are you getting a fax?

So I'm all hooked up on this godforsaken cardiac event recorder today. It looks like a big beeper attached to two EKG leads, one on my upper chest and one on my opposite ribcage.

Of course now that I have the damn thing on NOTHING has happened. It's unbelievable. But if something does, I get to push a "record" button and it will capture the event. The cool thing is that it operates like TIVO and goes back a few seconds before you've pressed the button. I was wondering about that because these palpitations I have are like thunder but only last a few seconds. Pretty cool technology.

The bad thing is that when I press the button it sounds like I'm receiving a freakin' fax. That's gonna go over great in meetings and graduate school classes.

"Oh sorry, I'm getting a fax. It's being transmitted through the old metal fillings in my molars. I'll be done in just a second..."

Lovely.

I can't even talk about the Nepalese executions today. I can't talk about the war. How do you dissect mass insanity? How do you make sense of that which does not make sense? It causes me such grief. Even further down on the rungs is the decimated Sudan. How can these things be allowed to happen anywhere in the world? Did people ignore the Holocaust the way we are ignoring the Sudan? Does outrage only happen after the final report is drawn up and the historians have penned best-sellers? It's like mass inaction. Everyone feels bad but doesn't really do anything--me included.

welcome to malfunction junction...

The weekend wasn't too much of a malfunction except for one dismal spousal pseudo-argument...and both birthday functions functioned quite well. It's my junction that's malfunctioning.

I started the morning by going to the doc and talking about blood pressure. It wasn't that high this morning, but I did tell him that my heartrate shoots up over 170 or so when I exercise--light or heavy exercise produces the same result.

That got his attention.

They did an EKG (which was fine) and some extended listening to the old ticker (which was also fine). Since my "events" seem to happen either sporadically or during exercise, I'm being put on an "event monitor" for two weeks, a kind of small-time Holter monitor, to see what my naughty little squeeze box is up to.

There's no escaping now you neurotic sump pump!

I'm more relieved at this point because all this stuff has been worrying me to death: high blood pressure, high heart rate during exercise, sudden arrythmia. I mean, hell, I'm turning 40 in January, not 95!

We shall beat her organs into submission! We will triumph through science and logic.

Anyway, it will be taken care of in a timely fashion (excerpt from "memo to self.")

We rented Cold Mountain last week since we didn't go see it at the theater, and I can say it was the most f-ing depressing movie I have ever seen! Gah! However, Jude Law has joined the ranks of the Deppster. Heavens-to-mergatroids, I'm going to have to get a pacemaker...

helping youngsters find answers to very important questions...

A most interesting search came up on my stats: "Does Johnny's Depp's Poop Stink?"

Oh, gentle Googler, let's consult the Magic 8 Ball to end your tortured plight for large colon knowledge.

*shake, shake, shake*

"It is decidedly so."

I'm sorry, yes, the Deppster's shit got stank all over it--through and through I'm afraid. End your quest now. And don't forget your medication. And stop picking your nose.

happy Friday!

Linky Loverlies:

Where's that bill in your pocket?

Eye candy at Woman Made art

Hey, I feel great today! Ahhhhhhh. I'm not complaining about nuttin' today! Which is good because I'm starting to sound like a whiny vinyl.

I'm now reading another wonderful book Stones from the River by Ursula Hegi (recommended by dear bloggy-friend Critter Lover). There are sentences I read over and over because they are so beautiful. Sometimes it reads like poetry and it's really rich with unusual vivid description. Yum, yum, yum.

I thought working in PR had killed my love for words, but the last few books I have read have reawakened that original excitement. I cradle the "a," smooth the pregnant bellies of "b" and "d" and spoon with the lovely "g." I stretch from the capital "T" and steal a nap in the crook of the "q". I wish I could arrange all the letters to make a soft springy bed--I find comfort there.

In Never-Gonna-Finish-Nuthin' Knitting Land, I'm 80 percent finished with the Boogie Knits Summer Poncho. If I can't finish this one, I'd say I need to hang up my needles. My gauge was MUCH tighter than the Boogie Knitter, so I am having to add many rows to make it big enough to suit me. Of course, I could have ripped and started again with bigger needles, but, um...oh well.

It looks like a good weekend with birthday parties, outdoor movies on Market Square, and Greekfest on the World's Fair site...I'll try to not be lazy and take the digicamera.

Happy Friday!

Well, hell.

I guess I should come back some time. Today looks like a good day.

So, how have you been? I have tried to not blog OR blog-surf, at which I was only moderately successful, but I needed to de-blog myself--kind of like de-lousing, I suppose. Perhaps I should buy a monkey to pick the bugs out of my brain. Protein for him; sanity for me. I think that's a pretty nice trade-off and besides, my husband has always wanted a pet monkey.

How did I veer down that road?

I don't know.

It's been "Attack of The Uterus" (rated R for violence and language) week and I've been sick and in pain. About a year-and-a-half ago I had endometriosis and gigantic fibroids removed (one the size of an apple and another the size of a grapefruit) and I felt better. Now, I'm starting to wonder if they are growing back. And if they are, that old pear-shaped organ is going in the medical waste bin. I ain't kiddin'--or havin' kids, so... I have had enough. At the time of the operation we weren't 100 percent sure about kids, so we spared the Organ of Evil Distress and Despair (OEDD). Chop that sucker out, I say. Chop, chop, whizz, whizz; oh, what a relief it is...I am not sentimental about my Womb of Doom (WOD).

Enough of that. Especially the acronyms. That was starting to get on my nerves. Acronyms are bad, n'kay?

I have much more to say, but why expend all my energy in one sitting? Why, you'd have nothing to read tomorrow.

My evil uterus didn't miss you all, but I did. Hope all is well in your respective worlds.

p.s. The Color of Water by James McBride was quite a wonderful book. Go getcha one and read it! Or you can borrow mine and mail it back.

bleh...

Feelin' crappy today. Yucky, even. So I won't share the details because I am gentle and sweet with my wonderful readers :-P

I think I need a bloggy break, too. I'm starting to think about entries in my car and when I go to sleep, which basically means I'm developing a new mental disorder--OCB (Obsessive Compulsive Blogging). Most of the time these entries never make it to the blog anyway, which means I am blogging into the abyss that is my somewhat rotten frontal cortex. And what's the point in that?

I...need...to...get..out...more.

See you in a few days.

well...

I hate it when I don't have a title. I hope you didn't miss the dramatic 4x200m swim relay last night. Wow, what a finish. Thorpe may win the amazingly-cute-even-though-he-could-be-my-son award, but the last and first touch was ours. Phelps got so excited his crack was hanging out of his suit.

Which brings me to the suits. Obviously I haven't been keeping up with this techno-suit thing. What's with the bodysuit stuff? They are stealing my last few good lustful years away. More skin, please. I mean...well? I'm only human.

Anyway, I actually had a dream about the cute Aussie Thorpe, but to show my age, we were competing in freakin' bake-off. How lame is that? My super-ego has a nun standing over it.

Good news from Zack Braff's blog today. Garden State is going to be opening up on 600 more screens. I really want to see this movie, so I'm hoping it will dribble down to our little art house soon.

In me, me, me-news, I'm just kind of moving forward but at a snail's pace. I hate these lulls in life where no matter how hard you pull or push yourself, there's The Grande Pace that will not surrender to your desires. So, I'm here, getting ready to do lunch at the job I "love" (insert hysterical laughter) and I shall knit while I eat and then I will work some more, have a meeting and go home. Then I'll think about my real life and what I want to do with it.

Everything will be okay.

Really.

Even with my hormones.

Even though we're broke.

If I dream about having a bake-off with an Olympic sex symbol, then, well, I still have my sense of humor.

Have a magnificent day. Seriously.

sigh...

Every time I turn around it's freakin' Monday.

Anyway, Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat was a wonderfully poetic book. Short, sweet and powerful. Recommended.

Not only is it Monday, but I am officially under siege by Nazi hormones within my body. I feel so bloated they could just wrap a string around my neck and march me in the Macy's Day parade.

Announcer: We return to Katie and Matt at the three millionth annual Macy's Day Parade...

Katie: This year we have a new entry, a kind of new giant balloon to pay homage to the women of the world who are tortured by their own reproductive organs.

Matt: Right Katie, I believe they call this one (shuffles papers), yes, here it is--Hormonal Helga. Wow, look at those swollen-

Katie: A-hem, let's look at the stats on this one. Wow, Matt, she's 60 feet tall and retains 3000 liters of water. Gosh, how did they get all that water in there? You can see they really took their time getting the evil grimace on her face just right. Oh wait, now the face has changed--she's crying! What a technical feat!

Matt: What's that in her hand? Oh Jeez, they went all out. She's got a dagger and she's looking for a penis to cut off!

Katie: Matt! We can't say "penis" on this broadcast!

Matt: We can't? How about vagina?

Katie: (sighs...)

******************************************************
On a serious note, if you are swimming in cash, cough up some of it to Catholic Charities so some desperate folks in Florida can get some additional aid.
******************************************************

moths beware...

I keep smelling moth balls. I have done all the requisite cleaning a fastidious person would be wont to do, but yet, Grandma Moses Tinkerbell looms above me sprinkling her Mothball Faerie Dust upon my brow.

I sniffed my clothes--check. I sniffed the ginger perfume on my wrist--check. I whisked my head back and forth to get a whiff of my organic hair products--check. Shoes--not a bed of roses, but about as good as shoes ever smell--check. So, I have surmised that the blend of lotions, perfume and hair products I am wearing today meld into a hippy-smelling version of moth balls. Patchouli meets mamaw. Granny Clampett goes organic.

Lend me your wool sweaters for a day and they will be protected forever.

Happy Friday the 13th. To hell with the number 13, it's Friday!

and one more thing...

This is the best salsa in the world. I tripled the lime and used a large bunch of cilantro instead of a small. The tomatoes came straight from my mother's backyard garden. Mmmmm...ain't nuttin' better.

ka-pow!

As directed by my physician, I took my blood pressure over a two-week period because it was so high in the office. All the readings were bad, mostly 130/100. That diastolic reading (the lower one) puts me in stage two hypertension, which means medication. Which sucks. How can someone so NOT type A have hypertension? I exercise six days a week, never eat meat; I'm a little overweight, but not by much and I don't give a rat's ass about, well, most anything that doesn't personally violate my highest code of ethics. That is, I usually don't sweat the small stuff.

Of course, knowing you have high blood pressure gives you...all together now, kids-higher blood pressure! That's right. I walk around thinking my heart is choking the life out of me, that my arteries are being ripped apart by stirred and shaken corpuscles on crack (a mini-series, perhaps?). I envision my jugulars sticking out like two stiff twigs in my neck, just waiting to snap ...pant... pant... pant... See, I worked myself up into frenzied unbearable state of being.

WTF. Anyway, back to the doc I go to get doped up again. I swear I am starting to look like the crazy lady at the pharmacy on SNL. I won't shop with a basket at the corner drugstore; I'll shop with the Big Metal Buggy. By next year, I'll have lipstick smeared all over my face and false eyelashes pasted to my eyebrows because I won't know where the hell I am.

And, God help me, I'm bloated, which means I might blow sky-high at any moment, pinging the unsuspecting passerby with my jet-propelled eyeballs. My eyeball will be wiped away with a Kleen*x, only to have the victim mutter obscenities about pigeon poop.

Boy the sleeves on that jacket they're bringing me sure are long...

But, before they lock me up or I explode, I would like to see Garden State. It really looks wonderfully quirky. And wouldn't you know, Zach Braff has a blog, too. He has been imprisoned in my blogroll.

travel plans can always change...

Places I would like to go:

Australia

France

Italy

Hawaii

Canada

Alaska

New Zealand

Philippines The reason right here...

Thanks to St. Kellen for scaring me away...

do you ever...

Do you ever look at your blog and wonder why the hell you're doing such a crazy thing? I wonder how bloggers rate on the narcissistic scale? Me, me, me, me, me. All about me. Pics of me. Pics of what I'm doing. Pics about what I'd like to be doing. Pics about the things I love. Pics of my hair, my cats, my dogs, my artwork, my stack of knitting UFOs, cat vomit, dog stitches, new yarn, old yarn, plants on the deck. Ah, we are so terribly NOSEY, aren't we?

But, for some reason, it's fun.

I ran over to my hometown last night to visit with mi mama (yes, the seed has not fallen far from the stinkweed). We had fried green tomatoes, green beans, cole slaw, stewed tomatoes, salad (with, uh, tomatoes) and garlic bread. I felt like a vegetable myself after all that. We chatted on the deck and I knitted while she talked a mile a minute. I like to write. She likes to talk - A LOT. I know why I am so quiet - who could ever get a word in whilst she is spinning her web of excessive verbiage? I couldn't talk that much if you put a gun to my head.

It was good to visit and relax - just us gals. Sometimes I don't like visiting because that town holds a lot of old crappy memories, but last night I was able to break through the Great Wall of Mental Poop. It's a stinky old thing to scale, but it's worth it when you get to the other side.

Have a great Tuesday, y'all.

thunderin' hooves and toothless speckled taters...

We had an interesting weekend. Saturday night we went to a local horse show that benefitted disabled folks. The only information we had about the event was a lone billboard with an image that led you to believe the show might feature dressage.

When we got there it was quite a different story. There were plenty of beautiful horses to look at, but I think we might have been the only people there with a full set of teeth. Only two of the riders wore helmets and a scant few actually dressed for the occasion. Some of the riders looked like they had spent a hard night in jail and had never used a new-fangled toothbrush.

Everyone grimaced as they rode, except for one particularly smiley gal and the announcer played recorded pipe organ music the entire time, which was "graciously" donated to terrorize anyone with a shred of musical taste.

The highlight of the evening was petting a seven-day old miniature foal, which was worth the whopping $4 admission.

Then, because we had not seen enough gums for the weekend, we went to nearby Dollyw**d with some discounted tickets I got earlier this summer. The park has an awesome new wooden rollercoaster and we enjoyed getting our brains scrambled. We also partook of a dog agility show, which would have been a lot more enjoyable if someone around us hadn't been stewing in body odor. I couldn't believe I found a veggie burger there, although it was a ridiculous $7. A large drink was nearly $3. I can't believe how expensive amusement parks are: $6 to park, $21 for two burgers and drinks, $3 for a frozen lemonade and if I hadn't gotten heavily discounted tickets through my credit union, they would have cost us $42.40 per adult! I had to wonder how the toothless set afforded it. Hell, that's Rowan sweater kit!

There were some young girls with hot pants on that were so short their cheek creases were hanging out. If they only knew what that middle-aged guy with the comb-over was thinking, they wouldn't do that... maybe I'm just getting old and frumpy. I know I wouldn't get to leave the house like that when I was a teenager. Maybe I just miss my ass from yesteryear...

It was still a fun weekend though and it was good to get out and do some stuff.
Happy Monday (ew.)

what's another black eye?

Hubby called a little while ago and said his car went completely dead in the busiest intersection of a nearby tourist town. It had to be towed. Family members are rescuing him as we speak.

Hoo. Rah.

Chuh. Ching.

Give the therapist

A ring-a-ling.

Murphy has been camping out up our asses for about three months now and he's smokin' some powerful weed. He's getting a little too comfortable up there. Get out, ain't no free hook-up on this campground!

Poor old Rick James died today, too. What the funk?!

I'm looking for the silver lining, but so far I'm just getting mecury poisoning.

Hey, an update! I got another call and some wiring to the car's computer had come loose...he's back on the road again, minus a $35 tow fee. Woo-hoo, no disaster! Whew. HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND EVERYONE!

damn that Wally Lamb...

That damn fart of a writer made me cry after all. I finished She's Come Undone last night. I was being dragged down by the whole thing quite frankly, and wanted to get it over with. Then, when I finished, I'll be damned if I wasn't glad I'd read it. That Lamb pulled the wool over my eyes. Shithead.

Anyway, Rooney is starting to plump up a little since we put him on soft cat food, which makes mama kitty very happy. Baxter is due back for a thyroid test and Sadie is due back for a liver enzyme check. Sheesh, I wish I had bought pet insurance when they were younger.

I've been down lately, hating my job, hating being broke, hating everything happening to Dolores Price in that book. Today, I feel like I might have popped off a big barnacle on my ever-crusty exterior. I'm just a tad lighter, a tad happier; maybe on the upswing. I've been writing a lot, too - writing without being so judgmental, writing bits and pieces of fiction, ripping scabs off with some caustic poetry - just getting stuff down. It's good to get things out.

ice cream will kill you...

I TOLD you those ice cream trucks gave me the creeps...

you've got shitty mail...

Can't you just hear the little Micr*soft lady saying that? "You've got shitty mail..." It's, well, kinda funny.

Anyway, I got a rejection letter yesterday for a really big and important fine craft fair in the fall. They had twice the applicants of last year and I got put onto a waiting list. Fine. *smirk*

However, I did also receive an acceptance letter for another fine craft fair that may prove to be just as good. It was just kind of a let down to be rejected, especially since the product shots I sent in were double the quality of last year's (and I got in). I was also let down because of the potential for repeat customers--people who said they would definitely look for me next year. Sorry, Charlies and Charliettes...

The financial stress is really getting to me and beating me down. I had to escape, so we went to the movies last night. A frivolous purchase I know, but I would have spent my last penny to disappear into someone ELSE'S story for a little while--one that isn't as dismal as Deloris Price's in She's Come Undone. We saw The Bourne Supremacy, which was just as engrossing as The Bourne Identity. I needed some excitement, some reckless abandon. It fit the bill nicely and snapped me awake for a little while. Awake is good.

bye, Smarty!

You were one cool racing horse...

damn sheep...

Which flock do you follow?

this quiz was made by alanna
Yeah, but I'm a reluctant Goth Sheep...
Stolen without remorse from DD Fiber Farm.

pbbbblllllttttt...

I posted something earlier and it vanished thanks to our godforsaken firewall here. I talked about what I did over my weekend trip to West Virginia and all kinds of stuff. Then, poof. Here's the new version:

I was gone. Now I'm back.

I didn't have time to read over the weekend so I'm still reading She's Come Undone. I like it, but not as much as everyone else seems to. The writing style is clever and funny, but it seems more tragic than humorous. Maybe because I know people whose lives have been that shitty and worse. I don't know. I'm only halfway through it. It's definitely a different style of writing than I am used to, but it's good.

Once again poor hubby's clients aren't paying their bills, which means we can't pay ours. That makes me feel, oh, let's say---MURDEROUS?! My blood pressure continues to run high as well with the diastolic hovering at 100-- which also makes me mad, which makes my blood pressure even higher I'm sure. I swear my jugulars are sticking out like idiot-cord.

Which reminds me, I'm halfway through the Boogie Knits Summer Poncho. I think it's going to be really cute.

And school starts back in less than two weeks.

Later, McTaters. It's Monday and that's exactly how it feels.