Oh, yeah, Grateful Thursday

Well, I'm still alive, although I'm not exactly kicking. Except when I get in a coughing fit.

I usually like to try to express my thoughts more eloquently, but nothing for it now-- this sucks.

Yesterday, after the doctor trip, I don't think I moved from my couch all day except to go to bed. Today has been pretty much the same thing, although I did sit outside with Bub for about 10 minutes, soaking in some sun. He's been driving me crazy today too. He walks around all day, from window to window, begging to be let out only to beg to be let back in. Then he begs for food. Mostly he begs to get up on the couch with me, which is fine except his poor little knee has been hurting him the past two days so he won't jump. He just stands there, whining ever so quietly under his breath, staring at me, eventually resting his chin on the edge of the couch. I tried picking him up, but he yelped. I guess that's not comfortable for his knee either. So I keep forcing him to get in his bed. It's too much energy to dispense.

I thought I was done with fever but it came back this afternoon. Not too high, just around 100, but high enough to make me fairly uncomfortable. As a result, I'm not sure that I'm sticking to my plan of going into the office for a while tomorrow. I guess we'll see. The worst part is that metallic, musty, sick taste in my mouth-- you know what I mean-- that makes everything taste bad and reminds me, even in the brief moments I feel ok, that I'm not.

Oh, I just remembered--
1) I'm glad I went to the doctor when I did. So many people, like my husband, try to medicate something like this with cough medicine and aspirin, hoping it will go away, but I knew when I was running a fever I needed a doctor. Better safe than sorry.
2) The Golden Girls. They make days like this so much better.
3) My husband, who got me Indian last night and is bringing home Sonic tonight. So much for our "save money by eating in" scheme. But there's no way I'm cooking for him, I'd get him sick. And he's not cooking. He wouldn't even know where to start unless it was a steak, or a phone book, and I went with the phone book.

I think 3 is all I can manage right now. Looking forward to some onion rings.

I have bronchitis

Couldn't speak when I woke up this morning, shivering and boiling with fever, so I went to the doctor, and after a blood test (yikes) and my doctor listening to my chest, she told me it was bronchitis. She was so worried about how quickly it came on and how quickly it could turn to pneumonia that she gave me a shot (double yikes), one apparently so strong they made me lay down for it, lest I pass out.

So I've got two injuries added to my respiratory insult. I can't lay on my left side because of my arm and can't lay on my right because of my butt.

Needless to say I'm not at work and won't be for a couple more days. I feel like death, I don't really want to pass that around.

Going back to sleep now, if I can get comfortable.

one of those days, and lunch wars

I must make a grocery list before I go to the store. If I don't, one of two things happens, or more likely, both:
1- I will wander around the store aimlessly picking up items that I neither want nor need nor will ever eat, simply because they look interesting at the time
2- I will leave the store having forgotten very important necessities

Without a list, the trip can take hours. If I'm hungry, I get confused amongst all the pretty boxes and fresh vegetables. I pick up every item imagining what I could use it for, thinking of what could go with it, and how even though that accessory item is on the other side of the store it is now a necessity as well. I go back and forth from the dairy to the produce, from the dry goods to the baking aisle, wandering with wide eyes and an empty belly. If I'm not hungry or in a hurry, I race up and down the aisles, grabbing only by instinct, not realizing until I get home later that I missed several very important elements, and we end up eating applesauce and brussell sprouts or some other terrible combination that I somehow swept into my flying cart.

Yesterday, I diligently made a list. Another good thing about the iPhone is the note-taking feature. It makes my life easier, but I'm sure the people in line around the produce section and down the aisles are cursing me for texting while shopping, not knowing that I'm actually sorting through "juice, milk, bread, cereal..." trying to digitally scratch out the item I just picked up.

When I was finally done with my shopping yesterday, I made my way up to the self-checkout area. I prefer self-checkout. I'm a little bit of a control freak when it comes to bagging-- I use my own bags most of the time (a.k.a. when I remember them), and when you walk up to the bagger with your own bags, they almost always throw you a dirty look and then proceed to only half-fill them, insisting that you need to use some plastic as well. Since, like a lot of things in life, no one is a better bagger than me, I've moved to using the self-checkout so that I can pack my eggs with my bread and my juice with my cans rather than cramming everything on top of each other. And I use fewer bags in the process. Amazing.

As I swiped my card yesterday and waited for my receipt to print, I noticed I had forgotten to grab a twelve pack of soda. I sighed, loaded my bags, carted them to my car, and then came back in to the store. As I was headed to the line again with my box of soda, a man about my age with three things in his cart (a whole ham, 6 eggs, and milk-- interesting combination) insisted I go ahead of him. I scanned the sodas quickly and then ran my card. No good. Ran it again. Nope. Third time, it still wouldn't take it. I knew the guy behind me was starting to wish he hadn't been so nice. The checkout supervisor finally came over, and at the same snail's pace he used to walk, he slid my card delicately through the scanner. Finally it took.

I grabbed the sodas by the slit in the top of the cardboard box that passes as a handle, hefted them out in front of me, and as I hurriedly turned toward the door, I felt the cardboard rip between my thumb and forefinger and the weight in my hand released. I was left holding nothing but a piece of the box, and cokes went flying everywhere, clanking on the ground, rolling under people's feets, smacking a woman's shoe. Like a dumped out jar of marbles, they multiplied as they flew through the air.

Again, I sighed, and began chasing them down. The snail slowly bent and began helping, but he told me just to grab another box and he'd take care of it. The man who had let me go first was already scanning at another checkout counter. I grabbed the new box and ran out the door.

An hour later I was back, this time because I forgot dog food. Sometimes you just can't win for losing.

Husband and I are trying not to eat out as much at lunch. Between Sonic, the Mexican place, and the Chinese buffet, we're getting fat and spending too much money. It's just so easy and tempting, and the main alternative-- taking food to work-- means:
1- You don't get to the leave the office for a bit, which, after all, is the main purpose of lunch
2- You're stuck eating something cold and unfilling like a sandwich and chips

And a sandwich for a vegetarian consists of bread, cheese, a smear of mayo, and some lettuce and tomato if I'm lucky, which I'm usually not. By 3 pm I'm ravenous again.

So I bought a bunch of frozen meals: Amy's, Healthy Choice, Hungry Man, etc. This is probably what distracted me at the store yesterday. I took too much time trying to decide between bean burritos and chicken pot pies, and I raced through the rest of my shopping to make up for it.

Luckily my parents have a condo not too far away from where we work (they're here every other weekend to visit me and go to sporting events on campus), so we can escape there to eat these meals. I will be reviewing them in my blog this week so that:
1- I can remember what the heck we ate and whether or not we liked it
2- Because I can
3- (Yes, there's a 3) So that you lucky people will know what's good and not good in the world of frozen microwavable meals.

And so, for today...

Today I had Healthy Choice's Manicotti Formaggio Complete Meal, which comes with about 2/3 a cup of broccoli and some apple oat mixture for dessert. Despite it taking too long too cook in the microwave for it to really qualify as "fast," (five minutes, stir, then four to six more), and despite the narrow tubular manicotti's odd shape, like cheese-stuffed cigars, this part of the meal had a very filling cheesey and tomato flavor. The sauce stood on it's own, not watery like they can sometimes get, and the pasta was al dente and not gummy or flaccid. The broccoli could have used some salt, which I added, but it was steamed just right. The apple "crisp" (you can't really crisp in the microwave, but I see what they were going for) was sweet, and I always like something sweet at the end of a meal, but it wasn't anything special. Caramel would have helped. But with it all for a mere 350 calories, I feel surprisingly satiated. We've yet to see how long that feeling lasts. More on that tomorrow.

Husband indulged in a 460 calorie Hungry Man Rotisserie Chicken meal, 3 large pieces rounded out with about half a cup of mashed potatoes, half a cup of green beans, and a 2 inch square brownie. He ate all the chicken down to the bones. When I asked how it was, he shrugged and said, "tastes like chicken." The mashed potatoes he ate very quickly, but the beans he only picked at. I asked him to give me an honest opinion, and he said, "this area," circling his fork around the empty black pockets that once held chicken, potatoes, and brownie, "was good, but this area," pointing to the beans sitting in their compartment, "not so much." But he concluded that it was warmer and more filling than a sandwich, just as good as fast food but healthier, and at $3.50 a lot cheaper than what we had been eating, so all in all a good meal.

In other news, I feel like I may be coming down with something. Husband says I'm a hypochondriac, which very well may be, but my throat has been scratchy since about this time yesterday, last night I started coughing a deep chest cough, and the cough continues today. I feel a tickle and a twinge in my throat, and it's making me nervous. But surely 24 hours after noticing the first symptom I'd be sicker than I am now?

Halloween: the only day I wish I had kids

Husband was bored one day at work a couple weeks ago, and while randomly searching around the internet discovered that Lewis Black was touring and coming to our neck of the woods soon. I forgot how small the Orpheum is and authorized him spending about double the normal ticket price to buy a couple of third row seats some season ticket holders were selling for this past Friday night.

The ride up was fun, if trying, with Memphis traffic in the rain, but it gave us time to talk and wander through thoughts that we hadn't gotten to express in the business of life lately. Using the wonder that is my iPhone, we were able to locate a parking garage inbetween the restaurant and theater. We ate at my husband's favorite barbeque rib place, Rendezvous. Unless you just know where this place is or are smart enough to ask directions you'd never find it hidden away in the one-way alley beside the Days Inn. Regardless of its hidey-hole location, it stays very busy, nearly full even at 5:45 when we walked in to eat. I like it because they have meatless red beans and rice, which they label as meatless, and serve with all their meatless sides including cole slaw, pickles, peppers, cheese cubes, and rolls. And it's tasty. Husband revelled in his dry-rubbed rib goodness, practically bathing in it, and we sucked down a pitcher of beer before finally heading out into the cold rain again to walk to the theater.

While waiting for the doors to open, we had a very engrossing conversation about the difference between the "riff-raff" of the left and the "hicks" on the right side of politics, how the left gets all the socially enept nerds with their gristly mustaches and pac man t-shirts and socks with black tennis shoes (there were several of these surrounding us at this point) while the right gets the camo wearing hee-haw yelling crowd. I know both crowds well having grown up as a liberal in a very conservative state. Yes, we were stereotyping, but apparently the staff was trying to keep us trapped in the lobby so we'd buy beer and Lewis Black paraphenalia, and we were bored. Finally they opened the doors and let us sit, and we were very happy with our seats. The opening comedian, John Bowman I believe, was hilarious, and Lewis Black was exactly what we expected him to be. I laughed so hard I cried several times in the hour and a half he was on stage.

I was so sleepy on the ride back, we forgot to pick up my husband's car from his work, and in the morning the last thing I wanted to do was drive him to work, so I was without a car all day Saturday, not that I would have gone anywhere. I spent the day braiding myself a headband for my hippie costume and then braiding my wet hair so it would be wavy later, only to get a migraine at about 1 pm.

By the time my husband got home, my head was still pounding, and two of our friends had pulled out of our plans. We still had another couple we could have gone out with, but they don't go out until late (they're young'ns) and I just wasn't feeling it anymore.

After about the third group of trick-or-treaters (I think it was two little girls as ninjas) came and left, I was feeling better, so we went and got some dinner on the Square so we could see what some folks were wearing. I saw lots of Mario's and several Ninja Turtles-- it was a very old-school Halloween. We tried to find our friends with the little boy, who I hear was the cutest pirate ever, but they ended up at the in-laws, so we just grabbed a couple movies and went home.

Watching all the little kids up and down the streets, running and jumping in their pink fairy wings and long Batman capes, my usually non-existant maternal instinct kicked in. I would love to have some children to dress up in crazy little costumes and parade around the neighborhoods, watching the joy light up their little painted faces. (But then I'd want to give them back to whoever is responsible enough to take care of them on a regular basis. So that feeling didn't last very long. I just need a couple more dogs.)

We snuggled on the couch, with the dog, and watched our movies until late at night. Sunday we watched a couple more but also managed to get in some yardwork, and after holding up that heaviest-weedeater-ever for an hour, my arms are sore today. But that's the last trim before the winter. We want to create ourselves some raised garden beds for use for vegetables in the spring, but we're having trouble finding a border-- it's either 108 foot-by-half foot heavy bricks, moved down the hill one at a time, or some big pieces of untreated cedar. The cedar would be easier to handle but is a lot harder to find. We probably have better things we could be spending money on, like new window blinds or new stairs for the deck, but there's something wholesome and renewing about digging in the dirt and creating food from what once was nothing. My grandfather did it, now I want to carry on.

Italy or bust

My parents told me that for Christmas they are going to buy mine and my husband's plane tickets to Italy because they don't want us to have to wait til 2012 to go. I've mentioned before on here that we are steadily saving for a whirlwind two week trip, but because of our slow progress in that department, we hadn't planned to go until 2012, or The Year I Turn 30 (dum dum dummmm).

Because of their generous offer (which of course we jumped on right away, I don't turn down presents, no matter how generous or uncalled for) we have amped up the planning process. We're thinking September next year. I made our itinerary the other night:

Fly into Naples, spend the night
Explore Naples- one day
Day trip from Naples to Pompeii
If we can, day trip from Naples to Positano and/or Sorrento
Train to Rome, explore Rome the rest of that day
Two more days to explore Rome, leave later second day
Train to Florence
One day to explore Florence
Day trip to Pisa
Train to Venice, stopping in Bologna and Ferrara, so taking a day
Full day in Venice
Tentative: Next day train to Vienna (all day train)
Two days in Vienna
Fly home

So including all the tentative plans and flight days, that's a full 15 days. Wow. What an amazing trip it would be if we can pull it off.

Naples worries me. All I've ever heard about it is that it's run by the Mafia and it's dangerous. I don't know anything about the city though. I've been to both Pompeii and Sorrento and loved them, so I want husband to see them. My alternative plan would be to fly into Naples and directly catch a bus or train to Sorrento, making that our "stay" those couple days instead of Naples. But we would probably have to go back into Naples to get the train to Rome. I'm concerned that with the traveling I've done in Italy no one has ever thought to take me into Naples. Is that a bad sign?

On the other end of the trip, we have friends in Vienna we'd love to see, and I've never been there and am dying to go. It's a full 8 hour train ride from Venice, but it may be worth it.

I feel like I'm leaving out so much. I want to go to Sicily, I'd love to go to Capri, I want to see Lake Como and the Alps, I loved Assisi and want to take him there too but can't figure out how to add it in. There's only so much that can be done.

His mom asked us the other day to make our Christmas lists, and my first thought was "money!" But it being his extended family doing the giving, I dutifully made a list of easily accessible and wrappable items like books, cds, and other randoms that I don't really need or want (although I did add a disclaimer at the top that cash is perfectly acceptable). I'm not asking the parents for a single other thing, though, not after that gesture. I need to think of something great to get them.

Comments fixed!

I want to apologize to anyone who's tried to comment on my blog in the last couple days. Something in my new html was messed up, but it's all fixed now! Thank you for bringing this to my attention Rachel!

Grateful Thursday

1) Although apparently I have scared everyone away, I'm glad for the new direction I'm taking with my blog. I'm sure topical conversations will arise from my chronicling of every day life, but I'm tired of trying to force them, so I'm changing tones. And looks too, in case you haven't noticed the lack of black.
2) Halloween. It's my favorite holiday. When else do you get to dress up and act like a child and eat candy, and no one thinks poorly of you for it? We're going out with a couple couples-- one dressed as Fred and Wilma Flintstone, the other as Mario and Luigi (the female in that couple has an odd obsession with wearing a mustache). We'll be a Hippie (me) and a Mime (husband), better known as Peace and Quiet. Thanks to whomever posted that in my earlier costumes post-- I'm grateful for you too!
3) My Friday night plans. We've got tickets, third row, to see Lewis Black perform at the Orpheum in Memphis. He's one of my favorite comedians, and I can't wait to laugh my ass off.
4) The relationship I've formed with our VP of Sales. No one else likes her-- they all insist that she's rude or demanding, but really she just knows what she wants and asks for it. She knows, now, that she can call me and talk about issues she's having with other employees, the same way all the employees come to me, so I'm better able to mediate problems between everyone now. I'm grateful that she trusts me enough to be honest with me.
5) Diet root beer, which tastes a lot like regular root beer, especially when it's really cold. My boss says that I'm poisoning myself, but he's one to talk with his solo-slim pills and protein supplements. Plus, we all have to die of something, right? If I die because I had too many sodas, then so be it. At least I was happy while I was here.

I was supposed to go to the grocery store yesterday after work, but my email refused to work properly until 4:30 yesterday afternoon. I had our System Admin trying to fix it all day, meaning I got no work done until then, so I had to stay til nearly 6 catching up. I could have stayed longer. But we had the makings for dinner at home, cleaning out the pantry, with cream corn, crowder peas, and biscuits. A nice, warm vegetable plate.

I slept with ear plugs in last night, and I don't remember ever waking up, not once. It was so refreshing. Husband bought me pink woman-sized plugs as well which is nice because the regular ones make my ear canals sore. Who knew such a thing was possible.

snoring, unfortunate meals, and muffins

I'm tired lately. I'm tired of my blog, I'm tired of thinking of things to write. So I'm not going to think anymore, I'm just going to write. I started this for me anyway.

Husband has been snoring at night. (I think I should start referring to him as "'usband" in a sort of Eliza Doolittle voice-- it makes me giggle). It started maybe a month ago. We both noticed that as the weather started to change, so did the level of snot in our noses and throats, and while my just continually drains down the back of my throat and makes it sore, his stays stuck, apparently, like gooey peanut butter in the back of his airway, causing him to rattle and shake when he breathes deeply at night.

I'm a light sleeper. There's a dog that lives out our bedroom window and across our neighbor's backyard onto our neighbor's neighbor's deck, and at least two nights a week I wake up to a poodley sounding "yap... yap yap... yap... yap yap." And yes, it keeps that same rythm, that musically trained poodle, for hours at a time. Quite annoying. Between that and the snoring, well, these dark circles under my eyes keep getting darker and bigger and deeper. I stuffed toilet paper in my ears for a while, realizing while sitting in the bathroom in the middle of the night for one of my 3 am pees (I'm like an old woman), that I could roll up half a sheet and stuff it down in there, and that was enough to at least drown out the yap yap. But not the 'usband.

I got frustrated last night, asking him to roll over at least twice. It's not a constant snore. It's random. He'll be quiet for half an hour, then all the sudden he'll let out one loud SNAAA and then quiet again. Just enough to wake me up completely. He made a particularly loud noise at about 2 last night, to the point that I flopped over on my back so hard I shook the bed, and then I let out a little whine and sigh, so he stood up, grabbed his pillow, and walked to the couch. I didn't say a word. I slept hard until my alarm went off at 7:30. Today, on his day off, his only task is to go buy me some real ear plugs.

We went to dinner with friends last night. It was a birthday celebration, so the birthday boy got to pick the place. Everyone loves this restaurant, they all rave and say it's their favorite, the best shrimp and grits and steaks in town. I've had the shrimp and grits there. Eh. 'Usband doesn't like it either. I had fully decided to eat a salad and then pick up Sonic on the way home if I was still hungry (grilled cheese and onion rings... talk about gourmet), but they had changed their menu a little and added an interesting looking grouper dish with a hollandaise sauce and new potatoes and wilted spinach.

It looked interesting, but that was about it. The hollandaise tasted like butter and mayo whipped together, which don't get me wrong, those are two of my favorite things, but if I'm paying $20 for a dish, I expect more creativity. The potatoes and spinach were ok but boring. The fish was at least cooked well. Overall, I was not impressed though, and the chicken my husband got was just so-so as well. I hate so-so meals in general, but with a $68 tab, I was annoyed the rest of the night. I think the birthday boy enjoyed his pasta at least.

I was hungry the rest of the night too since I could only manage to put away half my piece of mayo-butter bathed fish. At some point a Dunkin' Donuts commercial came on, and no I was not tempted by the donuts, no, not the coffee either. The muffins. I got the oddest craving for a muffin, particulary the apple cinnamon friendship muffins that my mom used to make all the time. (They're called friendship muffins because the recipe makes so much dough you're supposed to give some of it away to a friend, but you can keep the dough refridgerated for up to two weeks while you use it up, so we used to just make a batch and keep the dough ready for freshly baked muffins every day for a couple weeks.)
I emailed my mom, as if she would be up at 10:30 pm, and asked her to send me the recipe. She emailed me back this morning and said that she hadn't thought about those in a while, but thanks, she now has a craving too. She'll send me the recipe tonight when she gets home from work. I can't wait. I can taste the warm fluffy apple cinnamonyness now.

inside my room

I wish I could remember when, but at some point in my life I decided I was too sensitive. A raw bundle of nerves, feeling every prick and thump and caress too vividly. I couldn't take it.

I hurt much too deeply and too long; I loved so deeply I drowned. I huddled around my emotions for a while, trying to shore myself up for a long life filled with higher ups and downs than other people experience or could even imagine. I tried to explain to myself, convince myself, that this won't kill me, that it's a wonderful thing that I feel so much, and that I just need to protect my innermost self a little better. So up went the walls.

I wonder what it's like to live inside other peoples' heads. I wonder what someone would do if they were trapped in mine for a while. I imagine a rational brain, like my husband's, as a tidy little library with memories and thoughts and feelings and information all tucked away neatly into their places, clean of dust and spiderwebs, ready to be pulled out when needed. Or a creative brain like my boss's, an imaginative fairy-tale world where he encounters no boundaries on what he wants to think or do, booming with confidence and bravery.

Then there's me. I imagine my brain would look a lot like my teenage bedroom-- clothes, shoes, books, pictures, toys, pillows, all strewn carelessly around, a riot of colors and shapes and movement, with some darkness and dirt hidden under the beautiful mess.

I cried last night while laying in bed alone in the dark. I don't know why. If you had asked then I wouldn't have been able to tell you. I must have stumbled on a stack of books and uncovered something deep and dark without knowing it. I hadn't cried in a while. I miss my grandfather; time passes too quickly; I'm afraid of losing Bub soon; work is stressful.

It's a condition of being me, being confined behind these walls, that I bundle things like this up and let them out at once. But if I were to tear down a wall and let the sunlight into my chaotic little world, who I am and the depth of my ever-changing emotions would spill out onto whomever is nearest. It wouldn't be pretty. I don't think I even want to open a door-- someone may come in and mess up my mess. I think I'll design a pretty Keep Out sign. I like living in my crazy little room. It's comfortable and cozy, and I wouldn't really be me without it.

So what does your brain look like?

new look

I was bored with black. I hope you all find this easier to read as well.

I'm going to have a busy couple days here at work, but by Thursday I think things will be slowed back down to a more manageable pace and I'll find some time for writing.