Seriously Random Thoughts

This is something I have thought for a while but haven't really shared with other people.  Have you ever looked at your pets in the mirror?  My cats love to jump up on the sink and drink water from the slowly dripping, trickling faucet so I have looked at them in the mirror on many occasions and I am struck by the way they look different to me when I look at them straight on or at their reflection.

And that led me to thinking about how we mostly see ourselves in a mirror 90% of the time and maybe the other 10% is in photographs.  Which is the real self?  The backwards reflection?  Or the photographed image?

And is this why people always say they hate photos of themselves?  Because our perception of what we should look like is just enough changed from what we see on a daily basis?

This is what happens when you are sick for too long and have way too much time on your hands so you ponder weird shit like this.

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A few years back I posted loads of pictures of all the different kinds of candy corn at the Walgreen's. This year, had I taken pictures of all the new candy corns you would be looking at about 5 more new flavors.  Now, why on earth do we need any new types of candy corn?  I like regular candy corn and see no reason to add Caramel Macchiato or Pumpkin Spice or S'more flavoring to it.  Those things are never going to taste as good as you think they will.  I promise to take some pics of the damn candy corn aisle next time I am over there.

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If I had had any idea back at the first part of April when I got sick and started coughing that damn near SIX MONTHS LATER I would still be sick the smart thing to do would have been to buy Walgreen's stock.  It's a good thing I didn't have any idea that this thing would hang in here this long because it is just too ridiculous for words.  My next move is to find a good allergist and get some extensive testing done.  The fall allergy season is upon us and I am not at all ready to take it on.

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Usually by now I have my Christmas list made and worked out what gifts I will be making and made good headway on having a bunch of them done.  And you would think with all the time I have spent at home doing nothing I could have achieved that and even finished most of them by now.  And yet, no.  I am blaming my lack of energy and stamina on the 93% oxygen saturation that I was at for all summer long and just being exhausted by the never-ending coughing.  So the truth is that I have done next to nothing and really have no clue about the Christmas list and gifting.  That's sad for me to admit.

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I was really looking forward to The Bastard Executioner, the new show by Kurt Sutter who did the Sons of Anarchy.  It premiered last night and was a big 2 hour extravaganza.  It took me damn near the first hour to get involved in it and figure out who was who.  I can't really tell how it will go yet.  There was a LOT of set up of time, place, characters, conflict, etc.  It is very reminiscent of The Vikings.

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Just so you know, I am done D U N with talking about my health and being sick this year.  It is boring and a pain in my ass and I am quite sure no one else wants to hear this crap either.  So rest assured, if you come back here to read again, there will be no more of the sick talk.

I am also done with using the cute little spacers between my random thoughts.  I thought it was a good idea, but now I don't think so.

Hope you are having a really good day in your part of the world.  Let me hear from you on the mirror vs photograph idea.

Am I getting crankier?

When something happens once you tend to think of it as an anomoly.  When it happens again, it's just a coincidence.  But when it happens for the fourth or fifth time, IN A ROW!  you tend to realize (unless you are dumb as a stump) that it might just be YOU.

Here's my predicament:

Lately, every single book I read, well, I end up hating the ending.  Hate. the. ending.  All summer long this has happened.

I think that trashy ass 50 shades book jinxed me.  And everything I have read since I just have not been happy with the endings.

I decided to read the Game of Thrones series since I have been watching the HBO series.  I love watching that and wanted to see how they align with the books.  The books are long and in parts, quite tedious.  Think Harry Potter long and James Michener tedious and you will have an idea of what I mean.  I enjoyed them.  And I was just going to read the first two because that's all the seasons they have shown on HBO and I didn't want to get ahead and then be all "yeah, yeah, I know what's coming next" when it next airs.  But I didn't do that.  I kept reading.  Let me just interject here that each of the first two books have been pretty well represented entirely in each of the first two seasons.  So I expect to see book 3 in season 3 whenever that comes around again.

Anyhoo, since I am now over 50 and my memory has gone to shit, I figured I would go ahead and read book 3 and maybe I would still be surprised by things in season 3.  But book 3 was so exciting that I went ahead and read book 4.

Now, at the end of book 4 there is a little afterward from the author talking about how he was wrapping up the series and it was just too much for one book, so look for book 5 to complete the series since he couldn't fit all these millions of characters in one book, etc, etc.

So, then I couldn't stand it and I got book 5.  Supposedly, the very end of the whole series.  And let me say here, Thank God I got these on my Kindle!  I picked them up and looked at them at B&N one day, and if you called them HUGE!  you wouldn't be wrong.  These books are each so big they could be referred to as tomes.  I could not imagine lugging these dictionary sized books around with me.

Book 5 is going to wrap up all the mysteries for me!  It will answer all my questions!  I will get to find out what happens to each and every one of the characters I have invested so much time into!  (yes, I know that ended that sentence in a preposition. Sue me.)

Didn't happen.

Nope.

Not even a little bit.

Well, except for the ones that were out right killed and then you knew you had been really screwed. That's how I feel when I am given a character that is beloved and I am all wrapped up in their story and BAM!  out of the clear blue he/she gets whacked.  Seriously?  We spent 5 giant books worth of words describing this character's feelings, how he/she grew up, matured and was looking forward to the next part of his/her life and there you are.  I never saw that one coming.  I didn't even think "well played, I was certainly surprised by that one!"  Nope.  It was more like "well, out of the top 10 characters in this series of books with casts of thousands, half of the top 10 just were discarded with no other news of their future, demise, or whatever and the other 5?  Dead?"

Not loving the wrap-up here, Mr. George R. R. Martin.

I also recently re-read The Thorn Birds for a book club.  Didn't really love the ending there, either.

Then I read The Patron Saint of Liars, which was a recent recommendation.  This was a great book right up to the ending.  Meh.  Didn't love the ending.

I just googled the book and it came up as a made-for-tv movie from 1998.  Good Lord, how old is this book?

Last night I finished a book that my daughter, the fabulous Rachel Pie, had been wanting me to read.  She kept recommending it and one day, about six months ago, we were at Half Price Books and she saw a copy and got me my very own so that I would be sure to read it.  It kept getting put to the bottom of the pile so that I could read crap like the 50 shades of craptastic crap and then be disappointed.  So I pulled it from the bottom of the pile o'books on my night stand and read it.

The Hummingbird's Daughter by Luis Urrea.  The main character is a great-aunt of the author and he spent 20 years of his life researching and writing this book.  I loved the book.  And yet, I wanted more out of the ending.  Was she happy?  Did she marry?  Did she have children?  Did her father live?  Where did she live?  What happened to all the other people in this book?  What happened to the ranch?

I don't want to think I am being unreasonable as a reader.  But why bring in all these details and then drop them?

The only book I have read in the last six months that I thought the ending was perfect was Lamb by Christopher Moore.  Fabulous book.  I picked up another of his on my last trip to Half Price Books.  I will let you know what I think of it. And whether the ending disappointed or not.

If I only had $1.25 mill, here's what I would buy

Please go here and see all these gorgeous pictures.

Maybe I could go buy a lottery ticket?  Not sure how else to go about getting the asking price, but I am open to ideas!

Updates, Gossip and such

I woke up this morning with my head completely stuffed up, my eyes welded shut with sand, itchy inside my ears and down my throat.  All sure signs of what we lovingly call "Cedar Fever" around here. The mountain cedar is horrendous.  It will be the one thing that forces me to wave the white flag and give up and move.

But I have a client who is due in 2 days and the last thing she needs is someone coughing and wheezing all over the delivery room, so I trotted on down to the Med Clinic this morning.  I say "trotted" and it was really more of a hobble with my bad knees.  Anyhoo, I saw a very nice doctor person and after lengthy examinations and conversations he agreed with my self-diagnosis of Cedar Fever and arthritis of the knee bones.  So I am taking steroids.  I am on the 'roids, the juice, the stuff.  I wonder if I am going to bulk up and go postal?

This very nice doctor person also told me I need to do water aerobics and other water exercises to not stress my joints.  In order to do that, I think I might need to get myself a pool.  Wait till I spring this on Mr. Big Ed. Ha!

Then I went and stood in line f o r e v e r at Walgreen's only to find out they are so backed up it will be hours and hours until my 'roids are ready to be picked up.  So I came home and waited a long while and went back and got back into the interminable line in order to pick up my drugs.  Due to having insurance I "saved" $125.00 on one of the prescriptions.  Saved $125.  off of the regular price.  Shocking, isn't it?  Do you know what was in that particular bottle?

Six little tiny pills.

That's all.  Six.

Hmmmmppphh.  The next time I have money to invest in anything it should probably go to the pharmaceutical people that are hosing the general public.

Did y'all see Survivor last night?  o. m. g. !!!!  It was a shocker.  Two stupid twit girls told Jeff that they wanted to quit.  They were tired.  They were hungry.  They were wet.  They were just worn out. Big fat whiners is what they are.  Then if you watched online when those two wieners showed up at the Ponderosa, which is what they call the accomodations for the jury members, the other people there were flabbergasted and highly pissed that they themselves were voted out and wanted to be playing the game and now can't.

I found it interesting that they let them stay at the Ponderosa and continue on the jury.  Seems like they should be booted and bring back the last 2 people before to be on the jury.  Whatever.

Oh!  And I found this little tidbit online.  Celebrity Rehab 4 is coming in January and the cast has been announced.  It is as follows:

Janice Dickinson (who didn't see this coming?)
Leif Garrett (former teen heart throb and current druggie)
Rachel Uchitel (claim to fame is being one of Tiger Woods' women)
Eric Roberts (yep, another train wreck)
Jeremy London (this is the Party of 5 twin, not the Dazed and Confused one)
Jason Wahler (I have no clue)
Jason Davis (his claim to celebrity is being a socialite, whatever that means)
Frankie Lons (again, I have no clue)

Looks like Celebrity Rehab is going to be a bit of a misnomer, kind of like Dancing with the Stars was this season.  Down the tubes with another show, I guess.

Off to make some more hot tea with honey, drink another Emergen-C and carefully swallow a $25.00 pill.  Hope you are feeling great in your neck of the woods!

Whining. Again.

Okay, I hate whiners worse than most anybody. Whiners are annoying as all get out and whining makes me want to smack the dogwater right out of you. You will NEVER get what you want from me if you whine your request at me. NEVER. Could I be any more clear on this topic?

And yet, I am feeling pretty whiney around here. Let me 'splain. Sunday night when I was getting ready for bed I noticed that I was just not feeling great. There was the sinus thing, the sneezing thing and a bit of a scratchy throat thing. Uh Oh.

I woke up Monday feeling bad. Feeling like my sinuses were trying to kill me, to do me in, to rub me out, to lay waste to me. So I started with the emergen-c, lots of hot tea, Claritin, advil, Similisan homeopathic sinus spray and then I brought out the Big Guns.

Vick's VapoRub. That is my Go-To-Guy. I don't care what is wrong with you, Vick's will make you feel better. It is warm, soothing, moisturizing, long-lasting, and just the best. Mr. Big Ed claims he doesn't have to use it, he just can be near me and get all the Vick's action he wants.

Did you know that Vick's VapoRub has it's own website? Neither did I. Well, it does. And there is a ton of good info on that site. Did you know that Vick's makes its own little personal steamer/vaporizer apparatus? Looks much better than the bowl of hot water with some Vick's in it and a towel over my head that I currently use. I might have to see if Walgreen's carries this awesome little appliance and for how much.

But, back to the whining part of this. When I don't feel good I become Whiney McWhinerstone, Queen Whiney McWhiney Pants, Count Whine-ula of Whine-sylvania. And what does Mr. Big Ed become? He becomes Mr. Come Home Late and Keep His Distance, that's what he becomes. So instead of saying "Oh poor baby, I am so sorry you feel bad, what can I bring you?" He says lame-ass shit like "Stay away, you probably have the Swine Flu. A guy at my office has the Swine Flu." To which I said "Stay away from the damn office then!" Ha!

Have I mentioned that Mr. Big Ed is EXTREMELY suggestable? Have I ever mentioned that Mr. Big Ed is a bit of a hypochondriac? All you have to do is mention something casually in conversation and the next thing you know he has it. And he has it worse than every. other. person. on the planet. Who has EVER had it. Oh, how that man does suffer! And, oh how that man does love to whine when he's suffering! Guess how much sympathy Mr. Big Whiney Ass Hypochondriac Ed gets from me? Especially after his triflin' ass has ignored me during my travails. Sara, notice the new use of triflin'? Have you noticed how triflin' just seems to always have an "ass" right after? Triflin' ass just rolls right off the tongue, doesn't it?

I have been on the CDC website scoping out Swine Flu symptoms (just to make sure that Mr. Big Ed is not right) and I don't think I have it. I don't have fever, chills, vomiting and several other symptoms listed. What I do have is sinus pressure, sneezing, nose-blowing, that gross coughing you just can't clear your throat thing, dry itchy eyes and, no, nothing else. I think that's it. It's enough.

So I am whining and making my tea and wearing my Vick's and wishing someone would just want to come over and hold me and say Oh Poor Baby for a while. And I thought I would share all this with you.

You're welcome.

Thanks for listening and I will try not to whine too much more.

Whining

I am a big, fat whiner today. I absolutely DETEST whining. My kids learned, probably before they could walk, to answer the question "What do you get when you whine?" in unison "DIDDLEY SQUAT"!!!

Yet here I am today whining. And there is no one in sight to say, "Oh poor LisaPie, let me take care of you and make things better". Truthfully, no one ever says that, but today I am feeling inordinately needy and whiney, so it is especially noticeable.

I am not sure what my problem is but I am feeling nostalgic about Easters past. Back when my kidlets were small and Easter was such great fun, what with decorating the house, Easter bunnies, Easter eggs, Easter outfits, going to church and seeing the hundreds of people who only show up on Easter and Christmas, a big Easter feast and lots of chocolate bunnies and PEEPS!! I do love me some Peeps. So my kids are big people now and Rachel Pie is off in school and has no plans to come home (unless there is a surprise in store for me this weekend! Dare I hope?) and Jonathon is still up in the air on his plans. Mr. Big Ed is off at a local seminary at a Holy Week silent retreat and has his phone off because, well . . . . it's a silent retreat.

So there is no one but the dogs to hide eggs for, no one to decorate the house for but me, no new Easter outfit since I am not buying anything, no big feast and probably no Peeps since I am the only one in this whole house who likes the Peeps. Kind of a sad and pathetic Easter, huh?

That is, unless I am getting surprised by both kids coming home and planning something? Anyone think that is remotely possible? No? Me, neither.

No more whining for me unless I want to alienate the small, tiny group of 4 that is my followers on this blog. (See how I snuck in one more whine?)

If you read this, send me a reason to perk up and quit being a big whiney ass wiener.