BiddiesInMyBrain

::chuckle::

I guess we've been married long enough that anniversaries are a bit passe; the 17th wedding anniversary of our civil ceremony was on Wednesday and we utterly forgot until late last night, in the middle of a trivia game with friends. We were a bit chagrined, to say the least. I mean - I forget these things all the time - I have forgotten my own birthday (though it happens less now that I have a Palm)... but our anniverary? Somehow I missed entering that into Outlook or something and I didn't get a reminder, and the French exam completely flummoxed me. In my defense, I remembered it last Friday. ::chuckle:: I know. That doesn't help one bit! Happy Anniversary, Crash! I love you to pieces! At least we have a second chance in September with the anniversary of our family ceremony... which nobody else remembers, either! We're up against impossible odds! ::heading over to Outlook to do some entering of data::

Crash is practicing, and it is lovely to hear the sounds of his violin - I miss that during the school year, when he practices at school and on campus before and in between teaching and never at home. He has also been SUCH a trooper and has been out in the yard digging up a path for me to brick in (I can do the brick work of laying the path, but I can't dig up the old lava rock and bedding - it throws my back out badly), and pulling weeds in our central garden area. It looks SO MUCH BETTER. Kudos to Crash!

Was watching CNN earlier today and they had a real goof: they were talking about the weather system off the Atlantic coast bringing torrential rains and severe weather to the southern Atlantic states and that they may take quite a battering - really harping on the point that there could be a battering and Bad Things Could Happen... all the while showing Jesse Jackson on the screen with a caption on the screen to the effect of "Bad Tidings" or something like that in relation to his comments on Obama and use of the n-word. I couldn't help but laugh - and their attempt at recovery from the obvious goof was hilarious. OH - and what makes it even funnier is that Jeannie Moos had just parodied John McCain' goof with the Viagara / birth control fiasco of last week and used footage from The Daily Show to highlight the inanity. I really do hope that Jon Stewart picks up this gaffe.

It is really odd to see the DJIA and the NASDAQ so far out of whack with each other - the Dow gained reasonably, but the NASDAQ dropped substantially - by some 30 points or so. Usually they move fairly in tandem. Odd. Yeah, I've been reading Barron's lately, and am paying a little more attention to things like that. It's interesting reading, but as with everything, you've got to take it a bit cynically or you'll go crazy. Alan Abelson's weekly column is pretty good, though, and worth checking out - you can get it free on the Barron's website, if I am not mistaken, at http://online.Barrons.com (if that doesn't work, try www.barrons.com). I know, I know. It's really weird to see me, of all people, talking about the stock market. Go figure.

Played trivia last night with a group of friends - and we won! It was great fun! I was designated driver, so I had sodas and played along, having a ball... I think we missed one, maybe two questions, the whole night, and on the last wager we bet all the remaining 20 points and scored a decisive win over all the other teams in the bar. Rock on! I'm not usually someone who even enters a bar - I don't like smoke at all - but this was fun, and I went willingly. Took a monster bath when we got home and the clothes are in the wash, and all is well with the world. ::grin:: I needed to get out of my shell; I've been hiding at home for nearly a month since we got home from Colorado.

This weekend we may be going to Kaleigh's house for a party (K and her husband were the ones to get us out for trivia)... I hope to continue to be in an outgoing mood; I have been having to force myself to get out and do things lately due to an ongoing depression thing. Summers are tough, and focus is hard to come by sometimes. Well, a lot of the time. We're working on it therapeutically, and I hope to be in a better place in the next couple of weeks. Have to be: school starts in about four, five, weeks.

Wish I had the time to read some "for fun" books - I have a pile a foot high on my bedside table, and another foot-wide shelf full of them in the underside of the bedside table as well. Maybe when I get to the point of doing lesson planning next month I can sneak in a few. That would be such a delight; they've been stacking up for about a year now, and these are the best of the best.

Am getting rid of my library school books. Most of them, anyway, and have offered them to my grandma's library up in Ohio since they just experienced a devastating set of floods that destroyed a huge part of their collection. I am waiting to hear back from their director to see if they want them - they're some terrific books, and I want them to go someplace where they will be appreciated and needed. And, needless to say, I don't have any desire to keep them anymore. That part of my life is closed.

Well, it's time to start considering what's for dinner. I think we are having blue-cheese-stuffed burgers and sauteed carrots... at least that was the plan two hours ago. I'm not hungry, but since I really haven't eaten today I really need to remedy that. The weight is coming off too quickly, and I am a little nervous about that - no appetite and nausea worries me - and I see the gastroenterologist on Friday next week. I have now lost 80 pounds since my highest weight in 2003, and nearly 15 in the past two months alone, after gaining back over the past year what I had lost in the hospital. I'm not trying to lose weight, but it is just falling off me... and while the weight loss is welcome, it does bother me that it is coming off this way, and that I really don't enjoy food anymore for the most part. Every so often Crash is able to tempt me with something I love, but that is few and far between these days. Wish we could come up with some answers.

I'm off!

::::::SQUEEEEEE:::::::

I passed! I passed! I passed the French competency exam!! 20 years out of a French class and I managed to remember enough irregular conjugations and general knowledge to translate three pages of historical information on Wilson in Paris. I am so... ecstatic! One less hurdle to jump.

The next thing is to get through comps in nine months. ::gulp::

But for now, I'll just sit here today and ::::squeeeeee::::

Dissertations and Doodles

Well, when you run across new data and it appears to fly in the face of your dissertation thesis, that generally means it's time for a revision, right? I'm not quite to that point, but I have found some provocative information that *has* made me rethink how I am approaching the main points of my proposed dissertation - and opened some other avenues as well. This fall is going to be an interesting, interesting exploration into the sources, and I am going to have to REALLY keep an open mind. But that's what this is all about, right? History is not imposed on the past, but discovered, right?

Need to buckle down tonight and really apply myself to some French tonight - my comprehension exam is Wednesday and I am feeling distinctly unprepared; I have the feeling I am going to have to take the exam more than once. ::sigh:: Just what I need right now. I have had plenty of opportunity to bone up on the material - I just have been feeling very overwhelmed lately. No excuse, but that's that.

Crash was sweet when he went to Costco today and, in between melons and meat, bought me new pillows. ::dies:: It may sound like a small thing, but I am positively delighted. What a kind, thoughtful thing to do. I already have one of them in a pillowcase and on the bed.

Tomorrow... tomorrow I don't think I have anything on the schedule but studying - and plenty of it. Crash is quite busy, but I am here to puddle about. And call docs back and schedule appointments and generally put things to right. Lots to do.

Trying to Get Over the Crabbies

My usual bouyant mood is somewhat marred by the really lousy feeling that I am coming down with the flu. However, it would appear that this feeling is also one of the potential side effects of the Rifampin I am taking for the sinus infection, so I am taking Tylenol and trying to grin and bear it; only ten more days. However, I am calling the doc tomorrow and making sure that this isn't a bad side effect, just annoying. The Cipro has never made me feel like this, so I am assuming it's the Rifampin. Nasty stuff.

This morning was a comedy of errors involving two of our animals, the house-flipper next door, and a colleague of Crash's - and the whole fiasco began at 5:30 - so I didn't get too much sleep last night on top of the flu-like feeling. Needless to say, I didn't make church today, and I was really planning on it to the point that I had picked out what I was going to wear the night before; usually I just throw something on the morning of. I am really sorry to have missed this morning's sermon - we had a guest pulpit leader - Rabbi Micah Greenstein - and he was talking about why America needs liberal religion. I can't wait to hear the details from Crash when he gets home this afternoon. The Rabbi always gives a good talk, and I am sure this was no exception.

Watched Casablanca this morning/afternoon on TCM - I had forgotten how much I love that movie. But, now the television is off and I am hunkering in to study hard. Mostly French, but some history in there, too.

Don't know much else, but I am going to try to stop biting people's heads off and recognize that I am the one who is really off right now.

Mea maxima culpa to anyone I have really snapped at lately. ::hugs::

Playing Along

Today is just... a struggle to get through, for some reason.

Woke up with the dog at 5:30 a.m. in what is becoming a (mostly) unwelcome ritual and, after taking the massive morning round of antibiotics, went back to bed. The antibiotics are tearing me apart and I just feel... blah... and really don't have any energy, so bed was pretty much where I stayed until noon.

Got up and puttered and am studying, but really - *all* I want to do is go back to bed. I am yearning for it with every fiber of my being and resisting it as hard as I can. I really need to be up - much to be done - but am not getting much done because I feel so crappy.

French exam is on Wednesday... and I feel *so* unprepared - and utterly unmotivated to try and remedy the situation (see above).

Feeling guilty about hating Jesse Helms with the viscera I do - but I can't help it. I hate very few people, but he has been a long-time target for my anger. I cannot forgive his racism and stupidity, nor is it mine to forgive. We can move forward much more readily with him out of the picture. He stands as a bad example of what parts of this country once were and are, I hope, no more. We *can* overcome... even me. I wish I could be as charitable as the blogger Fausto quoted in my comments - that it's a shame he didn't live to see the 2009 election - but I am just so glad he is gone. Thich Nhat Hahn would have a field day with my anger ... but so be it. I own it, and it is mine. My bad.

Sorry today's entry is such a downer. Maybe I *should* go back to bed and maybe I will awake refreshed in a little while. God, I am just so exhausted I can hardly move.

The Saga Continues

Fortunately, so far it's been a great day today. Lunch with Ann - and a long one at that - at Blue Coast Burrito. Happy tummy!

Yesterday? Not so much. Here's what I wrote some friends last night:

I was getting ready to go out to lunch with one of my best friends and her son, in fact - when I noticed the water in my toilet going back and forth. Whaaa? I finished brushing my teeth and went to the front of the house just in time to see two feet of soiled water erupt out of my husband's toilet. TWO FEET. I slammed down the toilet seat and the mess promptly went... sideways... all over my legs. I ran out the front door and yelled at the men who were working on the drain lines and told them to STOP RIGHT NOW... and when they FINALLY did, they basically told me "a little water on the floor was to be expected" and that "this would cause no damage to my sewer line." However, as I found out later, they were evidently running commercial grade psi through residential pipes - somewhere around 250 psi through mostly 60-year-old terra cotta and old cast iron - not a bright idea - in order to "clear a blockage further up." I told them I didn't give a damn where the blockage was, but they had better stop doing what they were doing to my house. I think it's pretty clear that when you have a blockage further up the line, and one really clear line, the pressure on the line is going to go to the really clear line and that one is going to take a beating. That's us.

@@

I called my plumber.

He came out loaded for bear - and has filed a complaint with the city. I have done so from my end as well - with both the sewer department and with the city's legal department. My plumber will be out next Monday to check the lines and we will determine at that time what needs to be done. They've been under the house and have already identified what appear to be two, possibly three cracks in the sewer line. My yard, which I just mowed today for the very first time, may have to be dug up... again.

What a freaking mess. This is the first I have been calm enough to sit still enough to write about it, and I am still just seething. The city crews are out right now checking lines and looking at what kind of a mess they have made, though I am certain they will say it's not their fault. We're going to hold their feet to the fire, though. I just had $14,000 worth of plumbing done, and I am not about to see it screwed up by some yo-yos who don't know what they are doing, acting on behalf of the city.

Now? I am just at a slow burn. We have to wait until Monday to get the results of whether or not they have screwed up the plumbing to the point that it has to be redone... and I am just going to be as zen as I can be until then.

Meanwhile, I am studying like crazy. The sun is too intense for me to be outside during the middle of the day, so I am in here working on French and Directed Readings reading. I plan to get through one of the history books today, and start another one tomorrow (AM-BI-TION!!! AMBITION! -- you're supposed to imagine Topol singing that), and continue reading the history of the US in French. Need to get over to the University at some point this week - perhaps tomorrow. I know they will be having a short week, so I probably had better make it tomorrow, or I may miss the boat entirely.

Wish I could get outside. ::sigh:: What sadness that I can't. Maybe tonight.

I'm On It Already!!!!

Sinus/ear infection got worse today... hurts all the way around the ears and down into the neck on both sides and my face is poofy. Doc changed the meds yesterday (did I say that already?) but also said it may take a day or two for them to kick in. I'm on a Cipro/Dex antibiotic/steroidal ear drop, and a big gun oral antibiotic in the Cipro family. This has *got* to knock this out! Meanwhile, compresses, lortab and lots of bed time.

Had two friends in different parts of the nation call today asking if I have been tested for C. diff... the "superbug" that is in the news today which causes such severe intestinal problems - problems remarkably similar to what I have been dealing with. However, I have been tested three times for C. diff... I wonder, though... could there be a new strain and they just can't quite get it with the cultures they have tested?? And could that explain why my immune system is so depressed that I am catching every little bug that comes down the line??

OK.. enough of that. Had dinner with my in-laws and youngest SIL - and Crash. He is remarkably defensive about EVERYTHING when he is around his sister... much moreso than I (though I admit it, I took the easy way out; there's a reason for xanax!) I just pleasantly sailed through the conversation and the meal (OMG what a meal) and gently took my leave of them. My FIL is not in good shape - he was very short on words tonight (VERY unusual) and obviously in pain from the hip he refuses to get checked. ::sigh:: If he doesn't do these things, life will REALLY suck for him, and soon. And somehow, he thinks he is going to Switzerland ALONE early next year to deal with some business there. Um. He's in his eighties and can't make it from the car to the grocery store unassisted; I don't see a SwissAir flight being particularly easier. ::is worried:: And I thought his middle daughter was stubborn. Damn.

Meeting with my prof today was, well, okay. It could have been so much better, but he and I got off on the wrong foot - I asserted something in my paper he didn't agree with, and I wouldn't back down... which led to a VERY spirited argument and finally a truce. For the rest of the hour and a half he just GRILLED me on the finer points of the books... and oh my, was he tough on me. Ahh well... take it as one more bump on the road to preparation for comps.

Suggested to Crash that we go downtown to the National Ornamental Metal Museum tomorrow. The day looks good weather-wise, and I am really itching to get out and go someplace different. We have the time - neither of us has a commitment tomorrow - so this might be the ideal day. Who knows when summer will be fully upon us?

Looking forward to a light weekend... and a chance to pack at a more leisurely pace than I usually have for trips like this. Don't get me wrong - there's lots to do - but I think I can manage this and not get all nuts over it.

Now, I think I will head to bed. Take care, y'all!

REALLY, Now, I Am Ready For This To Cease and Desist! @@

Crash and I had a date this morning - at the doc's office. He ended up missing a bus trip with the teachers at his school because he is under the weather, and I am sitting here going, dang, my ears hurt, because, doggone it, I have another sinus infection and this time it's accompanied by a bilateral ear infection.

Too much to do to put up with this!!

I want to sleep and sleep and sleep - probably a result of harboring an infection which is resistant to the antibiotic I finished day before yesterday - and boy, am I crabby... I mean really, really crabby (and so is he, frankly!). We're like two porcupines kissing.. OW OW OW OW OW.

Am finishing up the last of my reading tonight and have a paper to write, so I am really busy; planning on meeting with Dr. M tomorrow morning (PhD not MD) to discuss my reading and all... and then I think I can concetrate on getting fully ready for our trips.

Anyway, I think I am going to go read in bed with a compress on my ear... then switch sides so I can compress the other ear. This sucks.

And we didn't even have sunshine today as promised. ::pout:: I'm so disappointed!

AWESOME Picture... and a Warning for Travelers (Including Me)

You can bet I will be thinking *very* carefully about the weather as we head across the prairies and plains this summer... looking out for severe thunderstorms and tornadoes (found this spectacular image at www.KSN.com, btw). Speaking of amazing tornado shots, check this from the Weather Channel: Yikes! (I'm having some problems with Typepad's linking service on the Compose Post page, which is why you are getting full URLs at times. It's intermittently working, and we hope to be up and fully functional soon... bear with me!).

Today we had a really amazing storm - nothing like what they have been seeing on the Plains, but lots of thunder and lots of heavy rain and a REALLY DARK HOUSE at 3:30 in the afternoon ... SPOOKY!... I am hoping it didn't wash out ALL of our grass seed from two days ago; the seed is now in clumps in puddles, puddles which are quickly absorbing back into the ground. I tried to get out there with a rake, but things are just too wet. We've pretty well decided to see if this will sprout, and then if it does, to overseed again at midsummer to catch any bare spots. I think it's the best we can hope for at this point.

Still plugging away on homework... interesting books, but it's a holiday weekend and I wish that I would have gotten this done earlier this week. If wishes were dollars...

Been having major problems with the DSL modem... ordered a new one yesterday from AT&T high speed services, so we should be cooking with a much better, much faster connection this time next week. Our current modem is ... hmmm... five years old and seems to be giving up the ghost. We're going with a modem/wireless gateway with wireless-n capability. We'll see how this works; I hate getting away from my Linksys router - I've been really loyal to Linksys and their magnificently reliable equipment. Like I said, we'll see.

SO MUCH TO DO before the 4th... and so much to do before the 12th/13th... everything is just smooshed together and it is hard to separate out what needs doing now, what needs doing this week, and what must be accomplished next week... Lists are my friends.

Well, I am going to scoot and see how much reading I can fly through tonight. I'm well into one of the books, and about a quarter of the way through the second one. I think I need to write them up separately, but am pondering it carefully... there are some commonalities, but they may be too different to pull them together in one paper. The last thing I want to do is write something contrived for a professor I really like... and besides - when I write a good paper the discussions end up being much better and more interesting, so I have extra incentive to put a lot more effort into the front end. Means a lot of work this weekend... which means flying through a lot of pages tonight and tomorrow and synthesizing them tomorrow night.

Have a good one!

Feeling Better, Though Still Sad

I have spent the latter part of my day filled with things that keep me busy... and not thinking too much about how much I miss my grandma. I mean - I know I am forty now and these things are expected to happen, and that I was ever so lucky to have her for so long - but that somehow makes the losing of her that much harder. I admit it - I did have a moment of break-down sobbing at one point today... and Jack the Cat was so distraught he didn't know what to do; he kept miaouing and hitting my legs with his head the whole time I was crying like I hadn't cried in years. In fact, I hadn't cried like that since long before Grandma died. I didn't cry at all when I got the call she had passed, or at the funeral ... I've held myself in tight check, knowing what was on the radar, and knowing how she wanted things. But damnit, I miss her. Maybe I needed that moment?

After Crash got home and had a chance to cool down and rest for a little while, we went outside, watered the new lawn, cleaned the front steps, washed down the rugs and mats and generally tidied up out there.

Tonight? Some quality time with Crash... and maybe a run to someplace like Sonic for a two-for-one burger and a big limeaid - I'm not really hungry. And maybe a Netflix movie. I don't know. I don't really want to overload the night, yanno?

I need to read two books and write a paper for Tuesday - which reminds me... I need to write a quick e-mail to my professor reminding him that we are meeting that day. I forgot to do so earlier this week.

My French exam is scheduled for early July, too... need to brush up on that... yikes. My great aunt Lila would be such a help with that right now; she was a French and Latin teacher, and quite good. She'd have me whipped into shape in no time flat... however, we lost her in 1996. I *do* have her Harrap's French Dictionary, though, and it's a huge thing... I love it...so glad to have it. I'll make do with that and 15 years of basic and intermediate French instruction which ended in 1989. Ooof. Twenty years ago. I may have bitten off more than I can chew with this one. We'll see. I've got to pass before I take my comps, one way or the other.

Plowing through the cleaning here, too, though I didn't get much done here today. Things are finally on track to be neat and tidy before I leave for Kentucky in a week and a half. Can't believe it's that soon. Need to get the car in to make sure everything is shipshape and ready to go.

Not much else. Just looking forward to getting to Colorado in June - and hoping we won't get caught in a blizzard. Yeah. At the moment of this writing, Colorado is having simultaneous blizzard and tornado warnings. Go figure.