Didn't This Happen To A Cousin Of Yours?

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

ps - this was post # 1400

The Eye Soap

It's 10:30am and I've already seen 2 topless old men. Any guesses on what my daily total will be?

The Despising

It is not really a hidden fact that I really despise doing dishes. The other day in the act of doing said despised activity I came to a few conclusions on why there is so much despising.

1. "Old" food - I'm a finicky princess and I don't like dealing/touching with food that has been all mucked up, may have been in or near someone else's mouth and I especially don't like touching it after it's been in the sink for 10 minutes and has become soggy "old" food.
2. Back pain - there are few sinks that are at just the right height and closeness to the counter that don't cause me to bend and begin to ache as begin to wash the plates.
   
3. Excema - I have excema on my hands, it is worsened by exposure to moisture. A sink full of dishes in water is quite moist. I love itchy, red hands that have a rash on the palms and fingers. It is my favourite.

It made sense to my itchy hands, sore back and alerted gag reflex that dishes might not be their best friend.

So there, that that dishes!

Con-Text

You know when you're starting a new job and you have to wait a bit to feel out what you can "get away with" and what you can't. You learn that some things are ok as long as they don't interfere with your work. You also learn some things are just not ok. I am sort of waiting to see/hear about cell phone use - mostly for the text messaging. I don't want to take calls, but I do want to respond to texts.

For the first couple of shifts, I waited until I had my break. Then I got a little bolder and if there was a minute without clients waiting at the desk I would flip open the phone (from the vest pocket in which it had been hiding) and quickly read messages, but still wait until break to respond to them.

I think I have found some middle ground - texting during pee breaks. Yup, toilet texting (sorry Dad). I work shifts at many different times in the day. I just wanted to put that out there so that if you get a text from me, well, you never know what I could be doing. Grin.

Lunch Time Posting On Sober Realities

The past couple of days I have noticed a lot of traffic passing by my building. The traffic is people of a 'younger' nature and they are mostly on foot. Some are on bicycles. I was confused as to why there would be so many kids mucking about in the middle of the day. Then it hit me - a very sobering thought - there is a high school very close to my building and across the street from my building is a convenience store and a pizza joint - these kids are not just out for physical fitness, they're on lunch hour from...sigh... SUMMER SCHOOL. I feel so deeply for these teens. I have done the summer school thing. Once in high school and one summer course for my undergrad.

I know some of these kids have made their own beds by messing around during the regular school year and now they have to lay in them..lie in them? Whatever. But some, like just suck at certain subjects. I failed gr 11 advanced math twice and to get my gr 11 math credit, I took gr 11 general math in summer school. I actually got a great mark, somewhere in the 80s or 90s. My teacher was awesome and very straight forward. He would teach during the morning and then those who only needed a half credit or something would leave. Then he would allow the rest of us to do our homework in class for the afternoon. If we needed help, he would give it. He also told us sometimes terrible stories from his days at Trent or living in Toronto. We small town kids were deliciously scandalized! He had a great format for testing too. Every morning we would have a quiz. The quiz would consist of 10 questions picked at random from the previous day's homework. At the end of each week we would have a test and the test contained questions picked at random from each day's quizzes. Then at the end of the course the exam was questions picked at random from the tests. So if you did your homework, and kept it corrected and corrected your quizzes and tests you were fine. And I was.

That's my story.

I Thought They Looked Like First Years

The eggs. They hatched.

Seeing The White Light, Starting To Walk Towards It, Then Having A Rope Thrown Around My Waist And Being Brought Back

This is me. I'm recovering from pneumonia. And I'm being told that one of the best ways for me to recover quicker is to rest and stay quiet. Thusly, my bed, its many blankets and pillows are where I am based.

(click for larger versions of pics)






I have a pretty good set up here in my room. One of the keys to me just shutting up and not moving around is to have pretty much anything I could need within arms reach. In these next two pics you'll see my bedside table; complete with an arsenal of things to help me through this and my desk chair - aka the current house for my laptop. The laptop being my non-talking conduit to the outside world and my entertainment centre.








There are a few other things that help recovery. One of those is motivation. I decided that being sick is lame, and that I'm getting tired of canceling things, and ending up in tears because I'm missing everything that is fun or cool. In conjunction with the decision that being sick is lame, I decided that when my Levquin (the stomach eating, germ killing antibiotic I'm on) is done that I will be better.

Just so I can keep track of this better getting, I made a motivational count down board. You'll see the hand coloured (which I am pretty dang proud of) mini-banner that says Days Until I'm Better. You'll also probably recognize that Holy guy in the middle of the banner, His name is Jesus, we're friends. Underneath the banner are the packets of Levaquin, all labeled with the day I have to take them. As I finish the pack I break it down and change it's position on the wall. Ta da.








Another recovery thinger is the whole coughing/not coughing ratio. Coughing in many ways is good for me, so that I can get the "shit" out of my lung. But coughing hurts the throat (which I need to sing in this Friday's choir concert, where I have a special line to sing). And coughing really hurts after I woke up the other night in one my usual coughing fits, but managed to tear/pull/rip something in/on my left side. Three of my best friends in the coughing/not coughing battle are here - vapo rub, lozenges and cough syrup (with expectorant!).






And here is some of the collateral damage of the cold that turned to bronchitis that turned to pneumonia - 2 of the 4 empty boxes of kleenex, the empty bottle of all in one cough syrup and an empty bag of lozenges.




a few more pics, and hilarious sets up can be found here.

Welcome To Pneumonia Town

Population LStew.

The Velocity Of Bricks

Once upon a time about 13 days ago I got a cold. It seemed like an other cold. I snotted, I sneezed, I hacked a bit. I figured I'd infect some family members over Easter, come back to the hammer, snot a bit more and get on with my life.

Um no. I thought the cold was getting better. Then it decided to get worse. Then it decided to drive me to the point where I'm beginning to wonder at the velocity bricks would pick up as a hurled them off of my balcony onto the cars below.

I decided to seek medical attention on Monday (day 10) because it seemed I had started to develop pink eye and as previously mentioned here, green stuff was emerging. I couldn't get into see my doc (until Friday), so I went to a clinic. The doc there said I had a bad cold and that my asthma was making it worse. Ok says I - that doesn't explain the ear pain or the green stuff, but sure.

Last night at 2am -not having slept since Monday at 4am, I broke down and hit Shoppers up for come cough syrup, vapo rub, eye drops and kleenex. I came home, and at 3:30 finally got to sleep and stayed that way until 7am. And I'm still up. I didn't sleep today, even though I didn't really leave my bed. I'm exhausted, but I can't sleep, cough cough, why cough, can't i cough, sleep cough, snot, cough? Every time I get close to sleeping or even when I finally do begin to sleep I wake up coughing. Stupid cough syrup, you are not doing your job. You are supposed to be an all in one. But you are turning out to be a none in none.

So now its almost 3am - my throat is raw and burny, there is no skin left near my nose, my nerves are shot, my body is weak, my eyes are getting sticky, my ears won't pop and yeah. But I have popsicles thanks to a visit from Jacki and Amanda and sometimes the cough sounds looser and when I'm not coughing so hard my eyes look pretty good.

The argh.

Growl

toothpastefordinner.com

I'm Not Sure, But..

I don't think green stuff should come out of your face.

Ew.

So last night I had a rather frustrating meeting. It left me, well, frustrated, kind of riled and in need of some processing time. I went for a walk around a friend's neighbourhood for about an hour, and then talked to said friend for a bit about the some of the results of the walk.

When I was done I was tired, hungry, still somewhat frustrated and seeking comfort food. I decided to hit McDonalds on the way back to my apartment. One of the few things better than a dirty breakfast is a dirty nightcap.

Anyway... so I have my mouth and the rest of myself all set for a Big Mac, no onion, extra pickles. If you have known me for any length of time, you will know that I always take my Macs like that. I've been doing it since I was 16 - its a reflex now. So I order, I get my order and I drive away. I eat the fries on the way home and save the Mac for in my apartment. I bite into the Mac.... was that the filthy tang of an onion i just found? No, it couldn't be. Take another bite - um, I think it was - open up the Mac. Dag. They made me a no pickle, extra onion Big Mac. That is the antithesis of goodness to me! But since I was all the way back home there was nothing I could do about it. So disappointing, and I'd used most of a gift card up on that too!

Oh Meadowlands McDonalds at night, why do you have to be such a crap shoot (ha!)? One time I asked for a six piece meal with bbq sauce and they gave me a number 6 meal (a Mac, with onions) instead. Why MM@N, why can't you have the consistency of MM during the day? Le sigh.

Maybe, But You'll Have To Ask Nice

You May Want To Repent, I Think Jesus Is Coming Back Soon

My Mom just told me that the Walmart in Trenton is going to be open 24hrs starting this weekend for the rest of the holiday season.

Snow

I'm going to be sorely disappointed if we get this pile of snow and the only thing it does make me dig, shovel and leave early for everything. Jacob Ellens, if you read my blog - multiple snow days in a semester is not a bad thing, in fact, it will make you a living legend.

A Little Wedding Action