Too tired to type, we just had our big annual Halloween party, Sparky just went to bed and I'm headed there now that the house is back to it's popcorn-free state ;-) Lots of people, lots of energy in the air tonght, you could tell everyone needed a party. The kitty stayed in hiding in the bedroom all night so she was anxious to come out and explore at 2 am when everyone left. We rushed around to pick up all of the costume residue, feathers, and crushed M&M's etc before she could get to them.
And we've got the wonderful fall time change tonight, so it's actually my normal 6am bedtime right now, but Sparky should be sleeping much later than usual. My monitor has been blinking like crazy tonight so if I disappear for a day or so that will be why.
I got lucky and found one of my black velvet gothic dresses that I hadn't worn since 1998 (and still fit) and I wore it with my most comfortable granny boots but by the end of the night I had several large blisters and my feet have completely given out. I really miss having wall to wall carpet at times like these (sigh).
I'll put a few pics up when I've recovered. My main goal for Sunday, other than to sleep late and hand out candy, is to try and get all of my eBay stuff for the weekend packed to mail out on Monday. I told myself I wasn't going to have any auctions ending this weekend, but I did anyway.
And Tuesday I don't want to have to worry about anything but going to vote (and watching the results). We actually went to one of the early voting places the other evening, but there were like 100+ people in line and the wait was outdoors, so we decided just to go to our neighborhood elementary (which I actually attended!) so I can wax nostalgic and we can wait in the air conditioning. I'm hoping we'll get lucky and everyone in our neighborhood has already voted early or by absentee (I can dream, can't I?).
Off to see if I still have my Origins peppermint foot cream, tonight would be a good time to use some...
OK, quick catch up for all the stunning news of the past few weeks I've been too busy to blog:
Ann Coulter attacked by two men armed with custard pies (hee hee)
Minnesota woman writes the names of all of the coalition soldiers killed in Iraq on her car
Oh, that's why Dubya looked odd from behind in the first debate... was he hearing voices?
Iran endorses Dubya (hint, hint...)
Or... trade crack for new voters (?)
The Red Sox win, fan killed accidentally during celebration
And, oh yeah, Bill O'Reilly is a pervert (who knew?)
Clyde Peterson's eerily accurate vision of Cheney from today's Houston Chronicle
Update on bizarro world this evening when I get up, I'm tired of fighting with the computer for this evening and it's really been an "alternate universe" last week or so...
I've been on a "buying things I need" shopping spree the last couple of week alsos. Then, after I'd finished, of course, eBay demanded I pay them their $350 worth of fees for last month two weeks early (or they wouldn't let me list anything new) so that threw me for a loop. Well, crap, I had hoped to go to the Houston Postcard & Paper Show this weekend, but I guess that's out now. They're in a beautiful new convention center just a few miles from my house now. But we have our Halloween party coming up next weekend and I haven't planned the food, music or what I'm going to wear yet.
But I've been stocking up on all of my shipping supplies, ordering boxes, bubble wrap and mailers for the holiday eBay rush. And buying toner, a new Dayrunner calendar, new pretty colored file folders and a little Brother P-Touch to make nice new labels (PT-1180). (My handwriting is completely illegible) I always wanted one of those, though I think the one I got is probably too small for anything but file folders (it was less than $30 at Sam's Club, though, and came with two refill cartridges). Redoing my files is going to be one of my "leisure" activities, I actually like to sort and file things, I had even considered becoming a professional organizer once, but I think avoiding obsessive activities is probably better for my health. One of the reasons I quite my first job as a library assistant was I got all obsessed with the books, I think I checked out as many as I put away. And it drove me nuts when people would put things back in the wrong place.
And with the Halloween party coming up, Sparky gets to do his semi-annual cleaning of his bathtub, so I got new shower curtains for us both. He refers to his tub as the "Shroud of Turin" because for some reason the master bathroom gets some really heavy duty staining as compared to (my) hall bathroom. And his curtain started off as clear but is now sort of a yucky beige color. So I went to Bed, Bath and Beyond armed with the coupons they send me weekly and found a nice clear patterned one for him, but could not find my usual pretty frosted one I usually get for me. I don't see it on their site either, but it had little clear prisms that caught the light prettily. So I decided to get a black striped vinyl curtain and I think I like it even better. It looks very modern and the black looks sharp with the 1950's powder pink tile, especially with the sleek little silver roller rings I already had.
In the same trip I also got a Fossil watch and an engraved antique white gold wedding band (both bought on eBay months ago) sized at our neighborhood jewelers, who kind of hate to see me coming because I can never seem to get my watch bands just exactly how I like them. I think I may have gotten this one a bit tight, but winter's coming soon. We've had out first semi cold front (down to the 50's - ooh!), but it only lasted a few days. Then I took the $10 off coupon I'd earned to the Beauty First next door to BB&B, and they were having a "buy one get the next half off sale", so I bought even more hair care stuff, and got a Matrix shampoo, conditioner and a Chi heat styling spray for like $13 total, yippee! (Just what I need, more hair products, when I'm unhappy with my hair I change products in hope of making it look better. Lately it's been really misbehaving and curling because it's too short :-(
By then it was Sparky's dinner time so I ran by OfficeMax and used another $10 off coupon I had to get an black ink cartridge for my dying Epson printer (it has a short and turns itself on and off, which is both annoying and alarming). And I actually remembered to bring my old cartridge and got my free ream of paper too. And I also spent like $200 on postage this week, I had like 60 auctions close this weekend. So it's been a damn expensive week, I hope my sales keep up, Sparky has been bugging me to go get groceries again...
Well, damn my computer just froze as I was adding on to my want list, so I'm retyping this all again and then going to bed, someone's trying to tell me something... But on the theory that what I put into print comes true, my other big want is an electric piano. (No, I don't play, I've always wanted to learn badly) It all began when we went into Radio Shack to get something for Sparky and, being bored, I wandered over and played with an electric piano they had on display. When I was a teenager my parents gave me an electric organ, which I have no idea what happened to, but needless to say, it was uninspiring and felt and sounded like a toy. I had no idea portable pianos now sound as good as and even better than the real gigantic thing (and never need tuning!). So that started my obsession earlier this summer. And since then I've been researching and studying and even doing finger exercises. I've always been a closet piano junkie, but never got to take lessons. I did guitar instead, and never did well at it. I also have always wanted to play drums. But a guitar was more practical in my parent's opinion. And it was the 70's and guitars were "cool". But I completely sucked at playing them. I've always been more of a percussion person anyway.
So I read and researched and even went to the local music store where I got the $5000 standup sales pitch and was told that Yamaha pianos were junk, which actually made me want one more, damn old fart salesman (he was pushing Rolands). My initial choice was a Yamaha 88 key electric piano, which I've been able to play with regularly at Best Buy and Sam's while Sparky did his DVD and big screen TV shopping. It's really a gorgeous sounding thing, with weighted keys, lots of voices and bells and whistles. But I soon realized it's WAY too big for the area I want to use it in, and then began thinking perhaps a synthesizer/arranger keyboard would probably be more fun and I could hook it up to my computer (and it would fit on my desk). So I've chosen a mid-priced 61 key Yamaha synthesizer (which costs twice what the piano cost) and have been yearning after it. It's basically going to be my birthday gift to myself this year, but I don't want to wait till January. For one thing the one I picked is last year's model and is in limited supply now, this year's model is also great but it's $500 more. But with my current computer mutiny (and my promise to never open another credit account ;-) I'm trying to restrain myself from wishing out loud too much. So we'll see if my "putting it into writing" theory works, hey, it got me a car ;-)
OK, I'm not dead, I've just been overworking. WAY too much eBay stuff lately. Out of town guests, who were lovely BTW. I've been getting hit really hard with both comment and email spam lately, I had to compact my Entourage database last night because I started getting phantom invisible emails in my Delete box. Macs rarely get viruses but I've had other email programs get corrupt databases before (Netscape scrambled all of my mesages together like three times, that was fun, let me tell you) so I freaked out when the invisible message count went from 1 to 10 within 24 hours. I had never compacted my 250 mb of emails before, but it worked and the phantoms went away.
And having other weird computer problems... Why do things have to start acting up when I want to buy something else, dammit? My printer I use for my massive amounts of eBay paperwork (which I thought I was replacing when I bought my HP Photosmart, but it's too slow!) has been shorting out regularly enough that it was at the top of my "to replace" list, then my external hard drive started freezing and causing finder problems, so I started looking at hard drives. Sparky even agreed to buy me a new one.
BUT the last week or so my monitor has been flickering so the price of poker just went way up. When my last monitor died it just went black one day and that was it. My lovely 19" NEC monitor has been jittering and flickering so I'm guessing it's on it's way out. I can't remember when I bought it but it wasn't too terribly long ago. So of course, I want a nice flat screen LCD monitor to replace it. And the ones I'm looking at start at like $600. I really don't want to go down in size, bigger would be easier on my screwed up vision, and the LCD monitors are supposed to be much sharper (as well as giving me half my desk back).
Then I made the mistake of looking at the new Apple Cinema Display monitors (which start at $1300, gasp!). I remember when the wide screen Apple monitors first came out and I thought they were just odd looking and overpriced, sigh. But then I still had most of my vision back then and could read without glasses, and didn't have double vision. My poor husband, he's going to kill me when this thing goes out. I actually hope it does just die peacefully instead of blinking on and off for months, it's giving me headaches already. I've mentioned the flickering to him several times, I need to get him to sit down and look through eBay for an hour or so to actually see how bad it's getting.
What else... (outside news in the next entry), kitty Phoebe has finally discovered how comfy the bed I bought her a year ago can be. She never got in it, I guessed it was because she didn't like the fake fur stuff, and had put a pillowcase over it, towels in it, but no go. I was going to use the old torn fitted sheet from our bed and sew a little cover or something for it, but I just folded the sheet and laid it in the bed and she jumped right in. OK, whatever works for the kitty works for me.
I've also been trying to find a replacement for my discontinued eBay management program (AID), which is nearly impossible for us Mac people. I downloaded a trial of Auction Genie, which is the closest I've found to what I've been looking for, which is basically a desktop database program, and have been playing with it, but the detail page is tiny and hard to read and I haven't been able to get it to do everything I want. The online instruction manual is 90 pages long! It's not terribly difficult, but it doesn't feel at all intuitive. I'd really like to simplify my job, not make it even more complicated. I know I'm just too picky, but it would be nice to have more than one program to choose from. And eBay's own programs they are pushing don't support Macs at all.
And with all the problems going on, and a bad case of PMS (my pharmacy substituted my generic BC pills for a different brand so I've had a really uncomfortable month), I decided to upgrade to the brand new version of Movable Type tonight. I know I shouldn't do anything that requires real thought when I'm PMSy but I like nice repetitive tasks, they calm me down. And all went well so nothing to freak out about.
I saw this on the local news this evening, the latest scare tactic, guard your children!
What interesting timing... hmmmm...
I thought the flu vaccine thing would be the big panic for this week...
One more bragfest about my husband, yesterday Sparky got motivated and called the Harris County Democratic Party to find out where he could get a yard sign. We've literally had dozens pop up in our neighborhood after the Dubya/Kerry debate, I'm feeling better about my neighborhood. One entire street has Kerry signs (and one lone Bush sign). The Republican across the street finally put his Bush sign up (right next to his giant US flag).
So he called and found there was an office in the middle of our local gang infested mall (which we both worked at back in the 80's when kidnappings and murders were a pretty regular occurrence), which we try not to go to even though it's the closest major mall. But he waded through the ne'er-do-wells that were hanging out in the free AC and found the Dems kiosk. He got two yard signs, a couple of more stickers and their last button. We only put one sign out because I keep reading that people are rampantly stealing and defacing signs for both parties this year. So I can now sit at my desk and see the sign from the front window, I'm happy.
On a similar note, when I was flipping through the post VP debate reviews last night I decided to look for a breakdown of the truths and lies and typed in factcheck.com (I swear I didn't hear Dick say that it must have been some sort of subliminal thing), and it bounced me to George Soros.com (where the banner is "Why We Should Not Re-elect President Bush"), which I thought was strange at the time. Watching the clips today on TV I heard Cheney had actually told people to go to "factcheck.com" to verify one of his lies, which is not even the correct web address, so FactCheck.org deliberately forwarded the .com URL to George Soros' anti-Bush site after Cheney's miscomment. And they put up a rebuttal saying they did not support his statements about Halliburton.
Also apparently the RNC said something rude about Chris Matthews post-debate comments about Cheney's lies so he attacked them right back this evening. Real smart guys, attack an attack dog who had been tentatively defending you, go get 'em Chris! This is getting to be fun...
Hey, it's my 300th entry! And I feel like crap! Oh well. Last Friday I had some sort of spell of severe lower abdominal pain that was immediately followed by what seemed to be a Urinary Tract Infection, so I've had a yucky week so far. Friday afternoon (of course never on a Monday) I suddenly got this horrendous stabbing pain in my lower abdomen/pelvic area and (according to my husband) turned completely gray, started sweating like crazy and then both my arms and legs went completely numb. It felt like electric shocks were running down my arms and legs, I could not even move my hands. I seriously thought either my appendix had burst or I was having some sort of stroke or something. Scared my husband so badly he took me to the local emergency room.
But after we'd sat in the waiting room for about an hour (and they hinted it would be another four or five hours until I could be admitted) the pain subsided to bearable and all I wanted to do was go home, so we did. Then during the weekend I started having all of the classic bladder infection signs, so I took some of my all purpose Keflex and called for a Monday appointment. By Monday, though, I tested negative because I'd taken antibiotics, but the nice lady doctor gave me the requisite Bactrim and the analgesic that gives you neon urine.
So I'm winding up day three of five of my Bactrim treatment and it's helping with the UTI, but I've been feeling just totally wiped all week. Shaky and braindead, headaches, and I've been having some sort of weird non-stop acid reflux, which is a great appetite supressant -- maybe I'll lose some weight this week. I actually have a little burst of energy right now because it's been like 12 hours since I took my pill (next one's at bedtime).
So I grab my handy dandy Pill Book and look it up:
What, no suicidal tendencies? Weirdly enough I haven't gotten my normal case of hives and swollen eyes that I usually get with almost any drug these days (I'm hyperreactive) but I sat on the couch all evening literally unable to move. And I had eBay auctions ending tonight, it felt like rocket science just trying to answer all my emails. Yeah, I'd call it a feeling of apathy. And I've been shaky, wek and nervous, had a headache, lots of stomach upset, and some additional abdominal pain. I'm already chronically depressed and I really don't need anything to increase my tinnitus.
But at least I know it's just the medicine, just two more days, bleechh. And then we have a dinner party and out of town guests coming in, I SO hope I feel better by the weekend. I haven't had a serious UTI in years, when I was younger I think they just gave me some sort of megadose of drugs (usually at the doctors office) and it just went right away. Must be old age (sigh). My poor mom had some sort of UTI for literally almost a year, so she was very sympathetic. I hope that's all this is, Halloween is coming up and I've got lots to do.
But my husband has been exceptionally sympathetic this week, and I verbally walked him through making his own dinner tonight. I wasn't hungry or up to standing in the kitchen for half an hour inhaling tomato sauce (which I'm allergic to) so he actually made his own favorite dinner - spaghetti and meatballs! I was so proud! He likes to say how quick and easy it is for me to make spaghetti for him but he got to spend a solid half hour hovering around the stove, stirring things to keep them from burning, and he dished it up himself. He'd go stir and then wander off and sit down to watch TV and I'd shoo him back to the kitchen to stir some more. I think he understands now why the sauce burns so easily (we have a crappy stove that doesn't maintain a steady heat level).
I'm trying to think of something to eat, all I've had today was a croissant and a sandwich. I do have a hiatal hernia so I'm a little paranoid about things backing up on me. But I've got to eat something before bed cause I've got to take another damn pill. But enough whining, just wanted to get that whole scenario out of my head.
OK, I've always spoiled my pets but this cracked me up:
I actually think this would scare the crap out of most dogs...
John and Teresa Kerry are on Dr. Phil today, check it out!
I wonder if Dr. Phil will bring up teenage oral sex with them? (That's the only part of the Dubya interview I would have liked to have seen ;-)
Quotes from Dr. Phil after the interview:
I wish I was perkier tonight, I'm on meds for a really bad UTI and it's been making me groggy...
Sparky and I watched the boardroom meeting from Hell tonight (shudder). If Dubya is the Anti-Christ then Cheney is obviously Satan. He just reeks evil... he can't even raise his head to look people in the eye. What's with these guys? They have terrible posture, Cheney was sitting there slumped over with no neck like Jabba the Hut, lashing out like a lizard to hiss at Edwards, ignoring any questions or comments he deemed unimportant.
Even our cat felt the evil in the air, she was going bonkers while we were watching TV, just freaking out, bouncing off the walls and attacking things. Animals can sense things, you know...
Cheney looks just like the last big corporate jerk I worked for, he creeps me out. The few boardroom meetings I had to attend were exercises in staying awake, in the big vacu-sealed, over air-conditioned, shadowy boardroom where the walls seem to absorb all the sound... in space, no one can hear you scream... sorry, I digress...
I actually dozed off twice tonight, Cheney has that corporate hypnotism chanting thing down pat. It's impossible to pay attention to what he's saying. He started to bare his fangs early in the debate, but then he went back to his dead poker face. Several times they also showed some behind shots of the interviewer leaning back in her chair staring at Cheney like he had horns growing out of his head. And I swear to God he slipped in at least two more Armageddon threats tonight.
OK, it should be painfully obvious to everyone now who is really running the country... I am looking forward to Friday night, it supposed to be a town hall format. Hopefully there won't be too many Neocon plants in the audience. I wonder if they allow applause will there be boos also? I just want to see the baffled look on Dubya's face when he doesn't get the pep rally reception he's used to.
The Washington Post has a good article on the debate and FactCheck.org has the reality breakdown. As a David vs. Goliath match, I thought David showed amazing courage and got quite a few blows in.
Still too wound up to sleep...
Is it just me or did Dubya look like he's gained some weight? Sparky noticed it too, in the shots from behind he looked awfully wide. Maybe because he was slumping so much... Hmmm, Randi Rhodes read off some of the 32 page list of rules last night and one of them was they couldn't photograph them from behind, makes sense now.
He also looked really freaked out that people weren't cheering after his every sentence. Didn't anyone tell him this audience hadn't signed an oath of loyalty? Does he even realize that a lot of people don't like him? If he doesn't read the newspapers perhaps he doesn't.
I kept waiting for him to either:walk off the stage, start choking or having a feigned heart attack, or shout out "I wanted to be baseball commissioner, dammit!".
Was he sedated? Maybe that's why he's gained weight. They're keeping him drugged like in the Nazi episode of Star Trek.
And poor Rudy Giuliani trying to defend Dubya's performance. It was just sad. How do these poor guys sleep at night?
I've seen some threads running tonight that claim the Democrats are manipulating the online polls, isn't that what the Republicans are good at? Aren't they supposed to be the masters of media manipulation? Oh, and voting manipulation? It's common knowledge that they plant people at Democratic rallies, feed the press negative stories, line up to call in to radio talk shows disguised as non-partisan types, etc. How on earth could we beat them at their own game? Are they all asleepl? Or are they busy banging their heads against the wall? Surely they've been revved up and ready for tonight. They sure were on the ball when 9/11 happened, they jumped right on that bandwagon without a pause.
But we've seen the end of the post 9/11 faux-patriotic momentum tonight. Americans are angry, we're tired of being manipulated and lied to. We want peace, education, health care. We want the truth. We want our country back.
Maybe Ralph Nader will be so shocked by tonight's debate he'll step down. Hopefully his supporters will at least see why we need a new President.
I hope Oprah's Voting Party got people to watch the debates. She made the audience cry, that's a good start.
I'm going to go flip through the debate transcript while my memory is fresh. OMG, there were so many good (and horrific) soundbites tonight. I wonder if they corrected Dubya's grammar, I hope not. Damn Jim Lehrer did a great job.
Whew, now that my initial reaction has been captured untinged, I've spent the evening basking in Air America and flipping through weblogs. And I've been checking out & voting in the online polls, please go and cast your opinion too and see what people really think before the spin doctors try and salvage their loss. I've made it through most of them and the consensus across the board here at 2am is Kerry 76% and Bush 24%. EVERYWHERE! Even here in Texas... it would be nice to think my vote might actually count this November. Some of the polls have Kerry winning by over 90%. Sparky is so happy, I actually showed him quite a few of the polls so he would actually believe that America is coming out of it's coma.
The only scary opinion expressed this evening is one I've worried about also, what are the powers currently in charge going to do to try and swing public opinion back in their favor? Perhaps another terrorist attack on US soil? I wouldn't put it past them, seriously. Or are they going to sell their stocks and try to get out before they start losing money in this corporation they've created? I've been imagining for some time that this whole evil empire was going to self-implode like Enron. They'll turn on each other, no one wanting to take the blame for the criminal and financial mess they've made. And tonight we've seen their sacrificial lamb - poor Dubya will be the one thrown to the wolves. And he's too dumb to defend himself. He's actually lucky that we still do have some semblance of Democracy left or he'd be dangling over the village square by a rope tonight like Mussolini, with the angry throwing rocks at him and beating him with sticks.
The last thing Sparky said before he went to sleep tonight was "now we can put our Kerry bumper stickers on our cars". So there is hope, don't let anyone tell you there isn't. Believe your own eyes and ears, let this be remembered as the day America woke up. Our country has been off course, asleep at the wheel. We can wake up and keep from hitting the brick wall, it's not too late.