Mary Kay

02:47 pm: Lazy Sunday
It's all alicebentley's fault

If you're on my friends list, I want to know 36 things about you. I don't care if we never talk, or if we already know everything about each other. Short and sweet is fine... you're on my list, so I want to know you better!

Comment here and repost a blank one on your own journal.
01) Are you currently in a serious relationship?
02) What was your dream growing up?
03) What talent do you wish you had?
04) If I bought you a drink what would it be?
05) Favorite vegetable?
06) What was the last book you read?
07) What zodiac sign are you?
08) Any Tattoos and/or Piercings? Explain where.
09) Worst Habit?
10) If you saw me walking down the street would you offer me a ride?
11) What is your favorite sport?
12) Do you have a Pessimistic or Optimistic attitude?
13) What would you do if you were stuck in an elevator with me?
14) Worst thing to ever happen to you?
15) Tell me one weird fact about you.
16) Do you have any pets?
17) What if I showed up at your house unexpectedly?
18) What was your first impression of me?
19) Do you think clowns are cute or scary?
20) If you could change one thing about how you look, what would it be?
21) Would you be my crime partner or my conscience?
22) What color eyes do you have?
23) Ever been arrested?
24) Bottle or can soda?
25) If you won $10,000 today, what would you do with it?
27) What's your favorite place to hang out at?
28) Do you believe in ghosts?
29) Favorite thing to do in your spare time?
30) Do you swear a lot?
31) Biggest pet peeve?
32) In one word, how would you describe yourself?
33) Do you believe/appreciate romance?
34) Favourite and least favourite food?
35) Do you believe in God?
36) Will you repost this so I can fill it out and do the same for you?

02:04 pm: Woo! Also, Hoo!
From the University of Oklahoma sports page.

NORMAN, Okla. (AP) --
Oklahoma (5-0) this week moved into the No. 1 spot of the AP poll for a record 96th time, but first since 2003, after an upset-filled weekend when the Sooners were the only one of the top four teams to win.

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Hmmm. I need a football icon.

10:17 am: Watch it!
A cool GOTV video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8y1e-z1JA0

01:00 pm: Attention Bay Area Folks!
Greetings Bay Area folks! I'm making a trip to the Bay Area next month to attend the Bay Area Bead Extravaganza in Oakland. I'm arriving the afternoon of Thursday Nov. 6 and leaving Sunday evening at 7:30 pm. I'm flying in and out so I won't have a car, but am staying at the Oakland Marriott Civic Center which is very near a BART stop. I have a class on Friday from 2-6pm and one on Sunday morning from 9am-1pm. Other than that I'm free. Wanna have a meal? Drinks? Trawl the dealers room with me? Book now!

Tags: bay area, travel

11:58 am: Friday cat blogging
I have a fresh new set of adorable cat pics, but they're still in the camera. In the way of these things, the cable that attaches the camera to the computer is hiding. When I find it I'll post more pic whether it's Friday or not.

They're behind the cut ( so nobody gets hit with that much cute without warning )

04:32 pm: GIP!
I think someone posted the url to the SMOFS list and I basely stole it.

11:43 pm: I am a Hopeless Dork
Not because I was watching a History channel show about the Big Bang. No, that's just normal (ahem) intellectual curiosity. No, it was something else. They showed pictures/clips of Hoyle, Gamow, Alpher, and other guys (yeah all guys) involved with all this cosmological physics and I kept thinking, "What an attractive looking man!" I really *am* a physics groupie. (Yeah, ok, Hoyle was an astronomer. Bite me.) Big brains are *so* sexy...

01:06 pm: Eeeee!
Well, my computer died Wednesday afternoon. Jordin had been planning to get me a Mac Air for our anniversary so I got it a month early. Unfortunately, it was broken, so I'm still computerless. I'm posting this from the business center at the Marriott in Redmond, where I'm attending Foolscap. I hope to have a computer of my own RSN. More then.

01:04 am: Birthdays
Whew, it's Sept. 22 again already! So happy birthday to matociquala, peake, pellegrina, and to_eat_flowers (wherever she may be)!

Also to Frodo and Bilbo and my cousin Karen. No, the other cousin Karen. Yes, I have 2 cousins named Karen. Different sides of the family.

09:50 pm: It's Not Midnight Yet
So let's do some ( Friday Cat Blogging )

03:19 pm: (Mostly) Whine Free Update
Well, I went to my appointment with the hand/wrist guy. About 10 minutes in, it being clear to me that he wasn't listening to me and didn't like me asking questions about things I didn't understand, I informed him that I wasn't going to take that behavior and took my test results and walked out. Arrogant condescending jerk.

I called my primary care doctor and made an appointment to see her. She agreed with me that sometimes that particular doctor could act that way. We also decided that right now I probably didn't need surgery. I had been wearing the braces faithfully for 2 months and had left them off for several days before the appt. And had, in fact, only a little pain. So I'm going to wear them when I sleep and drive and whenever I'm doing something that stresses them. I only need surgery she says, if I start getting muscle wastage. So there's that decided.

She was fascinated to hear about the joint hypermobility syndrome though she didn't know much about it either. I'm going to talk the rheumatologists office to see if they have PTs they recommend for it and then she'll give me a referral to them. If they don't have any names, I'll start calling the folks I used for my knee and recommendations I've had until I find someone who has experience with JHS.

I'd been having a good week so I spent yesterday doing housework and laundry. For the housework I used the 20 minutes of work/20 minutes of rest scheme. I managed to get the ground floor of the house tidied and the kitchen cleaned up. There still needs to be dusting and serious cleaning. Then I spent the evening from about 5pm on doing laundry. Which of course is short bursts of activity interspersed with long bouts of waiting. Most of which I spent watching tv. (The laundry room and tv room are separate ends of a very large room in the basement.

Unfortunately, I must have got carried away as everything hurts today. Sigh. To sum up: Prescription meds are Cymbalta, salsalate, levothyroxine, (weekly) B-12 shots, and trazodone. OTC meds and supplements include multi-vitamin/multi-mineral supplement, B-100 (multiple vitamin Bs), 2000 IUs of vitamin D, 1200 mgs of calcium, plant sterols, and Prilosec. Ibuprofen as necessary for osteoarthritis (hands, right knee, ankles), mysterious aches and pains, mostly in glutes and quads, and trochanteric bursitis Also wearing custom orthotics (and why did I wait so long to get those!).

It's very startling to me just how suddenly all this began. As nearly as I can tell it mostly started to go south in Sept. of 2006. That was Dominic's last full month so there was that stress. Also, interestingly, it was the month after my very last period ever. Man, Nature is brutal. No longer fertile? We don't need you any longer, buh bye! And you start falling apart.

And soon, it'll be time to get out the light-boxes... Right now, though, I'm supposed to be writing fiction so I suppose I'd better go do that.

Tags: health, medication

12:23 am: The Return of Friday Cat Blogging
Okay, yes, technically, it's Saturday. I've been busy. ( bite me )

11:46 am: Yeah, About That
I'm feeling relatively ok and energetic today. And realizing just how badly I've felt for the last several weeks. I've been horribly depressed for the last couple of weeks, which saps my energy to do anything and/or respond to people. If I've neglected you or your overtures, please know it isn't you, it's my brain chemicals. They appear to be very unstable right now. Probably the side-effects of the pain problems I'm having. Will a blanket apology do? Or shall everyone I've hurt/offended/pissed off line up to tell me why and receive individual ones? If the latter, you should hurry because I've no idea how long this will last and I have to go to Bellevue later today.

03:02 pm: Further Aventures in the Health Industry
Well, after a really unsatisfactory interaction the hand and wrist guy ordered a test to determine if I really have carpal tunnel syndrome. That was this morning. Unlike most of the people who do medical tests he was both willing and able to tell me the results. I do indeed have moderate carapl tunnel on the right and mild on the left. He said that usually they recommend wearing braces and changing egonomics and mild NSAIDs for this level for a couple months and if that doesn't work...

That was the point at which I Interrupted to tell him I'd been wearing the braces for 2 full months and being careful about ergonomics for the last year.

So then I'll set you up an appointment with one of our surgeons, he finished.

I see the surgeon on Wednesday. Apparently the surgery for this condition has improved immensely in recent years. They may even be able to do it on an outpatient basis. We'll see, but it looks like at least the right wrist is going to have to have surgery. I am, of course, EXTREMELY right handed. The handout he gave me says it can take 3-4 weeks to be able to write or type comfortably, and you don't get full strength back for 10-12 weeks...

Tags: carpal tunnel, health

06:35 pm: As promised pictures of the new additions. If you click on the pictures they'll get bigger. And to save everyone's fp, here's the cut tag. ( Read more... )

04:00 pm: Why yes,
I have taken leave of my senses.

Losing our two cats, Dominic in Oct. 2006, and Loki in May of this year was so hard on me I told Jordin I didn't want any more pets at all ever. He really did. Jordin doesn't seem to be happy without cats. He wanted them so much I decided it would be really selfish of me to keep saying no. I decided I would surprise him for his birthday in October with an Ocicat. He's always admired them and they're beautiful and intelligent creatures. I wasn't sure how long it would take, so I started looking for a breeder in Washington.

Well, the small cattery I found didn't have any ocicats and didn't expect any anytime soon, but they did have a brother and sister Savannah. As it turns out, their mother had to have a c-section and so was spayed and they were looking for a home for her too. Yeah. We now have three cats. I'll upload some pictures later, but here are pics of the kittens. They've been named Miles and Ekaterin, in part because the Vorkosigin house colors are brown and silver.

http://www.cranberrycoastcats.com/newcubs.html
They're the ones she called Mork and Mindy. We renamed them...

This is a link to a page with pictures of Mom, Circi. Scroll down a bit
http://www.cranberrycoastcats.com/QUEENSindex.html

04:47 pm: One Last Post
for the day, then I'm going to go annoy myself with convention coverage.

I wrote 282 words today on the Brother Moonlamp story. If could just do that everyday, I'd have it finished by the end of September. I have a market I really want to send it to.

03:01 pm: Road trip
So when I last wrote about my road trip I was in Kellogg, Idaho. I spent the next day driving east on I-90 through Montana to Billings. Yes, all day and that wasn’t all the way through Montana. I stayed at the Best Western Clocktower Inn in downtown Billings, all the places near the highway being full. And expensive. Apparently I’m traveling the same week as all the riders headed for Sturgis. Which explains the full and expensive hotels. And all the motorcycles I’ve been seeing. Harley Davidson is really a way of life in these places. Every largish town I passed through on I-90 had a huge Harley Davidson dealership just off the freeway.

Further random thoughts while driving I-90

I’ve been to Spokane twice, but once I flew in and once I drove in from the south. So I’d never been further east on I-90 than Ellensberg (a very nice little town – I recommend it.). Driving out of the rain shadow is startling. Five minutes ago the outside temperature was 71; now it’s 84. Previously the scenery was craggy mountains densely covered with heavy dark green forest. Now, it’s low rolling swells covered with scrub a particularly repulsive shade of brown. (Later on, the scrub adds sage green but it’s still pretty grim.)

Hey! As you’re headed east out of Seattle, exit 136 is Huntzinger Road!

After Seattle’s radio stations left me, I drove in silence for a while and then played ELO’s El Dorado. I associate that album with a love affair that ended in a particularly unpleasant way and so I haven’t listed to it much. I had forgotten how much I liked it, especially the title track and another called, I think, “Illusions in G Major”. Liked the whole thing so much I played it twice. The title track 4 tines. Huh. Wonder what Jeff Lynne is up to these days? (I wrote this early in the trip – and I spent a lot of time thinking about why I don’t listen to or own more ELO, because, you know I like them. I discovered it was because someone I respect once made slighting remarks about them in my hearing, implying that they and their listeners were shallow and immature. That’s really stupid MK—it’s just one person’s opinion and you don’t even remember who it was. I hereby order you to buy and listen to more ELO.)

Baymont Suites advertises free wifi. But the only place I could get decent reception was in the lobby. Grumble grumble.\

They had a pretty good breakfast spread though. I had 2 pieces of toast and a boiled egg with my Diet Pepsi. Which is a lot for me.

As it turns out this is rather common with budget inns. After trying out a variety my favorites are now Holiday Inn Express and Best Western. Always had good strong wifi signals – and free. Though both hotels cost a little more than other budget inns.

The scenery on the long drive through Montana was definitely preferable to what I used to get on those long drives through Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. More rolling and more green and cool mountains.

I was thinking, though as I drove along, that it looked more like sheep country to me than cattle country and obligingly just over the next hill there was a herd of sheep. Only one I saw in Montana though.

After my night in Billings I stopped at the Little Bighorn Battlefield and took the tour. It certainly was a festival of arrogance and stupidity. Custer got pretty much what he deserved, but he took a lot of folks with him who didn’t have to have died that way. When I visited Culloden in Scotland the energy was so bad I couldn’t walk out onto the actual battlefield. Didn’t have that problem here, but was short of time.

So I got back on 90 and kept going east (and south) until I hit I-25 which I was to take south through Wyoming. I need more energy to write about Wyoming so I’ll cut off there.

Tags: road trip

11:35 am: The Weather's Grey and so am I
Worldcon was a incredible high. I had a great time, everything went well, people were appreciative. Thanks to the new orthotics and shoes I didn't have the foot pain and concomitant exhaustion I'm used to. I had fun dinners and good conversations. Armadillocon was much lower key but enjoyable. The drive home, through the desert SW was awesome.

However, all my other interactions with people seem to be going wrong. I've apologized fulsomely to several people who claim to have been greatly offended by something I said only to have them completely ignore it. I mean, they're certainly within their rights to not accept my apology, but if that's what they're doing I wish they'd tell me.

I have even less patience than usual with fools and knaves and the people watching seem to find that off-putting.

I've been back in town for nearly a week now after having been gone for 3 weeks and I'm feeling rather alone and deserted. It causes me rather a lot of distress that the people who seem to like me best are always the people who live far away. It doesn't seem to speak well of my wearability.

I've been to 4 doctors in 3 months and none of them can tell me anything except that the others were wrong. I lost it yesterday with the hand/wrist surgeon and he just couldn't cope. Kept telling me what he couldn't do which, of course, was not what I needed or wanted to hear. The X-rays were eye-opening. I have little to no cartilage left in the end joints of most of my fingers. There's nothing he can do for that. My thumbs are not where they're supposed to be. The base of them, I mean, where they join the hand. Even I could see clearly that they weren't lined up to the socket where they're supposed to be. Brand new custom made braces to immobilize thumbs. Do you have any idea how much you use your thumbs? He seemed to find the evidence for carpal tunnel equivocal and has called for yet another test. Unfortunately, the soonest it can be done is Sept. 8.

General consensus seems to be nobody has any idea why I'm have bone, joint, and muscle pain. I have strong suspicions that 3 out of the 4 doctors wish I would go away and leave them alone and think I'm just a hysterical woman 'of a certain age'. Okay, that's not really fair to the podiatrist -- he's actually helped my feet. The other doctor is my primary care doc, who is female, and who sent me to the specialists because she couldn't figure out what was wrong.

The rheumatologist says no, he doesn't think I have a connective tissue disease. I have carpal tunnel and joint hypermobility. Also am nearly completely deficient in Vitamin D. Had to reschedule the followup with him as I was going to be gone. The earliest they could fit me in was the end of September. (They scheduled the follow-up when I made back in late May. I saw him June 30. The follow up was scheduled for Aug. 21. When I had to reschedule that, the best they could do was Sept. 27. What was that about the horrible long waits for treatment inherent in the Canadian plan?) The podiatrist says my shoes are all wrong and apparently wants me to wear things with no movement at all and prescribes custom orthotics which do seem to help my feet. Though I'm having some problems with my bad ankle off and on since I started using them. Have to go see him again for the follow up visit. The hand/wrist guy thinks the carpal tunnel is uncertain and there's lots of arthritis and I'll just have to live with it -- there's nothing to be done about it. Though he does agree I have hypermobile joints. And recommends not doing lots of repetitive stuff like, oh, jewelry making, beading, clay sculpting, and computer-ing. You know, all the things that give me the most pleasure.

Everytime I've asked about fibromyalgia, the 3 males have ignored it and/or changed the subject. My female primary care doctor says I don't have the right symptoms. Oddly enough my friend with fibromyalgia says my symptoms sure sound to her like what she was going through before her diagnosis.

It may be time to go back to see my primary care doctor and cry on her shoulder. Last time I was at am impasse with the medical establishment it took a fit of hysterics in her direction to get things moving. Why do people never listen to me unless I'm sobbing and/or yelling?

God this is tiresome. I'll be out all afternoon, but I'll try find the energy to write up some of my trip. At least maybe that won't be whiny and boring.

05:33 pm: Lioness Sale
As is her way, elisem is having a big sale for her birthday. Now, through Sept. 1. Check it out!

Oh, and I'm home. Well, I'm in a Bellevue Tully's waiting for the traffic on the bridges to die down, but close enough. Tired and happy -- 2,576 miles in 5 days.