Mixed Bag

For your pleasure today, a couple of repeat postings (repeat if you are my friend on Facebook)

Really sweet story of a new cross-species family.

Today on a street corner near the office, we were accosted by people giving out FREE ART. BOXES OF FREE ART. I refused to have it foisted upon me, but a couple of my friends accepted the boxes. Which turned out to be this inexplicable mess. I peered briefly at the book and found it dull. I listened briefly to the cd and laughed my ass off for the whole minute that I could tolerate it. I can best describe it as the musings of an angry person living in his parents' basement trying to express his views of the world via Casio keyboard. The super-cheap model Casio keyboard.

In bellydance news, class tonight with Nilaja was great and I also picked up some fun Skittles-colored skirts from her Calico Garden stash. So far I've picked sultry/angry music for my solos (all two of them!) and I know I need practice emoting in different ways in my dancing. Enter Harry Belafonte's Jump in the Line, which makes me ridiculously happy to listen to so I expect it will make me happier to dance to it. So this is my tentative pick to perform at Zafirah's fundraiser hafla in May. Ergo, my new candy-colored skirts will be awesome for a calypso-ish theme :) And I need to work on my shimmy something fierce!

Must stretch a bit before hitting the hay. Night, y'all!

Stop and Start

Recovering from an emotional blow is something you have to take one day at a time. And I think that while it's true at the beginning that every day is a bit better than the day before, it's also true that some days you slide and fall backwards in the progress you've made. For me, this is because the blow has had sort of a ripple effect in making me think about other things and about the future, and sometimes that thinking is pretty negative.

That's when I have to turn on the tunes and dance.


So, sometimes I slide. But I've been getting back up every time.

Classes with Christina King have been going superawesome, and I'm still attending classes with one of my all-time favorite teachers and people (Nilaja of Calico Garden, see sidebar link) and started a bellydance/Zumba class last week. Good times! I also pulled the trigger on signing up for the full weekend of Tribal Revolution. Waiting to save up a bit more cash money before registering for Northern Lights happening later this year.

A lot of bellydancers use stage names for privacy reasons, and I think I am going to start doing this, and I think I've settled on "Loredona" as my name. I will be dancing at Jeannette and Shelby Daft's Tim Burton hafla (as the Corpse Bride!) on April 24 in West Allis, WI, and in Zafirah's fundraiser hafla on May 22 at Edith's Place in Mt. Prospect, IL. Possibly somewhere in there if I can get my act together I will also try to perform at my original bellydance mama Zayna's Sphinx hafla at Mango in Niles, IL.

And because I am super-scattered and overly enthusiastic at the beginning of any project/endeavor/whatnot I also picked up a pair of spinning poi in the hopes that someday I can do stuff like this:


So far I've just been really good at smacking myself with the poi. But I am not giving up! Yet. Ok just jokes I'm not giving up. Yet.

In non-bellydance related stuff, I am engaged in a love-hate relationship with the Travel Channel. I have a morbid fascination with Man vs. Food because a) there's delicious-looking food that gets profiled on the show but b) then he eats a revolting amount of it. And now I see they're starting some show about the World's Worst Drivers. Seriously? Operating a motor vehicle in a completely dipshit and irresponsible manner is something we're going to put on tv for grins? Unless the end of every episode involved the drivers being slapped senseless with dead fish, I'm not interested.

The Lady GaGa/Beyonce video for Telephone makes me so befuddled. OK GAGA. LET'S MAKE A SANDWICH. OF POISON. But I love the song and the fact that OMFG THAT BITCH IS CRAZY.

I don't know how I'd get through sometimes without my kitties smooshing their faces into mine.

Thanks to the time change, I'm getting to bed kind of late. But yay for darkness falling later! Check y'all next time.

Resurrection comes not with a bang, more of a sigh and a groan

So after a break of almost two years, I am coming back to blogging. I might stick to it, I might not.

Resurrection is probably considered an event and not an ongoing process. But, I'm resurrecting this blog as part of a recovery process so I'm going to treat it as both.

I am doing what I can these days to remember and improve my self-worth. I feel many people and maybe especially many women can't seem to remember their self-worth and how truly higher it is and can be than what they think it is, or how they allow themselves to be treated. And I know that it's so hard to do. It's much easier to believe the bad things about yourself. So again, this is going to be a process, not an event.

Part of my journey is based in something very fun and dear to me, which is bellydancing. I have now been taking classes and workshops on and off since summer 2007. (with a 9 month-break in there after my surgery). The dancing a good activity and a great way to express myself, but more importantly it's introduced me to this great community of people (largely women) who are encouraging and empowering and fun. I've already needed to call on my closer friends in the community to help get me through things and they plain kick ass. I am making it my goal to dance at more haflas (Arabic for dance party) this year and to practice consistently because I'll never be a good dancer without that.

Enough serious for today.

A purring cat up in your biz is at least a temporary antidote to almost anything. Except actual poison and disease of course. Or gunshot wounds. Or stabbing. You know what? Just enjoy a purring cat if you can.

I am taking my first real bellydance classes this evening with Christina King, who is an amazing bellydancer and dance event organizer. I am thrilled to finally be in her classes!

This also means I won't watching the Oscars tonight, which is fine by me as the only thing I care about this year is that Avatar not win Best Picture, lest I explosively vomit. It was visually stunning and all, but otherwise Dances with Smurfs did not do it for me.

VH1 is apparently paying Jessica Simpson to do a tv show. People don't learn.

I think I am going to make some pumpkin beer bread. Or pound cake. Or both. Later, taters.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Fail, or Why I Hate George Lucas More Than Ever

So I ended up seeing Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull with John, Laura's parents, and her sis. Well, it was nice to see them and Laura's p's make a mean barbecued chicken. As for the movie:

The Good: Great big chunks of old-fashioned Indiana Jones fun and high jinks.

The Bad: The Crystal Skull. As soon as I saw what it was I thought "Goddamnit, George Lucas, I hate you and I hate your fuckin' stories." Now, I know that Indiana Jones storylines are ALL dumb, implausible, fantastical vehicles for all the archaeological madcap fun. I'm totally fine with that and expected it. But the Crystal Skull goes the extra mile past fun and into unenjoyably stupid. What I actually could have enjoyed were the legends in the movie being solely about ancient South American cultures, no matter how wacky, without the Crystal Skull bullshit.

More of the Bad: Shia TheBeef's (Shia LeBoeuf's) coronation as the next Indiana Jones. No. Just no. He cannot carry these movies. And surprisingly enough, Cate Blanchett cannot maintain a Ukrainian accent.

The Bottom Line: Although a lot of the movie was predictable Indiana Jones fun, the power of an overly lame premise and ending was enough to kill this movie dead for me.

The Final Word: I need to learn to listen to my gut when it comes to movies. If for any reason I get the urge to see The Incredible Hulk (how you make me cry bitter disillusioned tears, Ed Norton) or Sex and the City, I will know to go watch Iron Man again instead.

Perspective on Public Transportation

I've been meaning to write this post for a while now. Another plus about the new job is that I'm able to take the Metra train to work instead of sitting in traffic for 45-60+ minutes each way. This is the first job I've had where I was able to take public transportation, and I've discovered it's a double-edged sword for me. I'm an avid people-watcher, but at the same time, people annoy the shit out of me. So at any given moment on the train I can be amused or be drowning in the pungent humanity. For this post I'm going to list my Metra highlights and lowlights (in no particular order) for the last 5 months or so.

Out of the Mouths of Kids: a teenage girl and a boy who I estimate was about 8-9 years old. The girl was recapping the NFL playoff picture at the time and then said she would be watching the Bulls play that night. The boy responded with "pffft. Bulls ain't no good without Michael Jordan." Wha? Unless the kid had severe Webster Syndrome, he wasn't even alive when Jordan was with the Bulls. But he did speak the truth.

I don't know who designed/made the Metra conductor uniforms, but s/he managed to produce the precise alchemical combination of design elements and fabrics to transform even the most slender of Metra conductors into a wide load wagon-draggin' man. (I have yet to see a female Metra conductor on my line. Possibly because society loads enough body-image mental shit on women without having to deal with unflattering Metra uniforms.)

Talkies are my biggest fear on the train. I am at heart a shy person as it is, so I don't much like talking to strangers. Exchanging a comment in a checkout line is fine, conversing with friends of friends at a party is also not a problem. Being trapped on a train or plane with a chatty stranger who exhibits signs of being at least a mild asshole is my idea of epic suck. My dread of the Talkie materialized in spectacular fashion probably about 2 or so months ago.

• Talkie: First Contact. I was knitting a scarf on the way home and noticed the man in front of me avidly perusing some sort of National Rifle Association magazine. Which is his bag and right, but generally NRA fans aren't my kind of people. Whatever, I kept knitting peacefully. Until Mr. NRA emerges as The Talkie. I hear a voice asking how long I've been knitting. Now, Laura assures me that my mistake was to answer politely, but I'm too uncomfortable in situations like that not to answer and hope for a quick resolution of the conversation. So I answered politely and buried my nose further in my knitting hoping that the hint will be taken. It was not. I get more and more questions about my knitting, which leads to the Talkie's proclamation that HE has a hobby that "a lot of liberals don't approve of." Talkie Threat Level is now Screaming Red. He proceeds to tell me about his target shooting and I said "As long as you don't shoot people or puppies, I could not care less". TALKIE DEFLECTOR TIP #1: DO NOT AMUSE THE TALKIE. IT MAKES THEM TALKIER. Thankfully my stop came up relatively shortly after that.
  
• Return of the Talkie. One thing about riding the same line at about the same time every day, you see the same people. Yes I saw the Talkie again. This time I was quite a few rows back of him, but apparently he recognized me all the same. The cars tend to empty out quite a bit by the time the train gets near my stop, so when the car was fairly empty, the Talkie YELLS out some comment to me because I'm sitting so far away. I pretended not to hear and stared out the window. Curse my fuckwit hide for leaving my ipod on the charger and my earphones at home.
• The Talkie Strikes Back. I encountered the Talkie once again, this time getting off the train because we unfortunately get off at the same stop. This time my Talkie senses had not spotted him when I heard behind me "Soooooo, how's the knitting going?" WHUT. Again my sense of polite self-preservation kicked in and I replied before the doors finally opened and I got to flee the Talkie. That was a couple of weeks ago and I haven't seen him since but something deep inside me is always on High Talkie Alert.

Yesterday I decided to take the train downtown for Laura's gradumacation party which was fairly near the Clybourn stop. Everything was probably more noticeable because I was alone, but the train is a) apparently jam-packed on weekends and b) most of that jam is snot-nosed teenagers putting their filthy shoes all over seats that other people will have to sit on. Sigh. At least the party was really fun.

What in fuck is with people running in front of the train? Nothing is that important that you need to risk your life to make a train. Yesterday I got on the train and another lady in the car got thrown off the train by a conductor for running in front of the train. OH SNAP.

Speaking of train infractions, in my time riding the Metra, Wilmette seems to be the most guilty of train infractions requiring a conductor to get on the intercom and issue a hot heaping helping of whupass. I've heard them yell at Wilmette twice now - once for running in front of the train and once for holding the doors open for a passenger trying to make the train. I suspect it's Wilmette acting out its resentment for being Winnetka Lite.

I know the months to come will bring me much more Metra-related amusement and pain so this is a topic I will definitely be revisiting. Until then, toodles.

WTF, CNN, WTF

So I'm browsing CNN's website this morning,

• wishing among other things that Jeremiah Wright would stay out of the limelight for about three minutes
• musing about how relatively easy the Presidential campaign has been thus far for John McCain
• remembering a most apt (and out-of-context) quote by my new favorite author, Christopher Moore, whose book Fluke: Or I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings contains a chapter titled Heinous Fuckery Most Foul. Indeed. There is no bottom to how low humanity may sink.

And then I notice something strange by the top headlines of CNN's homepage.

See those teeny t-shirt icons next to some of the headlines? Apparently it is a new feature of CNN.com to make certain headlines available in commemorative T-shirt form.

Whiskey.
Tango.
Foxtrot.

Why is that at all a useful feature of anything resembling anything? Granted, at least someone at CNN appears to control what headlines may be displayed across Jen Q. Public's prodigious boobies (I would hate to see what sick fucks would order "Austrian incest suspect confesses") but come on. They're unattractive t-shirts bearing headlines with (thus far) little to no entertainment value.

I may not love the specific and taken-out-of-context sentiment of Jeremiah Wright, "God Damn America" but I sure could get down with the Good Lord giving a swift kick in the kitten to news-for-maximum-profit-and-nominal-information. I think even John McCain could give me hallelujah on that one.

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Musings from the Pacific Northwest

So I'm out in the Seattle area for work this week. I knew ahead of time that this wouldn't be an especially fun trip, as I'm here to do a knowledge transfer from a person in an office that's being closed down. I can sympathize since I just came out of this situation myself months ago. To make things even better, the office network went down again (it's been doing this periodically for a couple of weeks now) which means I'm in the hotel working via VPN. Which I could have been doing back home and get to hug my kitties at night. Sigh.

Today I made the trip at least partly worth it by heading out to Fran's Chocolates. I saw these on the Food Network and I remembered them when I got the call to come out here. The item I saw on tv that really piqued my interest were the sea salt caramels. Caramels covered in dark chocolate and sprinkled with grey sea salt, or milk chocolate with smoked salt. The kind ladies at Fran's gave me two free milk chocolate ones to try since I'd bought so much chocolate. OMFG. Creamy chewy caramel (not hard chewy the way other caramel can be) and the salt is an amazing mix with the sweet chocolate and caramel. To my credit, the large box and one of the small boxes I bought are for my officemates, but I set myself up very nicely with the dark chocolate variety. YUM.

Sunday afternoon before I left for this trip, I was moving some stuff around in my home office and noticed my mini totes umbrella. All I thought was "huh, there's my mini totes." Not "Huh, I'm headed to the Seattle area, which has garnered past distinction for being an area of high precipitation of the wet and rainy kind." So that umbrella is still at home and I hoofed my way back from the mall last night in the rain. I never said I was a smart person.

I saw the movie Juno on the plane out here. I still don't understand why the commercials made it seem like the movie is only about Juno and her baby daddy played by Michael Cera. The guy is seriously in the movie for about 15 minutes. Other than that, I thought the movie was fairly cute - I had a faint feeling a couple of times that it was trying a bit hard to be cool and edgy but I didn't find it as irritating as say, Garden State.

In other travel tidbits, Alaska Air serves Jones Soda on their flights. As I was battling a slight case of McDonald's-induced sour tummy, I elected to get normal ginger ale for my beverage, but it was nice to see the Jones. The meathead sitting next to me complained and asked why they didn't have normal Coke products. Whatever. I also found an excellent pineapple soda in the lobby of the office building that uses cane sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup. Really yummy.

It's only Tuesday night. That fact kind of makes me want to cry. I refuse to drown my sorrows in salted caramels though. Luckily I already told one of the girls I work with about bringing these back next week. So either I leave them untouched or I have to go fight the parking nightmare in that area of town to get more. Which is sounding less and less heinous the more I remember that it's only Tuesday night. Sigh. Later, gators.

Scathing Movie Review or Jena Malone's Come Down in the World

So Laura and John likely won't clap and yell GOODY when I choose to return from the blogosphere dead with a scathing review of The Ruins, because they both thought this movie was ok/entertaining. I on the other hand, left the theater determined to protect people I like from this movie. (Our differences in movie tolerance lead me to believe that, if Laura viscerally believes that Battlefield Earth is one of the worst things ever to happen to film, then watching Battlefield Earth myself will likely physically kill me dead.)

The Ruins is based on the book of the same name by Scott Smith. Much to my surprise when I looked up the book on amazon after the movie, I found out that Smith also wrote A Simple Plan, which also went to the big screen. That movie was quite good, in my opinion, if jacked up and depressing at the same time. In comparison to that movie (and in general), The Ruins was a flop.

The basic premise is that 4 pretty Americans (including Jena Malone, who has done much better work than this) go on vacation to Mexico. They run into some German guy and are convinced to go along with him to find his brother at some archaeological dig where he has chased the latest Sweet Poontang of his life. They get to the dig and madcap gory high jinks rule the day.

I should note that I expected this movie to be bad. I was hoping it would be so bad it would swing back around to good. It never built up enough momentum to do that. It didn't build up much of anything, except an easy segue into The Ruins 2: Freaks vs. Greeks. The funniest moment of the movie may be a tie between:

• A somewhat pompous dick of a young medical student declaring to his terrified friends that "Americans do not just disappear in foreign countries while on vacation!!!" Think Natalee Holloway would beg to differ with you, Mr. "America, FUCK YEAH!!!!".
• The discovery that the same character hailed from Winnetka, IL. This joke is most understandable to people from the Chicagoland area. The rest of you can just take our word that finding out a white pompous dick med student comes from Winnetka is just about as surprising as learning that Karl Rove was sent back from 2037 by Cyberdyne Industries to ruin America.
  

All in all my reactions to this movie fluctuated between "WHY?" and "SICK." and "This will never end." Not to mention a certain flower scene melded with the scene from Carrie where she starts killing everyone's ass at the prom and that was stuck in my brain for about 2 solid days after. There was very little purpose for the things that happened, other than to shock and awe the audience with blood. Which is really a shame because even with the somewhat lame setup it could have been a real mindfuck of interpersonal dynamics and what people will think and then do in order to survive. I wonder if the book does a better job of this - Stephen King seemed to think so anyway.

(JEBUS HAROLD I just figured out why Stephen King loves this book so much - the premise (and possibly the execution, I don't know) is basically his short story The Raft but on land with plants instead of water. I wonder if that guy jacks off to his own stories.)

There are worse movies. Turistas was worse. Hitcher 2 was worse. Seeing it free on cable probably wouldn't damage your soul the way Jeepers Creepers damaged mine. But don't spend the full price of admission on it. Unless maybe it's Winnetka Pride Week.

This Blog Has Nine Lives

No I have not been here for many months. Life has drained most of the life out of me for months now. A brief recap of what's been happening:

• I had surgery in September (which you all know if you read previous entries)
• I got notice at the beginning of October that I would be laid off Jan 1.
• Immediately after receiving this news, I have to spend half the next month in New Jersey to work on finishing up a project. In general, I do not enjoy New Jersey, and in particular I do not enjoy Newark Airport
• Holidays
• My unemployment begins. Job hunt is freaking me out. My overactive imagination projects me into the future where I am homeless and living in a box.
• Beginning of February, I start a new job and new job pressured high jinks ensue

My life is just now really stabilizing again. So I feel I can return to the blogosphere with a couple of posts full of my usual mocking and bitching. I promise my 3 readers that they will wonder why they asked me to update this thing.

Basic Survival Skills in the NFL, or Thank Gods Todd Sauerbrun is Learning-Impaired

I haven't blogged lately, and that means I haven't blogged about the Bears lately. And that's because the Bears are depressing. Today I decided to tune in to the game vs. the Broncos, during which I discovered that the Broncos kicker fails at basic survival skills.

For those who are not NFL-aware, Devin Hester is the most devastating punt returner in the game today. If you give him a centimeter, he will take a touchdown. Generally, every team in the NFL knows this fact and have added this basic rule to their survival manuals.

Do not kick high and up the middle to Devin Hester.

This is akin to laymen saying:

Do not set yourself on fire. You can if you really want to, but you're probably going to regret it. A lot.

Todd Sauerbrun of the Broncos missed the memo and punted a beauty to Hester which was promptly returned a cool 70-some yards for a touchdown. He fell over in the backdraft created by Hester zooming to the endzone.

Ok fine, sometimes people have to learn things the hard way. Except Sauerbrun apparently needed this additional rule in his manual:

Do not kick high and up the middle to Devin Hester again if you already did it once.

Which is akin to laymen saying:

After setting yourself on fire, putting yourself out, and dressing your burns, do not set yourself on fire again. Seriously. You can probably still feel the pain of your blistering flesh even as you read this. Don't light that match. Seriously.

Because he kicked another humdinger to Hester which got returned a cool 80-some yards for another touchdown. Possibly I got the 70-some and the 80-some switched. The end result is the same. 6 points for the Bears and Sauerbrun flat on his back watching Hester set his ass on fire. Again.

As a human with basic cognitive skills I find it a little disturbing when a fellow human turns on the extra-strength stupid like that. But as a Bears fan I am extremely grateful for this turn of events. And Gods bless Robbie Gould for the game-winner.

PLEASE let this verdict stand

"God Hates Fags" church (aka the Pestilence Known as Fred Phelps and His Ilk) ordered to pay $10.9 million for funeral protest

I wish I hadn't eaten dinner before reading this because this is so tasty and delicious I could have saved myself a bunch of calories.

Truth

Newark Airport - conveniently located just minutes away from the exact center of hell!

Things That Are Pissing Me Off

Any Wal-Mart commercial, but particularly the Wal-Mart commercial which tells you the heart-warming reason why pro football players love their mommies - because their mommies were able to give them junk food bought at Wal-Mart and wash their tighty-whities with laundry detergent bought at Wal-Mart. It ends with the incredibly dumbass sexist comment "and they say moms don't know anything about football." I had plenty of reasons to hate Wal-Mart but they keep making sure I never run dry.

Trying to get out of the house for a bit and take myself to Target or the grocery store, only to find after about 20 minutes in the store that I am suddenly lightheaded and worn out and need to get my pathetic ass back home.

The look and feel of a healing abdominal incision. The look and feel of my abdomen around the incision in general.

Capitalizing on an interception that your rock-star defense snagged for your team, by throwing the ball right back to the other team. And by capitalizing, I mean eating the opportunity with flaming habanero salsa, causing it to come shooting out the other end in fiery stanky horror to be flushed down a toilet.

The fact that I can fully sneeze again (for a while after the surgery I couldn't) and the fact that I don't seem to be able to stop fully sneezing now that I've started. My incision is ill-pleased.

Thankfully, my kitties and a small supply of 3 Musketeers Mint with Dark Chocolate minis are helping me get by, otherwise I'd be trying to choke a bitch right now. Just as soon as I get up the energy.

All Things Ghetto Fabulous (Including One Extraordinarily Dumb Cat)

I've decided I need to get in on the do-crap-and-get-paid-for-it action. I want Food Network to air my new show, Ghetto Fabulous Kwizeen. An entire episode will be devoted to spray cheese. I will probably need an entire week to cover the glory of Spam. And the myriad ways to tart up ramen noodles and Hostess pastries will probably carry me into early retirement. Believe me, you'll thank me when the Velveeta Dinty Moore Ramen Bake episode airs.

Speaking of trash, I received a bag of circus peanuts from John and Laura this weekend. Now, in my humble opinion, circus peanuts join forces with Peeps and candy corn to form the Unholy Candy Trinity. Every ten years or so I get the urge to taste one or the other of these candies, just to remind myself why I hate these candies. The last time I ate circus peanuts was in college, and I distinctly remember chewing it with my mouth open, as though I could possibly release the circus peanut evil back into the wild that way. It does not work. And it did not work this time. Circus peanuts = horrid gritty fake banana awful. As Laura cited in her blog earlier, Bad-Candy.com waxes highly poetic on the subject of circus peanuts and how gritty/horrible they are.

I have yet to meet a person who loves circus peanuts. But yesterday, I found out I own a cat who loves circus peanuts. Yes, my feline badonkadonkdonk Molly was presented with a circus peanut and proceeded to lick and chew the crap out of it. And this morning when I came downstairs, what did I find on the floor but the open bag of circus peanuts and a partially masticated peanut next to it. I think with Halloween so close I'm going to pick up some candy corn and Peeps and see how she takes to those. I have a feeling she'll be able to guest-host Ghetto Fabulous Kwizeen for me.

In more boring news, I started working from home today. It went mostly ok, I had to lie down flat on my back for a few minutes during the day to relieve the pressure on my incision, sitting upright all day doesn't do it any favors. I think in a couple more days I'm going to try driving (doctor's orders = no driving for 2 wks).

The Crap People Get Paid Good Money For

So in the course of my enforced post-op inactivity, I've been napping, knitting, reading, and surfing the largely desolate landscape of daytime TV. Today I flipped past Food Network and was accosted by Sandra Lee, who in my opinion is the biggest no-talent ass muppet to hit food television, and that's saying a freaking lot considering how much airtime Rachael Ray and her EVOOMGSTFU gets.

So anyway, this woman was making what she called Vanilla Cranberry Can Cakes



What are they? They're blueberry muffin mix without the blueberries and cranberries stirred in, baked in used food cans. Tarted-up used food cans by the time that pic was taken, but used cans all the same.

And she got paid who knows how much to show me this shit on TV.

I feel insane.

Powering Through

Slowly getting better. Still haven't used my vicodin, I think I am going to stick to the copious ibuprofen unless things take a turn for the worse. Yesterday and today both I managed to get out of the house and take a walk around the block, but each time I felt pretty drained on arriving home. But I do feel better overall.

Daytime tv sucks festering balls.

And I'm Back

Surgery went A-OK on Thursday morning, and I came home from the hospital on Saturday morning. For anyone considering major abdominal surgery as a form of entertainment, well I really cannot recommend it. For the gruesome play-by-play, keep reading.

I checked in for surgery Thursday morning, got blood taken, and got hooked up to my first IV line. My surgeon and anesthesiologist both came in to talk to me. Because my parents showed up 40 min early to pick me up, we were doing a lot of thumb-twiddling. I was inspecting my IV line and asking the anesthesia guy if bubbles in the line are normal (apparently they are). I got wheeled over to anesthesia guy (AG) and he puts a sedative in my IV before administering what I think was some kind of spinal block which I would later find out is totally totally awesome. AG tells me I don't have to look as he injects the IV but of course that made me look anyway.

Next thing I know I wake up and think - freaking-A, I hope I'm not still waiting for surgery. I feel faint pressure and hear a kid screaming on the gurney next to me, so I ask "Am I done?" and a nurse chirps "You're done, sweetie!" Then I get wheeled to a room. Yay! No roomies. All for me.

Thanks to Totally Awesome Spinal Stuff, I feel no pain. Thanks to General Anesthesia, I am feeling hella nauseous. Thankfully the nurses got right on putting an anti-nausea thing in my IV. Phew. I cannot imagine that puking at this point would be a Happy Fun Time. My parents come in, and after hanging up clothes for me, putting my bag within reach, and fumbling with the controls on my bed and tv, they figure they can do much less damage elsewhere, so they leave.

I discover that Totally Awesome Spinal Stuff has the unfortunate side effect of making my nose, face, and chest itch like an evil dirty disease. Between this and getting my vitals taken every hour or two by one of a procession of kindly care techs, I'm only able to nap on and off for the next 40 hours or so. Luckily the Pope cancelled our weekend meeting so I had nowhere I had to be.

I get some jello down but am still feeling a bit queasy so I don't risk anymore. Totally Awesome Spinal Stuff is still working, so the rest of the night is spent napping and getting vitals taken. Also, instead of the old-school surgical stockings you used to have to wear to prevent blood clots, I had this contraption wrapped around each of my legs. The best way I can describe it is a shiatsu massager for my legs...a really annoying shiatsu massager that would have made sleep impossible all by itself.

Friday morning comes along, and the nurse takes away all the annoying stuff that is keeping me in bed except for the IV, which she temporarily disconnected so I could try and get out of bed and test my sea legs. I successfully use the bathroom which was one of my criteria for getting my release ok'ed, so that's a plus. And then around 24 hrs after the surgery, that rotten bitch Totally Awesome Spinal Stuff takes off forever, and in her place she has left Indisputable Pain.

I have never been one to complain much about pain - I don't see much point in complaining about it. But after walking around my room a bit, moving stuff in my bag, and my bed tray and lunch tray, my incision informs me that I have tried to do too much. Thankfully the nurses came to the rescue with liquid ibuprofen in my IV, so I never had to be on narcotics at all. I know some people were looking forward to the kinds of crazy I would be able to come up with under the influence of morphine, but alas you will have to settle for my ibuprofen musings.

Saturday morning I get a new nurse, and it turns out she went to my high school and graduated the same year as I did. Crazy small world. I get discharged Saturday and my parents took me to breakfast and then home, where Mom commenced her orgy of cleaning as her way of helping me out. I ended up sending her home on Sunday afternoon, as there wasn't much she could do to make my incision comfortable, and I was getting by ok on my own otherwise.

So far it's been mostly bearable, and a test of my creativity as I figure out new ways to do the basics like getting in and out of bed without using my abdomen. Taking it easy on my midsection means it's been a lot harder on my back, arms, and legs, so they're starting to get sore. I've been using my toes to pick up a lot of things. I was given a scrip for Vicodin which I did fill, but so far have been powering through on copious amounts of OTC ibuprofen. I'm also getting tired pretty easily - I've had one nap today and am thinking about taking another. But from what I hear everywhere this first week is the toughest. I'll be back on hopefully soon if the enforced inactivity starts to bring out the blogging genius in me.

Toodles,
D

My Cats Imbibing Treats

Today I gave the cats some Feline Greenies treats. Even though Guinness is my thin cat and Molly is my chunky monkey, the following is and always has been an accurate depiction of their approaches to the arrival of treats.

Guinness: ZOMG TREATS TREATS OH MAN TREATS FUCKIN' RULE *chompchompsnorf* *gulpchompsnorf* TREATS ARE SO AWESOME THEY ARE TOTALLY THE SHIT *chompsnorfsnorfinhale* BITCH ARE YOU GONNA EAT THOSE TREATS OR WHAT??? (directed at Molly)

Molly: Who am I? What are these? *sniffsniff* Hm, I think I can eat these. *crunchcrunch* Bit hot out today, don't you think? *crunch* What is math? *crunchcrunch* Why do I even care what math is? *crunch* Jigga wha? HEY. (directed at Guinness who has come to commandeer the treats that Molly was too slow to eat because she was pondering math.)

Almost There

So I'm just about 36 hours away from surgery and I cannot wait. Seriously. I would so much rather charge in and make the unknown into the known and be experiencing the road to recovery instead of wondering how it's going to be. Still have a bit more cleaning to do, a load of laundry tomorrow, and then pack my bag and go to my last bellydance class. Mom is coming to stay with me after the surgery and of course I will never get the house as clean as she would have it. Such is the nature of moms.

I'll be back sometime next week hopefully, check y'all later!

A Dream for the Hall of Fame

My favorite dream of all time probably has to be the one where Jimmy Stewart and George Clooney were fighting over me, using Jello and ball point pens as weapons. But the other night I had one that seriously fights for the top spot.

I was at this year's Chicago Marathon, which will be about 4 weeks after my surgery, cheering on a friend of mine who will be running it for the third time this year. I was sitting in a chair on the sidewalk when Fatboy Slim's Weapon of Choice (see the video) starts blasting in the background, so I got up to dance because I love that song. LO AND BEHOLD, who starts dancing right next to me but CHRISTOPHER FREAKING WALKEN. So we danced together (nope, no flying and dancing off the walls though) and at the end of the song, he dipped me, at which point the excitement and the post-op fatigue combined and I passed out. It was totally worth it. Best dream ever.