15 posts tagged “me”
Karen tagged me. The instructions are to summarize my life in a six word memoir, with optional photo illustration and to tag six others but y'all have already done yours. Feel free to do another!
"I want to live in Disneyland."
This is me in front of Jack Sparrow's throne (Pirates of the Caribbean II). The lady working there took the pic. Everyone in Disneyland is nice. I enjoy behaving like a 10 year-old in a place where it's OK to do so. It's sort of freakish, I know. And now you do, too.
Show us the person you'd most like to switch bodies and lives with for one freaky Friday.
My 20-year-old self. She needed to have a good talking to. ;)
Seriously, I'm not desirous of going to back to do things differently but it would be interesting to compare where my line of thinking was going compared with today. In some ways "we" seem like completely different people. And I suppose that's how it should be.
Despite having been on my own for two years by the time this photo was taken, I was still acting as a child when I reflect back on the cascade of disastrous choices I made. Regrets? No. But a desire to get perspective, which is impossible from this standpoint of time seperation--that would be enlightening.
What's the one thing you're most neurotic about?
Again with this picking only one!
OK. I'd say the one thing that gets under my skin in the most irrational and uncontrollable way is my complete overreaction to stains. Stains on clothing, furniture, THE CARPET, even non-stain stains like water marks on the faucet and sink handles. Stains on people's faces are icky as well.
Stains do not belong. The worst stains are the ones that I discover on my clothes when I'm in a public place where I cannot do anything to remedy the situation.
Why do I feel so strongly about stains? In a nutshell they say "dirty," "unkempt," "has no regard for her appearance." or in the case of my house, no regard for it's appearance. Or in the case of my children, no regard for their appearance or my spouse, well you get the picture.
When did I become such a neurotic freak about stains? During my childhood of course! Why? A parent of mine is exactly the same way and made a huge hairy deal about anyone having stains on their clothes at any time. And the other parent seemed to never wear a shirt that wasn't stained, driving parent number one into near fits.
Yes. I'm scarred for life and oh crap, a scar is like a stain that won't go away--only worse!
Well, this is day nine of what is confirmed to be “the flu.” I prefer to think of it as “a” flu as I was vaccinated against “the flu” and I don’t want to think that the vaccination was for naught.
Regardless, if you are unfortunate enough to be wondering if you too have The Flu here’s a rundown of how it’s progressed.
Days 1 and 2: tiredness, general feeling of being run down, beginning of clear runny nose. Headache. Slight nausea.
Day 3: Nose is now running literally like a tap. If you remove the tissue in your hand that you’ve being steadily wiping your nose with–even for a moment–your nose will run into your mouth. At first this will gross you out. Then, as you develop more symptoms it becomes merely annoying. The headache and nausea continue.
End of Day 3: Your upper lip begins chapping, your nostrils as well, you develop a non productive cough, you are still feeling run down and it’s getting worse. By evening you are bedridden. You have hot and cold spells. Your cough deepens and you begin to hack up mucus. Your nose is slowing down a bit on the running and instead you are getting very congested. You sweetly (though your voice comes out like a growl) ask spouse after a very rough night if he will get the the following: Robitussin Cough DM, Vick’s VapoRub, Tylenol, chicken soup, and before he does all that would he make you a cup of tea because you’ve become averse to all things cold. Headache comes and goes. Nausea under control as long as you are flat on your back.
Day 4: Your head is clogged up–one ear closes but your nose still runs. You go through massive quantities of Kleenex. You test your sense of smell by trying to smell the (usually very pungent) VapoRub. You smell nothing. Your deep cough continues but the Robitussin is helping you get some rest. You are still very weak. Your upper lip has turned hard and crust-like. You decide in a moment of impetuousness to peel it off. The next morning you look in the mirror and see that you are missing the top part of your upper lip. Both ears and sinuses are completely stuffed. Your head aches. You smell and taste nothing. Thank god for texture. You don’t get around to showering this day and you don’t care.
Day 5: You continue what has now become ritual, Robitussin every four hours (you are not even dismayed that it has started to taste good), slathering on of VapoRub on your neck and upper chest. It has a very faint aroma. Your stuffy ears are hurting so you take Tylenol. Your nostrils welcome the periodic slathering of fish-oil ointment to sooth and keep them somewhat healed. Blistex is coated on your lips twice as often as the fish-oil cream ‘cos it comes off faster. You still have zero energy. It is horribly cold outside and your next-to-the window bedside position provokes you to burrow further into the covers. All cold things are yucky, including water. Earl Grey Tea tastes (feels) wonderful and provides a level of comfort. Your energy level hasn’t changed. It is still non-existent.
Day 6: Very much like Day 5 except that after attempting to act like a family member and joining them for a chili dinner you regret it later when you find yourself writhing on the floor in agony, forehead beaded with sweat. You wish you’d had the chicken soup. Your younger son comes to your bedroom door to say goodnight. From your fetal position on the floor you growl in what passes for your voice that you are having “an issue” at the moment. After about an hour of writhing the pain subsides enough that you can swallow a couple more Tylenol. You have a miserable night wondering if the stabby pain is from a strained muscle from coughing, from the chili, or worse case, something new-- maybe an issue with an ovary? Oh please, don’t let it be an ovary.
Day 7: You are trying to get caught up with computer-related stuff and for a brief couple of seconds it’s as if a small wind tunnel has opened in your left ear. Then it closes. You have a slight increase in energy but your cough w/ phlegm is still in full force, all things sinus and ear-related are plugged. You still slather on VapoRub though you can smell it a bit more pungently if you inhale it deeply from the jar. You do this several times to prove that something is functioning.
Day 8: You have not stepped outside your home since this started but you have a Cardiologist’s appointment today that you’ve already rescheduled once. You seem slightly better so you decide to go. The waiting room has only people old enough to be your parents in it–plus 2 women waiting on their elderly father and they too, are older than you.
The two women’s incessant chatting is only mildly annoying as both your ears remain plugged.
This is only the second time you’ve been to this doctor–a heart failure specialist. The guy you’d seen for years moved away and referred you to him.
His office has converted to new technology as of the 1st of ‘08 and he needs a nurse to walk him through accessing my info. My numbers are “great.” (He had ordered up a battery of tests including a sleep study upon our first meeting.) My blood pressure is high-normal. I suggest that my being sick is most likely the contributing factor but he’s having none of it.
He begins to tell me everything I already know. I could/should lose weight (though I’ve dropped a couple pounds since last visit) He asks me the most insane question ever. What do I want to weigh? I want to LOL. I’ve been “a big girl” All My Life. I typically put on 5-10 lbs. each winter and then take it off in the spring summer. Very much like the bears. Even so, I should probably lose another 20 pounds on top of that but him having me keep a “weight diary” is not going to do it because I’ve tried that oh, 20 times before and it worked and then when I stopped keeping the diary because it is an obsessive behaviour which I couldn’t stand–when I stopped being on a diet my weight came back. Can we go back to how my numbers are great?
He blathers on. He knows nothing about the mentality of a fat girl though I catch a sympathetic look from the nurse that is still with us in the room. Here in the dead of winter having not exercised in over a week I weigh four pounds more than I did when I took off forty pounds ten years ago. I did that because I was newly into heart failure and radically changed my diet from typical American to low sodium and fairly low fat.
Mr. Fancy Heart Specialist Guy has no idea about how much I have obsessed about my weight in my lifetime. About how devoted I am about sticking to the low salt/fat thing and regular exercise. He just dispenses his “wisdom” like Pez candy. Specialist: stick to your area of expertise because when you wander away from it you sound like a stoopid-head and you offend me. I know I should drop more weight. I will continue to work on it every day for the rest of my life. Can I go now?
Day 9: Today. My ears hurt. My nose still runs, I still have the cough with phlegm. I am getting energy back–for housework–ta-da! I have some dizziness which has been the norm throughout this adventure and which I blame on equilibrium issues due to the clogged ears.
Mr. Heart Failure Specialist Guy answered my question on Day 8 about if there exists any decongestants that are safe to take with my heart meds (he cannot remember the name of the chemical I should avoid) by telling me “not Sudafed,” and that I should talk to my pharmacist because that’s what he gets paid paid for. Pharmacist is helpful. I get home and read the box–for which I was carded(!) and it’s a generic which proudly touts it’s similarity to…Sudafed. I take it. I get a crushing headache and have the feeling that my skull is being squeezed.
Today is day five of my self-imposed encampment in my little condo. I had a short break after staying close to home whilst we weathered a lot of snow, severe low temperatures (which we still have), and most of all my younger son's illness which seems like a cold². I use the present tense "seems" because though he is 95% better-- I now have "it." Funny how being locked up with a sick, oozy person can leave you sick and oozy. I've been dealing with this bump in my road of life for going on a week and not to be punny, but I'm sick of it!
I won't run through all the details--they are quite icky. What bothers me most is what I guess bothers a lot of folks --the inability to do what you need or want to do. Fortunately, I can get out of bed now so overall, I'm getting done what I must. But I can't even walk the dog! And I would go except we been dealing with -30F wind chills! Our little dog refuses to walk in that and frankly, even when healthy, so do I.
So cooped up, stir crazy, and sick is where I'm at now and hope not to be ASAP.
I want to introduce you to one of my new old favourite things: my blender.
My old blender had gone in the dishwasher too many times and parts of it had quite literally melted.
It sat unused for some time before younger son inquired where a blender was so he could make a fruit smoothie.
So with a bit of prompting, spouse who is the brick-and-mortar store shopper in this family, brought home this baby.
This new blender, though I'm sure there are fancier ones, is just right for us. For one thing it's glass--so no melting in the dishwasher and it's got lots of cool settings with my favourite being "self-clean."
Anyway, we've been having a grand time with our smoothie-making. Pictured here is a mixed berry-strawberry-banana yogurt combo just about ready to be consumed by younger son and I. There was enough left so when spouse got home, he too enjoyed one.
I'm thinking of fruit smoothies atm, because I am fighting off what I think may be the flu. I had a dastardly headache with dizziness and slight nausea over a two-day period and I've been sleeping fitfully and I feel achy. And my meds. make the dizziness worse. Despite that I went for our nightly walk with the dog in minus 2-degree F weather last night. I hate the cold (and it hates me).
Yes, I did regret it though after a good sleep the headache is at bay and now I'm dealing with (I'll not be explicit) nasal issues. Anything but the headache, I can deal with.
Happy weekend, everyone. We have a four-day one with Martin Luther King Day on Monday and school off both Monday and Tuesday. Spouse took Tuesday off and we are going into Chicago to the Museum of Science And Industry 'cos the guys like it most and when they are happy, I'm happy.
I have a confession to make.
Until I became an online entity my name was Cindy.
Much like the Debbie's, Vicki's, Sandy's and Susie's of the world, my parents gave me a full name, Cynthia, then promptly used it's diminutive.
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diminutive | |
adjective | |
| 1. |
very small; "diminutive in stature"; "a lilliputian chest of drawers"; "her petite figure"; "tiny feet"; "the flyspeck nation of Bahrain moved toward democracy"
There's never been anything "very small" about me and though being called Cindy didn't bother me, I reverted back to Cynthia in grad school and in the work world after graduation. While I was growing up I never insisted upon not being called Cindy even though I knew that...
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..."Cindy" was first my parent's dog's name.
When I was old enough to halfway comprehend that I was named after someone, I understood "that" someone was Cindy the dog and I would unintentionally puzzle people when I told them that "I use to be a dog named Cindy." I'm sure Mom and Dad got a few chuckles out of it and eventually I figured out what being named after someone meant (though I suppose, since Cindy died before I was born I could be her reincarnated).
Do you have a sixth sense? How do you experience it?
I like to define my terms so...
American Heritage Dictionary - sixth sense
n. A power of perception seemingly independent of the five senses; keen intuition.
Yes, absolutely I have keen intuition.
How do I experience it?
Years ago when I lived out west and my mom back east, I always knew when the phone rang if it was her. Always. And she said she knew the same thing. There was no regular time or day of the week we talked and I had roommates so the phone call could have been for them. There was no explaining it. Same thing happened when I was a teenager with my best friend and my boyfriend.
A really common one when radio was still good was thinking of a song, switching on the radio and the song would be on. It happened all the time and it still happens. Sometimes it unsettles me.
I don't do mind-reading and I cannot predict the future. I just get a thought--it happens mostly with my family and has freaked them out a bit at times. I'll approach one of them and begin a convo and they say that they were just about to bring it up. Or I'll utter the beginning of a sentence and it's exactly the wording they were about to use.They've stopped asking how I "knew that." My MIL calls my spouse at work to bring him up to date on his 6 sibs and their families. Later on, invariably before he tells me she called, I'll ask if she did. There's no pattern there, either.
Today it happened whilst reading an online friend's blog post. I don't know at this point if my intuition will be on target. It was about a week or so ago for another blog friend. I didn't want to make a big deal of it because 1. it was an extremely serious matter and 2. I've not even met this person but still--I just knew what the outcome of this matter would be--I just knew--and there was no reason I should feel certain that way. I get vibes from people a lot and I'm never wrong. The vibe might start sort of mild and I might even try to discount it but it's for naught. Ignoring my intuition doesn't change anything so I simply just let it flow.
Though I've chosen "keen intuition" as the closest definition to what I have, I think it goes a bit deeper than that. Isn't intuition simply going by past experience to inform you of the present/future? I think most women have pretty strong intuition because in general, we pay attention to the minute details that the guys miss. And we use clues that they don't look for. We have a more developed antennae than they do.
Still what happens to me really seems beyond intuition into the realm of "can't really explain it." <cue Twilight Zone music>
Show us what the weekend had in store for you.
I'm going to assume that what was "in store" was the fun stuff as opposed to the mundane cleaning house, doing laundry, etc. which is a part of every weekend.
My brother-in-law was recently hospitalized with pneumonia. He recovered quickly and we thought it'd be good to visit him and his wife, spouse's younger sister. Brian made his fortune in his 30's and now can play in a band for fun--not worrying about making money. Anyway, he and his friends are pretty good at what they do-- a few original songs and then lots of cover stuff of AC/DC, Black Sabbath and so on. This is them on Saturday night in a little sports bar a couple of towns away.
Sunday was our usual mini golf outing.
The weather was fantastic and my younger son won.
He was just two over par. :)
After mini-golf we got milkshakes to go at Steak and Shake and rode top-down in the GT home.
In the evening we watched the season premiere of Dexter. Sometime during Dexter's hiatus my son started watching the first season--which given the content is iffy but I'd rather watch it with him than him watch it alone (he is 15)...and it's a great show. Can you tell that I'm conflicted? My spouse says he likes Dexter because the Dexter character reminds him of himself. Should I be worried?
Show us the best creative artist know personally (*vs. "know of" I would guess is the unspoken question).
The only creative arts-type person that I know in real life is in my real life--me.
My favourite online art and sometime crafty person at Vox is Bad Mojo as she is awesomely talented.
My favourite furniture maker in my neighborhood is Miss Scotch as she too is awesomely talented.
My favourite person in the "other but still awesome" category is jayd as he as well is awesomely talented.
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