've always wanted my own big multi-station home gym, and would have one right now if it were up to me, but Sparky is maniacally opposed to it. When I got my results in the mail today, though, I told him I've got to do something and soon. So he at least agreed to bring my weight bench back in from the nasty outside storage room he stashed it in against my will, and to let me bring some of my free weights back into the house. Now all I have to do is actually use them.
I've been promising myself I'm going to make a serious try at doing yoga regularly also, I've got enough videos to open my own studio. We have a 24 hour gym a few miles away from us, but the damned thing is booked solid every time I've ever driven by it, even in the middle of the night. Years ago we hopefully bought a Health Rider, which I think I used a dozen times and it sits in our garage taking up space and reminding me daily what a failure I am and Sparky of the $700 bucks he spent on it. Hmm, I wonder if he'd let me bring it back in the house...
The fibroids are sort of scary, I had a lot of female problems in my 20's and have always been much more worried about getting cancer down there than up top. I did a lot of research on the internet and found some great sites that made me feel a little better about having them. But now whenever my abdomen hurts, I know why and it really bugs me. When the doctor was examining me I felt them, they hurt like hell! Fortunately I'm not planning on having children, but I still don't want to start having problems. I've been on birth control pills for 21 years now, and just had her change me to new ones (Loestrin, which I start next week) that are supposed to be better for 40+ year olds, because I seriously believe I'm well into perimenopause now, I feel like crap when I'm off my BC pills. But I don't smoke so I'm going to keep taking them as long as I can. When I'm on them I have hardly any period to speak of, and the last few months I haven't had any at all, which is fine with me.
For info on uterine fibroids check out:
Sex, Lies and Uterine Fibroids (awesome site!)
National Uterine Fibroids Foundation
Medline's Page on Uterine Fibroids
Lots going on around here but before this gets too old, I wanted to put it up online...
I don't watch reality TV with the exception of Cops and the Osbournes, but when I heard about the Sci Fi Channel's Mad Mad House I thought, it's got real witches, pagans, and vampires, why not? At first I thought the Alts (alternative lifestyle role models) were going to be actors, but then I recognized a few of them and realized this might actually be interesting.
Their early contests seemed pretty silly, but the more I watched the more respect I had for the Alts and (some) of the house guests. I'm still sad to have seen Bonnie go, she was my pick, but she came into the situation with an open mind (she had called for her son to participate, but he was too young so they asked her "Would you like to?") and a less greedy soul than the other participants and was such an inspiration and stabilizing element I understand why they had to let her go.
A few weeks into watching the series (when I still thought it was sort of silly) I received an email from the producers of the show wanting to interview me about Season Two of the show, from the standpoint of my being part of the Alternative lifestyle crowd. I have turned lots of people down for interviews, I only will do them in writing or by email, but now as the series has progressed into a more serious and introspective trial, I sort of wish I had accepted their offer. I'm a very private, shy person who is not particularly eloquent at speaking and not at all photogenic, but I do like to write, as you can tell. I gave the producers some info on what I considered more hardcore Wiccans and Goths to contact, I don't really feel I'm knowledgeable enough to provide really in depth information to them, I just know my own experience, which has been pretty solitary. But it was nice to be asked anyway, and I received a very nice email reply and was thanked for the contacts I was able to provide them with. I'm looking forward to season two, one of the alternative lifestyle themes they asked about was particularly dark and I sent them to the only authority I knew on the subject. You'll have to wait till next season to see what the subject is, though ;-)
Last night's episode was really incredible. I know people in reality shows are known for their plotting and backstabbing of each other, and I hate to see the guests trying to manipulate the emotions of the Alts, but last night the Alts turned all that energy back upon the guests and next week should be really intense as they face the consequences of their own treachery (he he). Don's energy sucking ritual was interesting, I do believe in energy vampires, I've known some people who actually have that effect on people without even knowing they're doing it, and, being an empath, I try to avoid them at all costs. The Goth on Goth bloodletting was interesting, I wondered how they were legally going to do that. Next week it looks like the guests are going to be drinking blood for themselves, I'm guessing it will probably be from a pig, though, not another human.
I've always considered myself to be really open minded, but I have to say after watching this show for the last month or so, I feel even more open minded towards people with piercings and multiple tattoos. Art is such a sweetheart, how could you not love him? Actually tattoos never bothered me really, but as I said in an earlier post, I'm very much a piercing wussy. Unlike Sparky, I do understand why people want to decorate their bodies in such personal, permanant ways, it's just not for me. It took me till my mid-twenties to get my ears pierced. I had traumatic experiences in grade school with a friend who had pierced ears and was constantly accidentally ripping her earrings out through her earlobes when she was brushing her hair, etc. But, the back of my car has lots of bumper stickers (including a Dean for President that I haven't taken off yet) so I tend to wear my heart on my sleeve also.
Yea! Friday Five is back, I was getting a little worried...
1. What do you do for a living? I work at home selling things on eBay.
2. What do you like most about your job? I can work all night and sleeip all day, and I don't have to leave the house or deal with the public daily.
3. What do you like least about your job? I never stop working, I don't have set start and stop times.
4. When you have a bad day at work it's usually because ... Someone is being particularly rude or stupid abut something, but at least it's by email.
5. What other career(s) are you interested in? I'd like to write a book.
Omigawd, I was playing with the URL of my error message and tried typing in one different number and the damned thing worked! I just went in and put my form back in and changed the value from 4 to 1, and now it's working, go figure. After over a year I still don't understand how everything works on MT, but at least now I can sleep tonight, err.. today ;-)
Dammit! I'm so close to getting my search form to work I could scream, but I'm afraid it's bedtime now... I've gotten it to go from an internal 500 error to "Can't call method "id" on an undefined value at lib/MT/App/Search.pm line 173.", and, after fixing the permissions on the mt-search.cgi file, I can actually get the search page to open and work (link top right), I just can't get the form to work.... grrr....
I think I just need to upgrade the whole thing, but I keep hearing about bugs in the latest release, oh well, that will be my project for tomorrow.
56 years ago today my parents got married and have managed to make it through raising two less than perfect kids and putting up with each other's quirks. I'm not sure if Sparky and I will make it that long, but it's a nice thought. The photo above is from their wedding day and the more complimentary one below is soon afterwards. Handsome couple, don't you think?
OK, first off, I hate practical jokes, so April Fool's Day is probably my least favorite holiday. Luckily, my husband hates them even more than I do. But the day was unnerving despite our wishes.
Sparky came in to wake me up this afternoon, which he does by opening both the bedroom doors and then the bathroom door (really bright window in there), and our kitty runs right into the bathroom and starts staring up at the ceiling. Sparky fiddles around with the TV and VCRs for a minute, then shuts everything off and leaves the room. Now that the room's quiet, I suddenly hear an angry buzzing sound coming from the bathroom, at which time, still under the covers in bed, I scream for him to come back in. Turns out two bees have somehow gotten through one of the tiny cracks in the old bathroom window (one of two windows in the house we didn't have upgraded last year) and they're flying around the bathroom.
I hate bugs, especially any but that can fly and/or sting me. I'm like a magnet for bugs, they've flown right into my face (I still have a scar from a hornet which literally knocked me down one summer day walking into the Elk's Club to go swimming), I've been chased by swarms of yellow jackets that made a nest in my childhood swingset, so you get the picture. I holler at him to close the bathroom door, but he bravely goes inside and closes it and whacks the shit out of the bugs till they're dead. But we can still hear buzzing really loudly...
We go around to the patio door in a panic, and there is literally a huge swarm of bees trying their damnedest to burrow into our house! They're crawling into cracks in the bricks, trying to get into the eaves of the house, bleecchhhh!! What the hell??? The only bug spray we have in the house are flea spray (which I still think are not dead yet) and some old ant and roach spray. Not being a bug-o-phobe like myself, Sparky grabs the flea spray and bravely runs into the back yard and starts spraying as many as he can, and sprays into the walls, and then runs back inside. But back they come, undeterred. At our last house we had two bee invasions, but both were further out in the yard itself, we've never had them try and actually get into the house.
So back out he goes with both sprays in hand, and just drenches all the areas they're trying to get into. They finally do seem to discouraged and most of them by now are either dead or retreated to the tree in the back yard. After much shuddering, I realize I still have to run my errands, but fortunately my car is in the garage which faces the front of the house which doesn't seem to be under attack. I get dressed, hop in the car, whip my head around to back out and feel a wave of vertigo hit me. Apparently, I'm having inner ear problems today because of allergies. That's what I need, to be dizzy. But I make it to the post office and then run by the grocery store to get a can of wasp killer (that he can spray at them from a distance). And come back home.
I think the bees chose our yard because the grass has grown so high in the back, it's got to be appealing to all sorts of unsavory critters. The phone number we have for our yard people is not working, and they usually come around the neighborhood and check, but since our front yard has been pretty short, they haven't been stopping at our house for way too long. Sparky doesn't want to offend them by having someone else do our yard (and they're cheap!), but perhaps after this he'll break down and snap someone else when they're in the area. I don't care who does our yard, I just want all the damned fleas, bees and whatever else is out there to go away!
The rest of the evening was pretty calm, watched Mad Mad House, really good (and disturbing) episode tonight, I'm a piercing wussy. Art's ritual was really amazing, though, the mental discipline required must be incredible. Next week looks like we're going to have some actual blood drinking with Don so that should be fun. Then just before midnight, our little desktop grandfather's clock sounds like it's trying to chime. Then, at the next quarter hour it actually does chime. Which wouldn't be weird, except we've had the chimes turned off for the last several years. It's almost 5 am and the damned thing's still chiming every 15 minutes, I wish I knew how to turn it off, it's on the top shelf of the bookcase.
Iím still dizzy, hope itís gone by tomorrow, that's all the weirdness I can stand for one day, now on to pleasant things...