Look Ma!

Here's the thing: I'm so proud of myself for figuring this out that it is trumping my self-pride. For lo, if I had any pride I would wait until I looked better to actually inflict myself on you like this. But the "tee" factor in having actually made a movie is just too much to bear. So grab some popcorn and enjoy my first foray into video blogging.




And remember what Thumper's daddy always said, "If you can't say sumpthin' nice..."

Time for Another Steaming Cuppa

Crap.

I know it is winter. I know that it is around about this time that contagion flourish and people succumb to same. But it always annoys me when I get sick right around this time, which I do just about every other year, what with it being the weekend of The Child's birthday and arrangements needing to be made. Lord, one year...I think it was her 5th birthday...I was so sick that I had to call her godmother to help. I muddled through and as soon as her party was over I took to my bed. Later I was watching video of the party and I was all, "They were there?" and "That happened?" and "God-dad played his bagpipes?" I barely remembered a thing. That's sick.

This isn't that sick but it's day two of a brain tumor plus all the snorting afflictions I've been coping with all week and I'm in a right foul mood about it, let me tell you.

At least my hair is awesome.

Point is, must muddle through and accomplish one or two things before returning to the sanctuary of my bed, including devising some sort of decoy gift because the laptop she's getting for her present hasn't actually been ordered yet. I did pick up those High School Musical socks for her yesterday...

No, she doesn't read my blog.

Crazy, right? If you were 14 and your mom had a blog wouldn't you totally be checking it out to see what she was saying about you? Me too! The Child, apparently, did not get our paranoid gene.

Also, and this has nothing to do with anything, but I'm about ready to start slapping people. Hillary and Barack are both pissing me off and they'd better knock it off and get back to the issues. In other political news, I saw part of the Republican debate last night and would just like to say that Mitt Romney still makes my skin crawl.

Right. Here's a little song. Has nothing to do with anything. I just like it. And dang, is that Sling on the bass? Dude! Cool jacket. Do you still have the number for the drummer? He's cute.




The American Breed "Bend Me, Shape Me"

Pain Gives Me Run-ons

I just got up, well, for the second time that is.

I woke up this morning with a killer headache. Scrounged through my morning usuals then took the car for my emissions test - which I passed, thank heaven, because this really isn't the time of year to be shelling out $150 for a tuneup plus my tabs expire at the end of the month and it's Christmas next week so I'd have probably had to take it to a shyster instead of my regular guy and who knows how that would have turned out and why I waited until the last minute to take care of this is beyond me because it's not a big deal but it's just not very glamorous so I don't get very excited about it so off it is put but that's all moo anyway because, like I said, I passed, even though all the while I had this very bad headache.

Hat said that it would go away if I drank a glass of warm salt water and I know, well, I'm pretty sure, that she meant well and wasn't just trying to punk me but it was very nasty AND it didn't work so once I got home from the emissions test I climbed into bed and slept, feeling just excellent the whole time except for the first few minutes when The Dog was all in my face with his garbage breath and worming against me for pats but once I buried my head under the blankets he went down to the foot of the bed and snuggled between my feet and we slept very nicely and I didn't feel a smitch of pain the whole time although I did have very strange dreams about visiting my sister-in-law in an all yellow flat that had very high staircases and sometimes I was trying to get up the staircases with all these strangers and I kept feeling like I was drunk and about to fall any second but I never did and of course, despite the precarious nature of the stairs, my head didn't hurt so I was happy even as I clung to the ornate railing.

But then the phone rang ahead of my alarm so I got up lest it be The Child or The Neighbor but it was a woman at church reminding us that The Child is taking up the gifts on Sunday, along with 13 other children who have been baptised by Father and been raised in the parish...it's the last celebration of our centennial year and it's going to be very sweet plus we have pews reserved back by the font for that Mass which will be nice because that means we get to receive Eucharist from Father because our usual Sunday morning place is in the south and he never serves from there but this stinking headache is starting to really get on my nerves and tonight is the Advent Concert at school and I can tell you right now I'm not sure how perky I'm going to be about that with this skewer stuck in the side of my head. Actually, I can. I'm not going to be perky about it at all. But attendance is required (for the kids, that is) so it's not like skipping it is an option. Plus it's the last one of elementary school and let's face it, even though most of the songs tend more to the excruciating than the tuneful, it's just the sweetest thing ever so I wouldn't miss it but having already taken the legal limit of ibuprofen I'm not sure how I'll survive.

I'll tell you one thing. No way I'm trying that warm salt water trick again.

Tag

Rosemary tagged me so now I have to come up with 10 interesting facts about myself. And that's sorta funny because I'm trying to think of 10 things I haven't already told you.

1. I'm addicted to computer games. When I'm feeling lazy or bored I can get sucked into hours of gaming. If someone would pay me to play The Sims, I'd be really happy. The best thing about a day like today, what with a brain tumor and all, is that I can play games without guilt because I'm not fit for anything else.

2. As a kid I totally believed in space aliens and lived in fear that they would come for me. One time a rumor started at school that aliens were coming to earth to take away all the children. I totally believed it, obsessed about it, prayed that we'd be spared and could only hope my parents would do something to stop the aliens. Then one evening, in the car, I heard them talking and they were saying things like "How long do they have?" and "I feel so helpless" and "There's nothing we can do but pray" and I totally panicked. The night before the aliens were supposed to come I cried myself to sleep. The next morning I was halfway through my bowl of Cheerios before realizing I hadn't been abducted.

Funny thing about all that? 412 years later I was watching an episode of "The Wonder Years" and Kevin was convinced his parents were getting a divorce because he kept hearing them talk in hushed, terse tones. It turned out that his parents were fine but were worrying about the Apollo 13 astronauts. And that's when I realized that was what my parents had been talking about.

3. I enjoy doing housework. But not mopping so much. Or scrubbing the bathtub. Which is why I wipe it down with a little shampoo when I take a shower.

4. I'm not the world's biggest chocolate fan but there's not much better in the world than a chocolate chip cookie warm from the oven with a tall glass of milk.

5. When I was a kid my favorite sandwiches were ketchup on white bread and Miracle Whip & iceberg lettuce. Also on white bread. I don't think this diet had anything to do with my fear of aliens.

6. I capsized a kayak in the Straits of Juan de Fuca when I was a tween. I didn't drown because I was only about 6 feet from shore and could stand up under the boat. It was scary, though.

7. I absolutely loathe and abominate sewing. I'm going to blog about that when my brain tumor goes away.

8. I had my first boyfriend when I was 14. I was taller than him.

9. I didn't get my driver's license until I was 40. That's right. 4-0. I learned to drive when I was a teenager, I just never had occasion to make it official. I was once T-boned by an English professor of mine, while driving alone in my room-mate's car. The cop on the scene was really ticked at me but he didn't even give me a ticket because the accident was so totally the prof's fault. I still can't believe I got away with that. What an idiot.

10. I have a terrible time remembering dates in history, basic scientific principles and my x8 math facts but would guess, at a minimum, I have the lyrics to about 412,000 songs and hymns in my head.

I should have done this after my nap. I'm sure it would have been far more interesting. So now I'm going to tag
City Mouse,
Jon,
Red7,
Greeny and Dana.

Unoriginal Thoughts

I didn't blog yesterday and I woke up this morning at 4am with a brain tumor so I don't feel like blogging now. But I'm going to. I'm stalwart that way.

Last night I dreamt that The Spouse and I were at a restaurant with Jon, Iwanski and Miss Healthypants. I was sitting next to Iwanski and he didn't speak the entire time so I kept coming up with stuff to talk about, each topic more lame than the last. I think it's because Jon and I have been talking all week about this Chinese place that we have to eat at when we're in Chicago this summer and because Iwanski said something in a post this week about hating to have unoriginal conversations. At which point I thought, "Frak. I have to come up with some original thoughts by July. When am I going to have time to do that?"

Fascinating what the subconscious will put together for our amusement. The Neighbor had a very detailed dream last weekend wherein she was engaged to Richard Gere and her mom was angry because she'd forgotten to pack her wedding dress so her mom had to ship it to her. "And it cost me $200," she complained. The funniest thing about the dream was that The Neighbor kept calling her betrothed "Richard Gere". Not Richard, Rich, Rick, Dick or Snookums but always Richard Gere.

The Spouse is making fried chicken for dinner tonight and chimichangas tomorrow. That's exciting.

And that is all I have to offer in this brief lull before my brain tumor acts up again. I need a nap.

Good Friday, Wherein I Manage to Make A Inordinate Number of Parenthetical Statements

I have a killer headache today. At first I was really grumpy about it but then I thought about the significance of today in Christian tradition and thought, "Well, maybe a little suffering is appropriate".

Today is supposed to be one of fasting and prayer. Got the first part down (and no, that's not why my head hurts), the prayer not so much quite yet. We are just now entering the 3 sacred hours, or Tre Ore, the time when we remember Christ's crucifixion. I usually try to keep this time in some way; if I don't go to the Tre Ore service at church then I at least try to unplug and be quiet, read the crucifixion story in Scripture and pray. I'll get to that in a bit.

The day began with other pursuits. Halfway home from dropping off The Child I realized I hadn't given her money for her lunchtime soup, so had to go back. Then my car did this weird stalling thing that it started doing this week where all of a sudden it just refuses to start. No sound, no lights, no clicking, no nothing. Needless to say, this has been semi-alarming given the fact that I've already repaired my car once in the last month. The odd thing is that after about 5 or 10 minutes it starts up again and behaves perfectly fine. The good news? The Spouse checked my battery and a lead was loose. He fixed it and says that should solve the problem. It's a Good Friday miracle.

After all that nonsense, I was finally able to get to the main goal of this morning, collecting the Easter groceries. Oh, how I love shopping for feasts. Best of all, purchase of the BAH required a trip to the Pike Place Market.

I love the Market. It is a tourist destination, which brings with it some annoyance, but annoyance happily forborne. When I lived downtown I shopped there every week (and I just realized that means nearly 30 years). We tried to maintain that once we moved to our house but it wasn't really practical so now I only get down there a few times a year, usually at the holidays, because we always purchase our festal meat from Don and Joe's Meats.

Since Trader Joe's didn't have any dry pink wine (which is what I prefer with ham) and I was going to be in the Market anyway, the adventure began at Pike and Western Wines. Here's what I love about the Market. Even though I don't shop there regularly anymore, my vendors still love me. I walked into Pike and was greeted with raucous joy by the proprietor and clerk. They've known me since before I was married. They remember when The Child was barely 3 and would stand on the counter and sing "Don't Cry for Me Argentina". I still remember when Maureen's kids were peanuts. Geez, I remember when she was pregnant with them. And I love that I can still walk in there and say, "I need something dry and pink for my ham" and Michael will just grab something he knows I will adore.

After promising to bring The Child in sometime soon, I wandered all the way to the
other end of the Market, past the Japanese tourists taking pictures. Tourists posing in front of buskers, tourists posing in front of Rachael the Pig, tourists posing with a greengrocer who threw the goat as he held up a basket of strawberries. I have often wondered how many photo albums all over the world contain photos of moi because I happened to be walking past tourists taking pictures. I digress.

Safely navigating through the thickets of tourists and pan handlers I was greeted at Don and Joe's with an enthusiastic "Lorraine!" Talk about feeling loved. More inquiries after the health of the family, more reminiscing about The Child when she was wee, and a really lovely sense of belonging to a community.

And then, oh then. I headed back to the car, out the walkway that connects the Market to the parking garage and was just gobsmacked, once again, by the brilliant beauty of this city. I don't think I mention it very often, probably because I take it for granted, but Seattle is a frakkin' beautiful place. I could smell the sea. The sun was out in all it's glory and Elliot Bay was throwing spangles everywhere. The Olympic mountains, dark and still covered with snow, popped out from the horizon. It was just one of those completely breathtaking moments and I breathed it all, amazed once again that I get to live in such a gorgeous place.

It made me forget all about my brain tumor for a minute.

So now I'm home and have to unpack all the glorious food that's sitting at my feet and candy some lemon slices for the lemon tart. Then I'll pray. Some more. Because there's a way in which the whole morning has been one big prayer of gratitude...gratitude for laughter and connections, for money to buy beautiful food, for a Spouse smart enough to fix my car, for a beautiful world and the glory of the Easter season. Yep. Feeling pretty grateful. (Although the headache, not so much. Just saying).

Friday? Fuggetaboudit.

Woke up this morning feeling like crap on a cracker.

It's mostly a headache. And you know what that means. Yep. Brain tumor.

So I'm heading back to bed with a cup of coffee, 2 aspirin and W magazine. Maybe I'll take a little nap.

You know what is nice about this? I did a bunch of stuff yesterday...stuff so significant that people noticed. (The inside of the fridge looks like new). And since my house is all nice and cozy I can go to bed and nurse my brain without a lick of I-shouldn't-be-languishing-here-when-there-are-things-to-do-itis.

Btw, I am now making The Child do her own laundry. It so rocks.

Blog Games

I will posit that Blogtopia is a place and one of my proofs is that it has a culture. It is early Saturday morning so I am not going to explore this in depth. But part of a culture is games. In Blogtopia we play tag.

Here's what I know about tag in Blogtopia. Nothing. Every once in a while I've seen someone "tagged" in their comments but I didn't really get it. Not unlike the play yard in school, I've just stood on the sidelines watching the cool kids have fun. But now I've been tagged, which either means I'm one of the cool kids or jp is just mean and setting me up for some horrible humiliation that will come down during the civics test in 6th period. But I'm hopeful.

So my task is to tell you 6 neurotic things about myself. Then I have to tag 6 other bloggers. That might be weird because my bloggy world is so close that I have to assume that jp has already tagged all the people I would tag. Plus there's the whole "you annoying biatch" thing if I tag someone who doesn't like to play reindeer games.

1) I worry too much about whether or not people will think I'm a biatch if I tag them in Blogtopia.

2) When I was 13 or 14 I read a book wherein a young bride died of cholera in India, on her honeymoon, after eating grapes that were bought from a street vendor and ever since I've been afraid to go to India and eat fruit. I have also been unable to read Love in the Time of Cholera. (Oddly, I don't fear grapes).

3) Every time I get a headache I think it's a brain tumor.

4) Not only am I afraid of spiders but I think that if I squish them and flush them down the toilet they will climb back out to get me and be twice as big as they were when they died.

5) I worry that I will die in some manner that will make people laugh.

6) I was going to say that I worry about The Child all the time and you'd just chalk it up to general motherhood but, for example, when she was an infant I would check her every 5 minutes during naptime to make sure she was still breathing.

Now I have to go tag me a few bloggers who I hope will not be annoyed and understand that I'm tagging them because I think they would have some nice neurotic things to share and because I know they're cool. (Please don't hate me, please don't hate me....)