I think I know where I went astray, there was a non-stop chain of events that began back in April & May... Mostly over health scares for my uber-healthy husband, followed by lots of visits to the doctors, new medicines to be started by both of us, a colonoscopy for my husband (all clear!), and much drama all around. And I was typing a daily offline diary trying to follow any side effects and problems with the new meds, so that was a distraction. I had some very bad reactions to several of the new prescriptions I was given (Lunesta & Lipitor), so that actually came in very useful.

Also around April my best friend began taking bellydancing classes (in another state, unfortunately) to lose some of her new mommy weight and the idea appealed to me also and I got hooked. No live classes but lots of research, music downloading, and intructional DVD purchasing. And some of the other accessories, but that's a whole new thread to be started. But I have lost some weight and have gotten much better abs, plus it's helped my asthma and my digestive problems. So that has been occupying a lot of my time.

Ebay has been as busy as usual, in the late summer it suddenly got much harder to actually make a profit, and get everyone to pay me. The whole world is broke also apparently.

But a fellow Halloween fan (and fellow bodybuilding fan) has written me some very nice emails, and I've been venting at him about how awful the world is and how sometimes it's actually a good thing to have a healthy obsession to keep from losing your mind. I think I've been keeping too much in my head, thinking I don't have the time to blog, too much work to do, too far behind on other projects, but I need to type something other than Ebay descriptions apparently, because lots came spilling out. And I've noticed the last few weeks that my stomach has been acting up more than usual, so I'm a little concerned that I've been keeping too much pushed down in my brain and it's trying to come out through my esophagus (yuck). My dad had ulcers from his stress, I'm a lot like him that way.

The world is so broken now, I don't know where to begin, so I actually started another webpage just for the bellydancing hobby. It's not finished yet, but it has provided a pleasant distraction and a place to put some of the tons of info I've dug up about everything from the music to the costumes. And an outlet for my OCD, but at least I'm learning something new, and improving my health. I've been driving my husband nuts with the music, but it's very therapeutic to me in the same way that jazz music calms me down and improves my coordination.

And with Halloween coming, I've committed myself to re-learning to sew (the big obstacle is my constantly changing vision). I've gone as far as buying a dress form (they were half off at Joann's!) and have built it up to match me as close as possible (good instructionals here and here on how to do this), so now I have a lifesized blue version of myself standing in the front room (much to the shock of my husband, he who bans kitty towers from the house because 'they're tacky'), but I feel like I can actually make a blouse that fits, and perhaps I'll stop buying black tee shirts. And I've bought a half dozen patterns and some new fabric so we'll see what happens. At the very least I should have a better Halloween costume than usual :-)

Having worked in retail for half my life, I saw all the current trends repeating in every store I went in, it really got pretty boring after awhile. Embellished tees, frilly peasant skirts, lacy Victorian cap-sleeved blouses, lots of lace trim everywhere, tunics (which I like but not with all the damned beads all over them), empire seams (can't wear them), bold black & white outfits. Jeans with holes rubbed into them (why is this style back again?), thin, cheaply made printed tees that look like they've been washed too many times (and shrank down to nothing).

I was actually looking for some interesting tees, I like some of the tie dye patterned ones that are popular now, I bought a black and a brown one (but no sequins!), and I even bought a store brand knock off tee that had a nice ivory, grey and black print of Times Square and Broadway on it. It had little sequins and beads all over the front, which I carefully took off with a seam ripper. I got one good wearing out of the shirt, and then I stupidly put it in the dryer and it shrank like three inches in length (sigh). Why don't things ever shrink from side to side, that's what I was aiming for because it was a little baggy. Now it's too short, and still baggy, which is not a good look on short, large-chested girls ("when's your baby due?"). If anyone asks me that, I will never wear that shirt again.

So after wearing myself out walking all over this enormous mall, all I found was a black velvet gothic Halloween costume top at Torrid. It was on clearance or I wouldn't have bought it. My first mall stop had actually been at Sephora, because I need some more face cream, I think my Clarins lotion has gone rancid, it has a strange chemical smell to it and I'm very paranoid about anything I put on my face because of my Rosacea, which has been getting bad again. I thought about getting some more Clinique CX Redness Relief face cream, but I used it and the Rapid Recovery Serum earlier this yeat and didn't really notice any improvement. I do like the RR Serum, but for $75 a bottle, I decided I ought to try something else. And besides, no stores in the mall carry the CX line, it's a Neiman's/Saks exclusive type thing still.

So I stood around in Sephora, smearing various things on my face to the point where I couldn't tell what was working and what wasn't anymore. I looked for my Christian Dior NoAge fluid that I used to really like (a really mild skin resurfacer), it's been discontinued. I think I tried every redness relief cream they had - DDF, MD Formulations, Dr. Brandt, Cosmedicine, B. Kamins Booster Blue (which actually stained my hand blue for like half an hour), etc. - and I finally out of frustration settled on Murad's Correcting SPF 15 Moisturizer because I could actually feel it cooling my face a bit, and it had a green neutralizing tint, and for a try-me product it only cost $34. I was also so burned out from trying things and the salespeople in Sephora always sort of creep me out. Even when you buy something they treat you weird. Just for grins I also sampled some of the famed Hylexin eye cream for 'serious dark circles', because I wanted to see if I had an allergic reaction to it and if it did anything at all (not). I just put it on one eye as a test and I didn't really notice any difference in appearance, though I did have a bit of itching later in the day.

By the time I had walked all the way around the mall, I was exhausted and it was late, and I grabbed a Starbucks Caffe Vanilla Frappuccino (I don't like coffee but somehow I've gotten addicted to them) on the way back to Foley's and my car and ended up wandering through Foley's sipping my drink, looking at clothing and meandered over to the lingerie section. After spending hours trying on clothes and being very unhappy with the results, I decided I should try and buy a new bra. (And lose about 30 pounds) I rarely (on Halloween maybe) wear bras, they're uncomfortable, they hurt, and it's fricking hot in Houston. Years ago I had found a Bali bra without an underwire (the Double Support style) that I considered semi-wearable, but I realized it was also too small, and probably was when I had bought it, so I decided to try the next band size up.

Never go bra shopping when you're really tired. It's hard enough when you're fresh, it's sort of like shopping for shoes if you don't really know what size you are or what style you like, it's very overwhelming and can make you very dizzy. And it's been a long time since I've wandered into that department, I usually just stop at panties, and for some reason all of the new bras look like some sort of movie prosthetic devices, vacuum molded out of foam. Speaking of trends, I guess Victoria's Secret styling has rubbed off on the other manufacturers.

If I have to wear a bra, I refuse to wear an underwire, my ribs are very prominent and bruise easily, so I ended up back in the Bali section looking at the same bras I already owned. Oh well, whatever. The last one I bought I They were on sale for buy two get one free (mail in rebate?) but they only had two in that size and I was really tired by this time.

When I got home I had this nagging suspicion that something wasn't right, and when I was cutting the tags off of the first bra I saw the measuring instructions (see the next entry on the subsequent shopping spree)... and realized I had probably bought the wrong size and whipped out my measuring tape. I was either a 40D or possibly a 40C (wouldn't that be nice!). So maybe bra bands don't have to hurt, I'd just been buying the damned things too small for my big ribcage. So back in the bag they went, I'd try again next week, there's literally a sale every week...

And after a few days of using it, I really liked the Murad moisturizer, I've never used Murad products before but I know they have a good reputation with sensitive skin. I read the little brochure that came in the box, then looked them up at Sephora.com and realized there is also a Redness Therapy Gel (Recovery Treatment Gel) that I hadn't seen at the store or I would have bought it (don't want to use an SPF at night), so I decided to just go ahead and order it online, along with the Redness Therapy Soothing Gel Cleanser . I'm a skin care product junkie because my skin is so freaky. I've used Clarins sensitive skin care line for years, with some other brands thrown in-between, but my skin is not actually very dry so I think it will be nice to try something a little lighter for a change. And the price is certainly right so we'll see.

My husband wanders in while I'm asleep today and says "some contact lens solution is causing people to get eye infections". So, I figure, it's got to be the one I use. And on the five o'clock new there's a tiny little story that yes, Bausch & Lomb ReNu with Moistureloc (hit your refresh button if this doesn't load) has been voluntarily pulled after reports of people getting fungal corneal eye infections. And apparently this has been going on for over a month overseas...

Crap, why are we hearing about this just now? I've been using this product since I started wearing contact lenses (again) last fall. And I have an already damaged and infection-prone cornea (from RK surgery), and have been having even worse blurred vision than usual since I began wearing contacts, which my optometrist explains is most likely from my overly sensitive corneas.

I've got so many things wrong with my vision that one more problem doesn't make me run to the doctors office, though one of the people at the optometrist mentioned I should try ClearCare if I'm prone to eye infections. It's good, and easy to use, and I already have a bottle around and coincidentally just got my new box of contacts in yesterday, so today is a new pair. But ReNu is so good for dry eyes. And their eyedrops are fabulous, I wonder if they're pulling them too?

But then again, I wonder if any of this is even real. I used to hate conspiracy theories, but so many are true now that when I hear anything bad about a company I have to start wondering about their competition. I don't trust anyone anymore, it's very sad.

And we're going out again this weekend, the same exact route, with the husband in the car.

Too tired to write tonight, but I did take pictures...

My list was to make a swing past several places that close earlier than I'm usually out - check on a new box of contacts I ordered almost two weeks ago, make a bank deposit, pick up some steaks for us and my parents at Omaha Steaks, get some more shampoo and some hard to find facial moisturizer (I'm after more of the Clinique CX stuff), I had my list and I was off...

First stop was at the optometrist because it was on the way to the freeway. I'm on my last pair of my normal strength contacts, which makes me nervous, so I ordered a new box when I put in the new ones, but for some reason they hadn't arrived when I checked at the end of last week, they had to be in by now. First freak bad luck of the day - no, they were part of an order that had gotten lost and had been reordered, they might come in later this afternoon. Crap, I don't want to go another weekend with no backup contacts and mine are almost at the two week limit, so I left my cell phone number in case they came in with today's shipment.

So I drove around to the back of Meyerland mall and made a deposit at the ATM, and then jumped on the 610 loop heading north to run across town and pick up our taxes (at i-10 and Dairy Ashford for anyone that knows the city). According to Mapquest it's a little over 19 miles from my house and/or 25 minutes (at 3 in the morning I guess). I was going along nicely till I noticed one of the flashing signs that read 'freeway closed at Memorial Dr.', which was two exits before where I needed to to turn off onto I-10. A few seconds after I read that I came up over the overpass just before the Galleria and.. everyone was stopped. So I did what some of the other idiots were doing (I was in the right lane, though) and just got off at Westheimer, I'd go ahead and get my steaks, there was a store on the corner of Westheimer (and one in the area I was going to in West Houston), so maybe traffic would be cleared up in a few minutes (ha!).

So one successful errand marked off the list, with three boxes of steaks in the freezer bag in my trunk, I headed north again. And everything was just stopped. Not the normal afternoon rush hour(s) traffic jam, something really bad. OK, I went up the feeder to the next intersection, and there were cars stopped on the next entrance ramp too. So I decided to make a u-turn and head down one of the westbound streets and bypass the whole two freeway interchange. Happily for me I had grabbed a new CD I'd just gotten in the mail from Amazon on the way out the door (the original Nena self-titled German CD, I always had the English version), so I'd get to listen to it while I waited in traffic. And waited. and waited.

After about half a dozen light cycles, I made it under the freeway. People were backing up on the feeder, stopping in the middle of the intersection, preventing us from crossing. That should have been my first clue something was really, really bad in the Galleria. And then I sat, and sat, and there was nowhere to turn off but residential streets and into business parks and I am not at all familiar with the back streets on San Felipe, I inched along with everyone else, surrounded by construction, concrete barriers, passing overheated cars and just thinking 'Oh my God, what the fuck is going on??" alternating with, "my husband is never going to believe the traffic was this bad".

But he called (I was afraid to pick up right away, this was just too crazy), and left a message that there was some sort of huge mess on 610 and he 'hoped I had avoided that area'. Good, at least it wasn't just me. So after the fourth playing of my Nena CD, and inching along about three miles I gave up and called him back and told him I'd try again tomorrow, and headed south down Voss. At least I got my damned steaks.

The news reported there was a fiery crash on the West Loop earlier in the afternoon involving an 18-wheeler and four other cars. Don't I have the best timing? But at least I was alone in the car. I would have rather have my cat in the car with me (bouncing off the walls and yowling, she hates riding in the car) than my husband, he would have just gone bananas. I spent years sitting in traffic, and I know sometimes it's bad for no apparent reason but I don't think I'll be going to the Galleria area for a while... And yet another reason I love shopping online.

I have to make another attempt to drive out and pick up the taxes tomorrow. I'll be heading out the opposite direction, straight west to Beltway 8, hope nothing happens that direction. And I'll be leaving a few hours earlier, just in case. And bringing a different CD to listen to. I really like 99 Luftballons but I think I'll be having nightmares in German tonight.

my rear view mirror... and this was on the way home in the good traffic...

We have HBO right now, and Sparky was bored himself yesterday and sat and watched Spanglish on TV, expecting a comedy, which he decided was a huge mistake afterwards. He said it was a depressing film about miserable people and it had a very unhappy ending.

Prozac Nation was also about miserable, depressing people but it had a somewhat abrupt kind of happy ending, she got on Prozac and, after a suicide attempt, she got better. I had never read the book, but I had thought it was more about her experiences with taking the medicine, but most of the film she's in psychotherapy, which looked about as boring and un-useful as the short period that I went through. I only went because in the early 90's my insurance required me to receive my prescription from an actual medical psychiatrist, and required a minimum number of office visits.

Now you could probably get anti-depressants from your veterinarian... or at least your OB/GYN doc. Which is not necessarily a good thing. Prozac can be a great medicine, or it can really wreak havoc with your mind and body. Or it can do both. It's done both to me, but I'm not sure I could completely do without it. I have managed to back off from 40 mg a day to 10-15 (I actually dump half of the 10 mg capsule out, don't try this at home). All without medical supervision, because I do not have insurance, and even when I did the doctors I've dealt with have proven to be both uncaring and irresponsible about prescribing medicine, though I can see their viewpoint also - they see hundreds of people a week, they are overworked and understaffed, and the pharmaceutical companies are constantly marketing products to them, and they cannot keep up on all of the required reading. But don't get me started on the evils of the pharmaceutical companies.

But after a year or so of taking 40 mg of Prozac daily, I realized that I was actually feeling worse than I was at lower doses, and I was having lots of weird physiological side effects - such as feeling numb internally. Which was making it hard to do things like use the bathroom, I actually had lost my sense of feeling and could not use my internal muscles. Of course, the numbness could be sort of pleasant also, it masked some of the pain from my MS, but after my doctor gave me yet another medicine to help me be able to use the bathroom (Bethanechol aka Urecholine), I realized that this whole situation was terribly warped. Also the new medicine was horrifically expensive, which prompted me to reevaluate what I was taking and start hunting for side effects.

Back when I could take antihistamines (they cause an allergic reaction on me now, see 300 things) I used to take the super-allergy med Seldane. My allergist was giving it to me up to twice a day (it was a once a day drug), along with another daily new allergy medicine called Hismanal. I started having heart palpitations, so I went to my GP doc, who sent me in to have heart testing, I even wore a holter monitor for 24 hours, and they couldn't find anything other than my mitral valve prolapse. No one ever questioned what I was taking daily as a possible cause. But then one day I stumbled upon a sheet of Seldane side effects and - wow - heart palpitations were up high on the list. I backed off on using it, and the palpitations went away. Seldane was pulled from the market not long afterwards because patients were having serious heart problems. And I was taking a triple dosage each day under the advice of my doctor. So I'm not very trusting of most doctor's standardized prescriptions and opinions, I don't fit the standardized patient mold.

But I've been carefully backing off on the Prozac, trying to keep it to the 10-15 mg level. I was very lethargic a few weeks ago and I jumped back to 20 mg and it made me pretty manic, so I went back to 10. Physically things seem to be working a little better, though everything does hurt more. But my brain is a little clearer, my OCD is still tormenting me, but I care more about things. The higher dosage made me feel very mentally numb also, I lost interest in a lot of things. I thought I was just getting older and more jaded, but I know a lot of it was the Prozac turning the volume down on everything. Which, like I said, can be nice at times. If it weren't for my stomach problems I could very easily become addicted to things like painkillers just to NOT feel all of the weird signals my body is sending out constantly. But painkillers make my stomach hurt and make me feel like I need to be eating all the time, which is not good.

The other thing I noticed immediately was that time seemed to move at a normal speed again. It was actually quite slow now. I had a lot more time in my day to get things done. Almost too much time. Before, life just kind of whirred past me in a blur, I would spend whole days getting nothing accomplished yet feeling like I was always busy, just really ineffective. So that's one of the ways I'm judging if I'm on the right dosage now, if time seems to be passing at the correct speed. I'm wondering if I'm a little bipolar, though. I have times where I can get lots done and other times when I just feel paralyzed and can't seem to get anything done, can't even start. Like typing entries in my weblog, or even answering emails from friends. I need to find a balance between the all or nothing mentality. Logically I know it's a problem, and my conscience will make me do things I have to do when I'm feeling paralyzed, but it's hard. My poor husband has been wondering why he sometimes gets some really weird choices for dinner and at other times I just dive in and cook something, but when I'm paralyzed even thinking of what I'd like to eat is nearly impossible, let alone shopping for it and cooking it.

But it's probably just my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder acting up, I don't get the euphoria that people that are truly bipolar describe, I just feel like I need to work and get as much done as I can before I crash again. Or it might be my Multiple Sclerosis, that messes with your brain also. When you've got so many things going on at once it's hard to single things out as individual problems. But I've been eating some seriously crappy food lately, I know I need to work on that problem. And I need to do something to move my body more. My latest healthy obsession is with Shakira and her music. Listening to her (and watching her perform) is very inspiring and is hitting someplace deep inside me that remembers I used to love to dance.

The other night I was sitting on the couch in the den while Sparky fiddled in his room at the front of the house and we were both watching David Letteman on two TVs. I don't usually actually sit and watch Dave except for his monologue, I usually listen to him from my office (I don't have a TV in there, we only have three televisions in our house). But there was a guy setting up dominos which is always cool to see, and Al Franken was going to be on so I got lucky and was actually watching the TV at the right time.

Dave was at his desk, doing his pre-guest part of the show, when suddenly someone started shouting off camera and Dave started looking around. I thought, OK, it's another weird comedy bit, they've been doing some weird ones lately - a guy runs on stage and a cop chases him and shoots him, and (I think this was on Letteman, I only watch him and Conan), someone dangles off of the balcony for no reason. And then there was the Monkey Calling bit... But then again, I actually saw David eat a charcoal briqette, so you never know.

But the domino guy's dominos had suddenly started toppling over before he was finished setting them up. So Paul and the orchestra started up the official 'domino toppling' music (click on Sabre Dance) that's been used for years on everyone from Johnny Carson to Conan O'Brien (he uses it for the Masturbating Bear skit). But the guy shouts at Paul 'No, stop the music!' and is grabbing frantically for the dominoes in vain, but the whole display is going over all at once. So the guy throws himself into the middle of the set-up and starts flailing around, which actually looks really painful but he seems more embarrassed than injured. And nicely in time with the whole fiasco, the band plays along with the chaos.

While I'm watching this I'm shouting across the house to my husband "Is that real?". If it is, it's a fabulous bit of comedy, worthy of anniversary show re-run (and now DVD) status. But I'm honestly not sure. Dave kept up with the premise that it was real and the poor guy tried to reset some of the dominoes while throughout the show. But it bothers me that I have to question something as funny as that. But while looking up info to post about this, I found another forum where they were disputing the same thing.

We used to accept everything (in context, at least) we saw on TV as being real, but since the growth of reality TV I tend to dismiss everything as being faked which is really very sad. But people will really do anything to be on TV, or for a laugh, even if they injure themselves to do it. And with the invention of Photoshop, you can't trust much of anything anymore. Fake photos, fake news, fake politicans (OK, that's nothing new).

But I dunno, I want to believe it was real. Not that it matters in any scale, it just bugs me that our whole world is weird now that we can't trust our perception about anything, everything is either a scam, a joke or propaganda.

And then Cheney runs away back to his bunker. The first thing I thought when I heard that was that all of the hunters I used to know when I lived in Austin really liked to drink when hunting, somehow it made killing the little animals more fun. Listening to Randi Rhodes' show tonight, she and some callers actually suggested the idea that maybe that's why Tricky Dick went missing for like 18 hours afterwards. Either that or they were waiting a few hours to see if he was going to live before letting anyone know.

I have to admit I'm enjoying the (liberal) media's take on this. Jon Stewart actually took an International Foods Flavored Coffee break to 'celebrate the moment' (remember those commercials?), and David Letterman is on a big roll.

Honestly, what the hell else do we need to hear from these psychos before we turn on them? Brownie has been squirming and whining about being a scapegoat... Scott McClellan (another proud Texan, yea!) has been dodging reporters questions and actually walked out of the briefing Tuesday. Why do they think they can just not answer questions, ignore us and deny everything and they can get away with it?

Oh yeah, because it's been working for six years? I'd say I give up, but that's what they want us to do.

But it's hard to ignore 11,000 FEMA trailers all sitting together in a swamp in Arkansas rotting while the Katrina victims were all kicked out of their hotels this week. Especially when my very stable friend in New Orleans is mentioning asking her doctor for antidepressants because the daily hassle of fighting her mother's insurance company, the government inspectors, contractors and more is driving her crazy.

I hate grocery shopping, I used to actually order food online back when we had a service that would do that and it was wonderful. I don't really mind getting the little things, but hauling cartons of soda, gallons of water and 12 packs of toilet paper gets old really fast. And it fills up my cart and my car.

I started out my evening expedition with Sam's Club first because I had four prescriptions to pick up and their pharmacy closes at 7 pm, and I didn't leave the house till 6:40. (Yes, I hate people like me also, but at least they were called in way ahead of time) The Sam's Club we use is the one across the street from the Astrodome, which is also probably the busiest and most ethnically & economically diverse one in Houston. There are several others that are only a few miles further, in nicer, safer neighborhoods, but I like the Dome one. I can drive 2 or 3 miles and jump on the freeway against rush hour traffic and I'm there. And I get to drive past the Dome. I used to get to see Astroworld also, but it's being dismantled to build high-rise condos, and all I can see of it after dark are some beams jutting over the fence that are the remains of the big roller coaster and an occasional bulldozer. So much for childhood memories, memories are all you're allowed to have growing up in Houston, nothing lasts more than 20 or 30 years max.

So I arrive just in the nick of time, so close I didn't even dare stop to pick up a shopping cart on the way in, I just ran straight across the store to the pharmacy to grab a place in line before they turned the lights out. There was only one person on doing double-duty as pharmacist and cashier, poor thing, but she moved as efficiently as possible and I managed to get my $140 worth of prescriptions (I don't have any insurance) and then I had to trek back across the store to retrieve a shopping cart for the half other dozen things I also needed, several of which were frozen. I can't hold anything cold, my hands go numb in about 30 seconds. A man of what looked like Middle Eastern descent sat at one of the picnic tables, scarfing a pizza down with a palette parked beside him stacked above my head with canned drinks and pre-packaged foods. A grinning little Hispanic girl dangled upside down from the handle of a shopping cart like it was a jungle gym, her long black hair streaming out beneath her.

I found an abandoned cart near the check out lanes and started off back across the store to get my packing tape and frozen items. Sam's is not a place to go when you're in a hurry, or if you have difficulty walking as I do, but where else can you buy six pound bags of meatballs? I'm usually one of those people who is in a hurry, though, and navigating the clumps of families stopped to admire the giant bags of potato chips and cases of green beans without hitting anyone with my cart is always a challenge, but I have many years of experience from working in retail environments so I'm actually very good at it.

I got my meatballs, frozen hamburger patties, my box of little deli spirals hors d'oeuvres that I've been snacking on lately, a six-pack of mailing tape for my Ebay packages, a party sized box of croissants, and a box of Prilosec in a huge plastic package, and packed all the cold stuff in my little thermal storage bag in my trunk and headed off to my next stop.

But first I had to get to the other side of the freeway, which doesn't sound difficult, but we have a new Metro light rail train that runs through the intersection I have to cross coming and going. After about five trains came through, (which is one of the reasons I brought my camera, see below) I finally made it through the left turn light and shot onto the freeway.

I actually planned my errands in a sort of a circle, but the exit ramp I needed was closed for construction, so around the loop I went back north towards the Galleria, exiting at Bellaire Blvd., where some sort of major police activity was taking place because half of the Bellaire PD had turned out with lights flashing on the other side of the intersection, but I was turning so I didn't get to rubberneck.

My next stop was Whole Foods in the middle of the very yuppie, very nice upper class Bellaire/West University part of town, which are actually little incorporated cities within Houston. In Whole Foods all is peaceful and polite, voices are kept low and no one races through in a hurry. Not everyone is wealthy, most of the employees and many of the customers are working class, even the expensive cars in the parking lot usually have at least one bumper sticker (John Kerry for President is the most common), there is even an occasional homeless person hanging out in their eating area, but you feel very safe shopping there. The sheriff's officers that guard the store are very alert.

My shopping list for this store consisted of two items - a dozen bottles of Tazo Iced Green Tea and a new bottle of Bach Elm Flower Essence (helps you when you feel overwhelmed by responsibilities). It's very easy to get distracted in Whole Foods, so I headed straight for the tea aisle. I buy a dozen bottles at a time to get the big 10% case discount and also because they're hard to find in stock. Some sadistic stocker had moved them to the very top shelf, though, so an employee (who was as petite as I was) had to hand them down to me from a stool.

Knowing I had two more stops, I purposely avoided the bakery and their wonderful (cold & perishable) desserts, and went straight to the checkout, where I was actually called over by a clerk who could take me right away, and had a sacker that packed all of my bottles in little individual bags.

Then it was back to my neighborhood for the last two stops. Our two major neighborhood grocery stores, Kroger's and Randall's, sit facing each other across a freeway. They used to be pretty much the same in style and patronage, then Randall's upgraded their furnishings, flooring, became a little more gourmet, dimmed the lighting, added a Starbuck's, a bigger Kosher section and put themselves in the slightly nicer category. The prices are about the same, but you feel a little classier walking through Randall's. The crime stats seem to be about the same for both stores, though. I've been at Kroger's when a woman was robbed at gunpoint in the parking lot, and arrived at Randall's just after an elderly woman who refused to let go of her purse was dragged to death behind a van.

Kroger's does have one thing that Randall's doesn't, pre-popped popcorn in bags (my husband's nightly snack), so I went there first. I also had hoped their customer service would still be open because my car plates expire in a few days, but no luck. I'm more familiar with the layout of Kroger's, so I got my popcorn, some Ritz sour cream & onion chips for me, Starbuck's latte, then filled up the cart with bottled water, 12 packs of toilet paper, boxes of kleenex, cereal, and all the bulky things I usually can't buy in multiples. They had no Diet Mountain Dew for Sparky, though, that stuff goes fast for some reason. Then I grabbed a few small things, just in case Randall's didn't have them - a bag of cat treats, a bottle of contact drops, and on a whim, a tube of Preparation H, which I've never bought before, but I've been having some problems lately so it seemed like a good thing to have around.

The shoppers were mostly very typical of the neighborhood. The store sits on the edge of several older, established neighborhoods, and is bordered by some rather dangerous low-income apartments. There several women pretty much like me - middle class, 30 to 40-ish, with ponytails, jeans and sweatpants. There were a few men the same age, shopping alone, wearing yarmulke's. An older man moved out of my way as I came around the corner, but he didn't move far enough and I had to actually say excuse me to avoid bumping him because he was standing between two carts and apparently had bad depth perception.

Usually I grocery shop a little later in the evening when the more raucous groups are shopping, but tonight it was very quiet. My little slice of Southwest Houston (from South Main up to the Westpark Tollway) got a big chunk of Katrina evacuees from New Orleans (around 23,000 people), and I've noticed they tend to be more nocturnal than most Houstonians, grocery shopping late into the night, and hanging out at the 24 hour Walmart across the street like it was a social club after everything else has closed down for the night. But that's one of the things I love about New Orleans, is all of the night people like myself.

There were actually two checkout lanes open, later in the evening there is usually only one, and I got in line behind a couple of cute little teenaged girls who were buying their two or three items. They had no sense of grocery store etiquette and one of them stood in front of me ogling the magazines instead of moving forward as her items went up the belt, so I just started unloading my bulging cart right in front of her. She didn't move. Toilet paper, kleenex, popcorn, water, Starbucks's, crackers, cat treats, contact drops... oh hell. Come 'on, girl, move forward. Oh good (quickly stuffing the hemorrhoid cream in the middle of the bags of popcorn).

Somehow I managed to put everything neatly into the cart, but the sacker just could't put it back together again, he's stood there looking at it like it was a Rubik's cube, trying to balance heavy things on top of light things, and then finally gave up trying to sack the last few items. Whatever, it's all going straight into the trunk, just give it to me...

Then the final dash back under the freeway to Randall's to get the fresh foods. They have a better bakery and, for some reason, much healthier looking produce. The store was virtually empty, I got a parking spot right in front of the Starbuck's entrance (closed for the evening, though). I browsed through their little gourmet foods section near the entrance, then onto the bakery where I bought way too many carbohydrates. And for some reason every time I go to Randall's I feel like I have to buy a slice of their German Chocolate cake. It's some sort of masochistic thing because I really don't like it that much, just the top layer with the coconut, because it's usually filled with that oily brown icing, but I have to get one and I'm disappointed if they don't have any. On through to the produce to get salad stuff and hamburger fixings, and down the aisle to the canned goods looking for mushrooms in a jar.

At the end of the aisle stands a male model - tall, dark and handsome, just a little too well dressed, looking over the display of imported olives. And as I reach the end and am trying to make the corner, I'm blocked by his girlfriend - even more overdressed in her acid washed jeans, expensive heels, leather jacket and carrying a very large, very tacky handbag with the word Prada emblazoned across the front in huge letters. Well, at least he's not gay. I'm wondering what these very spoiled, screaming wealthy, beautiful people are doing in this neighborhood. Maybe they need olives for their martinis, the man has a little hand basket with nothing in it. The woman looks like someone dressed her and carefully blew her hair straight for a society event, very casual chic. The guy looks like he gets regular manicures. Neither of them even looked up at me as I almost ran over here with my cart trying to take the corner without knocking over any of the floor displays. She didn't even move as I scraped the wheels of the cart sideways, just stood there smack in the middle of the aisle.

Normally I would have given her an excuse me, but I was afraid I'd laugh out loud. No, I don't hate you because you're beautiful, maybe because you're extremely high maintenance, but I do dislike you because you're so obviously not in touch with reality or anything that is happening around you. We have a lot of beautiful people in Houston, but you don't run into them in grocery stores very often, especially in my neighborhood at 9 pm.

I got my soda, and went to the far end of the store for the dairy section, where I stood searching for 2% milk among lots of unfamiliar labels (I usually get my dairy stuff at Kroger's), and our of the corner of my eye I see a hand reach out past me and grab a carton of milk off the shelf, then holler across the store 'I got the milk'. I turned to see a young teenage boy with long greasy hair, his arms pulled out of his oversized shirt, wearing it like a poncho, go skipping back across the store. Yikes, I must be tired, I didn't even hear him coming.

He and a gaggle of other odd looking teenagers, and what looked like their adult guardian were buzzing around the checkout like bees when I got up to the front, laughing and shouting and bouncing around with way too much energy. None of the checkout lane lights were on, so I pulled up behind them only to have the checkout person shout out 'I'm closed' as he waved me on to the next lane, where two cartons of ice cream sat on the end, just off the belt. Should I move them? No, I just started unloading my cart around them. About half way through, a young black woman wandered over and plopped a couple of items next to the cartons of ice cream. Whatever, I already had a bunch of stuff unloaded, she lost her place by wandering off. About that time I was up, and handed the checker my discount card and said loudly 'paper please' to the sacker, and hurriedely finished placing the rest of my items on the belt.

Somehow I had managed to collect another basket full of grocery sacks, and pulled my cart out into the parking lot, dodging the speed bump and opened all my doors and trunk to awkwardly stuff the new backs in with the other three store's worth of items. I pushed the cart behind the car next to me, and then when I'd gotten in and closed my door, I noticed the car when I went to grab my seatbelt. It was very sleek, very new & shiny, well maintained and I recognized it as an obviously imported German Mercedes two seater. A lot of the execs at the department store I used to work at would display their expensive trophy cars on the ground floor of the parking garage in the reserved spaces created just for them.

I guess the male model would actually have to touch a shopping cart to get his car out. I didn't put it there on purpose, I was just too tired to push it all the way back to the ramp and onto the sidewalk. But it did make me laugh out loud again as I backed my car out and headed home.

My husband really enjoyed the show, because he had doubted the veracity of his story after watching his first appearance on Oprah, mostly because he wouldn't make eye contact with people, especially with the real recovering addict that he met with. My husband's number one pet peeve is with people lying to him, about anything, he takes it personally everytime. However, he himself is a fabulous bold-faced liar, go figure.

I haven't read the book, apparently Mr. Frey is a very talented writer, he just didn't live the exciting badboy life he claimed. Watching him on the first Oprah show, he honestly did not look like he had ever had any horrific health or addiction problems, his face was smooth and unmarred, there weren't even any dark circles under his eyes. And he seemed very reluctant to discuss his torrid life and amazing accomplishments with Oprah when he should have been proud to have survived such horrors on his own intestinal fortitude without anyone's help.

But, I believe Oprah has done the only thing she could to redeem herself, hopefully she or the publisher will sue the crap out of him and donate the money to charity. Her entire reputation is based on her personal integrity, on trust and honesty. I don't blame her for believing that a book coming from a publisher the size of Doubleday labeled as a memoir really was what it was presented as, I believe both the author and the publisher share the responsibility for this whole incident, not Oprah.

So Oprah for President, at least we know she won't lie to us.

Soooo... the expert she interviewed basically said in a nutshell:

a. This epidemic (or a similar one) is eventually going to spread all over the world
b. There will be no effective vaccine available in time to help anyone
c. The vaccines we have today are useless

and

d. There's nothing we can do about it and thousands, possibly millions of people are going to die.

Well crap, I guess that's actually an appropriate show for the Most Depressing Day. Poor Oprah, she honestly thought the guy was going to tell us something useful or slightly hopeful, even she looked depressed by the end of the show.

The show the day before was What You Need to Know About Terrorism, which was surprisingly more upbeat and hopeful. The three experts on that show actually saw a light at the end of the tunnel (and more eventual attacks), but living in America was actually estimated to be safer than living elsewhere in the world due to the fact that most Americans are still really defensive and pissed off about 9/11 and will beat the crap out of anyone that tries to light his shoe on fire in an airplane.

And personally, I haven't flown in years, I don't hang out in large crowds or particularly popular places, so my own chances of being blown up by a suicide bomber are pretty low. My husband and I are hermits, we like our home, it's a hassle to leave it, and we'd rather stay in most nights.

But the whole health scare, global pandemic thing does sort of freak me out because my immune system is shot already, and my doctors can't solve the seemingly simple problems (like reflux and allergy) that are making my life a living hell already, can you imagine what would happen in a real health crisis? Like New Orleans, only much bigger?

The only useful thing the Bird Flu guy did say is that we need to harrass the govenment and ask them to do something. I guess the 2006 elections will be a good start. I'd like to ask them to leave and let someone else try and fix their mess, anyone, my cat could do a better job...

So what this means is if you've commented on my weblog in the last year or two, your email has been added to an automatic comment approval list and you won't get the pending approval message anymore. The new version of Movable Type changed the way comments were screened and I suddenly started having to moderate everything one at a time to keep the spammers out.

If anyone has any problems with it, please email me. Unless you're a spammer, then just go away.

I think the problem was when we went to the theater tonight I was in the mood to watch a vampire film, not a video game. Don't get me wrong, Kate Beckinsale is beautiful, the photography, sets and costumes are beautiful, it was a black & blue monochromatic piece of moving art (with the occasional brownish reds thrown in). The actors looked quite real, not nightmarish and jerky like in Van Helsing, which made me physically ill watching it. But it was literally one or two sentences of dialogue and then 10 or 15 non-stop minutes of MTV editing, over-the-top gore.

We also decided to go to the movies on the most depressing day of the year, but for some reason all of the gore and action didn't really do anything to cheer me up. And the plot they tried to throw in was so overly complicated and confusing that it really didn't feel like a plot. More like the histories they give you at the beginning of a role playing video game... which is one of the reasons I don't play video games anymore. But I never was a gamer, I just like to shoot at stuff.

And to add to the confusion, everything is so fast moving, dark and, well, blue, that it was visually hard to follow what was happening. Who just got killed?

This film has the feeling of a series of novels that were condensed into one short story, characters are introduced then dropped, there is the "previously on Underworld" introduction, maybe when the Director's Cut comes out on DVD it will make more sense.

But it was probably just me. I really wanted to see a vampire movie tonight...