amanda_land_v2

Today I was merrily brushing my teeth when I suddenly and uncontrollably sneezed. That has never happened before and the result wasn't pretty. I tried to cover my mouth, but the toothbrush was in the way and I wound up stabbing myself in the gums instead. Then I had to clean toothpaste off of the computer screen. Yes, I was reading my email while brushing my teeth. Strange combination, but I hate staring into the mirror while brushing. It makes me feel narcissistic. Plus, it's boring.

LJ cuts have suddenly started working on my LJ! (as you can see) I think it may have been a problem with Vista and was fixed with one of the recent updates. That's just speculation, of course, but Vista is fucked up and interferes with everything. You have to have patience and perform huge amounts of trouble shooting with Vista just to make normal programs usable. Even now, they don't expect a networking update until sometime this year. This means that we can't network our home computers until this update arrives and that I can't send to the printer without a cord. Annoying.

But I'm happy that the cuts are finally working!

I love Lee to bits. Really I do. He's dealt remarkably well with my illness and pain, long after I would have kicked my own ass to the curb. He's sweet and kind and loving. But even after 10 years of living together, I still don't understand the boy. Lee is like the human hand of chaos. He is the catalyst for entropy in an ordered world and possibly the sweetest, most naive Bringer of Armageddon to ever walk the earth.

Why, oh why, will LJ Cuts not work in my journal? Do I need a paid account? I'm following the directions, and let's face it, it's not rocket science. So why can I not use LJ Cuts?

What Your Face Says

At first glance, people see you as driven and ambitious. Overall, your true self is passionate and physical. With friends, you seem logical, detached, and a bit manipulative. In love, you seem mysterious and interesting. In stressful situations, you seem cheerful and optimistic.

You Are a Smart American

You know a lot about US history, and you're opinions are probably well informed. Congratulations on bucking stereotypes. Now go show some foreigners how smart Americans can be.

On one of the forums that I frequent, someone asked the question: What is your most embarrassing moment. One moment? I have had so many embarrassing moments that I thought I would recount some here.

When I was fourteen, I was walking home from the recreation center. Some high school boys teams were playing soccer and there were some HOT players. I became so engrossed in watching them and appreciating their beauty (mentally drooling) that I walked into a lamppost which knocked me flat on my ass. God, it was soooo embarrassing!

The article below was sent to me by Wendy and it was very helpful and informative. I have neuropathic pain, the kind that “results from abnormal nerve function or direct damage to a nerve.” and is probably caused by radiculopathy, spinal stenosis, or spinal cord injury (from the bone spurs irritating the spinal cord).

The damaged nerve fibers “can fire spontaneously, both at the site of the injury and at other places along the nerve pathway” and “can continue indefinitely even after the source of the injury has stopped sending pain messages.”

“Neuropathic pain can be constant or intermittent, burning, aching, shooting or stabbing, and it sometimes radiates down the arms or legs,” she adds. This kind of pain tends “to involve exaggerated responses to painful stimuli, spread of pain to areas that were not initially painful, and sensations of pain in response to normally nonpainful stimuli such as light touch.” It is often worse at night and may involve abnormal sensations like tingling, pins and needles, and intense itching.

The above paragraph exactly describes my symptoms and I want to weep with relief that they're recognized, especially the "sensations of pain in response to normally nonpainful stimuli such as light touch.” Even a light touch is sometimes so painful.

I made my first-ever roast beef tonight! It was so easy to make, and it came out very tasty! I feel quite proud of myself. It's a shame that Lee doesn't eat red meat, 'cause he's missing out on deliciousness. Well, more for me!

I usually try to cook something that Lee will also eat, but sometimes it gets tiring to make chicken. (He eats fish too, but somehow, we usually only have chicken in the house, and he only likes certain dishes.) Remember on Gilligan's Island how they would have coconut pie or broiled coconut or coconut flambee? That's how I feel about chicken here. Just as Mommy Dearest shrieked, "No more wire hangers!" I want to shriek, "No more chicken!" I guess I would have to flog Lee with a chicken while saying that, but that would be kind of kinky. As Terry Pratchett said, "Erotic is using a feather. Kinky is using the whole damn chicken."

If people were made out of string, would scissors be banned?

For anime fans, this is a really funny comic strip about anime licensing.

http://www.vgcats.com/anime/?strip_id=0

I've been doing laundry, washing the dog beds and towels, emptying the wastepaper baskets in the bedrooms and bathrooms, and scrubbing out the bathtub. Since my back is so bad, I've started using a long-handled brush and lots of bleach spray cleanser so I don't have to bend. It works! If only I could bathe the dogs that way! Tomorrow, I'm going to try to replace the O-rings in the tub faucet since they drip. I think I can do it. Wish me luck!

I came across this in the free section on craigslist and laughed my butt off. Even when I was a vegetarian, I wouldn't have picked them up for free. She makes them sound soooo appealing (LOL):


Been on a diet and doing pretty well, so I'm at Costco and spot Boca Veggie Burgers (16 Pack), Vegan approved-Now if that isn't committment I don't know what is.

Yesterday I broke the seal on the pack and stuck one on the grill next to a couple of real burgers and hot dogs for a little at-home casual dining. De-lish I was thinking. So I burned that bad boy a little on both sides and slid it in between two halves of a low fat bun. Umm.

First bite-damn, that's weird, maybe the bun is stale. Bite two, ugh, damn it tastes like rotten fish mixed with flavored cardboard-but it does have sort of a nice greenish/brown hue to it. I gave up and quickly wolfed down a couple of spare hotdogs, the diet will have to wait.

So, today I'm thinking maybe I was too hasty so I decided to give em' one more try and this time I pan fried that puppy. A little pam, a little olive oil to make it sizzle and even a little Tony's seasoning to kill, er enhance the flavor. One bite, oh god, even worse. Smothered it in Salsa, no joy.
So, you Vegans have my respect for being able to take that crap every day.

I will give these "Burgers" or whatever they are to the first person that asks for them-you pick up. These are individually sealed, frozen Bocas, only about 4 days out from Costco. If they are still here by Friday, I'm gonna take them to the city dump.

Sorry, no pictures.

JB

So, I still haven't told anyone about my LJ. Probably because I wasn't able to update it. In fact, once again, it has been months due to crazy, crappy, medical problems followed by surgery which I'm currently recovering from. I'll go into the details later. So I'm going to start with the trip to Florida that Kris & I took about two months ago. I'm going to write it up and will post soon! Scouts honor! (although I was never a scout)

It’s Sunday, gray and foggy outside. Strings of rain intermittently unspool from the clouds. Lee is putting away the Christmas decorations. The weeble-wobble Santa is wrapped in bubble wrap. The pine-tree girl spreads her arms wide and lays down in her box. The plastic tree goes to rest in a plastic bin, slumbering for another year. This tree is illuminated and separates into three pieces. On the tree I grew up with, you had to attach each individual limb, around and around and around. It was time consuming and prickly, leaving long scratches down your arms when you reached to the middle to hook the branch to the pole. (Because of my crazy allergies, I can’t have a real tree. I wouldn’t be able to breath through the entire Christmas season if we have pine trees in the house.)

The dog bed (the old comforter that became their bed) is back in the corner where the Christmas tree had stood. The season has passed like a soft breeze, unseen, barely felt in a haze of Hydrocodone. I can’t believe Christmas is over. It was the least stressful holiday I’ve ever had. Who can get stressed while lying flat on one’s back, lost in a sea of painkillers? And I didn’t have to shop for holiday presents, stressing over what to get Lee’s family.

So last weekend, WOO, the Women of Outworlders, went to a cabin in Ellijay for fall apple picking. My coworker, Marilyn, had been talking about apple picking and the idea lodged in my head. We stayed at The Dragonfly cabin owned by one of Wendy’s old clients so we were able to stay one night free! And mountain cabins these days, they aren’t your grandaddy’s mountain cabins. They’re a far cry from the one-room composites that resembled a set of Linkin’ Logs. They are elegant 2-3 story affairs that rise gracefully up the mountainside with shiny wooden floors and faux rustic furnishings.

We were only staying a couple of days, so I expected that we would buy some groceries, maybe some cold cuts, and grill one night, maybe pick up some fast food, or eat at a local restaurant. But someone spoke up and offered to cook breakfast one morning, followed by another person offering to cook dinner one night, and so on and so on. Eventually, someone said that we should each cook a meal while we were there. What? Are these people nuts? Were we going to spend the entire weekend cooking? I was flabbergasted. Well, that reinforces some stereotypes about girls. And here I thought I was overly sensitive about supplies due to my food allergies. Not to mention the fact that I felt some performance anxiety about cooking for a group of people, with the context of my food allergies while in a house I’m completely unfamiliar with. Especially since I’m a very mediocre cook. I had visions of everyone taking a bite of food immediately gagging.

Anyway, I chose grilling hamburgers. It was yummy, outdoorsy, warm in the cool October. And we could make s’mores! (Or could have, if I hadn’t forgotten to buy marshmallows.)

When my turn arrived on Saturday night, I determinedly ventured outside and uncovered the grill. It was a propane grill. Now, I grew up with charcoal. I like charcoal. Charcoal is easy. And tastes good. You put charcoal in, douse it with lighter fluid, light it with a match, and let it get hot. Position hamburgers on rack, and you’re good to go. Did I mention that this was propane? Already, I was regretting my decision to tackle the mysterious box that contained flame instead of electricity. All right, I can do this. It had instructions clearly printed on the grill itself. Right on! I read the instructions, turned the dial to the fire symbol, and rapidly pressed the red ignition switch, as the instructions dictated. Nothing. I waited a bit, then tried again. Still nothing. I tried the right side. Nope.

Kris Harter came out.

“Is the propane tank open?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Try turning the dial.”

I squatted down and turned the dial to open. There was a satisfying hissing sound. Huh, who knew? Once again, I turned the dial and smacked the ignition button like I was playing Whack-a-Mole. Still nothing. The heel of my hand was beginning to hurt.

We eyed the grill.

“Maybe there’s nothing left in it,” Kris H. suggested.

“Hmmmm.”

Kris R. came out.

“You might have to light it with a match,” she said.

A match? Stick a lit firebrand into an area filled with combustible, unseen gasses? No way!

“I’ll just cook them on the stove,” I said, gathering up the hamburger patties, fully prepared to retreat into the known and comfortable realm of electricity.

“It’s simple. I’ll do it,” Kris R. said. “Do you have matches?”

“Nope, not me. I don’t smoke. Guess I’ll have to cook these on the stove after all. Oh well.”

She looked at me.

“I’ll find some,” she said. And she did, lighting the grill with a minimum of fuss and zero explosions.

Well, all right then. I slapped the burgers on the grill, and we were good to go.

Oy, I allowed my other journal to lapse and fall into ruin. So here, I shall endeavor to actually POST! Wish me luck! Look, already I'm failing to post properly, but too darn tired at 1:00 am to remedy the situation. Ah, insanity, take me away.