Well, P-town in this context is Portsmouth, Virginia; the armpit of Hampton Roads.
If you’re coming to the area, I’ll welcome you, and we can probably scare up Sean for some debauchery.
If you’re thinking of the other P-town in Taxachussetts, sorry…
ah
oh well
but perhaps there is a trip south in my future next year or so
I’ll let you know
Here is the linky-link. I just finished my rough draft of my interview essay–I feel quite righteous, having just written 900 words.
This ain’t Disneyworld, folks!
Just scroll down to the numbers–they link you to pics of each castle, rampart, earthwork, bailey, fortress, guard tower–you get the idea.
We are going to see #188 and #175. Yay!
Ooooh, castles. I went to Windsor Castle with my parents back in high school. Very cool.
**Spats **- not sure about the plays. Next weekend’s out. It’s Freakout weekend! We’ll see after that.
Hi guys!
I’ve been given a reprieve. The medicine had not arrived from “the study” yet. I’ve joined a study of anemia caused by the ribavirin (the second half of combo therapy - interferon/ribavirin.) In return, I get free meds! Woo-hoo! They have a backlog so I’ve been told. Annoying, but sort of a relief, too. Since I was there, they gave me the first of a three-part vaccine against Hep A and Hep B.
Welby, I’ve known I’ve had it for over ten years, and my approximate infection date was about 1986. I just didn’t realize how serious it was until my (unrelated) hospital stay last year, because I have no symptoms. I decided to have the biopsy to see what stage of disease my liver is in. I’m at stage 2 - with 0 being no infection or damage, and stage 4 being full-blown cirrhosis needing a transplant. It’s always a personal decision whether or not to have the treatment because this can be very hard with many sucky side effects. It’s possible I could die from something else before it gets me, but…
Anyway-
It’s Friday! I’ve been to the store and got fixin’s for the Super Bowl, as well as dinner tonight and tomorrow. I love to cook. Fuhgeddabout the Calphalon - it’s all about the food!
Homemade broccoli soup and chef salad tonight. Tomorrow is Pork Parmesan with pesto pasta. (Just like chicken parmesan but with boneless pork chops.) Yum!
My mom used to do alterations for people back when I was a kid. She just put an ad in the paper, and next thing we knew, strange women were in our living room in their slips! :eek:
But, for your dilemma - I’d recommend checking the papers or the yellow pages, calling some shops, and asking them for references from customers - I would expect a good shop would gladly refer you to their satisfied customers. Or you could try to coerce Lissla… or you could learn to do it yourself… Or you could just ignore me. 
Got it.
And rosie, what Bobsaid.
It is now preternaturally quiet around here. Mandy and Roundboy were philosiphising about the Middle East, blah blah blah, until it finally got on my last nerve. I told them both to shut the hell up because neither of them knoew what they were talking about. I think I hurt their feelings. I can hear them furiously typing emails back and forth to each other. But at least I have some peace now.
[Blair Brown] “Life’s full of these trade-offs.”[/BB]
And on the medical front - surgery is scheduled for Monday Feb 13 at Good Samaritan Hospital in Baltimore. We’ll go up to my mom’s the night before since she’s only about 45 minutes from the hospital, while we’re about 2.5 hours away. Dr. Bob said FCD’ll stay definitely one and possibly 2 nights in the hospital, and he’s supposed to wear his cervical collar for the full 4 weeks. I’ve already arranged to take that whole week off, although I may go back to work if he’s doing OK and doesn’t need me.
On the good news front, his boss is letting him tele-commute while he’s recovering, since his project is at the write-the-programming stage, and he can do that at home in his collar. So that’s great - no lost income during recuperation. And if all goes well, he should be back at the office by mid-March.
On the down side, I won’t be going to Orlando and I won’t get to meet Puggy this month. Alas…
On the sorta up side, my van didn’t require the more expensive repair option. They’re replacing the bearings in the differential, but the gears were good. So it shouldn’t cost much more than $800. Whew! The van itself isn’t worth much more than that! On the other hand, it’s less than 2 car payments, and if it gets me 2 more years of service, it’s money well spent.
On the real up side - it’s FRIDAY!!! <insert Happy Dance here>
FCM, thanks for the suggestions. And good thoughts for FCD. And you. And everyone else who’s sick/recovering/taking meds!
I submitted a bunch more resumes online today. Hopefully someone will get back to me. I have two frickin’ degrees in engineering! How hard should this be?? Well, ok, I’m not really totally interested in a position in engineering, which complicates matters. And I tend to reject anything that involves being in a factory. And I have no actual experience in engineering, just telecomm (that was an engineering position though) and research in commercial real estate. But still! 
Y’know - I may just take you up on that - maybe later this year, after I’ve lost a bit more weight and gotten thru some PT so I can sit in a car for 5 hours
Um.
I went a little crazy.
I need new shoes and new bras. So, I went to Kohl’s…
Their cover charge is more than Target’s.
I spent $355.
On clothes–AND a floppy silicone 9x9 pan(this place is a bad influence).
:eek:
But it was fun, huh? I usually hate shopping, but sometimes you just find so much stuff that looks good!
Congrats on the car FCM. Tell me again, what is wrong with FCD’s back? Good thoughts going his (and your) way.
Speaking of alterations - we just bought drapes (on sale) for the living room. But they didn’t have valances to match. So we bought the last panel and figured we could have somebody make the valances for us, since neither one of us can sew. This one place quoted $90!!! That’s more than all the drapes cost! Jeez. I will be shopping around a bit more.
:eek: :eek: :eek: My Og! Aren’t you supposed to be able to get bargains there? One just opened up here but I’m stayin waaaaaaaaayy away from there. I mean you can only wear so many bras!
The first surgery was to fuse some vertebrae in his neck and remove a couple of herniated discs. We’d hoped that would take care of the numbness in his left arm, but it didn’t. Turns out, there’s a bone spur pressing on the nerves that run down his left arm. This second surgery will be to remove that spur. If this doesn’t work, I don’t know what can be done. So I’m trusting Dr. Bob is as good as everyone has been telling me all these years.
I bought four today. I can’t wait till they’re delivered. My life is so sad.
Drae, I think you should wear all four at once. Now that’s support!
How about the Sunday matinee show at 2 pm? Surely that wouldn’t interfere with Freakout.
Regarding castles … I’ve been here!! It was nothing short of absolutely astounding. I looooved it.
Puggers --not sure if I should say calm yourself, or if you know the Truth.
See, those things were all on sale (EXCEPT the damned bra!). I bought:
shoes (which I am going to take back, see below)
3 pairs of pants (2 of which don’t fit me right, and the shoes don’t go with the one pair I do like)
pajamas–what? I needed 'em!
bras (2)
purse–big enough for all those moments during vacas–“mom, can you put this in your purse?”
new wallet.
silicone pan
so, much more than just bras and shoes. I DID think that the clerk was gonna hit “discount” after the total, but sadly, $355 was it. I am taking back about $70.
Oops-forgot.
Also got a turtleneck, a sweater and a shirt.
So, not so bad, eh?
Thanks, gt. I hope it gets better, too. It’s not so bad, but I just want to do something more interesting. It’s a communications job–I’m putting together newsletters, mostly. Too many picky little details–meeting dates that have to be right, stuff like that, and I’m really good at getting those little details wrong. I’m more of a big-picture person. I get to do a little graphic-designy stuff, but not much. I’m feeling a little bummed today because I was just thinking about how much I really liked my last job, but I had to leave because of a couple of unreasonable people, and I’d really like to still be doing that job, but I don’t want to work with them so it’s better that I’m not working there any more, but it still makes me a little sad. I just don’t feel as useful, and I’m a little bored. But it’s part-time and temporary, so I don’t have to do it all day, every day, and it’ll be over soon. I could use a dumptruckful of chocolate over here, too. Anybody got some extra chocolate? I need to check in more often–I missed the danishes. But I have tiny little CD drive, so they probably wouldn’t fit in that slot, anyway.
The coolness of Target never ends. I love Target more than ever, now. I’m working on costumes for a play, and it’s been a little difficult, because I need some odd things, like three matching bridemaid’s dresses for women of very unusual sizes (ranging from 5 to 6 feet tall, and all plus sizes), so it’s been really difficult. The hardest part is the size 3X fur coat. Ever tried to find one of those? Not easy. But I was at Target, and they have fake mink throws that are really soft and not bad-looking. So now I can make a size 3X coat that will fit perfectly, and not have to buy something off of Ebay and find out that it doesn’t fit and won’t work.
It’s not nearly as nifty as Target, but I’ve just discovered Big Lots. They have some pretty cool stuff there, and it’s really cheap. It’s a little scary, because this one is in a deserted strip mall, and the parking lot is dark and full of potholes, but it turned out to be completely worth it. They have Oetker baking mixes and I got Guittard white and dark chocolate (flavored) syrup. And chocolate truffle Peppermint Patties. I might go back and get some more of those. And the cover charge is less than Target, so that’s good.
Next weekend’s really totally out… I’ve got 19 Freakout tix and have to spend at least some time with most of those people! :eek: And different groups of them don’t get along! :eek: :eek: We’ll try again some other time.