More politics but this is more humorous (or sad)

As an addendum to a comment I made recently on the Rogue Historian's blog,

This. Is scary.

ETA: Bri-Bri, this is for you.

something weird

i am not too shabby with a pencil and paper,so long as it's drawing and not accounting we're talking about.

but i really struggle with faces.and in particular, eyes. so i decided, while my foot is healing and i'm not allowed to climb up and down the ladder, i will practice my drawlings. so here is day 1 of practicing on eyes. now,what is weird and/or interesting is that i can draw from a drawing, which is what you see on the upper left of the pae here. but from my imagination, well, things start to fall apart. so how do i get better at drawing from imagination? because i want to eventually start working (freelancing) as an illustrator, and the whole thing they do is make images from imagination.

also, you might all know this about me already, but i am more convinced every day that i have ADD. turns out that even people who do well in school or get a graduate degree can still have ADD. i'll probably talk more about this later, if i don't forget. pleh.

Now that Jenn's blog is all privatized**

I would like to share this roughly paraphrased bit of phone conversation that occurred between CNKelly and I, yesterday. Note, we were both chuckling the entire time so picture that in your mind.

CNK: Um, did you see this weiner dog thing on Jenn’s blog?

Me: Yeah, how ridiculous and awesome is that? They are wearing hot dog buns and running down the street.

CNK: Seriously, how did they [The Wilkeys] even get started in this?

Me: IDK, they did it last year and as I recall, Frank didn’t even finish the race but he stole someone else’s bacon.

CNK: I mean, this is so ridiculous, who even comes up with this stuff?

Me: IDK, but the Wilkeys are taking the Weiner dog World of Racing by storm. Oh, there’s a sentence I never thought I’d say.

…both of us laughing hysterically, each in our own cubes at our respective workplaces

It’s official, BTW: my “new” cube neighbors have pointed out that I LOL a lot. As in, all the time. As in, what is so funny, please share kind of moments. And I have to say, it’s almost always because of things like this that are just aspects of life that make me giggle. Even though I do like to complain, I really enjoy life and all the funny-ness it has to offer.

**Names are no longer changed to protect the identities of those involved.

Highly Recommended Listening

Particularly for the intellectual types among the readership of this blog (that’s all of you, right?):

Michael Rips – Lost in Translation

A high school student attempts to pass an Ionesco play off as his own. Michael Rips is a fifth-generation Nebraska native. A graduate of Oxford University, he served as a law clerk to a Supreme Court justice and continues to practice criminal litigation. He is the author of The Face of a Naked Lady and Pasquale's Nose. Music by Chris Webb

It’s currently available (FREE!) in the iTunes store under Podcasts>Audio Podcasts>Performing Arts>The Moth Podcast

I wish the iTunes store had a way to link right to the podcast or at least the store. If anyone knows how to do that, please leave a note in the comments.

Awesome Public Folder Post

This gem was in one of our public Outlook folders today. Out. Standing.

 

(A typewriter was located in the office, BTW. Who knew we would even still have one?)

 

---

From: Tonya
Posted At: Tuesday, September 23, 2008 10:11 AM
Posted To: Business
Subject: Typewriter
 

Does anyone still have a typewriter around the office?

 

A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical device with a set of "keys" that, when pressed, cause characters to be printed on a medium, usually paper. For much of the 20th century, typewriters were indispensable tools in business offices and for many professional writers. By the end of the 1980s, word processor applications on personal computers had largely replaced the tasks previously accomplished with typewriters. Typewriters, however, remain popular in the developing world and among some niche markets.

For you younger employees, it looks like this …

Birthday Prizes

Normally, I make a point of letting folks know that I don’t want anything for my birthday, except for possibly going to dinner to enjoy each other’s company. But this year, I have gotten 2 great prizes that I want to share with the world, because they are so perfect for me.

1)      the mum, on the left side of the pic. Just yesterday, I was behind a pickup truck with a bed full of mums thinking, “I’d like to have some mums, but they always seem to die on me”. Here’s hoping this one, courtesy of my friend Kim, will make it at least through the fall. And maybe Bri can teach me how to take care of it.

2)      The First Aid Center. My dad gave me this yesterday, totally unexpected, and it is one of the best gifts I’ve ever received. I think I will ultimately transfer the contents into my white steel medicine cabinet, as soon as I get the top layer of paint scraped off of it and paint a big red cross on it. But in the meantime, I’m totally going to enjoy all 326 pieces of this baby. I have looked at it longingly at Sam’s for at least the past year, so this is a little bit of a dream come true. Yes, I am aware that I could have just purchased it for myself, but I already have a little First Aid kit, so I had a hard time justifying the additional spending even if I do totally love it. Now I just have to figure out a good location for it in my home. I am thinking it will probably go into the Utility Closet of Happiness (formerly known as the Craft Closet of Doom, but now that I have an actual Craft Room, I have an extra closet, which happens to be the size of a small half-bath, that I can use for all my cleaning and storage needs).

Something else that my dad gave me is a $50 gift card to Wal*Mart that my grandmother had given to him a few Christmases ago. He said that he found it when he was looking for something to wrap my gift in (which is also a little odd, because it was “wrapped” in a big plastic bag, but whatever). The funny thing, to me, is that he gave it to me while we were walking into Sam’s, and said “I don’t do Wally-World,” which is what he calls Wal*Mart, of course. The absurdity of admonishing Wal*Mart while shopping at Sam’s was not lost on me, but I’ll take the $50. I mean, it’s already been given to Wal*Mart anyway, so I’m basically just getting it back when I use the card, anyway. Yeah, that’s how I’m justifying this.

This might be the first birthday I can remember where I was just in an absolutely foul mood. I am not sure if it is from the stupid boot I am wearing, the fact that I have to sit around all the time and can’t get anything done, or possibly it’s related to my lady bits, but regardless, I am just grumpy today. Grr.

<<BirthdayPrizes.jpg>>

Something I Thought was Great

Izzo and Magnus, chillin' like villains. She loves to teach him new tricks.

I meant to blog about this over the weekend and then I got all distracted. When I told CNKelly that I was going to the kennel to pick up Magnus (Manus!), she told me that, on the day after I thought I had broken my foot, Kelly told Izzo that she was coming over here to take me to the doctor and Izzo wanted to come along. Kelly reminded her that she was going to the Reds game with Mimi and Papa, but Izzo wanted to come over here anyway, so that she could train Manus to get me things that I might need while I couldn't walk on my foot. That might be the sweetest thing I've ever heard.

I love kids. They are so open-hearted and have such an unjaded perspective on life. I mean, that is just such a great reflection on the way their minds work. I try to keep a little piece of that simplistic optimism alive inside of me but it's hard because so much of my heart is cold and dead and the part that isn't is wrapped in a dark cloak of cynicsm and sarcasm.

OK, that last line was just for literary effect. I enjoy my flair for the dramatic!

Izzo is, hands down, one of the best kids I've ever met, which is the reason I love it when we can all hang out when Tommy comes to visit. They play so well together; it is seriously heart-melting to watch, particularly when they get so engrossed in what they are doing that they forget any grown-ups are around watching them. I need to get Tommy down here on some weekend visits again. I've missed that.

Thoughts on the State of the Union

This blog post summarizes my thoughts and feelings over the past several years that I never could fully articulate. Please read the following:

Why you should not go back into the market

I have to admit, I still have some monies invested in the stock market, but I’d like to pull those out; I just don’t think pulling them out is practical. Even though I rode out the post-dot-com bust without much concern (hey, investing is for the long-term, so have a long-term view, right?), I think Mr. Paterson has a real point in his blog about the state of the market today. Back in 2006, I mentioned to a few people that I thought we were heading for a crash. There’s just no way there could be as much money in the world as what was being tossed around the markets. I remember having a talk with a financial advisor at a family function that summer, and somehow we got started on that topic, and we talked for probably 2 hours about what was coming and when. People (alarmists then but perhaps now they’re more like prognosticators) were warning that we were headed for a crash on the scale of that in 1929, if not worse. And our current crisis is what we discussed, and it looks like the time is now.

I’m not all “It’s doomsday, get to the shelter with your bottled water and canned goods time,” (yet). Rather, I think we’ll make it through, but there will be lean years ahead, and that is one of the reasons I have always wanted to have my own mini-farm, because I’d like to have less dependence on the system overall and more independence, less of life on paper and more living off the actual land. Call it the pioneer spirit or call it flaky, but being (mostly) self-sufficient has always been a dream of mine.

Admittedly, I joke around a lot in general because I believe in taking a light-hearted approach to life and because I just enjoy having a good time. But I do get serious from time to time and I’m serious when I say that we have gotten off-track and now have so many things wrong in this country that I think it will take the better part of my remaining lifetime to get them straightened out. All of the major religions, particularly Christianity, urge us to take care of the sick and the poor, and more and more, we aren’t doing either. We (including me) leave it in someone else’s hands to fix, or expect people to pull themselves up when they’re down, but getting involved is too complicated (so many systems in place, no clear way through all the bureaucracy). I think we have a long way to go toward restoring the great nation we once were, but I also don’t lose sight of the fact that people are still willing to risk their lives every day, just for the chance to get into this country. Clearly we have much more good than bad, but I’d like to see the good get better and the bad get fixed. And by “better” I don’t mean “having more stuff,” I mean, “treating each other kindly and taking care of each other, even strangers we’ll never see again”.

To go out on a positive (if slightly tangential) note, people in my office just came back from the largest manufacturing trade show in North America, and all reports are that the manufacturing sector is actually in a boom right now. Part of that is based on the weak dollar, making American production cheaper than overseas production, and another part is the scramble to create products that are lighter and therefore less taxing on the environment as well as solutions for alternative energy production such as wind turbines, etc. So even in all the gloom and doom, there are positive spots on the horizon.

not too much damage

i'm sure the neighbors who lost this tree would disagree with my assessment, but as rob pointed out earlier, there are a lot of trees down that didn't hit homes or cars, so that's lucky for lots of folks. there was a decent-sized branch on my car from the 40-foot pine i like to call "the tree that is going to crush me to death someday" but miraculously the tree itself stayed erect. hee! the neighbor guy who lives in the attic said he was watching it out of his window and confirmed what ithought i saw from mine - the treetop was swinging a good 10-15 foot arc. he was just as certain as methat it was coming down today but it turns out the tree and all of we live to see another day. luckily, norwood has had power this whole time even though my own power was flickering due to the big tree which has branches in the path of the power line to my house. and they are cuttin up the tree in this
pic as i type. they're on the spot, prolly cos of school traffic - no cancellations in the Wood!

Something I just can't understand

is how people can stand living in places where they have hurricanes, or even a lot of tornadic activity. Because right now, we're having 35-mph winds with gusts up to 60-mph, and I can actually feel my house moving.

And that is NOT a feeling I enjoy.

Yesterday

I'm sure that we could all see this coming, but because I was feeling so good on my foot, I ended up overdoing it. I thought I was taking things slow, and technically I suppose I was, but I think I spent too much time walking and standing, because this morning when I woke up, I was incredibly tired and sore. So I'm sacked out on the sofa, again, and wishing I could do some of the things I need to do around here without exhausting myself.

I really struggle with the practice of just resting. For some reason, I feel like I need to be doing something at all times. This goes back pretty far as I recall a friend telling me years ago, "Erin, you are a human being, not a human doing" in an attempt to get me to take it easy on myself. It didn't work.

So, even though I know I need to rest, I am restless and resentful.

What I Did Yesterday, by Erin Donohoe

1. Took Magnus out in the back yard to toss a ball around with him while I let my foot out of the boot and enjoyed the sunshine.
2. Trimmed the high grass in the front yard with a shears to (hopefully!) appease the Norwood lawn Nazis.
3. Washed and dried 2 loads of laundry which required 3 trips up and down the basement stairs.
4. Showered, an actual standing-up shower during which I was moving slow as molasses so as not to slip and fall.
5. Trip with Lynn to McDonalds, The Home Depot and Target. I got to use the Target Cruiser but The Home Depot doesn't have one so I had to hobble around there in the space boot. Plus, for some reason, we ended up parked far away and that was just extra steps for me.
6. Fixed the toilet handle that broke last Sunday (when it broke, I fell into a spiral of despair about the state of my life, but then I took one of those Percocets and everything seemed OK again).
6. Got out my headlamp so I could look into the clogged shower drain, but then realised that the batteries in the lamp had leaked for some reason (any ideas why?) and had to carefully clean out the battery acid residue with Qtips (thank goodness I had stocked up on them during the Target trip).
7. Decided to finally replace the aerator in the bathroom faucet because it sprays me when I turn on the water and I had a new low-flow aerator I got from Duke Energy.
8. While I was on a roll, I decided to replace the kitchen aerator, too.
9. Realised that I am out of AAA batteries so I still can't look into that clogged drain. Argh. I got a drain snake at HD and I really want to use it on this clog.

So, yeah, this is exactly how I end up overdoing it and yet not finishing any projects, because each thing I do reminds me of some other thing I want to do and my ADD gets the best of me and I end up going around in circles all day long.

But when I sit and try to rest, I end up falling asleep (I think I have a 40-minute maximum for sitting still before I fall asleep, because the same thing happens when I try to watch a movie, even in the theatre, unless it is a comedy). So that's why I am so frustrated now.

Friday Night Thoughts

1) I can not get over how exhausted I am since I broke my foot. I know that part of it is because everything takes extra effort, and another part is from the healing process, but still. I could sleep all night and all day, I think. I haven't tried that since Monday.
2) I picked up Magnus this evening and while he seemed happy to see me, he wasn't as happy as other people claim their dogs to be when they are picked up from the kennel. So I don't know if those people are liars or if my dog just doesn't love me as much. But I can't really ask him, because he is punched. The trick at this point will be getting him as tired out every day as they have been doing these past weeks.
3) I got another weed letter from the city, which is understandable; I need to cut my grass. But now isn't the best time to try to tackle that what with the big boot and all. My yard is definitely scraggly, but I don't think it's eye-catchingly scraggly, so I'm not sure how I keep getting pinged by the city, but whatever. After I get it mowed, I am planning to do 2 things - put a big Obama sign in my yard for all the parents dropping kids off at school to see, and launch a campaign to get the city to start fogging for mosquitos. Because Heidi has finally determined that it is not my yard alone but actually all of Norwood that is infested with mosquitos. I know a couple of Norwoodians read this blog - does anyone know why they don't fog?
4) After lots and lots of deliberating and ruminating, I have decided to go Team Obama this year. I was really rooting for Nader because I think he has the best intentions for the country, but I've decided to be a little more pragmatic and believe in the Change We Can Believe In. And why not? It's a catchy slogan!
5) I am not a fan of The Bad Girls Club or most of the reality-television genre, but I found this clip on somone else's blog and I swiped it for here. Because the morning after many, many long nights of being kept up by the ARMY boyz, I wanted to do this very thing:

Seriously. That sh*t cracks me UP.

Morning Update

Greetings, dear readers. Hee! I love saying that. Today’s progress report (drum roll please): I can put my weight on my left foot again. Hurraah!!! I went down the stairs on the boot with no crutches this morning and I also walked partway around the house to get to the car before I switched back to the crutches. I have only been able to take a few steps before my foot gets too tired, and the arch of my foot totally kills right now, but this is huge and amazing progress considering this time yesterday the pain from standing on the foot was enough to make me want to collapse. I am so thankful that the healing is moving along and that I have so many wonderful friends who have called, emailed, stopped by, and taken me places. You guys rock!

The doc told me that I can take my foot out of the boot to sleep at night, but instead of doing that, I’ve decided to sleep with it on, and take the boot off when I am sitting at my desk at work. Here at work, there is much less chance of accidentally bumping it or having a critter jump on it, and I don’t toss and turn at my desk the way I do while I’m sleeping, so it just seems safer to keep the boot on at home and take it off for a little while here. I am also still supposed to ice the foot to prevent any swelling from coming in. The doc says that it’s much easier to prevent the swelling in the first place than it is to get rid of the swelling once it’s started. So, right now, my tender arch is resting on a very cold sack of ice cubes and I am type, type, typing away. If you found your way to this blog because you have just broken your 5^th metatarsal, have hope that it will get better, a little bit each day. I’m on day 6 and I’m already able to step on it again!

I am very hopeful that I will be able to get Magnus this weekend after all. It will be good because I have missed him but also have not wanted to have him around because he is too much to handle with all the crutches and boots and things. I continue to make little bits of progress, I really do think I will be ready for him to come home this weekend. He will probably have to stay outside most of the time but I can sit in a chair and toss the ball to him and we will both be happy with that. The only one who will really be disappointed is little Stella, poor thing. She has really enjoyed having me all to herself these past few days.

Dear Readers

I made it to the ortho and back yesterday, thanks to Papa Joe D who came down Monday night to take me to the appointment. Note: I keep wanting to write/say “vet appointment”. Not sure if that’s from spending too much time with the critters or a reflection of how dependent I feel on everyone else right now.

My left foot is now in this lovely space boot:

I can drive and hobble around and I still have the crutches from CNKelly to use as needed. I even came back to work today, and I just took about 4 baby steps on the actual boot. Other than those trial steps, I’ve been wheeling around in my office chair, which is pretty fun.

For those who are interested in such things, the technical papers indicate I have a closed longitudinal oblique fracture of the 5^th metatarsal without significant angulation or displacement. From what I could glean via the interwebs, that means it broke all the way across, diagonally, but it was a clean break with no little extra pieces floating around in there, it’s not so out of place as to need to be manipulated back into place, and most importantly, it didn’t break through the skin (which is good because I probably would have passed out if I had seen that sticking out of my foot). I don’t know if this is standard for the type of break or just lucky in my case, but the doc also said this fracture could heal on its own without any need for being set or pinned, so the boot is mainly for support and protection. That is the best news of all because I can take it off as I please and that means I can bathe, which is another thing you really don’t appreciate until it’s no longer an option. The doctor prescribed 3 weeks of physical therapy but I haven’t called yet to set that up.

So even though this entire episode has been and continues to be a total PITA, I keep finding things to be thankful for. Like the fact that I don’t have a borked foot and have to still walk 5 miles to fetch a jug of water or have a borked foot and still have to run from animals that are trying to eat me, or have a borked foot and still have to plow the fields or hunt and gather for my food. And that I have a television to watch while I lie around feeling sorry for myself. So yeah. I try to look on the bright side as much as possible.

But I am really, really tired, so you can still keep feeling sorry for myself. Hee!

Love,

-Erin

On the DL, again

This time, I've really done myself in. I broke the 5th metatarsal in my left foot after a 2-part injury last week. The first thing that happened was that, at a work party on Wednesday night, I walked up to a coworker who had her back to me, and just as I got withing talking distance, she stepped back with her 3-inch heel on my strappy-sandal-clad foot, then lost her balance, wobbled and spun around, all before I could even react to shove her off of me. By the time she realised what was happening, I was half-crouched in the "silent scream". Oddly, due to the amount of Cosmos I had that night, I was able to forget both the pain and the incident until the next morning when I woke up wondering WTF my sandal had done to my foot. As soon as I looked down and saw the horribly bruised and puffy skin, I remembered having nearly been skewered at the party. I kept it iced, elevated, and rested all day Thursday and by Friday morning it was looking pretty good.

Because the conference and expo we were hosting was in Chicago and we had so many people and materials going up there, we carpooled in several vanloads with people coming and going on different days, and my ride back was on Friday afternoon. I kept my foot iced and elevated for the whole ride home and thought things were going just fine, but when I walked down the stairs to do my final lock-up of the night, I mis-counted the steps somehow and instead of stepping on the last step with my left foot, I stepped with my left foot, missed the last step, and landed on the landing. When my foot hit, it just gave out and rolled, and that's when I knew something horrible had happened because I just crumpled and stayed there for several minutes in excruciating pain, whimpering and wondering what I had done. When I was finally able to collect myself, I stood up, hobbled over and realised the door had been locked all along (figures), and then crawled back upstairs to get another ice pack.

I kept it elevated and iced overnight and all day on Saturday and by Saturday afternoon, I decided (with CNKelly's encouragement) that I should go to Urgent Care. However, by the time I figured all that out, collected myself, and got outside, Kelly showed up with a set of crutches and a bag full of Skyline goodies (she ROCKS!!) and just a few minutes later, Heidi showed up as well. We decided that Heidi could take me to the doctor since Kelly had already fed me and supplied the crutches and Heidi and I headed off to the Urgent Care center in Oakley. Note to readers: I do NOT recommend the Urgent Care in Oakley. It smells weird and looks weird and is generally just kind of scary. While I was there, I sat on something sticky that stayed on my butt the rest of the night. They wouldn't treat me because I didn't have an ID, so when we left to go back and get my ID, we decided to just try a different Urgent Care. Turns out that they were all closed by this point, so I went to the ER instead (I know, I know, the ER is only for "EMERGENCIES" but I think I would have ended up in the ER anyway once they looked at it).

We had a little fun in the ER waiting room where I showed Heidi my mad wheelchair skillz and we entertained all the people working there with our funny jokes, and after a long wait, the doc came in and confirmed that it was, in fact, a broken bone. No wonder it hurt so badly. They gave me some stuff for the pain and put a temporary splint on, told me not to drive or get the splint wet, and sent me on my way. Heidi was nice enough to stay the night with me because I got really scared when we got back that there would either be a fire or someone would break in and I wouldn't be able to handle either situation. Fortunately, neither one happened and in the morning, Bri and Rob came by and took me to the store. I had cleaned out the fridge before I left for the conference so there was absolutely nothing to eat in the house except for items requiring preparation and I'm not doing so hot on the standing just yet. While I wouldn't break anything else just to get the chance, I did enjoy using the Kroger cruiser up until the very end of the trip when the battery was really running out of juice. Rob actually was good enough to drive it back inside to the charging station but he said later that it was a pretty disappointing ride. I think he would have felt differently if he had been using it at the beginning but still, it's not all that I had made it out to be in my mind lo these many years. Heidi came back over Sunday night and brought Indian for dinner and her fine company and that was great. I was actually exhausted and ready for bed by the time she left, which I think was only like 8 o'clock.

I spent almost the entire day today in bed though I did go downstairs once to plug my cell phone into the car charger, because of course, I also left my outlet charger in my hotel room at the conference. It only took about an hour to get from my bed to the car and back again. Ridiculous. My dad arrived at 7-ish tonight because he is taking me to the ortho doctor on Tuesday (let's all say some prayers that I get a walking cast because I'm not sure how much more crutching I can handle) and Heidi showed up a little later with a pack of water bottles because I don't have a good way to transport a glass of water back to bed with me.

I don't know why this didn't occur to me before, but when I decided to set up one of the televisions downstairs for my dad to watch, I realised that I have a wheelie-chair on each of the first and second floors, so I gave it a shot and they actually make it much easier to get around, and I can hold things in my lap while I coast around. So I'll be doing that a lot, especially if I do still have to use the crutches. Also, in the middle of the night last night, the lever thing on the flusher part of my toilet actually broke apart from the handle, which nearly sent me on a crying fit until I decided to just go back to bed and forget about it for the time being. So add one more thing to the fix-it list. Oh, and I still have to figure out how I'm going to wash my hair in the morning because I can NOT go to the doctor stinking like I do right now. MMMmmmm....