Yup, that too. Professional and personal life together in one user name. Plus I really like words like **bookkeeper ** (I mean, *three * double letters in a row!)
Here are some of the photos from the camping trip. I didn’t get a chance to label them, but you can get an idea of how beautiful it was up there.
I’ll come back later, I’m getting booted…AGAIN…from this computer.
Well, my secret is basically extremely high motivation of the HHH* kind and lots of sugarless gum and mints. Oh, and cocktails after work. 
Seriously, how long ago did you try the patch? Did you use Nicoderm? That’s what I’m using and it’s the new updated version. I’m not sayin’ it’s a piece of cake but much more pleasant than cold turkey. I understand that many docs are also recommending Welbutrin along with the patch these days. I passed on that, though.
fcm, guess you’d rather not hear about my two c-sections then. 
Tupug
- Hubby’s Humongous Heartattack
Georgeous, taters! Now I’m even more jealous. That’s some spectacular scenery and way too much fun-looking stuff.
Aw, man, Taters, what gorgeous scenery! Much as I’m a flatland/ocean person, I could definitely spend a day or two at that lake. Lovely!!
That’s quite enough. Hush.
No.
Taxi, It’s no secret that I don’t like cats, but a lot of the people that I like do like cats, so please believe me when I say I’m sorry for your loss.
BTW, I quit smoking about 18 years ago after smoking for 20 odd (some of them very odd) years. My secret: I watched a friend die of throat cancer. Believe me, this is TMI you DON’T wanna read.
My personal score card so far (re: friends and family) cancer: 5, remission: 1.
taxi78cab, I feel for your loss. We’re a multi-kitty family and I know what it’s like to have to do this, and it’s always a heart-wrenching decision, even when you know it’s the best choice for your cat.
I don’t know about Ashes², but when I used the patch, I just quit smoking cigarettes. Period.
A long time ago, while I was still the Navy, a doctor gave me a prescription for that Nicoderm. Tasted like a menthol ashtray. I’d rather drink a glass of hot spit. I really didn’t want to quit anyway, so that was enough of an excuse for me not to. When I was ready to quit (because you gotta really want to quit) about seven years later, they had just made the patch available over-the-counter. Every day I got a up, took the patch off, got a shower, put a new patch right back on. After using it for about three or four weeks, one day I forgot to put a new patch on. The first time realized this, 4 days had gone by. I figure I make it without a cigarette for four days, I can make it the rest of my life, and have been.
TMI alert: FCM** Look away. After almost 10 years of service, I started suddenly having seizures. The doctor wanted me to quit smoking immediately (Yeah right). I had cat scans and PET scans, EEGs, and MRIs, angiograms and that big nuclear medicine machine :eek: they finally decided my carotid artery on the left side of my neck was completely blocked off and the left side of my brain was dying. I wound up eventually having brain surgery and having to relearn to do almost everything from eating to walking, and lost the fine motor control in my right hand so I had to learn to do everything with my left hand (and I’m right handed, imagine having to learn to jerk off left-handed- easier said than done) No wonder I smoked!
Total time from seizures to surgery: four years :rolleyes:
[John Astin] But I’m much better now [/JA] 
taxi, so sorry to hear about Teddy. Hugs to you and Lily.
I’ve never smoked, but my grandma was a chain smoker for much of her life. One day, she calculated how much she spent on ciggies in a year (this was early 70s, IIRC) and figured out what she could get for that. (I think it was something like her share of a cruise.) And she stopped cold turkey.
Wow, dangergene has stopped by more than once this week! Hungry Ghost month and hell-money fires? Sounds interesting. And scary. And the armpit TMI - thanks, but pictures won’t be necessary.
Meaty, the seizures and surgery sound like a major ordeal. Glad you made it through all that.
I’m jealous, too, Taters. The pictures are great. The scenery is spectacular. And it looks like everyone had a good time. I’ll be on vacation starting late next week for about a week, but it’s all going to be in town, with Mom visiting, and not likely to be ultra-relaxing. I was hoping to get to visit Faraway Best Friend later in August, but it looks like it’ll be more end of year… Boooooooooo.
It rained last night and most of today and the temps went down about 10 degrees and, miraculously, my allergies practically disappeared. I’ve spent evenings this week reading and watching DVDs and tonight I might actually get something productive done so that my house doesn’t look like a pig sty when Mom gets here next week. YAY!
We now return to your regularly scheduled TMI…I mean MMP.
GT
Y’all, I have met the lovely and gorgeous Taters live and in person even. She stated that she didn’t wash her hair for four days. Y’all see how good she looks in those pictures. Imagine the stunniness of Taters with washed hair. That’s what I (and Bumba) got to behold. The woman is gorgeous! Gorgeous I tells ya! Even with unwashed hair y’all see how gorgeous she is.
Oh! I got an email from LifeOnWry. She is alive and well and gorgeous as ever and promises to rejoin us soon.
-swampbear (Bumba also has a gorgeous wife)
And she’s right up there with FCM on the niceness scale too.
And so’s my wife. (She has to be to put up with me.)
Oh man, I’m all blushy like now, and sorta digging my toe on the ground. I don’t think I look all that hot, but thanks ever so much for the lovely compliments **Swampy ** and Bumba. Mr. Taters just read the comments and said y’all are such a nice bunch of people. 
I have done absolutely nothing productive today. I did about three loads of laundry and read some more of I, Claudius . It’s too hot and I’m still tired from all the playing we did earlier this week.
I guess some friends of ours are dropping by in awhile to hang out with us and drink some beer.
Well, the hubby wants to play some WoW for a short bit before the friends arrive.
Today was Bring a kid to work day, so that’s what I did, with brother.
We get sent to push carts for 45 minutes (it’s raining, and they can’t use the nifty auto cart pusher in the rain), and we express objections, as we’re both wearing Birkenstocks. Birkenstocks, as you know, have insoles made of cork. What happens when cork gets soaked in water? Exactly.
My mother (my brother was wearing her shoes) and I are now the proud owners of two ruined pairs of shoes.
Angry letter to store manager will exist at some point in the verrrry near future.
They’re gettin’ replaced, dammit.
I am so sorry you had to say goodbye to your sweet kitty, taxi. It always hurts - but the love that he gave you over the years makes the pain all worth it.
So, I’ll be flying out on my vacation starting tomorrow. I am extremely excited - and nervous. This is the vacation I look forward to every year, so I know once I get there I’ll be beyond happy. It’s just the getting ready stuff that makes me crazy. Did I unplug everything? Is the oven off - even though I haven’t used it all week? Where are the cats? Is the pet sitter going to show up? The kitchen sink backed up a few months ago, and even though it hasn’t since, will it do it while I’m gone? An what about work - what if a machine goes down and they can’t get the disk back - is all the code in CVS up to date? All this stuff is going through my head - and I know I won’t be sleeping well tonight because of all the excitement/worry - but that’s standard for me for vacations - I become 5 years old.
And for a last short-skirt-alert for a while:
Green - Skirt was to the knee and really cute (hadn’t worn it before), but if you happened to be looking at my armpits (which I’m sure everyone does), you might get a glimpse of bra.
And the big question is - how many emails will I have when I get back?
Susan
Thank goodness Teddy had you there for him, Taxi. Whenever we’ve had to put one of our pets to sleep, I always felt so grateful, oddly enough. It was a good life until it wasn’t, and then the little guy went out peacefully and painlessly.
See, this is the stuff that gets my competitive streak a running. I have two TMI posts here on the SDMB. The first is poetically revolting and the other (starting down at Baker), well, it would probably just straight out kill FCM and the rest of you would wish it had. ** Dangergene’s ** pit problem beats mine on size, but I make it up in other ways, perhaps.
How pretty Taters, and with the skiing you really didn’t need any of that alcohol you didn’t save for me. And now I’m left out on the get-together! Hmph.
You see Draelin, in my head everybody is just sort of a human Mr. Potato Head. You start off nekkid of features and then I add stuff like swampy is furry and **susan ** has great get-away sticks, see? Since the new Mr. Potato Heads no longer have pipes, I always figure people don’t smoke, and it always amazes me when I find out they do. If you’re not actually smoking when I meet you, and you don’t smell like an ashtray, then you are a non-smoker. I know someone who smoked for twenty years, but quit before I met her and I still cannot picture her with a cigarrette. It’s unpossible. Also, Motrin for super ouchy cramps? Even if your doctor is a man (stereotype, I know), he should be able to empathize since he’s certainly had stomach cramps from food poisoning. Does he tell those whiny cancer patients to grit their teeth and drink a little whiskey when it gets tough?
Of course it doesn’t suprise me at all that Dangergene’s snuffling is caused by something as exotically off-the-wall as burning hell money. ‘You need new allergy medication Dangergene?’ asks your doc. ‘Yeah, it’s burning hell-money season again and I just can’t take the itchy eyes anymore.’ "Do you want me to give you an allergy shot for loose spirits, like last year, as well?’ I have gotta see the add for that particular allergy medication.
Nope Puggy, I’m not particularily fast though I’m relatively accurate. See, my typing teacher Mr. Camileri died of a heart attack the third week of school and they didn’t hire a replacement. Consequently, I never progressed beyond an uncertain knowledge of the homerow and things have gone downhill since. I look at my hands when I type with six fingers (two on the left, four on the right), so I can’t copy text faster’n a snail, but original drivel straight from my noggin’ flies onto the screen.
Speaking of poor Mr. Camileri found dead in the shower,** Sean**, I never smoked, actually. The reason is that it would kill me. To be more precise, *my parents * would kill me if I smoked. They both smoked and hated it-- it was awful, cooped up in a teeny car for hours a day sucking in their smoke, bleargh, plus in the house, heck they would have smoked under water if they could. It was sort of a drawn out version of teaching a kid not to smoke by having them inhale the whole pack. What’s odd is that now I’m almost never around smoke, but when I am, it gives me a three day migraine. I guess I’ve lost my resistance. Keep trying to quit peoples, something’s got to work eventually. Or, well, you’ll be dead, but dead people don’t smoke, so that goes in the non-smoker win column in my book (I can be just as tricky as the tobacco companies). I’ve heard good things about wellbutrin, as well.
Y’know Bumba, upon reflection, I really like your answer to the stubby fingers question.
MBB&B, having that carotid blockage wrecked your chances for a cool pirate lookin’ scar down the middle of your chest and then another in your leg. My mom even has a nifty x-ray where the wires keeping her chest together look like she swallowed a spiral notebook and it got stuck half way down. She refuses to have it framed like my photo prof did her brain scan thingy. I think keeping a wallet size pic of the brain scan would prove itself very useful in all sorts of situations.
Today I went grocery shopping and picked up the ingredients for tortilla soup. Who mentioned that? I forget. The good news is that my William-Sonoma catalog came and it was in there. The crazy thing is that I’ve lived on the border my whole life and never even heard of tortilla soup until maybe five or six years ago and now I’m going to have some for the first time.
While getting dressed to go shopping I needed to find some red earrings to match my new red sandals. Do you know I own exactly one skirt, which is actually part of my demon costume, with true red in it and it’s just a teeny stripe in the plaid? The skinny little red earrings and sandals are the only ones in red, as well. That’s when I took inventory and noticed that the closest I’ve got to green is a bit of olive at the bottom of a skirt, and purple is represented only by my electric-purple stack-heel suede loafers and one mauve-ish sweater with marabou trim. I bought the shoes because they had really cool tassels and my inner hoor demands marabou, color be damned. Only three blue blouses. Not a speck of yellow either. Yet I own a million clothes and nearly as many shoes. Hunh.
I am wearing a very low-necked shirt today. And tight jeans. The shirt is sleeveless and ruched, and hooks closed from about the top of the middle bit of my bra down to the bottom of the shirt. In less complicated terms, it hooks up the front. It’s very tight, too. Mr. Lissar expressed appreciation for the outfit before he left for work.
Does this provide extra MMP entertainment? I hope so.
I bought another big floofy black skirt today, but- it was only $14.99! And it’s big and loose and comfy and I can wear it with little tank tops! Quasi-Daughter and I went to a Latin American grocery store (it’s exciting because we don’t have very many Latin Americans in Toronto. Lots of everyone else, though) and stood staring at some ladies in the back making some… things.
After a while we were informed that they were pupusas, and they were filled with meat and cheese. We bought some. We ate them. We bought more. They were very nice to us, and tried to get us to buy other stuff. I left having spent about $20 more than I meant to. I’ve still got three pupusas in the firdge, along with Inca Kola and some chipotles. Quasi-Daughter bought tostadas.
We also ate homemade organic ice cream. I had chocolate ginger and chocolate with cayenne (which is strangely yummy) and Quasi-Daughter had rose petal vanilla and chai.
That was my afternoon.
Ashes, may I ask what colour the bulk of your clothes are? I’m curious. Mine are mostly black and red/burgundy/purple. I have a shade of red and purple fixation.
Lots of black of course, and then the runner up is burgundy. It’s one of our school colors, so the numbers are a bit skewed. Otherwise, about even amounts pink, blue, cream and white. Then grey, brown, orange, mauve. Almost nothing has a pattern. I have a fear of looking like a sofa.
Ashes², though I don’t have a scar on my chest, I do have a gnarly looking one on the side of my head. When I eventually go bald I’ll just shave my head. Maybe I’ll get a tattoo of a zipper. :dubious: That TMI episode you posted reminded me of my experience with a pilonidal cyst. Yecch.
Cite?
** Taters** I concur with swampy and Bumba, I can’t imagine how you look cleaned up. (Where’s that drooling smiley when you need one)
** Susan** have a good trip, be careful. (Glancing at her armpits)
I need to get laid :rolleyes: