Horror and disappointment

Attorney General Eric Holder announced recently that the Obama Administration is retaining the policy of rendition, which basically means torture.

I am horrified.

I cannot imagine what Obama is thinking.

Here's Obama some months ago, responding to Dick Cheney's assertion that torture is necessary to "keep America safe." I can't imagine what intelligence he's received that would change his mind.

We were all so looking forward to a government that had a conscience. What the hell happened?
he was accused by the right wing of being an "appeaser" during the election. And I think he is. Not in a Chamberlain-Nazi Germany kind of way, which is what the right wing was accusing him of, but more like a kid in high school who really really wants to be liked by everyone.

This isn't really much of a well thought out entry, but when I read about it I had to record my disappointment somewhere.

C'mon, man, you know better than this.

My mother and That Woman were in town this weekend, and we really need to get a drinking game together for their visits.

1. That woman says "Ich weiß nicht," take a sip.
2. That woman mentions the phrase "Shit, she's short" in reference to a marching band story from 22 years ago, take a sip.
3. Mother calls you by the wrong name, take a sip.
4. That woman says something racist, take a drink.
5. That woman appropriates a memory from your childhood that she was clearly not present for. take a drink.
6. That woman is rude to a cashier or a waitperson, take a drink.
7. That woman or Mother asks you a question where the answer is a lie, take a drink.
8. That woman or Mother asks why you don't have a blog, finish your drink and order another.

It's that last one that gets me. Every fucking time they see me, that woman has to declare her love for my writing and how it's such a shame I don't have a blog and why don't I have one. I suppose I could say that I do have one and that they can't read it, but then you have to get into the reasons why they can't read it and that's just too much talking. It's just easier to say I'm too busy.

Mom scared me a little by asking how one would find out who has a blog (because it's just that ignorance that lets me sleep at night), but K sort of mumbled Google and then said there really isn't a way because people tend not to post under their real names. I've already done a search and found that this doesn't come up when you Google my real name. Whew.

So, the drinking game. There are so many more to add-- feel free to add your own to comments. For those who haven't met her-- just make some up based on my stories. You'll probably be right.

Oh, sorry for not writing in so long. Quick update: I have three kidneys stones, my office has been moved to a different floor, Tbone is fine, I was on jury duty, and I spend most of my free computer time on Facebook now.

There, all caught up!

No no no no no no no no no no!!!

OK, I guess I'm back after a very long hiatus to rant here, in my wordy medical cabinet full of balls, because they're trying to kill me. An FDA recommendation to outlaw vicodin?!? I heard that and my immediate reaction was "Jesus Christ, it's a good thing I've already taken my meds for tonight so I don't fucking freak out and throw myself off a cliff."

Fucking FDA. If they want to take away my vicodin, they better supply the fucking heroin.

Who is backing this? I bet it's the Aleve motherfuckers. Gah!
Where do I picket?! Where are the petitions?!?! Where are the addresses of the people on this FDA panel???!??!

Maybe I shouldn't have said that last one. But still, who are these people? They haven't walked a mile in my fucked up hip moccasins. I dream of stuffing a stone in their collective kidney. Let us drill holes in their teeth too close to the nerves, then give them ice cream and no root canal. I want to put pure glucose in their IV and watch them scream.

I honestly don't know what I would do without my vicodin. It scares me. A lot.

If they do take away the only thing that helps me walk like normal person, the thing that allows me to sleep on my horribly fucked up hip bursae, the drug that keeps me from stabbing my legs repeatedly in an effort to somehow relieve the horrible aching of petrified muscles, the thing that keeps me from screaming and punching walls, I will explode. And write terrible run on sentences. If I thought becoming a survivalist and barricading myself in a one room cabin with hordes of prescriptions and paintball guns would work, I would do it.

But I realize that eventually I would run out of pills and paintballs.

MOTH.ER.FUCK.ER.TWO.POINT.TOO

[Edited to add: it was an error with the nurse who called it in to the pharmacy. They are remedying the situation now. Still, my righteous anger applies to other incidents in the past and, no doubt, in the future. This doctor is still not in the clear yet.]

Just once I would like to have one month without medical drama. No new family illness, no mysterious blood sugar episodes, no bizarre side effects, no prescription refill fuck ups.

Especially no prescription refill fuck ups.

You may not remember, but christ I sure fucking do, why I broke up with my former doctor. When I interviewed for my new doctor, I discussed the whole pain medication history: how I had been on the same doseages for 5 years, how well it has worked for me, how I just needed someone downtown to be my primary care doc so I could continue what was obviously a solid, time-tested pain management regimen. She agreed that I seemed stable and was clearly not a drug addict looking for a patsy to feed her habit. We agreed that I would come in once it came time for my prescription to be filled.

I saw her on Monday and brought in the bottle of my last refill. She made a note in my file and asked if I wanted the refill in hand or just faxed to the pharmacy.

(For future reference: ALWAYS GET THE SCRIP IN HAND.)

I got a call yesterday, saying the refill was ready. I took the bus that went by my pharmacy and picked it up. I didn't bother to check anything. Then I got home and noticed the much smaller bottle than usual.

She shorted me 10 days' worth of pills. And made the pharmacist note specially that I was to "make this last the full 30 days."

OK, maybe it was just a mistake. Still? FUCKING BITCH. I can't help but think this was deliberate, that somehow she thinks that maybe I'm exaggerating just a bit and I really only need six a day, rather than the eight I've been on for 5 motherfucking years. Even if it is a mistake, there'll be 50 million hoops to jump through to get the rest and I'll have to pay full price because the insurance won't pay for it.

Once again, I can't sleep because I've gotten myself all hepped up. It's just so frustrating. I feel like I am constantly having to prove to every doctor I see that I really am in pain and that I really do need this medication. For as much as I joke about how great Vicodin is and how I'm such an addict, this is a real medication for me, like Wellbutrin or Levoxyl or Insulin, and I need it to live my life.

This doctor has known me for all of 1.5 hours. I've known this pain for 20 years. If she gives me shit, I swear I will tell her that I'm not seeing her for her medical expertise. I have other, better doctors for that. She is my means to an end. She is the cheapest way to get the medicine I need.

This pain isn't something that's all in my head. And I've been through enough that I shouldn't have to wait for hours on hold, to beg and plead and justify to some judgmental nurse with no knowledge of my background just so I can talk to the doctor and squeeze out of her a prescription for something that is legitimate and necessary. It's demeaning and embarrassing.

You know, my therapist says that a large part of my depression is fed by my insomnia. I would literally feel better if only I didn't have to deal with all this shit. I swear these doctors will be the death of me.

Ever have one of those immune systems?

It lives on my nose, on the tip and back to the left. It has settled also in the bag underneath my eye, which dries out my eye enough for it to hang out there as well.

No, I'm not talking about an adorable tiny wombat named Benson (He moved to Newman's right ear. They get along pretty well, except for the fights about the phone bills). I'm talking about another MRSA blossom that, like all lumps worth their salt, hurts like a mothefucker and makes everything that happens throughout the day more irritating, more painful and more "I'm going to rip the head off the next person who makes eye contact with me".

I'm sure you've had days like that.

So I'm on honkin' antibiotics and taking 16 vicodin a day (what am I - an amateur?), and I have to stick a Q-tip covered with goop up my nose three times a day. As you might imagine, I am a joy to be around.

Oh, and I passed a kidney stone this morning.

So, I've been out of the office for the past two days, writhing in pain and cursing the day I was born, and I show up at work this morning and the boss expects me to prepare for the complicated training I'll be giving tomorrow, and get the handouts rewritten, and rewrite the curriculum. And answer the phones. And respond to emails. And babysit the douchbag coworker who I used to think might be useful until it became apparent that (a) he thinks he's smarter than everyone else [this is an IT guy, you're thinking, how shocking! Yeah, I know] and 2. he hates being told what to do by women.

Anyway, I think my boss is punishing me for being out sick 4 days out the past four weeks. We're all a little passive-aggressive in our loverly little group, but pulling this "get stuff that takes three days done in roughly 5 hours, so you can stand in front of a class of high-maintenence bone-headed computer users who want to learn more about downloading jebus quote screensavers and couldn't give a hooter's tip how Outlook works" thing is fucked up, even for her.

And? On top of that? She sends me an email and says "Oh, don't forget to wander around with a candy basket harrassing people into coming up with questions for you to answer." Sweet.

So today's been a pretty "everything is sucky" day for me. I hope you enjoyed my whining. Be sure to tune in next time for a one-woman play about missing the bus and the new shoes that don't fit.

The ache of blue anger

Ok, before I start, you need to watch this. I just saw it on TV and it made me laugh heartily:

I want my ringtone to be "THIS IS LIFE ALERT. YOU HAVE BEEN DETECTED. PLEASE GET OUT NOW!"

And now...

The Least Satisfying Break-up Ever

I was prepared. I had typed up a timeline, I had my arguments in bullet points. Sure, I was sitting there in my hospital gown with a paper blanket covering my naked legs, but I had righteousness on my side. I was ready to kick her perky Beaverton ass.

So of course she walks in and the first words out of her mouth are "You know, I really think you should try to find a doctor nearer to where you live."

She fucking broke up with me first! Argh!

I did make my point that partially filling my prescription for 5 days and then taking a fucking week vacation wasn't cool. And when she said she did that so I would make an appointment, I said I would have come in if she'd just left the message with the pharmacist. I'm not 13 (I added in my head). Then I asked her if she would have done that if I needed an insulin refill. And of course she answered "No". I frowned. When I told her the whole story I got an apology, but that left me almost as frustrated as I was last week. well, with slightly less murderous rage, but still. She psychically cock blocked me. All I could do was demand copies of my medical records and she just said "pick up the form at reception." Then came the speculum.

The paperwork said that I would only be getting a Cliff Notes version of the past two years of visits and x-rays and labs. Since the whole reason my doctor blackmailed me into making an appointment was because I hadn't been to see her in 2 years, this was clearly not going to work. Luckily, my attorney had supplied me with a letter that outlined what I was legally entitled to per HIPAA (basically, anything I wanted). I went downstairs to records and was all ready to fight, but when I told them I wanted everything, all the chick behind the counter said was "OK, but you know we'll be charging you for it, right?"

Yeah, I knew that.
An hour later I was at my rheumatologist's office (I took the whole day off so I could see two doctors and a vet) and told him my story. He listened to me with a ponderous look on his face and then moved on without comment. At least he took a copy of my incident time line, which was a little satisfying, but I don't think he knew what it was, exactly. His assistant, who was also his daughter, asked me a bunch of questions and then he came in and poked at my joints and moved my arms around and generally posed me (most respectfully) like a Barbie doll. Then he sat me down and updated me on my physical phailures:

++ Chronic myofascial pain due to poorly controlled blood glucose levels and vitamin D deficency.
++ Vitamin D deficiency.
++ Possible pinched nerve or nerve damage in my left neck and shoulder.
++ Possible anemia.
++ Chronic fatigue (not necessarily the syndrome kind, for all you attorneys who represent The Man in worker's comp cases. Yeah, I'm lookin' at you, Paul).
++ Fibromyalgia, or a close relative, that is contributing to all of the above.

That'll put the balls in your Medicine Balls.

At least I got a new prescription for Vicodin. I could fill it now and be practically swimming in pills, but I'll be a good patient and at least wait until I finish my first bottle. Maybe. It depends on how the next couple of weeks at work go.

MOTH.ER.FUCK.ER.

First off, I'm sorry I had to lock this shit down for a bit, but I foolishly put this URL in my Twitter profile, and That Woman has started to follow me. Because she's crazy nosy. I guess it's possible she didn't click on the link because she didn't know what URL meant, but there was a sharp increase in hits on the day she started to follow me.

I don't know why I'm so freaked about this, but I don't want her knowing stuff about me. I'm less concerned about her finding the stuff I wrote about her, but I really don't want her to give her fuel for her ridiculous snotty remarks about things like my stupid health or all the embarrassing moments I've been posting.

If it turns out I'm being paranoid, I'll reopen it. I just like thinking that she'll try to come back to read it and find that she's been locked out. It seems sufficiently passive-aggressive.

[ETA: Obviously, the lock has been lifted. Who the fuck really cares, I thought?)
======================================

Second off, and what I really need to talk about, is how much I despise my Primary Care physician (PCP) and everyone in her office. She decided that, because I haven't been to see her lately, that she would more or less cut me off from my vicodin until I made an appointment.

She filled a partial prescription that would last 5 days. That ran out smack dab in the middle of a three day weekend. Thanks for that, you jerk. I had to wait to refill my prescription until Tuesday, day 2 of having NO PAIN MEDICATION. That's so awesome since my leg and hip pain has gotten significantly worse and I have been officially diagnosed with Fibromyalgia.

I hate my PCP.

She couldn't have done this when she refilled my thyroid medicine the week before? Of course not. She could have had a lawsuit if she did this with my insulin, because that's good medicine. No insulin would kill me. No vicodin just makes everything extremely painful, thus punishing me for being on a drug that some people use recreationally.

I really hate my PCP.

I spent Tuesday on three marathon phone calls, telling my story to three different people who all gave me wrong information. Yes, the doctor is here-- have your drug store fax the info. Then? No, the doctor isn't here after all, but they see the info from the drug store and it's "In her queue". Lastly, I got an on call nurse, who told me there was nothing she could do and I'd have to wait until tomorrow, because even if I left a message for the on-call doctor, he wouldn't be filling any prescription for me. They don't do that sort of thing.

I really hate my PCP and her nurses and assistants.

I spent the night tossing and turning physically and mentally. I spent my sleep time angrily reliving the days interactions, adding even more to my stress and my anxiety.

My god, I hate my PCP.

I woke this morning determined to get this shit out of the way. I called at 10:00 AM and was told it "was in her queue" and she'd get to it in the afternoon, after she saw her patients. I asked that they try to expedite it, since this was day three of my not having my legitimate medicine for a legitimate disease. She reluctantly said she would.

I hate the nurses and assistants in Internal Medicine.

I called again at 3:00 PM to remind them again. It's in the queue, yeah yeah yeah. It was in the queue yesterday and we know how that worked out. I called again at five minutes before their office closed and was lectured that she would get to it.

I really really hate my PCP's office and everyone in it.

It's almost seven now, she is not in her office and there is no prescription at Walgreen's.

I will hitch a ride with my husband tomorrow to Beaverton so I can throttle every god damn person in Internal Medicine, grab my medical records-- built over 9 years and roughly the size of the OED-- and hightail it to my rheumatologist to take over everything. I swear I'll even get my pap smears from him.

That's how much I hate my PCP.

Leave him alone [Warning: contains sexual vulgarity]

Many people are demanding that Mayor Sam Adams step down because he lied about a relationship he had with an 18 year old legislative aide a couple years back. I wish I wish I wish everyone, especially the news, would just shut up and let him do his job.

Of course he lied about it; he's gay, he's a politician and it's sex.

How did this question even come up? How is it in any way relevant to the administration of the city? When did Portland suddenly become full of holier-than-thou prudes? His detractors have said it's not about the sex, it's about his lying. Really? Because no one has ever lied about sex before. And certainly no politician has ever lied to get into office. This situation is so unusual.

Seriously, here's a question for anyone who thinks the Mayor should step down:

What would you do if your mother asked you: Do you like a finger up your ass when you fuck?

Do you think, just maybe, you might lie about that? I mean, what business of it is hers? What if she asked you that at a press conference?

Feel free to leave your answer to that question in comments. I'll be happy to let your local paper know so they can update your mother.

Disappointed horse*

I try not to be high maintenance. I try to be nice to any food servers or customer service folks. I don't want to be one of those people.

But sometimes, when it's my birthday, and the waitperson is one of those too-friendly types that sit next to you to take your order, and call you 'hon' and spend 10 minutes racing around a nearly-empty restaurant giving other people who arrived later than you their bread while you sit, blood sugar plummeting, sometimes I just get grumpy. And that was my main emotion during my birthday dinner. 

When our waitperson finally came to take our order, I ordered what I thought was not a difficult option for an Italian restaurant: cheese ravioli and a salad. 10 minutes later, the salad was delivered (but none of the promised bread). We sat eating our salad, all the while watching the waitperson flit from table to table (3 others in all), handing out bread and pouring more water to all the other tables but ours.

By now I had drunk half the wine. The hypoglycemia and brand new old age and lack of bread were beginning to put me in a bad mood. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the waitperson start to approach us (without bread in hand). She kneels down next to me and puts her hands on our table. 

"So here's the bad news, honey,"  she said. "Apparently our cheese ravioli are bad. Just... bad. So we need to find you something else to eat."

I blinked at her. It had been 25 minutes since she took our order. How long did it take to determine a bad ravioli? I guess I appreciate that they didn't serve me putrid, salmonella laced pasta-- or whatever made the dish unservable-- but could they maybe have figured that out sooner? While I looked at the menu, she started yelling out other options-- all of which I didn't want. Sausage? No. Calamari? No no no. She sneered when I told her I didn't eat red meat or sea kittens, like I was purposely making her life more difficult.

She started pushing this butternut squash ravioli, which seems to have avoided the other ravioli calamity, with some sort of spiced cream sauce that didn't sound like my kind of meal. Instead I chose the chicken parmesan. She shook her head.

"Oh, honey. That takes 20 minutes to cook. You don't want to wait that long." I considered saying maybe I wouldn't mind if we maybe had some fucking bread, but I didn't want to be a bitch. Again she pushed the butternut johnsons. The Husband was ever so slightly rolling his eyes (he thinks I'm picky at restaurants, but honestly-- I don't try to be), so I gave in and ordered the dish, even though it was built without any individual ingredients I actually liked. I asked if we could please get some bread.

"It's coming up," she hissed, "It's about ready to come out of the oven."

The dinner finally arrived, and one bite later I knew I was not going to eat it. So now The Husband and I are both in bad moods, eating (or in my case, drinking) in silence. 

Later on, our waitperson came by and I requested a box to go. She looked at me sternly and said "Only if you liked it." 

OK - wait a fucking second. I didn't like it, but I let myself be talked into ordering it, so it's on my head. Why the hell would you care if I liked it or not? If I said no, would you have taken it off the bill? I thought not. 

If she'd brought the bread and cut back on the attitude, I would have chalked up this whole thing as a bad choice. But she doesn't get to judge me for that. I tried my best to be nice and unassuming. I didn't throw the dish on the floor in a tantrum. Maybe I should have.

So, I had a really crappy night. The next morning I called in sick to work, and not just because I had a sore throat (though I did, for a time). Mostly I was just depressed. That single experience, where I had the pleasure of paying $60 to leave a restaurant hungry and angry, ruined my birthday. I know part of it was my fault for thinking that just because it was my birthday everything should have been perfect, and it was also my fault for not sticking up for myself and maybe sending the dish back for something more suited to my apparently difficult taste buds. 

But goddamn it, she could have at least brought the bread in a timely fucking manner.

* To make sense of this entry's title, please click here. Please, please click. There.

Keystone Kommute

An all-zone ticket for the Tri-met busses and Max lines costs $2.30. When I have certain doctors appointments, I have to leave work early and take a half-hour, multiple zone ride to Beaverton, then walk nearly a mile to the office. Since the husband occasionally has to take Max to his office in Beaverton, we maintain a cache of all-zone tickets.

Since I had an appointment after work today, I was pleased that I managed to remember to grab two tickets before I headed off to work.

"Look at me," I thought as I tucked them in my back pocket, "with the thinking ahead, etc."

I was nearly at the bus stop where I catch the bus every morning, ready to board as I usually do with my Zones 1 and 2 bus pass, when I reached into the pocket of my brand new awesome hoodie and did not find the wallet that I had tucked into it four blocks ago.

Well, poo.

A neighbor I had greeted as I left the house this morning found my wallet whilst walking her adorable pointy dog, and she met up with me as I was retracing my steps. Wallet back in hand (and NOT in pocket), I headed to another bus stop, this one for a different line that is usually busier than I like. I prefer not to stand or sit next to anyone when I am commuting, as I try to avoid interacting with anyone, at any time.

Well, the bus was full of snotty young whippersnappers storing their weirdly irony-free Strawberry Shortcake backpacks on the empty seats next to them, and so I stood with all the other worker bees who really didn't want to start a ruckus with the rude and mopey teens and I didn't really want to sit by the guy who smelled like dog shit, anyway.

Skip forward to lunch. I'm off to the place down the street for an egg salad. Nervous that I'd lose my wallet again, I check my various pockets for my accoutrements: phone, iPod, wallet, bus ticket.

Ticket? I stop and discover that there is only one all-zone ticket in my back pocket.

Crap. How does something fall out of a back pocket? It's not like I spend my days hanging upside down from a jungle gym.

Well, having experienced missing a train because the stupid machine wouldn't print the ticket fast enough, I thought I'd buy my replacement ticket in advance from the machine at the stop before I picked up my egg salad. I carefully tucked my purchase into one of my front pockets and headed off to the sandwich place. I spent the rest of the day suddenly wigging out and checking all my pockets in a panic. Everything seemed to be in order.

Work continued and finally let me go. As the train approached the stop at its appointed time, I reached into my front pocket and pulled out my ticket. And it was then I noticed the note at the bottom that read "EXPIRES AT 2:14 PM".

Shit. I'd forgotten that tickets bought in the machines, rather than at the Tri-met office, expired after two hours.

Well, I still had the one that survived the trip this morning, but not wanting to have to buy another ticket for the return trip, I risked getting caught by a traffic cop and boarded the train without buying another ticket. I managed to get to my stop without incident. Huzzah!

So, I walked to my appointment, whined to my therapist, scored some sleeping pills and started my trip home. As I walked past the bus stop half way to the station, I checked the arrival table and saw that there was one due in two minutes. Well, wasn't that handy? I watched the silhouette of the bus lumber toward me, I reached into my back pocket. My empty back pocket.

Fuckity fuckerson! What? Why? Argh!

I dug into my bag trying to find my wallet, which of course had settled underneath every single thing I had in it, simultaneously reliving my sandwich purchase, trying to remember how and how much I had paid for it. Did I pay cash? How much did I pay? Did I have any enough left to buy another goddamn ticket?

Well, turns out I bought the egg salad with my ATM card and I had exactly 3 dollars-- three soft and crumpled dollars that are difficult to stuff into the bus fareboxes. The machine finally took my fare, but its initial resistance allowed the driver to lecture me for wearing a black coat while waiting at a bus stop at night while she handed me my transfer.

I sat at the transit center waiting for the train that would finally get me home, clutching my transfer with both hands, and I wondered where my lost tickets ended up. I decided that if they weren't found by an indigent person desperate to get to Gresham, I imagined they were riding the wind in poetic circles like a plastic bag in nineties a movie.

Night fever

Once again, I find myself up at nearly three in the morning, unable to sleep. It seems like it's always the same: I head off to bed between 11:00 PM and midnight, lay awake for two or three hours, then finally get up to waste another hour before heading back to bed and trying again.

I used to think I knew why I couldn't sleep, but after trying various combinations of drugs (2 of these kind, none of those, let's treble this one and halve the other, etc.) I'm left baffled and irritated.

And sleepy, but only at times where I don't want to be sleepy: at work, on the bus, in a planetarium.

[We interrupt this blog post to point out that the picture above is of the caption I added to the existing Shag cat tattoo on my left arm. I got it on New Year's day with Sisters J and K. Well, K was just a spectator, as were my niece and brother in law, but it was nice to have an outing with all my sisters-- it's been a very long time since we've been able to do that.]

I realize that posts about sleep deprivation aren't very exciting unless they are being written after many days of no sleep at all, so I'll recap how things have been during this holiday period:

Xmas: We were snowed in all week, so we didn't make the trip to the Bay Area. While I was bummed that I missed some of the family functions, I wasn't so upset about missing out on the airport experience. Flying during the holiday season is a pain in the ass no matter what the weather, but maneuvering through an airport flush with stranded passengers is not my idea of a merry xmas.

New Year's: I am well beyond the age where New Year's Eve means bushels of drink and dancing in a venue packed with drunks and dancers. The last time we went anywhere public for the changing of the years was the big '99 - '00 deathwatch down at Pioneer Courthouse Square. Once we found out the party would not be ringing in the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and the Camel of ATM Failure, we headed home for microwave mac & cheese and bed after that. Anyway, this year we went to K's and played board games. It was really fun.

But the husband and I forgot to kiss at the stroke of midnight, so I'm not sure how that bodes for this new year.

Belated family xmas on 1/2/2009: After going out with the sisters for a quick tattoo, as mentioned above, we met again the next day to open all the presents from xmas that we missed while being marooned in the house the week previous. Because my birthday is just three weeks after xmas, I had more presents mixed in, to the point of embarrassment, really. I had six or seven more presents for everyone else, which made me feel like a gift glutton surrounded by piles of empty boxes and mountains of ripped wrappings. Counting the xmas gifts alone, we received far more than we gave. I really do feel like a cheap bastard who gamed the system of xmas gift giving.

Still though: we made out like bandits, although not on New Year's where one expects to make out.

Thanks, sisters. Thisters.

Memories of a poisoning

I meant to post this entry on the twenty-fourth, but I think I took one nap too many that day. Consider this a belated xmas fable.

Picture, if you dare, a smallish dining room that opens out into a living room. Both rooms are cluttered with doily-draped furniture and bookshelves with books. Many, many creches are set up pell-mell on every available flat surface. Finally, the room is lined with an impossible number of ticking clocks, all set to slightly different times so that each clock can ring solo on every fifteen, thirty, forty-five or sixty minutes. As soon as one welcomed inside, any visitor will feel like they're late for something. Conversations will seem to clock in twice as fast as any normal verbal exchange. Everyone is just a little bit jumpy.

There are ten people crowding around a square dining table. On the table, there are dinner and salad plates, salad forks and dinner forks and two types of spoon. There are water glasses and wine glasses and tiny butter pat dishes. The table is so crowded, there is no room for any food.

It is christmas dinner at my mother's house. The wine flows freely as Mom and, more annoyingly, That Woman race back and forth between the dining room and kitchen with plates of food. The whole time, Mom is talking to us and That Woman is talking to herself. We all sit down at the table as That Woman walks us through every single plate and accoutrement at each place setting. She makes a big big deal over the one and a half inch logs of ugly-ass crystal sitting just below the water glass. These are the new knife rests she purchased at the last Questers meeting. There is a story that goes with them, but like everything else she says, her lecture goes in one ear and out the other, inflicting only minor damage to our ear bones. We hope.

As we eat, That Woman continues to jump up every two minutes to get more plates of food. When she does this, she calls back to specific people to offer them even more food.

"K - can I get you more Jell-O? A - how are we on green beans? Young C - can I get you anything? Anything at all? You can have whatever you want, you know."

(She has an unhealthy fixation on my 13 year old nephew, young C. She once announced at lunch one day how much she "love(s) to watch a young man eat". Ew.)

Her food related hollering mostly focusses on my sisters, occasionally calling to me and my mother. One person she never surveys is The Husband (let's call him "Ernesto").

After coming and going at least 5 times, she finally sits and starts to eat. We sisters and husbands talk amongst ourselves whilst buttering bread, pouring gravy and drinking wine. Suddenly, all heads snap to the head of the table as out of nowhere That Woman clangs her knife against her water glass and hisses,

"Ernesto!!!!! Knife rest!!!!!"

It was one of two sentences she said to him that night (the other instance was a snippy accusation about stealing his own chocolate Santa). Not that he minds that she ignores him. I should be so lucky.

Whenever the husband tells this story, he points out that neither K nor A were using their precious knife rests either, but they probably got a pass due to their role in creating young C.

Shortly after leaving my Mom's, The Husband started feeling a little iffy, which soon turned into a horrible case of what could only be food poisoning.

Coincidence???!? You decide!

Christmas should be fun this year

Artwork by David Behrens

My cousin posted the following status update on Facebook the day after the election:

"[My cousin] is sad for the founding fathers of the United States. A Major travesty has been committed and the ideals of this nation will be but a memory. DAMN YOU DEMOCRATS"

Can someone perhaps enlighten me on what ideals, exactly, will be "but" memories? Something like this?

No free man shall be arrested, or imprisoned, or deprived of his property, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any way destroyed, nor shall we go against him or send against him, unless by legal judgement of his peers, or by the law of the land

What's that? Oh, that's out already?

Oh.

Sarah Palin is a dick and John McCain is Henry Kane

Although I haven't met her personally, I am convinced, based on her sneering stump speeches to the already brainwashed, that Sarah Palin is a mean, vindictive, small-minded person who doesn't deserve to be parodied by someone as smart and as talented as Tina Fey.

I don't know if she believes all the bullshit she says. She obviously knows how to play to the bigots in the crowd, by memorizing and regurgitating the soundbytes crafted for her by her most cynical speechwriters.

But she's not smart enough, I think, not to believe at least some of it, which means she must have a cognitive dissonance so profound it's as if her skull has an extra bone straight down the middle of it, separating her reality from real reality.

This is not a man who sees America as you and I see America. We see America as a force for good in this world. We see America as a force for exceptionalism . . . Our opponents see America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who would bomb their own country.

Palling around with terrorists?




America as a force for good?




Sarah Palin is a dick and John McCain is a stereotype. His habit of using "my friend" seems like he's trying to imbue every phrase with a menacing tone, but it just makes him sound like a poorly-acted bad guy in a crappy movie.

JOHN MCCAIN, I AM NOT YOUR FRIEND

So shut the fuck up, asshole.

When the wars came

We are witness to many battles in America right now. Not just Democrat v. Republican, Bush administration v. reality, McCain v. relevance, Congress v. Foresight and Palin v. direct inquiries. Sure, those are important and I'm keeping at least one eye on each of them. But here are the conflicts that have been keeping me too busy to write (no, really!):

The Battle at Alvioli

I have had pneumonia for the past month, but you'd never know it from my work schedule. No, that's not true, I was out about a week (two and a half days one week and four another), but mostly I've been up and out and about, spreading my pathogens, coughing in fits and generally existing in a phlegmy phog. I was given 10 days' worth of antibiotics 10 days ago, and went in for my recheck this afternoon. The lungs sounded clear, my cute brown-eyed doctor told me as he thumped my back with one hand and listened with the stethescope with both ears, though my coughing may stick around a little longer. He thought maybe my asthma was adding some hassle, so I got some free Advair and a prescription for sudafed (which, if I get me chemistry right could score me a meth rock of about .02 mcg. Hot dog). Expected outcome: I think the Alvioli will come out on top, but they may never be completely rid of the terrorism of post-nasal drip.

The Wars of the Stereotypes

I work with a woman who runs our state's SCA, and you can tell. She dresses like a goth at a temp job: dark but without the boots and black leggings (though I should talk-- I don't dress much better). She is loud and opinionated and, like me, not well-versed in the art of constructive criticism. I get along with her well enough, but she is both annoying and easily annoyed. She is pretty competent at her job, although some of her methods I choose not to emulate.

We recently hired a guy for the open help desk position, and he has the familiar attitude of an IT guy at a new job, meaning he insists on relating everything you are training him to how things used to be at his old job. He is still uncomfortable in his position both as the lowest guy on the totem pole and the only guy in our tiny room. He is easily affronted, but won't take on the affronter directly, so he spends a lot of his time sitting at his desk frowning.

These two don't really get along, and today the sparring started over an incident in training. We are all sitting in on this training this week so we can train on it later, and the trainer is our SCA Baroness. Her hackles were raised at one point when IT guy quietly left the room and didn't come back for 10 minutes. While he was gone I had a coughing fit and left the room to spit up goop and get a cough drop.

At the break, the Baroness summoned us to her shire near the InFocus machine and scolded us for leaving the classroom. I protested that I was coughing uncontrollably and she forgave me. She then turned to IT guy and scolded him even more for not having an obvious reason to leave. He went back to his seat and began to stew. When she went to smoke, he turned to me in a minor fury and proceeded to tell me that he left because something he ate at lunch hadn't agreed with him but, he added, there was no way he was going to tell her that.

So, color me Swiss. I get to hear way too much opinion from both sides. As neither side looks like it will back down, I think I may be in for the passive-aggressive long haul. Yay. Expected outcome: Outlook not so good.

The Attack on Meninges

I just have a headache. Probably related to The War of Stereotypes. Oh, and whatever the doctor's office had floating at the time. Ooh, is it Flu? Sinus infection? Pink eye? Rabies?

Probably all of them. Expected outcome: once the Vicodin division arrives to help the dry eyes squadrons and cyclobenzaprine patrol things should be OK.

I see your bootstraps and raise you an amputated leg

So there's this letter that appeared in this week's Willamette Week:

I am self-employed, and I pay about $140 a month for health insurance. When I hear people say they “can’t afford” health insurance when they have a cigarette habit, a latte habit, and an expensive cellphone, I shake my head in amazement. People, your health is your responsibility; it’s not the job of the rest of society to ante up for your medical costs because you were too cheap to insure yourself. --“Barbara”

Well, allow me to congratulate "Barbara" for thinking ahead and choosing her genes carefully so she could be responsible about her health. If only I had such forward-thinking! If only I hadn't been so careless with my pancreas at nine years old. All my wild parties and late nights back then stuck me with a disease that I will die from if not treated. And if I can't afford to pay for my own mistakes, I have only myself to blame.

But I think "Barbara" may be missing a key part in this whole "everybody deserves health insurance" bug that's sticking in her craw. It's just a little thing, but it's important. She has no fucking idea what she's talking about.

Let's say I lose my job, and am unable to find another job before my COBRA runs out, I will lose my insurance. And given the "pre-existing condition" I recklessly saddled myself with, buying my own insurance could cost as much as $400/month.

And it's very possible that I won't be able to afford that. And that's where things get a little tricky. It's costly to maintain my expensive "must have this medicine or I will die" habit. Allow me to demonstrate (All dollar amounts based on the going rate at my nearby pharmacy in 2007 and the charges incurred at the local medical clinic):

Monthly drug costs: 2 types of insulin, 2 types of syringes: $318.

In order to be a responsible diabetic, I need to be keeping an eye on my blood sugars. I can't expect "Barbara" to ante up for all those complications. This means I will need to buy a glucose monitor ($75) and monthly test strips ($219).

And you can't just walk in and buy some of this stuff. You need a prescription, and prescriptions mean Drs. appointments. If I go just once a year and get all the tests "responsible" citizens should get-- lab works and a pap smear (unless she expects me to bear that burden as well-- after all, I'm the one with the cervix. Half the people on this planet don't need pap smears, what makes me so special?)-- that will cost a little less than $500.

So, let's do some math!

Dr visit + glucose monitor + [(prescriptions + test strips) x 12]

equals

$7019.00 per year. Minimum.

(Note: This of course does not take into consideration anything else that is considered "responsible" health maintenence: Eye care, dental appointments, drugs for other conditions that come with diabetes like glaucoma, neuropathy, gastroparesis, thyroid disease, depression, anxiety. And let us not speak of emergency medical care; anything I would do that would require such extravagance would surely be my fault. C'mon, dressed like that? I would be asking for it.)

Honestly, how could I possibly expect my government to allocate "Barbara's" precious tax dollars to fund my corporeal inadequacies? How reckless and selfish! Jesus, here I've made this whole entry about me, me, me. I mean, what about "Barbara"?

Well, here's what about "Barbara": I think she needs to try that old "walk in someone else's moccasins" for a while. I think any diabetic would be happy to hand over the shoes they can't wear anymore, what with those pesky feet they just had amputated.

I continue to fail in new and ingenious ways

Seriously, it shouldn't be this difficult.

The alternatives include taking him on the bus to a vet appointment every other day, or hiring a tech to come over administer the fluids. Or putting him down, which my mother a bit too enthusiastically recommended.

But I can't get the fucking fluids into the dying cat. What. The Fuck. Is. My. Problem.

Remember how I said the cat thing wasn't so bad?

Now every time I insert the needle and start the fluids, it comes out of other holes like Bugs Bunny full of buckshot.

I want to kick the table across the room and rip that fucking plastic bag apart with my teeth. I'm so frustrated I want to break every inanimate object I come across.

I'm going to call around to see if there are any vet techs I can hire to come do it for me, because I am obviously completely useless at most things.

Cat's doing better, I'm doing worse

Was finally able to deliver the phluids to the phlyd, so I'm not crying every ten minutes, and he seems to be eating all right. So, yay on that front.

But, our house got burgled this afternoon (while we were in it) and the gaddamn crap-ass ugly melon-ranching dipshit thieving motherfuckers took both iPods, the husband's phone and his wallet.

I guess we should be happy they didn't take the bigger score things, like our Wii and our Bose, but it's sometimes hard to see the silver lining on a shitty thing like this. We spent the evening cancelling credit cards and cell phone accounts and being really really frustrated. The assless fucktards managed to use the debit card to either buy a cell phone or pay a bill (in which case: good move, shitheads) and then they went all out and bought Tri-Met tickets.

So, master burgling artists these people are not, I'm thinking.

Still, though: FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCKITY-FUCK FUCK FUCK.