Coming in from the cold

Greetings.

I am coming back. Really. I've decided that I really need to work on my writing and what better place to start than my missing-in-action blog. I've been spending far too much time reading at storiesonline and at literotica. So much time that I've decided to try my hand at a wee bit of a story. I've got a couple of ideas. No, I will not be posting any of that here. This blog, for the most part, is rated PG. I never know if and/or when one of the younger members of the Blue Clan will find the blog.

Yes, there really is a Blue Clan. There is some argument, on this side of the pond, as to which major clan that it is a sept of. My belief is that it is a part of the Donald (aka McDonald) clan. My father, last time we talked about it, believed that we are a part of the . . . . gosh, I've forgotten. Not a good sign. Anyway, there are Blues in various places across this continent. I've met two Blues from the Bay Area. The other Blues that I have met, are across the South--Mississippi (I love writing that), Alabama, North & South Carolina and Louisiana. Our ancestors wandered over from the Isle of Colonsay right after the Battle at Colloden. Or so it has been said.

I have naught to say this day, I do confess. I am in the midst of trying to reclaim my apartment from the burial ground that it has become over the past two years. I hope to find my dining room table this weekend. My goal is to have the whole mess cleaned up by the end of the year.

I haven't been knitting much over the past, hmmm, it has been nearly two years. I first stopped because one of my meds caused me to shake so badly that I lost most stitches than I knit and I was limited, at that, to really big needles. Well, I've been coaxing myself back into knitting gently. I decided that I needed a new scarf that didn't shed white on my black and brown tops. I went shopping in my stash and pulled out some Louisa Harding Kimono Angora. I hunted down a pattern. Then I decided that knitting a scarf with angora defeated the purpose of the new scarf. Sooooooo, yeah, I did it. I went to Rumple to pick up some new yarn. Bad Milinda. Bad. I picked up two skeins of Lorna's Laces sock yarn. Then I decided that I didn't like the original pattern. Then I was cold at work so I decided that I needed a scarf that I could wear at work so I figured to use some of that novelty yarn that I had stashed. Pulled out the Cherry Tree Hill ladder yarn (whatever it is called) and the matching yarns. Sadly, the Java, that I wanted to use, didn't have a corresponding yarn that I was comfortable using so I ended up grabbing the Wild Cherry ladder and something called Faux something or other. I balled all the yarn using my handy-dandy swift--that's been hiding in the closet and started on the novelty yarn scarf. I can honestly say that it is probably the ugliest thing that I have ever knit. I had hoped to finish it in time to add it to the White Elephant sale at work but it looks like I am stuck with it. You know, kitting something really ugly is not conducive to encouraging myself to knit.

But you get the picture.

For not having anything to say, I seem to have babbled quite a bit. Perhaps more anon.

It's Been a Very Long Time

Good morning.

How is everyone these days? It's been awhile, hasn't it. Yes, I hit bottom yet again.

It is interesting to me how I can just pull back into myself and yet continue to get up every morning and go to work with no one there, I think, the wiser to my mental state. I'm still the one that handles the crying clients. Sadly, I have absolutely no sympathy any more with the manic depressives. That's not completely true. The ones that are trying to get better and are working with a doctor to get the right meds, etc., I have no problem working with. I actually had one woman hang up on me because her son "will never work again! He's bipolar and will never hold a job anymore. It's awful!" I made the mistake, or not, of saying "I'm bipolar and I'm working." "Well! Yours obviously is not as bad as his!" Click. Thank all the furry gods for meds.

I've been in the bottom range for so long it is hard to remember when I wasn't there. I've been pulling myself out the last couple of months and hope to be a "normal" human being soon.

New thangs in my life: sofa, recliner, espresso machine, lots of clothes, a gazillion books and a new upstairs neighbor. I'm certain that there are more new thangs on my dining room table--which hasn't seen the light of day in over a year. Oh, and a new cell phone. I'm going back to my old number with AT&T--I never closed that account and am now glad that I didn't despite the cost of having two cell accounts. I decided shortly after I signed up with Verizon that I had made a dreadful mistake. I'm paying twice as much for a Verizon account so that people can call me for free. In other words, I'm a loon. I cannot remember either phone number so that doesn't help. I'll be carrying both phones around until next May. Yeah, my Verizon contract expires in May and not a minute sooner. Yes, we all pay for our mistakes. So if you decide to call me, I will answer one of them--not necessarily the one that is ringing

Sofa/recliner: My folks have been doing some do-overs for their house and offered them up to me. I offered to buy them a couple of years ago but they decided that they would hold on to them. The sofa is not long enough for me, at 5'5", to sleep on but it is longer than a love seat. It's a lovely burgundy. The recliner is a dark blue leather. The style of the sofa doesn't lend itself to the "cottage look" at this moment but I suspect once I work with the living room design a bit more that it will all work well together. Oh, and my Dad offered me the floor lamp that he had in his office. He described it as "having a couple of globes." I figured that it had to be better looking that the cheapy that I bought at Target for $30 that was on its way to the Goodwill. I picked up the lamp the same day as the sofa but didn't look at it for a couple of days--Dad had wrapped it up in "old" tee shirts and socks. When I finally assembled it I almost fell over. It's a gorgeous Art Deco design. It also weighs a ton. So the cheapy has found its way to my "office" and the gorgeous one is in the living room.

Espresso machine: I was buying coffee at work from the coffee cart (as opposed to the cafeteria coffee) and decided that I really needed to stop that. She's not there everyday and I really don't know what she puts in those blended drinks that she makes. It's supposed to be a bit of soy and espresso but she adds this mystery powder that I suspect is packed full of crap. So, I bought an espresso machine. It arrived; I set it up; washed all the parts and made my first mocha. I don't know why I did that considering I am not particularly fond of mochas. The second time I made straight espresso which I iced. Oy vey! Manifique! I finally read the manual and watched the DVD a couple of weeks later.

Manuals? We don't need no stink'in manuals. Okay, not necessarily true. I haven't figured out how to use my new cell phone yet and I've had it for a couple of weeks now. We won't even mention the stupid bluetooth thang that even now sits here taunting me.

Books: Still reading. Knitting--hardly touched the needles. Still have the scarf that I was working on last January on the needles. I've decided to start selling the books on eBay since my favorite used bookstore is no more. Yes, they are all trashy novels: vampires, weres (pronouced wheres), Highlanders, Regencies, time travel and, I'm sure, some other nonsense. And, no, these are not anything like the Harlequins that I read in junior high school.

New upstairs neighbor: Hate 'em. The absolutely noisiest upstairs neighbor that I have had in 25 years of renting. The sad part is that the woman appears to be about my age. They've got a trampoline in one of the bedrooms and some god-awful thang in the living room that makes me feel as though I am sitting in the middle of a lumber mill. I haven't got a clue how I am going to survive until the end of next May when my current lease runs out. I've already decided to move--hopefully to another lakeside apartment.

I suspect that the female portion--I haven't seen the second person and I am assuming that there is a second person--is manic. She is up at all hours--she's a stomper and, yes, she wakes me up. She runs out and feeds the ducks and geese whenever she hears them outside the door. And they are outside the door all. the. time! because she has got them trained--or they have her trained--that she will feed them all day. I was waiting at my car for a tow truck a couple three weeks ago and saw her go to her car. She had the entire back end of her SUV filled!! with bags of bird food. One night I thought that I was going to fall out of my nifty new recliner. The ducks were outside quacking away (shocking that) and she threw open the glass door, stomped out to the patio and, I kid you not, jumped up and down screaming at the ducks to shut up.

I've 50 pounds of cracked corn that I haven't a clue what to do with. I'm certainly not going to be adding to the feeding frenzy. Because she's constantly running outside, the finches have all but vacated my feeders so I have another 40 pounds or so of finch food that will be rancid by the end of summer. I am thinking of being evil and hauling the open bag of corn around the lake to a point about 1/4 a mile from the apartment, and dumping the whole bag. It should keep all the water fowl busy for a day. Of course, they would probably gorge themselves and keel over which would not be a good thang. If anyone has any idea, please let me know.

This week I have my first appointment with a Registered Dietician. I will be meeting with Annette for six months. She will be guiding me on my first steps toward weightloss surgery. I had a bit of a scare and have decided to stop fiddling around. Wish me luck.

And I shall close with this:

Melancholy
By Baron Wormser

Weakness—the pale succumbing to loneliness,
Refusing to admit anyone else, indulging
The blue perquisites of adolescence
Long past their sensible deliquescence.

He knew it but went on drinking and regretting,
Not calling his friends and regretting,
Making scenes over nothing and regretting.
It helped to make him despise himself,

Which was, he sensed, what he wanted. He was
Then, in his oblique way, at ease to wander
The city’s brazen or quiet streets, conjuring
Random lives and how the slim arch
Of emotion was pulverized. Back home, he put
On some Monk, lay down, half-cried.

From Scattered Chapters: New and Selected Poems. © Sarabande Books, 2008.

Poem of the day/week/month

Why I Have A Crush On You, UPS Man
by Alice N. Persons

you bring me all the things I order
are never in a bad mood
always have a jaunty wave as you drive away
look good in your brown shorts
we have an ideal uncomplicated relationship
you're like a cute boyfriend with great legs
who always brings the perfect present
(why, it's just what I've always wanted!)
and then is considerate enough to go away
oh, UPS Man, let's hop in your clean brown truck and elope !
ditch your job, I'll ditch mine
let's hit the road for Brownsville
and tempt each other
with all the luscious brown foods -
roast beef, dark chocolate,
brownies, Guinness, homemade pumpernickel, molasses cookies
I'll make you my mama's bourbon pecan pie
we'll give all the packages to kind looking strangers
live in a cozy wood cabin
with a brown dog or two
and a black and brown tabby
I'm serious, UPS Man. Let's do it.
Where do I sign?


from Don't Be A Stranger. (c) Sheltering Pines Press, 2007.

Of all the things I've lost. . . .

. . . .I miss my brain the most. This getting old thang sucks. Against my better judgement, I work, sort of, with people. I used to be able to remember a conversation from 2 years ago word for word. Now I cannot even remember what I had for breakfast yesterday. Don't ask. I haven't a clue. I only hope that I enjoyed it while I was eating it.

And you thought that I was joking.

Sadly, there is nothing new to report. Well, only a couple of amusements to report.

Amusement Number 1: Somehow, I managed to sign myself up for an online dating service. I honestly have no memory of doing this (see paragraph 1 above) but it has provided me a couple of minutes of amusement and several of disbelief. The amusement is that men (theoretically) are sending me "winks" and "emails" sight unseen and a couple have sent a dozen. No responses have been sent because, frankly, I think that would be cruel--to both parties. I am not quite ready to jump into the swim again. Yeah, I know that it has been 15 years and I should be ready but there are still issues that I am trying to deal with. And sometimes I am just plain trying.

Amusement Number 2: I know that I am no raving beauty. In fact, I would put myself at about average in looks, albeit chunky looks. I generally think that I look my age, however whenever I look at the pictures of the fellows that are supposedly my age, I begin to think that maybe I look a whole hecka lot younger than I am. I commented about that to a coworker and she told me, straight faced no less, that she thought that I didn't look my age. She sure as heck doesn't and she is, I think, a couple years younger than I. You know the type, the blond Amazon. Men drool when she walks by. It's unnerving. No one drools when I walk by. Well, maybe the ducks. . . .

Amusement Number 3: Um, there isn't one. Sorry, got a bit a head of myself.

Reading en masse continues. This will be remembered as the summer of my book orgy. The nice people at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, not to mention eBay, are just delighted with my orgy. Yes, I actually have started buying books on eBay. When I filled my shopping cart with an entire series of trashy novels--you know the type: impossible men--just once I'd like to meet a gorgeous 6'6" man with piercing blue (or green) eyes and a six pack that doesn't end, not to mention intelligent, charming and witty. Really. Ladies, those men only exist in fantasy land. At any rate, I got this wild hair and checked out the books on eBay. That initial series was 8 books for about $20 or less. I have two more series in the mail to me as I write this: The entire "Dark" series by Christine Feehan. I had already purchased the first three books but when faced with buying the other 11 or so books, I decided to go back to eBay. Yes, I am getting a repeat of the first three, however since I am getting all 14 or so novels for about $46, I figured that the repeats were okay. There is another lot of 38(!) books coming to me that I paid less than $40 for and I have a bid on another series of 5 novels.

Yes, I will have all of these books read by the end of September. Why do you ask? Doesn't everyone read this fast?

AND I am in the process of re-reading Book 6 of the Harry Potter series preparing myself for Book 7. I was in the middle of a book when Book 7 arrived so I set it aside for a couple of days. When I mentioned it to a co-worker, he recommended re-reading Book 6 before starting Book 7. He had whipped through Book 7 and then decided that he needed to go back to Book 6 and then re-read Book 7. So, taking his advice (yes, I do occasionally take advice) I am in the midst of Book 6. I should finish that before the end of this evening which will allow me to start Book 7 either tomorrow or Tuesday.

I did hit send on a shopping cart full of stuff at Amazon this week past. As I am trying to loose weight and the diet alone is doing squat, I am forced to actually address the sweat factor. Since running, biking, racquetball and other such activities are out, I decided to take a less traditional form of torture: dance. Yep. Years and years ago, I took a beginning belly dancing class and loved it. I should have kept it up but I was less than charmed by the teacher and, even then, my laziness factor kept me from finding a better-for-me teacher. Still feeling the hermitage about me, I decided to try taking lessons from a DVD. So, winging its way to me is a package with a couple of DVDs, as well as a couple vegan cookbooks and another mental health book specific to my own particular brand of looniness: Bipolar, Type 2 (I think). This book deals with the depressive side which is, generally, my big bug-a-boo.

Speaking of the mental thang, I don't know why I thought this but I truly believed that once I was good and medicated, I would become a normal person. Still waiting.

Birds: I've been abandoned. I missed filling the feeder one week and the finches all left. Can't really say that I blame them; I would leave too if my needs weren't being met. Wait! They aren't being met. Why the heck am I still here? Don't answer that. I am being brave and have requested a bird-watching trip of my folks to take place the couple of days after Labor Day. Dad told me that he would come up with something simple. At least that is what I believe he said. And I am working on building up my walking stamina in order to better enjoy myself. Hmmmm. Need new shoes too.

Well, that's the limit of my babbling for today. I hear the vacuum cleaner calling me. And the piles of laundry. And. . . . . .

Quote of the Day

How to Be Old

It is easy to be young, (Everybody is,
at first.) It is not easy
to be old. It takes time.
Youth is given; age is achieved.
One must work a magic to mix with time
in order to become old.

Youth is given. One must put it away
like a doll in a closet,
take it out and play with it only
on holidays. One must have many dresses
and dress the doll impeccably
(but not to show the doll, to keep it hidden.)

It is necessary to adore the doll,
to remember it in the dark on the ordinary
days, and every day congratulate
one's aging face in the mirror.

In time one will be very old.
In time, one's life will be accomplished.
And in time, in time, the doll--
like new, though ancient--will be found.

May Swenson, from Nature: Poems Old and New.
© Mariner Books, 2000.

Quote of the Day

Born under a bad sign
I been down since I begin to crawl
If it wasn't for bad luck,
I wouldn't have no luck at all...

-- Booker T. Jones and William Bell

What's New, Pussycat?

If only it were a new cat for me. . . . soon, I keep promising myself. In the meanwhile, I've been entertained by a kitten that thinks that it lives here. In my usual procrastinating way, I have a door mat that has been sitting on my patio table for a couple of weeks now. It's one of those "grass" mats that is great for wiping one's shoes before walking onto the carpeted floor. Anyway, there is this black and white kitten--I'm thinking somewhere around 4 to 6 months old--that thinks that I've left it there for him/her as a bed. On days that I've been home, the kitten will sleep nearly the entire day on the door mat. This morning, when I went to close the patio door--gots to let in the cool morning air, doncha know--the kitten was sitting in front of the door patiently waiting for me to let it in. As if it actually lives here. Kind of cute in a sad sort of way.

Which reminds me, I haven't seen Sweet Pea, the little cat from a few apartments down, for few months now and yesterday saw Sweet Pea's "dad" walking a bag dog. I hope that Sweet Pea is just enjoying the indoor life and hasn't been "tossed" in exchange for the dog.

Trashy Novel Phase: I've been reading trashy novels of late. It's an odd change from the usual SciFi fare. I finished a book last night and as I was adding it to the pile on the book shelf--book 8 in the Dark Hunter Series--I started counting how many of these books I've read. For some horrible reason, I came up with 27 books in 2 weeks. I knew that couldn't be possible even with my voracious reading habit. This morning I decided to check out my book ordering record on Amazon.com and was pleased (yeah, right) to see that it has actually taken me a month to read those 27 novels. . . well, 27 plus the 1 or 2 SciFi novels that I've been reading on my Palm Pilot. And I've got an order of 9 more books that should be arriving Tuesday-ish, not to mention the new, and final, Harry Potter book which should be delivered to my apartment office on July 20, 2007.

I don't understand my current dive into "trashy novels." I haven't read "romances" since I was in high school and went through my Harlequin phase. Thankfully that passed and I went straight to Ayn Rand. . . . okay, maybe that wasn't really a good thing even though I did like the Ayn Rand. Perhaps this is my brain's backlash for all those years (and that is a lot of years) of serious reading. I do have to say that today's trashy novels (yes, I like that term and this is my blog) are very different from the schtuff of old. These have full blown (okay, quite a bit overblown) sex scenes and smack of sensuality. The ones that I've enjoyed the most have been the Black Dagger series by J.R. Ward and the Dark Hunter series by Sherrilyn Kenyon. We're talking paranormal and erotica altogether. The historical, ahem, bits have been less than entertaining. I picked up the Highlander series by Karen Marie Moning through eBay. I haven't read any of those so I have no idea if they are enjoyable or not. Eight books for $20 is a fair deal, wouldn't you say?

And for those of you into such silliness as trashy novels, Amazon.com has this really spiffy deal where you can buy four books for the price of three. Now that's a deal. And did you know that you can buy just about anything at Amazon? It's actually kind of scary what one can get through them. Parents: take heed if you have children using your account. You may not want them to buy what they can get through Amazon. Aside from the books that I've purchased, I have picked up a couple of "adult," ahem, toys, exercise equipment (yeah, for me, can you believe it?), a paper shredder (hot deal!). And they cover for outside vendors for quite a bit of schtuff. Oddly enough, this seems to be the only place that I can now buy replacement blades for my razor. I suspect that it's time to replace the razor despite my preference for it--heck, I've been using it for nearly 20 years. Any suggestions? Electric this time or should I stick with the manual?

Speaking of replacements: Those of you who have been reading for a while mourned with me when my 20 year old microwave died--well, maybe it was 18 years old when it died. I replaced it knowing full well that the replacement would not last nearly as long. Well, I'm going to have to replace the replacement fairly soon as the door latch already seems to have a problem. The dang thang is less than 2 years old. And the toaster oven that I bought last May lost the toaster knob last weekend. I've used a pair of needle-nose pliers this past week so that that I can make toast. And if you will recall, I am now on my third coffee maker since I moved into this apartment in April 2006. I am thoroughly insulted at the cheap quality of these items. The coffee maker fiasco was simply because I didn't like the coffee the previous makers were making. Well, that's not completely true. I did like the coffee made by the pod maker, however the monthly cost for coffee was almost $100 and that's just plain silly when I can get away with just a scootch more than 2 lbs a month of whole beans. Oy.

Anyway, now I am shopping for replacements for both the microwave and the toaster oven. And I wasn't impressed by the ones that I could buy through Amazon. Target, by the way, is one of the sellers that sells through Amazon as well as having their own online store front.

Work Entertainment: I took the 2nd and 3rd off so that I could have a 5-day weekend thinking that would be enough time for me to get my apartment in order. Hah! I should have known that I would have a couple of migraines as well as find the pile of unread books. A couple of those days I read two books. Talk about sad. At least I didn't spend the entire time online. That's one of the good things about my recent bout of reading: less online time. Not that any of this paragraph has anything to do with work other than the mention of the vacation days.

While I was off, I apparently missed out on some real excitement. Seems that a member of management went ballistic over something that he felt I was doing and practically assaulted my manager. He had to be pulled off of her--or rather out of her cubicle by another manager (M). She is filing a formal complaint and his future is in question. Pretty sad when one can loose one's retirement because one looses their temper. The odd thing is that I knew exactly which case he lost his cool over but that's because normally my work does not cross over into what his office does--or rather his office's work does not usually impact my work.

As some of you will recall, I had my first manic episode in 12 years in 2005. Rage and irritability is one of my symptoms. When discussing the "event" with M, I had to ask him if I was that bad when I had my manic episode--M was the manager that covered for me while I was nutso. His opinion was that my manic episode did not even come close to the behavior of the offending manager. The ultimate irony is that I knew that I was on the edge of another manic episode before my long weekend having had a couple of outbursts of my own--I recognized them immediately and apologized within minutes of my outbursts. If I had actually been at work, there would have been no doubt that I would have fallen into a full blown episode. As it was, the rest, as well as the alone time, was what I needed to bring me back down. And yes, I will be discussing this with my doctor when I see him next week. Actually, my outbursts were that I was snapping at people who were bothering me while I was working on an extremely rush-rush case--the case that the offending manager lost his cool over.

Other News: I will be having Comcast installing the necessary equipment, etc., for broadband. Because I live in an apartment, I will be using their wireless setup. The company has a policy that they will do no installations that impact buildings when the customer is in an apartment regardless of the apartment complex's policy on the subject. I had already obtained permission from the apartment management for the "hard install" but Comcast will not do it. It will be interesting to see what the results are. I will be keeping my SBC accounts for a short while. I need to find a new web hosting service as SBC requires their web hosting be connected to an online account and I cannot afford to keep both. I have been sadly disappointed in DSL because I have yet to be able to connect at a speed over 100 mps when I should be getting speeds of up to 600.

I finally broke down and purchase a pair of binoculors for birdy watching. There was a swan on the lake a couple three weeks ago and I was saddened by the fact that I could only watch it when it was fairly close to this side. As it was a fairly large bird, I was still able to see it when it was in the middle of the lake but I couldn't make out any of the features. The wild bird seed store was having a sale on a particular pair of binnoculars and I decided that I couldn't pass up on that particular deal. I'm very impressed with how much I can see. Of course the swan hasn't been back--or at least where I can see it.

Nothing else to report so I think that I ought to get back to cleaning and shredding all those personal papers and the gazillion credit card offers I get every week. Talk about a waste of paper. Think of the trees killed in the name of junk mail. Global warming, here we come.