A Hammers and Chisels and Knees: Oh My! MMP (With Bonus Kitty Goodness!)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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Oooh, MamaTigs! What a tale you have! I must confess I don’t have the stomach to check out the pics, though. “Stronger … faster … better!” BionicTigs!

Okay, I haven’t had a chance yet to read through the other posts, so a quick Happy MMP to all the cool kids<tm>. I have been off-line, not my choice, pretty much since last Tuesday evening when I tried to hook up my DSL connection. To make a long story short (and which I just found out from the Covad tech.), my phone line wiring will not support a DSL connection at this time. IOW, I need to call Verizon (my phone provider), tell them that there is excess noise on the line (the Covad tech. said it was bouncing up to 40, which is apparently very bad), and get them to come here to fix the line from my apt. to the box. Fortunately, I do have inside wiring maintenance, so -hopefully- that will cover that. GOD! I couldn’t even get a connection via dial-up, but right now am using dial-up. This is an awful mess, let me tell you, and now we know way more than ever about phone lines. Er… I was about to cuss out the phone company but guess I’ll behave because I DO want them to fix my line!

Anyways, that’s where I’ve been (or NOT been). I’ll be back later to read the posts… I’ve missed you all!!! Even if you haven’t missed me! LOL :wink:

122

I finally bit the bullet and felted the bag today. It’s a lot smaller than I thought it would be, and I’m not sure that I’m entirely happy with it. It should be dry tomorrow or Thursday, and then I’ll know for sure. In the meantime, I think I’m going to start another bag, just in case. Felting in the laundromat is a pain; I think this is the last felting project for me until I get my own washer/dryer, whenever that is.

I got another postcard in the mail for a condo development nearby: $1976/month* for a 1bed/1bath condo. What a deal! That’s 2.5 times what I pay for rent. Of course, I have a great deal for rent. I can’t rent a room in a house for what I pay for rent.

I’m finally starting to feel normal again. My grandmother knocked me for a loop last week. It really annoys me that my family still has that effect on me. It made me wonder about my mother, though. She only ever wanted to be a wife and mother. Her husband committed suicide, none of her successive boyfriends have been willing to marry her, her daughter doesn’t speak to her, and her son lives on the river, i.e. lives in a shanty town, essentially homeless. What does she tell people, especially the ones who’ve seen my brother on the river? It’s a small town, after all. And then I think about the people across the street, who tore all the tile off the roof and threw them in the street, painted their front yard blue - trees, shrubs, lawn and all, and scream at all hours and think, there but for the grace of God. But it’s still hard.

[sub]*taxes and HOA fees not included. 40 year mortgage, 0 down.[/sub]

123

Mr. SCL has decided to switch our cable connection from Knology to Charter; we are scheduled to be hooked up to Charter on Friday. So a lady calls today and wants to know what is being hooked up. Uh…cable? “Are you bundling?” I assume that means getting telephone, TV and internet…and I don’t know. She seemed rather offended that I didn’t know. I really don’t care as long as I get a reliable internet connection. I don’t watch TV. I rarely talk on the phone - and that is usually my cell. So I don’t really care. She will call back tomorrow to talk to Mr. SCL.

MamaTigs, I really feel for you about the x-rays. Every time I have broken something the techs seem to want to arrange whatever hurts so it hurts worse. And I won’t even go into what I went through when I fell on my butt a year or so ago. As soon as you get that bionic knee working properly and painlessly, you should go try it out on that PT tech. I would report her for not being concerned when you told her she overdid it. That indicates to me that she is very likely to do it again to other patients, causing unnecessary pain.

No word on my injured friend other than he is supposed to go to Texas when he is stabilized, and that the heat injuries to his lungs have healed enough that he can breathe on his own. That is good news, but I haven’t heard the extent of the burn damage yet. I have had a serious burn and wouldn’t wish it even on G. Bush. I am worried about the suffering ahead if he lives.

I’m sorry about your friend, Haze.

Anyone want a few cats? They are driving me nuts today - they all want to be right up on or under me.

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MamaTigs, your therapist sounds like a bi-yatch. Want me to put a hex on her? :slight_smile: I can conjure something up from my dark pagan past.

Thanks for everyone’s sympathy. It’s been a weird day… he wasn’t a very close friend and like I said we haven’t talked in years, so on some level it seems almost impersonal. And then I remember some specific episode we had together and feel unbearably sad that he had to leave this life so early, and in such an unexpected and terrible way. It’s definitely made me realize how unpredictable life is.

SCL, I hope your friend recovers soon.

Well, tonight is Trivia Night at the pub, and we’ve qualified to participate in the final championship round they’re having tonight. Hopefully it’ll take my mind off things. It’s also that time of the month for me, so on top of everything else I’m feeling unreasonably grumpy as well. Good times.

125

**Welby ** - thanks for the invite, but I am a barely average player. It is a rare game that I score over 150.

they LOVE you. you can’t get rid of them.

126

Drive-by to say:

:frowning: Sorry about your friends, Hank and SCL. :frowning:

Ellen, are you me? I had the same thought about Rue.

FCM, are you me? I had the same question about rosie’s glasses.

Hi, TA! You should stop by the MMP more often.

MBG, sounds like you’ve given the only advice you could have given at this point.

taxi, that doesn’t sound like fun testing. I’ve got a couple of projects that feel like that, although they don’t involve vendors.

Off to a meeting.

Back later.

GT

127

Actually, I always sleep with my glasses on, mostly since being adopted by Smokey (she likes to knock them into the garbage pail), but also because if I can’t sleep and decide to watch some TV, I don’t have to scramble around for them in the dark-ish-ness. Also, if I am cold, I will pull the covers up to my neck and make sure that my shoulders are covered.
As for the side pillows, I sleep on a wedge because of chronic sinus problems and I need to bolster my shoulders, otherwise, when I wake up, I have severely limited mobility.
So the answer is, no it wasn’t staged, I really do sleep like that.

128

Mamatigs, yeah, that thing with the stupid therapist bugged me too. She needs to feel your pain. When my dad wasn’t feeling well one time and his doctors weren’t listening, I told him to call them repeatedly until they felt his pain. It turned out he had arthritis which they hadn’t diagnosed because they weren’t listening to him.

Haze, congrats on making it to the final rounds of the Trivia contest at your pub. That sounds fun!

Trouble, welcome the the MMP! I’m a n00b also.

Mork, what was that again about sunbathing in cold weather? You’re not breaking out the swimming trunks today, are you? :wink:

rosie, you never turn your head when you’re sleeping? Wouldn’t that crush your glasses? And those are pretty pictures of you.
**
Jahdra**, your rent sounds like a GREAT deal!. . .for that area. I’ve seen 1 bed/1 bath rentals go for the same as the mortgage you were quoting a month there a couple years ago.

When people are writing to TA, are they writing to TroubleAgain or Tupug Anachi?

129

Wow, that was the exact view that caused me the worst pain! Except I had to lie down on the table and bend my knee just so – at exactly the most painful angle – and then hold the plate and hold my breath and somehow try not to move. Oy. But the x-rays were pretty!

When the doctor cringed when I told him what the therapist had done – and this is THE best knee expert in the entire DC area, I suspect; I know he’s done like 9,000 knee replacements! – I knew it was definitely not my fault that I was hurting so much. And just having enough pain meds to take care of it makes such a difference. All weekend my meds were running out in 1.5-3 hours, but I could only take them every 4 at a minimum. That just doesn’t work. So they gave me the GOOD stuff, the kind I could make a fortune selling on the street. I’ve threatened my family with death if they even joke about trying to do it, however! If I come in here typing like Haze types after a night on the town, you’ll know why. And I won’t care, either. :smiley:

I remember sunbathing out on the lawn at my college in northern Ohio in January. Of course, the temp was up to 68F (20C) that day, so it kinda made sense. Not like where you are, Mork! Brrr!

I’m outta here to bed in a few minutes. We’ll see how coherent I am tomorrow after the Good Drugs!

130

The Snakes won tonight on a away game in Jacksonville! I am a happy, happy girl! We’d lost the last three in a row, the longest losing streak all season. Now we can go back to the business of winning! Go Snakes!

Swampy, are you sure you can’t make it on the 17th? Don’t you really want to see your dear friend SCL in a tug of war?

131

OK…that’s the big item I forgot: sounds like you need to get to a different PT posthaste, BT! Glad the doc recognized the problem right off.

Go Snakes!

Heff, TA is TroubleAgain; Tupug Anachi is Puggy or occasionally Puggalina or sometimes Tupug. I’m probably forgetting an obvious one.

Wow, rosie. You’re brave to sleep with glasses on!

Tired. Off to bed.

GT

132

I do, and it doesn’t. I rarely roll over onto my side because (until after the surgery at least) I have to keep my knees elevated/bent. And since I sleep with a neck pillow, when I do turn my head, there’s air/space enough to the side so that my glasses stay put.

why brave?

133

Haze, I’m sorry to hear about your friend. Hang in there…

Tigs, wow, sounds like you do need to find a different PT.

MBG, sorry to read about the trouble with your friends. In my opinion, you’re taking the right action, which is to say, staying out of it.

Nothing much exciting going on here. Work sucked and one of our branch chiefs knew I was most definitely irked with his staff today. He came in to ask me about a data pull and I told him where I was with it. Basically, I was done with it and I told him I was ready to send it to his staff so they could do the zip code comparison. He told me his staff didn’t have time to do that and I should do it. At this point the DANGER tone crept into my voice and I told him I definitely did not have time for it and that I had many other projects that MY boss was hammering me for, which I hadn’t gotten to complete because I was WAY to busy babysitting his staff and basically doing their work. Sigh… So, I did their friggin’ work AGAIN. I’m most definitely looking around for other positions, because I’m sick of this. I don’t mind helping out, but this is ridiculous. I’ve sent them the appropriate zip listings and all they have to do is match them up for the appropriate drive time zone. It’s not hard, just a little time consuming. I’m also basically doing a check to see if the spouses of the patients that showed up in this data pull are already enrolled in this particular program. AGAIN, THEIR JOB, not MINE. Arrrgh.

Sorry didn’t mean to rant, but my patience is gone. They keep fucking up the stuff I send them and come running to me to fix it. I received an e-mail with an attachment from another chief asking who had buggered up the attachment. I told her that wasn’t what I sent out and I wasn’t fixing it. They need to learn to do it themselves. Crack open friggin’ Excel for Dummies and Access DB books and go to friggin’ town. That’s what I had to do dammit. They’ll never learn if they can constantly run to me. I’m a g-damn ANALYST, not their damn DBA and IT department. :mad:

My daughter stayed home from school today in hopes she feels better tomorrow. She told me she has a big test tomorrow, so most definitely doesn’t want to miss it and thought she could use today to try and get over whatever crud she has. My son felt fine this morning, thank goodness.

It was in the mid 60s here today and the sun was out and shining. Mt. Rainier looked absolutely stunning with it’s mantle of white. I was so wishing I could be outside and enjoy it. Tomorrow the rain returns.

Well, time to watch some TV I guess. I’m too wound up to read.

Oh! An early
HAPPY BIRTHDAY BOO-FAE!

134

We did horribly - honestly, the only reason we qualified was because we somehow managed to get up to 4th place one week. I think we might have been last today. But we still had fun. And I’m in much better spirits now - it’s amazing what drinking with good friends will to cheer you up. :slight_smile:

MamaTigs, it’s always fun to read the MMP the next morning and try to decipher WTF you were trying to say the night before. I speak from experience.

135

Wilde is still writing? Should we call the priests or hide him from them?
Ouch, Haze :frowning:
BooFae:

Cumpleaños feliz,
cumpleaños feliz,
te deseamos toooodoooooooos
cumpleaños feliiiiiiiiiiiz

136

Haze, glad you had fun. That’s the most important part.

Boo-Fae, Happy Birthday! I don’t know if your birthday is today or tomorrow, but it’s pretty close to midnight so I think I’m close enough either way. Have a good one!

Taters, I’m sure you know the importance of CYA letters, right? I’ve been reading about your job the last couple weeks, and I kept thinking. . . .CYA letters.

rosie, it seems brave to me to sleep with your glasses on because I’d be afraid that they’d come off and poke me in the eye at night.

137

This and being afraid they’d get bent out of shape is what triggered the “brave” remark from me, rosie.

Happy Birthday, BooFae!!!

Oh…and meant to say: Hi Al! I was wondering where you were (you know you don’t actually have to keep up in order to stop by, right?). Yay on meli coming back! (Now that you’ve told us, we’ll bug you relentlessly until you get around to taking care of her membership. :smiley: You’re welcome.) Oh…and Curious Books is in East Lansing. There’s a difference, you know. :wink:

I’ve been awake since 4:30. Maybe I should get up and consider breakfast.

GT

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<AHEM> CLEARING THROAT <AHEM>

**
HAAAPPPYYY BIIIRRRTTTHHHDDDAAAYYY TOOOOOO YOUUUUUU!!!
HAAAPPPYYY BIIIRRRTTTHHHDDDAAAYYY TOOOOOO YOUUUUUU!!!
HAAAPPPYYY BIIIRRRTTTHHHDDDAAAYYY DEEEAAARRR BBBOOOFFFAAAEEE!!!
HAAAPPPYYY BIIIRRRTTTHHHDDDAAAYYY TOOOOOO YOUUUUUU!!!
**

139

…………*
Happy Birthday BooFae!!!
……[/color]……*

140

Happy Birthday, Scarie Faerie!!

off to the dungeon
another day, another 50¢ (yeah, I got a raise…not)