Good Luck

So my thoughts are with a couple of dire situations in the public eye: one near, one far.

Air Conditioning... Give Me Air Conditioning!

First, to the poor folks in St. Louis, who had a nasty storm knock out the power to 500,000 homes and businesses just before an equally nasty heatwave this week... triple digit heat. Power companies are STILL struggling to get the power back up, and the national gaurd is actually evacuating the most susceptible (old, sick, etc.) to air-conditioned facilities. So far, I believe there have been 22 deaths across the country related to the heat.

Good news is: the weather finally turned today, and we're only in the 80's, with a series of thunderstorms passing through. While my head is feeling the dropping barometric pressure, it's definately a good thing for folks without air conditioning. Of course while I totally feel for them, I have to wonder at how spoiled we are. A century ago, this would simply be a fact of life. But then... a century ago, we'd be losing a lot of the old and sick.

One (More) Clusterfuck, Made to Order

Then there's the (additional) mess in the Middle East, with Israel bombing the crap out of Lebanon trying to rout out Hezbollah. Personally, I cannot imagine living amongst the mess that Israel has for so long, so I can't really judge... but I can't like the systematic butchering of innocents in the pursuit of their quest. I can't help but wonder where the vicious circle will end... of retaliation for retaliation, with each side hating and villainizing the other just a little more each time to the point that all is left is hate and self-righteousness. And I don't doubt that each side truly believes they are the true victims and in the right. And I also don't doubt that the circle must end... just not sure who or what's gonna be left once it does.

Good news is: ummm... nope, no good news in there at all.

Dream Chronicles

So this morning I was reminded of the drawbacks of waking up to the news. My alarm first goes off at 6 am, and I typically fall back in and out of a light sleep for the next hour to hour and a half… and boy, does my brain pick up on a lotta info during that time. And sifts it into some seriously odd dreams. I can have 6 or 7 mini-dreams during this time.

This morning, I vaguely recall dreaming about the doctor and two nurses being charged with four counts of murdering their patients while trapped in one of the hospitals during the chaos in New Orleans after Katrina. I don’t remember much, except trying to talk to them and understand what exactly happened and why they did it. Personally, not knowing the details, I can only imagine what kind of horrid choices they had to make during those days.

I also remember dreaming of Tropical Storm Beryl, and being relieved that he seems to be staying away from land. No real interaction in this dream… sometimes I think my subconscious just absorbs the news, but doesn’t necessarily create a scenario out of it.

The only dream that really stayed with me in any detail was a real shocker… and I can’t find any references to it in the news. So that one could have been a Ms. Pukesalot’s Mom-Brain-Special. I remember watching a deep blue (Blue Angels kinda blue) mid-size passenger aircraft attempting to lift off. But it seems to be having trouble keeping it’s butt up. The tail end keeps dipping down, and I can tell the pilots keep trying to bounce it back up. It’s in the air, but not far off the ground. Suddenly, the tail end completely bounces up and flips the whole plane over… the momentum smashes it down into the ground, and it bursts into a spectacular explosion of flames.

That’s pretty much all I remember, except standing there shocked and having no idea what I could do to help. What anybody could do to help, actually. Not a pleasant dream.

But, since the rest of the support staff are out early this morning for one form of training or another, I vowed I’d make a concerted effort to get in on time. Somehow, that sense of urgency stayed with me this morning, and I finally managed to cut off the dreams. I’m kinda thinking that was a good thing, for more reason than one.

Weekend Blues

So I've had better weekends. As can be surmised from my previous post, I managed to electrocute myself. Not badly, though. It didn't even really hurt... was just an extremely odd sensation. And alarming... convinced me to wait to flip over the outlets (I was tired of not being able to use upward facing nightlights... I have no idea why every single outlet in my duplex was installed upside down) until morning (with daylight to work by) to retry, utilizing the correct procedures (ie: shutting off the power... duh).

And as I also indicated in my previous post... my head had something to say about the short burst of electricity that coursed through the left side of my body. I'd been fighting nausiating migraines for about a week by that point, anyway, so it didn't need much nudging.

Didn't get much done in the way of my database, as I'd hoped. In fact, I didn't get on my computer once. I ended up missing a day and a half of work last week, and I still couldn't put a single minute of it to good use. I know I'm sounding like a broken record, but sometimes I really, really, really wish I could just chop my head off. *sigh*

But... Mom asked me on Saturday to help her pick out custom framing for some more of her prints, which I was happy to do. She does so much for me, and I'm glad I have something I'm good at (and enjoy) to help her with when she asks. Then we rushed a quick trip through Hobby Lobby before I had to pick up Gram for her appt. I think my head might have stood a better chance through the day if it hadn't been so hot out. It doesn't handle heat very well at ALL.

So I popped a probably inadvisable amount of pills both Saturday and Sunday, and I cried off of Sunday dinner. Which the folks then cancelled altogether cuz Pop wasn't feeling so well, either. So i didn't feel TOO bad for messin things up. Of course, the upside of cancelling dinner was that Mom and I could watch our Sunday night shows.

Unfortunately, however, my cable went out (yet again) Friday night, so I was unable to watch OR record the two sets of shows I try to keep track of on Friday nights. Mom recorded the first two hours of our Sci Fi shows (Season Premieres), so we were able to watch those, but I'm now trying to find additional airings of my Friday USA shows. Inconveniences, inconveniences.

But... things are definately looking up... at least in the pain department. After so much concentrated medications in my system, I was pretty out of it yesterday at work. But as they wore off through the day, the pain didn't come back (at least not full force) so I didn't need to take more. And today I'm actually almost back to feeling normal. I can still feel the miraine lurking in the shadows, so it's not banished altogether. But lurking is vastly preferable to full blown attack, so I'll take what I can get. :)

And work is definately picking up again... lulls are few and far between these days. So all is well. In fact, I'd best get back to it.

Until next time...

Weekend Lessons

Lesson #1:

The little hammer-wielding man who resides in my head does NOT like being electrocuted.

Lesson #2:

I will never ever again forget to flip the breaker before attempting to rearrange an outlet.

Catchin Up

So a lot’s been goin on lately, and I just haven’t felt inclined to blog about it. Well, correction… I’ve thought plenty about blogging, but just couldn’t muster the motivation. That’s the downfall of shaking one’s life up a bit… leaves less time to write about it, and the longer you don’t write the more there is to write about and then it’s waaaaaay too much work.

But… here I am. Primarily cuz my workload at work has significantly dropped this week, and I’m having my usual “difficulty-switching-gears” issue. I have plenty of back-burner stuff to do… and even a few of my normal duties, but my brain just doesn’t wanna slow down. Instead, it’s zoomin about in the cosmos not really settling or focusing on anything. So I figured I’d try to give it something different to focus on.

So let the long-due disgorgement commence…

New at Work

So… first on the list of news is our new “new-girl” at work. I have high hopes for this one. She’s a bit odd (just like the rest of us), and incredibly organized in her own fashion, and catching onto most everything I’m throwing at her rather adeptly. I think she will be a good fit… so long as she stops trying to shake my hand every evening to thank me for putting up with her. lol I’m gonna have to call her the Hand Shaker.

The Hand Shaker has been with us for a week and a half now. Last week saw a full concentration of training. That could be another reason why I’m burnt out at the moment… you never quite realize just how much information is bumping about in your head until you start to download it. This week has been a little more lackadaisical… she’s starting to work on some of her other duties and catching up with me if I do some new things she hasn’t learned yet… while I’ve been savoring keeping my thoughts to myself (and saving my voice) while I work. I can only take so much concentrated interaction with another person all friggin day.

So that’s pretty much it for work. We’ll see how the new dynamic works. If nothing else pulls her away (as happened with the LAST “new-girl”… now the new Office Manager) she should be able to help distribute my typical workload a little better. As she’s learning and creating her own work-guides, I hope to update MY office procedures guides so that all of the support staff can fill in as necessary (such as when I’m gone for two weeks in October). My guides are so old and I’ve incorporated so many changes to procedures that it’s a bit of a mess right now, except for what’s in my head. Well, okay, that too.

Unfortunately, these procedures updates are one of my “backburner” stuff I just can’t get motivated to work on. Mebbe this afternoon. Or whenever.

Holiday Festivities

So my last few weeks have been filled with all sorts of socialization… at least, it’s been a lot for me. IHOP Buddy and I are fully reconciled now. She came to visit the Thursday before the holiday weekend (the holiday being the 4th of July), and I took off of work a little early and we went shopping. And, of course, IHOP. All I have to say is: it’s a good thing we don’t go shopping together often. lol I’m not a huge fan of clothes shopping… but my weaknesses are books and home décor. And she just loves to shop, period. So get us together, and nobody’s really around to say: hmm… do you REALLY need that?

Amway, then she invited me to a BBQ at her place that weekend, along with a fireworks show for the evening. Her hubby, as a truck driver, had been haulin a bunch of fireworks recently (obviously) and one grateful guy gave him an entire crate of em’ as thanks for helping to unload. Of course, I appreciated the invite, but worried about my usual 11th-hour social freeze-up. But, we determined that since I’d get there earlier than her other guests, and I always had the out of retreating to a new Playstation game she wanted me to see anyway if my anti-socialness got the better of me, then I’d be okay. And I was. Except, of course, for the inevitable migraine, but I always have drugs for that, so all was well.

So, BBQ and fireworks at her place (which were awesome) was on Saturday. Then, my folks did our own holiday BBQ at THEIR place on Sunday, which lumped into our usual weekend family dinner. Which are Sundays again now… not sure if I ever mentioned that. The only reason it’s an issue is cuz Mom and I have to tape our Sunday night shows now to coordinate and watch later in the week.

Gettin (more) Organized

So by time the actual 4th of July came around on Tuesday, I was definitely ready for some serious me-time. I went nowhere and saw nobody. I’d already celebrated the holiday plenty. And, after another show-and-tell session with my artwork a few weeks prior (this time with Mom) I finally realized that I really ought to document my collection. Mom even suggested I might need to add a rider to my homeowner’s insurance for it. I’m not entirely sure about that yet… I’ll see what things look like after I get it all into the database I created over the holiday.

I still have a lot of work to do on it. I’ve pretty much customized the actual database to my needs, and entered the basics (item, artist, format, size, etc.) of most of my artwork. So far, 400 and some entries. Of course, a lot of that is in the format of art cards, bookmarks, and various and sundry. But still… that’s a lot of artwork. If nothing else, it will be good to have a handy reference on hand to determine what I already have, and what I need to finish collections, etc. Much like my books and movies databases. But once I start digging out records about prices and framing and such… then the database will hold a completely different value to me as well.

I hope to work on some of that again this weekend. Of course, now that Pop is working all week at his new job, Gram’s hair appointments are on Saturdays again, and we (the folks and I) are taking turns each Saturday to take her. This week is my week, so I really won’t have a whole day this weekend to focus on the database. But perhaps that’s just as well, since I tend to single-mindedly work myself into a migraine if given the opportunity.

Movies

Movie Rental Blues

So I’ve seen more than my usual share of movies lately, too. Firstly, there’s that monthly coupon at the local movie rental gallery I usually end up forgetting until the very end of the month and rushing into the store to use before it expires. Which coupon, of COURSE, I have to use, cuz… well, it’s there.

And, of course, the last week of June was a really bad week to rent a bunch of movies, especially since they’ve reduced their rental times down to five days rather than a full week, and I had entirely too many things going on. I ended up watching two of the movies with the folks the day they were due (at 11 pm, and we finished the second one at about 10:50 pm), one of the movies on my own earlier in the week (for some reason, nobody else wanted to watch “8 Below” after I told them I cried myself into a migraine watching it… never mind that also explained I was hormonal at the time and it wasn’t really THAT bad…) and I ended up keeping one of the movies over another week cuz Mom and I really wanted to watch it together.

That one was called “Stay”. Very odd movie… but it doesn’t really let you go… keeps you hangin in there just to see how it ends and what the hell is going on. And I think it’s worth it. Mom and I looked at each other after the movie was over and were like “Okaaaaaayyyy”… but then the more I thought about it, the more I liked it. It’s definitely one of those movies that makes ya think.

Last Minute Movie

Amway, the Thursday that IHOP Buddy came up to visit (I know I’m hopping all over the last few weeks, here), she happened to have a coupon for 2 free tickets to see the Da Vinci Code. Now, let me explain here, that I have two women in my life that absolutely adore the Da Vinci Code… at least the book. I haven’t read it yet. These two women are Mom and IHOP Buddy. And both have been very excited in expectation of the movie come out. Well… IHOP Buddy even went one further and bought the video game (this is the game she wanted me to see over the weekend at her place), and the coupon for free movies came with the game.

Now, IHOP Buddy really wants to see the movie, but she doesn’t like goin to the movie theater. So as soon as she heard that Mom really wanted to see the movie too, she immediately offered me the coupon. The only catch was that the coupon expired the very next day: Friday, and the last day of the month. So I called up Mom and asked her if she’d be willing to drop everything (including our usual Friday night shows) to go to a movie the next evening. And, of course, she was happy to do so, so that’s what we did. I liked the movie … and had a steady stream of commentary beside me of what meshed with the book and what didn’t, so I was able to follow along well enough.

I also liked the game, too, when I got to play it some at IHOP Buddy’s place the next day. But, then, it’s a mystery/puzzle game, and those are always a plus in my book. :)

In the “WTF!!” Category

The other movie we saw recently was “Pirates of the Caribbean II”. That was this past weekend. Another one Mom (okay, and me, too) has been impatient to see. We don’t see too many movies on their opening weekends, but Saturday happened to be Mom’s birthday, so it was already a special occasion. Now, I have to give fair warning about the movie: it was as great as the first one (a bit more slapstick goin on, and playin up the yucks with absolutely impossible physical situations, but still fun) but I would highly recommend that anybody who cares about the characters NOT see the movie. At least not yet… not until the third one comes out. Cuz they leave the damn thing in an absolutely ridiculous mess. Mom was not happy… she kept saying “I really would have gone to see the third movie anyway without them doing THIS!” Not a fair move, really. But in future, the series will be a fun set to watch all in a row.

As it is, we watched the first Pirates at Mom’s place before leaving for the theater, and it was definitely a good thing, cuz I would have missed a lot of references… it had been a while since I’d seen it. So we decided we’ll have to watch both I & II in a row before we go see the third one, too. Whenever it comes out. Probly a decade or so, with the way they left things. *snort*

Girl’s Night Out

The last movie on my list will actually constitute a first for me. At least the first in a long while. The Receptionist and I were talking a few weeks back about wanting to see a new movie out, “The Lake House”. It looks very interesting, and since her hubby died last year, she hasn’t really had anybody to go out and do stuff with. So I asked if she’d like to go together, and she readily agreed. Now, I don’t usually do social stuff with coworkers… with the single exception of going to the movie theater with a coworker once several years ago. We’d both felt like idiots for wanting to see TITANIC a second time, but had recognized kindred spirits in each other, so we went. That was the only movie I’ve ever seen more than once in the theater.

Amway, the Receptionist and I ended up asking the other support staff if they wanted to see “The Lake House, too, and we now have a group of us who will make a girl’s night out of it at the movies. We’re just not sure when. We had this discussion before the holiday weekend… and that weekend was obviously not a likely candidate for the outing. Neither was this past weekend, since I was doing other things with Mom for her birthday. And this weekend is out cuz the Office Whisperer is out of town. So… if the movie is still in theaters, we may actually try for next weekend. I guess we’ll see.

Odds & Ends on the Home Front

So I’ve been remiss in keeping up with updates on the construction taking place back behind my home. I wake up every morning to all kinds of wonderful saws and hammers and machines of various and sundry size. I’ve been periodically taking pictures of the progress over the last several months. I really will have to post those. The first building certainly looks to be shaping into an apartment building.

Plus, they’ve been widening out a little path that leads from my own duplex complex down to what I presume used to be a small path in the woods, and will now be a full sized street to the new apartment complex. They’ve been ripping out lawns and driveways of the duplexes along an existing street that leads to that path… I think to extend utilities and such down to the new construction. I’m just glad I don’t happen to live down that particular street.

Also, it seems I have my particular duplex to myself for a while. Not sure how long, but my immediate neighbors moved out about a month ago. Sad, though… I kinda liked them. I’d be far happier to see my OTHER neighbors go… the ones who seem to find it amusing to let their dogs leave all sorts of presents ALL over my lawn, and sometimes practically in my driveway. *snort*

Oh well. If I weren’t such a wuss, I’d confront them about it… but I am, so there it is.

Bon Voyage

So I’ve bid a fond farewell to my size 14 pants… yay! (actually, they’re stowed away in the closet… you know, just in case. I’m not necessarily a pessimist… just a realist) Amway, my weight-loss goals are very close to full realization. I am, in fact, quite comfy in my 12’s… and they even leave a little bit of room for growth. Which I don’t intend to fill. In fact, after losing my first 25 pounds the first few months on the strength of simple moderation alone, I am now working through an actual regiment of diet pills for a month to help work out the last 10 pounds of my goal. And a very strong possibility of size 10’s.

My attempts to restart an exercise regimen have still received abysmal results… but then at the moment, with as much concentrated caffeine as these pills seem to be pumping into my system, I’m afraid I’d have a heart attack if I tried. Seriously. And I certainly can’t starve myself on these things, either. They have me munching on something small between meals every other hour or so. But that’s okay… I feel fairly good so far… and just trying to be really careful with my head, cuz my migraine meds happen to have even more caffeine in them.

Amway, I may give the exercise thing another try after the month of pills is over.

Gaming vs Reading

So I share a joke with IHOP Buddy lately that when she has book(s) she really wants me to read, I’m in the mood for playing video games… and when she really wants me to play a game, I’m in the mood to read. lol In addition to the Da Vinci game, she also just finished up a game called Bard’s Tale that she adored and can’t wait for me to try cuz she thinks I’ll like it. She even sent it home with me along with a bevy of books. We weren’t talking for so long that she accumulated quite a few books to share during that time. Of course, she doesn’t officially work, so she also has far more time to read than I do, and our quasi-bookclub is a tad disproportionate. lol

Amway, I’ve been in the mood to read, so I haven’t had time to try the game yet. She popped in to chat one day last week with a “Well?!” and I’d totally forgotten about the game. I’ll get to it, though. I just finished one book last night, and I’m not sure what I’ll start on next. Of course, I hope to work on my database this weekend, so I’ll have to weigh what I want to get involved in and how much. *sigh* Decisions, decisions. My life really could be far more complicated…. lol

He Touched My…

So I think I’ll conclude today’s disgorgement with a funny story. Again… involving IHOP Buddy. When she came to Columbia before the holiday, one of our stops was Sam’s Club… a huge wholesale place that she doesn’t have near her town so she likes to stop by whenever she visits. With a hungry family of four, wholesale in bulk comes quite in handy.

Amway, as we left the store, we had to pass the inevitable dood at the door who checks everybody’s cart against their receipt. And this dood was thorough… poked through every item in the cart, moving things around to see what was underneath and such.

So he finished up, and we continued our way to the parking lot… and as soon as we were out of ear shot, she turned to me, all indignant, and exclaimed “He touched my bread!” Now, given the amount of pure indignance she imbued this statement with, my ears first tried to complete her sentence: “He touched my breast!” Perfectly understandable, considering the two words sound an awful lot alike.

Now, I couldn’t recall ever seeing him get that close to her in order to commit such an offense, and it took at least a half a minute of trying to figure that out before my mind finally registered what she’d actually said. I totally busted up laughing, though she was still fuming over the man poking her bread. And, of course, that was even funnier.

After I explained, she finally saw the humor of it all (but then my faulty hearing has been the source of much humor over the years)… and her bread really did survive the close encounter in much of its original condition. *grin*

Wow… so I’ve wasted quite an impressive amount of time today. Only 2 ½ hours left in the workday to muster some motivation to start on those guide updates. Ah well… perhaps tomorrow will be a more inspirational day. :)