I wish everyone would....just...FUCK OFF. NOW.

Ex-Mas

We had a nice, pleasant xmas this year. This was the first time Adrian and I have been able to spend a holiday together. Usually, he went to his family and I went to mine, but this year we decided to stay home and be together for the first time in 17 years. His brothers and sisters and a brother-in-law came from Dallas to spend the time with us, and our pal Stainze came over too. Adrian cooked a huge batch of his mom's dressing recipe, which turned out wonderful, and there were many desserts.
Adrian and I usually wait until January to get gifts for each other because we almost always never have any extra $$ in December, for various reasons. We just did stocking stuffers. He got me a beautiful pair of earrings that I saw at BookPeople and an Origins gift card. I got him some DVDs of old classroom sex and hygiene education films from the 40s and 50s, a book of weird photos and some malted milk balls.
Adrian has the whole week off, but I'm back at work today. Not much to do, but I'm gettin' paid to do it.....
Happy New Year to all of y'all!

The American Way

Here we see Curly of the Three Stooges dealing with a terroristic bowl of oyster soup the good old American way......

Callllllllll for Super Chicken

I miss Super Chicken. It was one of my fave cartoons when I was a kid. I watched it everyday after school, along with Tom Slick, the Mighty Heroes, Wacky Racers (with Penelope Pitstop) and the Banana Splits.
On Saturday mornings, the lineup was Bugs Bunny, Scooby Doo (when they had guest stars like Mama Cass and Sandy Duncan), Fat Albert and the Children's International Film Festival with Kukla, Fran and Ollie.
Sunday mornings was the Childrens Hour with Bill Kelly, which had Davey and Goliath, old Merrie Melodies cartoons and Bill would read the funny papers, then the Osmonds and the Jackson 5 both had cartoons as well.
On weekdays before school, it was Slam Bang Theatre with Icky Twerp, and his ape pals Ajax and Delphinium playing cartoons and Three Stooges shorts.
Back then, nobody was trying to sell us stuff to go with the cartoons, we just watched them because they were funny.

drugs are not fun

My doc switched me to Cymbalta and is taking me off Lyrica and imipramine. The Cymbalta is supposed to be better for sleeping and chronic pain, but I'm having a rough time with it after being on it only 3 days. My jaw hurts terribly, almost like it's out of the socket, and that also makes my ear and my entire head hurt. I looked up the side effects and "jaw pain" wasn't one of them, so I don't know if it's from going on the new drug or going off the old one. It's really bad. At least I'm sleeping better.
I need to get food for all the people who are coming next weekend. I hope I feel better by then.

Rap is short for Crap

Adrian and I found out (thanks to the Austin Chronicle) that we now live in the epicenter of Austin's rap culture:
http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid%3A421144
Perhaps I should get some bling and a grill? Or a gun maybe?

Cheap Date

That's me. A new liquor/fine foods store opened up in the hood yesterday, so I went by to check it out. They had sampling stations all over the store and by the time I got to check out, i was seriously wondering if I would be able to drive home. The store is called Spec's and they have loads of them all over Houston, apparently. You get a small discount when you pay with cash or debit card. The booze is so cheap, I actually bought a bottle of Tito's Handmade Vodka, thinking I'd like to come home from a hard day at work to a nice, chilled vodka tonic. I also spent over $40 on cheeses, coffee and crackers and such. Spec's is now my favorite store.
When I got home I tried out the vodka tonic. It promptly gave me a rather pleasant case of the bedspins and then put me to sleep, like booze always does. I didn't inherit the alcoholic gene that runs in part of my family, because one drink makes me fall asleep and two drinks make me puke. So just call me a CHEAP DATE.

more migraine fun

Stayed home today nursing a migraine. I took Adrian to the bus stop, then came home and fell asleep on the couch until afternoon. I found the crockpot I had been wanting at HEB for less than $20 Monday night, so I tried out my Moroccan Chick Pea Soup recipe in it and it came out great. We had that for dinner tonight, and I have plenty leftover for lunch tomorrow. I'll be utilizing the crockpot quite a bit in the future.
My cousin Tracey is curious about silent film. Film history has always been interesting to me. I've always preferred older movies to the more current ones, mostly for the same reasons I prefer old furniture and old houses: they made them better back then. The characters were more developed, as were the stories. Silent movies I find particularly fascinating because you can see how people lived and dressed up to more than 100 years ago (film history starts in the 1870s). Kino Video has put out a series of DVDs called The Movies Begin. It contains the earliest motion studies from Eadweard Muybridge to the 1903 version of The Great Train Robbery that included footage of an oncoming train that made panicked audiences bolt from their seats; to early comedians like Frenchman Max Linder, who influenced Charlie Chaplin, early animation from Winsor McCay (an adorable dinosaur that surely influenced Walt Disney) to the early experiments of the Lumiere Brothers and Georges Melies' A Trip To The Moon (1902).
My own list of fave silents would include far more European films than American ones, purely for the reason that, in other than comedies, American films were made for the lowest common denominator, much like today. European directors tended to give their audiences more intelligence. And yes, I prefer German Expressionism, but American comedies cannot be beat.
1. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Germany) -R. Wiene - 1919
2. Die Buchse Der Pandora (Germany) - GW Pabst 1928
3. Faust (Germany) - FW Murnau - 1926
4. Steamboat Bill, Jr. - (USA) Buster Keaton 1928
5. Speedy - (USA) - Harold Lloyd 1928
6. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans - (USA) - FW Murnau 1927
7. Nosferatu - (Germany) - FW Murnau 1922
8. The Gold Rush - (USA) - Charlie Chaplin 1925
9. Flesh and the Devil - (USA) - Clarence Brown 1926
10. The Student of Prague - (Germany) - Henrik Galeen 1926

I included an American film that wasn't a comedy, Flesh and the Devil. This film starred Greta Garbo (in one of her very first American films) and her real-life lover John Gilbert, the George Clooney of the 1920s. Their lust for each other is so apparent, it's a wonder this film got past the censors. If it had been made just 8 years later when the Hays Code was passed in 1934, it wouldn't have been released at all! Hot stuff....
The Student of Prague and Faust are both morality tales: what happens when you sell your soul to the Devil? There's an earlier version of Student, but it stars Paul Wegener, who is most unfortunate looking. I prefer the better acting (and better looking) Conrad Veidt in the later version. Faust's cinematography is spellbinding, especially for such an early film. The whole film is very stylish.
What can one say about Nosferatu? Max Schreck was the most creepy looking SOB in Germany and this role was made for him. This film is a must for Halloween viewing. It really is extremely creepy...
Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd I find much more entertaining than Chaplin. Bear in mind that these guys didn't use stunt men, which makes their movies all the more amazing to watch. Harold Lloyd had only part of his right hand, due to an explosion during a photo shoot in 1918, but that's him you see hanging from the clock in Safety Last. The bit in Steamboat Bill, Jr. when the house falls down around Keaton is spellbinding.....
So, if you're looking to get into silent movies, I'd recommend starting with the above.....

I....I....I......

Adrian and I went to IKEA in Round Rock today. It was....overwhelming, to say the least. We spent over 2 hours walking around, "wallowing in pine and Norsemen", as my pal Shelly says. Adrian said he wasn't going to spend any money, but he ended up spending twice as much as I did. LOL
I got 3 wooden magazine holders, a toilet brush and holder, some wooden hangers and a computer wire tube thingy. He bought some magazine holders, a plastic chair mat, a wastebasket for his bathroom and something else I can't remember.
I'm exhausted now. IKEA is a wonderplace and will probably get far too much of my money in the near future....

Cold

Ahhhh, winter in Central Texas: bright sunshine, 30 degrees in the morning, 55 degrees in the afternoon. No snow, no ice, no high winds, just bee-yootiful weather. Makes me want to fire up the chiminea and eat Mexican food.....
We rented Die Buchse der Pandora (Pandora's Box), the 1928 German silent version starring Louise Brooks, directed by G.W. Pabst. I'd been wanting to see it for some time and Criterion Films has just released a 2DVD set of the remastered film:
"This classic silent German film tells of Lulu, a sensual chorus girl whose uncontainable sexual power literally destroys every man with whom she has an affair, until she encounters one of history's most notorious killers - Jack the Ripper. Considered particularly shocking at the time of its release because of the suggestion of a lesbian attraction between Lulu and a Countess. Brooks is at her sultry finest."
The remastering is amazing. The images are sharp and memorable, and Louise Brooks is, of course, staggering in her role as Lulu. If you've never seen a silent film, this is an excellent first choice. This was her first film in Germany after fleeing Hollywood and it made her an international star and an icon.

Ahhhhhh, Tuesday.....how boring.

Holidaze

Back home now.....a relatively pain-free trip. Pleasant (mostly) visits with the family, lots of great food, not a whole lot of traffic (on the way back anyway). Nobody died by my hand, so I can honestly say it was a huge success.
We put up the Yule tree Sunday and so far, Dinsy hasn't paid much attention to it. I had envisioned broken ornaments and garland strewn everywhere within mere minutes, but a firm "NO DINSY GET AWAYYYYYYYY!!!!" whenever she wandered too near did the trick, I guess. She does like to climb, as you can see by the pic.....

Turk-EE Day

Thanksgiving is upon us once again and I can say truthfully this year that I have many things to be thankful for. I have a wonderful husband, a cool kitty, great friends and a beautiful new house, not to mention relatively good health at the moment. No car problems, got enough money for bills and groceries, I still like my job and co-workers.....I can't find anything to bitch about, so I won't.
Happy Thanksgiving!

Drugs are good

The colonoscopy was clear. I'm not as full of shit as I (and probably everyone around me) thought I was. Sunday was terrible, far worse than the actual procedure. Adrian's sisters came over to watch football and they brought loads of great food, none of which I could eat. All I could do was drink my laxatives, which were thoroughly disgusting, and run off to the back bathroom every now and then. Of the procedure itself, all I remember was somebody wheeling me on a gurney down the hall, then Adrian waking me up and saying it was time to go home.
I slept most of Monday, after eating a hamburger and taking an Oxycodone, then Adrian and Vicki and I went out to Hoover's for supper, Amy's for ice cream and then visited some head shops. A nice evening, but I conked out relatively early.

Pain

Because of the impending colonoscopy tomorrow, I can't eat anything today. I can only drink clear liquids and I have to take these killer laxatives all day to clean myself out. I've also had to go all week without taking any Naproxen, which pretty much makes me able to function without pain. I feel like an arthritic 80 year old. I'll be glad when tomorrow is over......

Adrian and I have decided to spend xmas here at home. Maybe we can convince our friends and family to spend it here with us? I'm going to order xmas dinner from Wheatsville or Whole Foods and just make a whole bunch of desserts to go with it. I'm looking forward to it. I'm kind of dreading Thanksgiving. Visiting some members of my family can be rather trying. Other members I look forward to seeing very much. That's probably true of everyone.....

the Happy Monkey

I think we should all aspire to the maniacal contentment displayed by this monkey...

Poo Poo and Dookey

Yesterday I went to see a gastroenterologist about scheduling my first colonoscopy. The nurse and doctor were suitably horrified at my family history of cancer on both sides, and the doc asked me to schedule it ASAP. I found it amusing that the nurse (a woman older than me) kept referring to "poo poo" and "dookey", rather than feces or even shit. I don't look 41, but I don't look 6 either.....
She told me that colon, breast, ovarian and uterine cancers are all linked, and I've had all those in my first and second-degree relatives, along with stomach cancer, skin cancer, brain cancer and pancreatic cancer. I'm not being pessimistic when I say it's a matter of time before I have cancer too, I think I'm just being realistic. So, I try to stay on top of my health, which isn't great to start with. Some people interpret that as hypochondria, but I just don't want what happened to my mom to happen to me. If my insurance would pay to have my ovaries out now, I'd rip those suckers out so fast, I'd probably grow an instant mustache. But no.....I have to keep them until "there's a problem". So menopause will have to wait....

Yardwork and Food

I picked up all the loose sticks and leaves in the back yard this morning and burnt them in the chiminea. Adrian is edging the front yard now, then we'll start up the grill for some hamburgers. It's a perfect day for eating outide: overcast, not too cool and no more flying bugs.
Tonight, if Adrian feels up to it (he had another tooth extraction yesterday), we'll go downtown to see The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari with live music at the Alamo Drafthouse. Caligari is my fave silent film and I've never seen it in a theatre, or with live music, so that should be a treat. The Alamo is like the Granada in Dallas, a theatre where you can eat and drink while you watch the film. They also have theme weeks, like a whole week of westerns and they'll serve steaks and beans, stuff like that. Or when they show a movie about food, like "My Dinner With Andre" and "My Breakfast With Blassie" on a double-feature, they'll serve the appropriate meal to coincide with the goings-on onscreen. It's a fun place to see a show.....

Samhain

We actually had little kid trick-or-treaters last night, no 30-year-old Mexican men with Zapata mustaches and pillowcases in this neighborhood. We ran out of candy and had to turn off the porch light and still they knocked, to no avail. All the little ones actually said "thank you" for their candy. We'll have to really do it up next Halloween. We got caught short this year, what with moving and all.
It's nice and chilly here now, like it should be in November. I wish we could find some sugar skulls close by. They're probably all over south Austin, there's loads of Mexican bakeries down there.
I neglected my Samhain ritual again this year. How embarrassing. I guess I'm a non-practicing pagan.....

Yesterday was better

Had breakfaat with a new friend yesterday, a lady I became acquainted with from LiveJournal. She and I have much in common, so we had a very nice visit. It was pleasant to meet someone here in town that I'll be able to hang out with on accasion. It's always nice to meet a new friend.
Dinsy woke us up at 6am by tearing down the string of skeleton lights we had strung up in the front window. I found little plastic skeleton parts strewn throughout the front room and the living room, and she had bitten the chord through as well. Since she was being a shit cat, she got very little attention this morning, not as much cuddling as she's used to.
We also went to the Record Convention. Adrian bought a DVD of Phantom of the Paradise and a Beatles t-shirt, and I bought a Joy Division DVD. Our buddy John talked Adrian into working there for him today for a couple of hours, so I'm hanging out at home alone, trying to get rid of an oncoming migraine.

I like being old.....so fuck you!

Today was a beautiful day. The temp stayed in the 70s, the sun shone, not a cloud in the sky. Work was slow, so I got a lot done. It's a bit too windy, or we'd be sitting outside burning sticks in the chiminea.....
Tomorrow, we'll go vote early for Kinky Friedman. He doesn't have much chance of winning, but I like the feeling of being able to vote FOR someone instead of against someone for once. Yes, I honestly believe that he would do some good for the state of Texas, and I don't think that his lack of experience in the political arena will do him harm. The Governor surrounds himself or herself with people who actually do the work.
All those snotty college students who consider Kinky to be a joke need to find a sense of humor. It helps make life easier when you can laugh at yourself and life. When I was 20 years old, I thought everything was a matter of life and death, and that sort of attitude will make you old before your time and a terrible bore to boot. I read all these posts from young people (especially on LiveJournal) and it's all about what they can't eat because it has chemicals or bad karma, or what they can't wear because it once had a face and roamed a pasture. And goddess forbid, if you happen to disagree with them, they'll rip you a new asshole. I mean, if that's what floats your boat, then whatever, but what a sad existence, to worry about every little thing. If it bothers you that much, DO something about it, don't just bitch about it.
I'm so glad to be 41. I wouldn't go back to my 20s for all the money in the world.

We have the best video store in the entire universe here: I Luv Video on Airport Blvd. It's 2 stories of videos and DVDs of every genre you can name, from silent movies to foreign to porno to etc., etc., etc. Movies are not only classifed under genre and title but by director too. It's an amazing place. Plus, if you bring your new releases back early, you get a free rental. I've rented stuff there that I would never have seen anywhere else. I used to think Premier Video in Dallas was great, but this place makes it look like a Blockbuster Video.
End of puff post.....

Austin radio is.....different

A conversation I just had with my husband:

Me: Is the toilet still running?

Him: No, that's something on the radio.

Me: Are you sure? It sounds just like the toilet running.

Him: No, it's the radio, listen. (he turns down the volume and the sound goes away).

Me: What record is that that sounds like a toilet running?

Him: I don't know, but the show is called "Commercial Suicide."

Booger Bears

I was looking at website that lists supposedly "haunted" places in Texas and was dismayed to find that my hometown of Greenville is not listed at all. I did, however, find it listed on a site that lists Bigfoot sitings by state: http://www.texasbigfoot.com/Fate779.html
Has Bigfoot Moved To Texas? So while Greenvile can't boast any haints, it seems to have a supply of "booger bears" or skunk apes. This doesn't surprise me in the least. Anyone with any common sense at all would get the hell out of Greenville as soon as possible and they certainly wouldn't stick around after death. But, there have always been loads of stinking things in the vicinity of Hunt County, and I mean only partially the church folks.
My uncle Larry told me once of a near miss with a booger bear (?) out at a pond in the woods near Campbell, Texas. Campbell is the place I usually tell people I'm from because I'm embarrassed as shit to be from Greenville. Anyway, he was fishing at this pond out in the woods with his dog. Suddenly, the dog starts cowering and runs under the truck and my uncle notices a terrible stench in the air. Church people around, you say? Not bloody likely. It was on a Sunday evening when they'd all be in church pretending. Then, an unearthly howl split the air, causing a chill to run up my uncle's spine. My uncle is a Vietnam vet and he's not easily frightened. He decided it was time to pack up and split for home. As he was loading up the truck, he noticed some unusual tracks that he couldn't recognize. They were too big to be a regular bear's tracks. So, he was being stalked by a booger bear.......that's his story and he's sticking to it, even after all these years.
I remember going to the theatre to see The Legend of Boggy Creek when I was a kid and it scared the crap out of me. That monster was allegedly in Fouke, Arkansas, right next to Texarkana. I rented it again a few years ago and laughed through most of it, but it did have genuinely creepy parts. I like the idea that there's something out there that people don't quite know everything about.....ah, sweet mystery of life!

Yes, I feel old

I turned 41 yesterday. I worked until 4pm. My co-worker took me to lunch and my boss gave me a small chocolate cake. I was still feeling crappy from the migraine I had the day before, so I wasn't running on full steam. I came home and fell asleep for awhile.
Today Adrian and I went grocery shopping for him because his mouth is still very sore from the surgery. We bought lots of soups and soft foods, vienna sausages (bleah!), etc. Then we came back home and I fell asleep again. Now I still feel like crap, like the migraine is threatening to come back. At least I remembered to get the Relpax refilled........

The alien in my head

I woke up today with a crushing migraine and worked all day long. The headache never relented. My left eye threatened to close up and kept tearing up. I finally got my Relpax precription refilled but I didn't take one until I got home at 6:30, so it didn't help. So, I took a Phenergan at 8pm. I baked some cookies, ate some Ramen noodles and now I'm gazing one-eyed at the computer screen.
At last, the temp out side is more fall-like. I can turn 41 tomorrow in comfort now....

A day at home

Adrian had major oral surgery today. They slit his gums open and scraped his teeth down to the roots, then sewed him back up. I brought him home this morning, gave him some pudding and a pain killer, then helped him to the sofa for a snooze. When he woke up later, he didn't remember getting home, taking the pill or eating the pudding he had to take his pill with. Now, THAT'S some good drugs!
I got some clothes I ordered in the mail today. Nice to see that they were actually the right size and good quality. I ordered some clothes from Land's End a while back, 3 shirts all the same size. One shirt fit me, one was way too big and one was too small. The material was cheap. I'll never order from them again.
I wish it would get cool. I don't like that it's nearly my birthday and it's still 90 degrees aoutside. That sucks. I should be able to wear long sleeves by this time of year. I went to get a sandwich for lunch and it was HOT. It's not supposed to be this hot in October, dammit.....

House Lurve

A nice day....went to the City-Wide Garage Sale, but didn't find anything that screamed out to come home with me. Had lunch at Shoal Creek Saloon, then went to Cheapo and bought two CDs: Neko Case's "Black Listed" and Revenge "One True Passion". I've been on a New Order/Joy Division kick, so Revenge fits the bill. It's a Peter Hook side project, kinda club type music.
We came home and watched "The Miracle Worker", then puttered about in the back yard. I lit the chiminea after loading it up with stick and fallen leaves from the yard while Adrian mowed. I love my back yard.......now I'm finishing up laundry and wondering what to get for supper. Like I said, a nice day.....

For Austin drivers.......

An Unpleasant Surprise

I "surprised" a loan officer at work yesterday morning. I go to his office early in the morning to deliver a fax confirmation. His door is closed and it looks like there's no light coming from underneath, so I fling open the door. A woman (who is not his very pregnant wife) is sitting on his lap. She springs up, he hunches over, I shout "Excuse me!" and slam the door shut. This idiot's wife is pregnant for the second time within a year and he's "entertaining" some skank......nice.
I go back to my desk and about 5 minutes later, Lover Boy comes over. Staring at the floor, he mumbles, "Hey, nothing was going on, she's an old friend, we were talking about her kids, just wanted you to know". I just calmly looked him straight in the eye and said, "It's NONE of my business. By the way, how's your wife?" He mumbles that she's fine and asks if I'm having trouble with any of his files. "No."
"Well, OK then...hey nobody needs to know about this, OK?"
You mean your co-workers or your wife, asshole? Fucking prick. He steered clear of me the rest of the day.....
Then it dawned on me that the skank he was fooling around with was this woman who came in to apply for a loan officer position a few days ago. I was at the front desk answering the phones, and she said that she was a friend of X's and could I let him know that she was there? I buzzed him and he came out and greeted her with a long hug and a decidedly non-friendly kiss on the lips. He better think twice if he thinks he can get away with that crap at the office.......somebody's on to him.

I'm here to stay

I think I will keep this blog as my only one for now. My other one has gotten boring and too competitive. Everyone writes as if there's a contest to see who can write the most politically correct piece of crap. This blog will be my journal. I write like I talk; not grammatically correct and I don't CARE. Yes, I have an English degree, but it's in Linguistics, not Grammar. I can tell you about the etymology of a certain word, but I couldn't give a flying fuck about whether to use "who or whom".
I've finally figured the secret of sleeping well in this new house. It's the ceiling fan. I usually don't like the fan on when I sleep because it dries me out too much, but I've been waking 4 and 5 times a night, most of the time bathed in sweat. We keep the temp at 75, so I was convinced that I was finally beginning menopause, but leaving the fan on at night has cured me of my difficulties. I slept very well last night and the pain was considerably less today.
Adrian won a contest at Groovy Automotive. We signed up a couple of weeks ago when we took the Cougar in to get fixed. He won a couple of very nice car coffee cups, fancy ones. I picked them up on the way home. I brought a co-worker home at lunch today to see the house. She's extremely allergic to cats, so naturally Dinsy, who usually hides when strangers come in, was following her around, rubbing against her legs and meowing. Being her usual, adorable furry self. "No, kitty, go away.....please?" I finally had to pick Dinsy up to keep her from tormenting my co-worker.

This is where I was born, grew up, went to school and escaped from as soon as I could. The sign hung over Lee Street downtown for years until the NAACP made the city take it down. "The Blackest Land" refers to northeast Texas, known as the Blackland Prairie. The soil is jet black because of the mineral content. "The Whitest People"....well, you can draw your own conclusions. My mother worked for the City of Greenville, running the print shop, and after that sign was taken down, it was stored, in pieces, in her office. I use to see it when I went to work with her in the summers. I asked my mom once what made us whiter than other white people, but all she would tell me was "that's not what that means".
Greenville is also the place where Lenelle Geter, a black aerospace engineer at E-Systems, was imprisoned for years for a robbery of a KFC store in Balch Springs (almost an hour away) which he did not do. Apparently, the Greenville Police thought he could drive all the way to Balch Springs, rob and shoot up a KFC restaurant, then drive back and go back to work, all on his lunch hour. He eventually got out and sued the city and won.....
Greenville is also the place where a young black boy was drowned in 3 feet of water at a city pool while surrounded by older white boys and it was deemed "accidental".
My family has been in Greenville or Hunt County since the late 1800s. I don't even like going back to visit my family in that place........

We're in like Flynn

Adrian and I are finally in our new house. We started sleeping here Friday night and we're almost totally finished clearing out the old place. We're both taking Monday off to finish it up, so we can start the cleaning part, which I always dread.....
I LOVE this new house! I can't believe I actually own a house this nice. Dinsy loves it too. She's been running around and checking things out, but she's decided that it's home. She's made herself very comfortable, right from the start.
Wow.....I'm a homeowner.

Again

Those damned voices are in my head again. I know it's because I'm stressed out and exhausted from the long move and not sleeping well. They just keep popping up: "you'll die early like your mother"......"if Adrian dies before you, you'll kill yourself"....."you won't enjoy the house because you'll get really sick soon and die".......
I'm just waiting for this month to be over, so I can be in our new house and try to rest. I'm so tired and achy I feel like I'm coming down with the flu, but I know that the fibromyalgia. It makes me feel constantly like I've been run over by a truck. We've had to do this entire move by ourselves, and it should not take two people an entire month to move a two-bedroom house. We just have entirely too much crap.
I have no problem intellectually with getting older, but physically, it really sucks.

tired......

Painting, repairing, cleaning....and more painting. That's what skeleton and I have been doing for the last week. He repaired the hole in the living room wall, I cleaned the kitchen and the bathrooms, we both painted and are still painting. It's a BIG place, at least to us it is. We'll actually have room for everything. We'll be able to see records and books that we've had stored up in boxes for years.But for now, I'm just tired......

Music-related dream

Last night I dreamed that I was in a Taco Bell with the band New Order and Britney Spears and her entourage came in: baby, white trash husband and all. A ferocious hurricane was blowing outside, so we were all stuck there. Britney looked at each member of New Order like "don't you want my autograph?" and the members of New Order were looking around with expressions that said "get me the fuck out of here!! NOW!" and completely ignoring Britney, causing some consternation among her bodyguards, who whispered to each other.Then I woke up. The hurricane made me want to go to the bathroom.

Wh-huh??

The seller has agreed to pony up $8800 for plumbing repairs, which is the figure that the plumber his realtor found came up with (how's that for a badly composed sentence?). I can't believe it. That means that the seller is basically going to make no money at all from the sale of this house. He didn't agree to also replace the breaker box; that will be up to hubby and I to deal with, but at least we can roll that cost into the financing and not take too much of a hit payment-wise. I don't want to jinx it, but we may actually get this house after all.....
Went to my semi-yearly visit to the neurologist today. I asked her about going off the Topamax since it fucks with my memory and coordination, not to mention having to search for words constantly. It's hard to convince people that I have a BA in Linguistics when I'm going "duh, duh....." like a retard. She gave me loads of samples of my migraine meds and told me to just go down on the dosage of the Topamax and that should take care of it. She also told me that I HAVE to get more sleep (HA!!!) and gave me an article about the relationship between migraines and insomnia. She wants me to start taking melatonin at night to help with the sleep. Sure, why not? I've tried everything else......
I still have some cookie dough left! Hot damn!

the wild cat has left the building

Sophie has gone to her new home with a very nice family! I repeat, Sophie is GONE!

I get what I want

I just made a big batch of mint chocolate chip cookie dough in my new food processor. Now, instead of baking the cookies, I'm eating huge forkfuls of the raw dough. It's minty, chocolatey goodness.....there's nothing better than raw cookie dough.
I like my new food processor too. I had to fight off some old ladies at Tuesday Morning to get it. They can get quite stroppy with their walkers and canes, but I'm taller, faster and 40 years younger. I got my Cuisinart and left the oldies wobbling on their walkers......
Now, back to the cookie dough....

Once again.....

Great.....this house has a $10k plumbing leak too. The seller is considering making the necessary repairs, but we won't know for sure until tomorrow morning. The seller is now wanting to terminate and look for bids to do the repairs and we're trying to convince him to just extend our option instead while he's looking for someone to do the repairs. He may want to put the house back on the market at a higher price, since he's not making much profit, especially if he's paying for this.
I feel bad for the guy, I really do. I remember going through all this when I was trying to sell Mom's house. Some buyers wanted everything; I remember one lady wanted me to pay for a new bathtub because she didn't like Mom's jacuzzi tub. Another wanted new carpeting because the color didn't suit her. I refused both of those, of course. I did end up getting stuck for a new roof, only because the realtor I was using was selling the house to a friend of hers and told her that the roof was old (it wasn't) and she told me that the house wouldn't sell at all unless I did replace it. I went to that closing sobbing, knowing that I was getting completely screwed out of the house that my mother had loved so much. My grandfather had built it, I had installed and stained all the cabinetry myself. This realtor has known that I was grieving for my mother who had died only months before and had completely taken advantage of me because it had taken longer to sell than she thought. So she unloaded it at a deep discount to a pal of hers and I was left with not even enough money to pay off the remainder of my college loan.

Houses & Kitties

The house has a plumbing problem; how bad, we don't know yet. The seller is having the plumbing looked at today and will let us know if they want to pay to have it fixed. The is another case of "can't sell the house without fixing the problem", but the seller may not have the money, who knows?
Sophie the kitty still hates our guts after 3 weeks now. I placed an ad on Craigslist and a nice man who rescues cats answered it. He doesn't have room for her at the moment, but he's working with me to find a home for her. Dinsy has lost her fear of Sophie now. Dinsy has no problem waltzing into the bedroom and giving Sophie the kitty version of "neener neener", which prompts a huge explosion of hissing and growling from Sophie, while Dinsy strolls back up to me as if to say "this is MY house, don't you forget it!" I wish it could have been Sophie's house too, but she just won't get with the program......

house inspection

The inspection went fairly well; only the hot water heater leaks, the shower pan needs changing and the breaker box needs to be replaced, along with a lot of piddly stuff. Now for the plumbing test today......*teeth chatter, knees tremble*

YAYY!!!!!

They accepted our offer this time! The house will be ours......hopefully this one won't have the problems that the other one had........

Two kitties are NOT better than one......

This kitty may not be for us. She fooled us a bit on Sunday, but since then, she hasn't really let us come near her without a huge show of hissing, spitting and growling. We've tried everything we can think of and she's just not liking us at all. I called her vet this morning and asked for advice and they said that she may be too old to accept a new family, let alone another cat. So, they said they would call me if anybody called wanting a cat.
I really hate this. The woman who gave her to us told me that she was friendly toward other cats and that she was just past the kitten stage herself, like our Dinsy. Turns out that Sophie is over 6 years old, the vet tells me. I wanted to email the woman but Adrian said that would be a bad idea. Sophie is our problem kitty now, we'll deal with her.
I so wanted another kitty for Dinsy to play with. Dinsy wants a playmate too; she was so curious about Sophie, but now she's scared to death.

A nice, quiet Sunday

Sophie is doing a bit better today. She doesn't run and hide when we come into the bedroom, and even meows quietly when we say her name. She let me scratch her under the chin without freaking out, but I got a small half-hearted hiss afterward. I put a few drops of Rescue Remedy in her water dish and that seemed to help. I had forgotten I had some in my purse. That stuff helped me tremendously when my mom was ill. Plus, we slept in the same room with her all night, so I think she's getting used to us.
Oh no! Rush is on TV, an old film of them playing "Tom Sawyer". I remember seeing them on the Midnight Special back in the Seventies. I remember looking at Geddy Lee and thinking "that's the ugliest woman I've ever seen in my life!" He hasn't gotten any better looking either.....Get thee behind me, Geddy!!!

World War Three

Oh, the hissing, spitting and growling that going on in this house! And it's pretty much just from Sophie, poor little kitty. She's just had her whole world changed and now these strange new people want her to make friends with another kitty too? On the same day?
After I got bitten once, I figured that maybe she would prefer to be alone in the bedroom for a while until she gets used to all the strangeness. She promptly wedged herself underneath my 1920s vanity table, in a tiny little space under one of the drawers. Any mention of her name is greeted with a growl and a hiss and if I put my hand on the floor next to her, she swats at me.
This is not a happy kitty. I hope she can eventually calm down.....

Two kitties are better than one

We're going to take a break from house hunting and get a playmate for our kitty, Dinsdale. Sophie will join our household this weekend! Dinsy's been so bored, maybe she and Sophie will get along well and play together. I hope, anyway..........

I'm so tired...I haven't slept a wink

The house has been on the market for over 21 days and the seller has recently lowered the price. He refused our initial offer AND our counter offer which was just $5000 shy of his full asking price.
FUCK THIS SHIT.

Back to the grind......

We've been looking at other houses lately and have made an offer on a very nice one in east Austin. It's in a very nice neighborhood, and comes with newish appliances. The house itself has two large bedrooms, two bathrooms and a fireplace. The seller has made a counter offer and we're still waiting to hear whether our counter offer has been accepted or not. We may have to leave this one too.....
I'm really sick of house hunting.

Syd Barrett RIP 1946-2006

Goodbye, Syd........

Full Stop

The house is over and done with. It won't be ours. There is a $10,000 plumbing leak that the seller refuses to fix. He is instead going to lower the price and put it back on the market. Since the house would not pass an FHA appraisal or house inspection, we are out of the picture.
The slimy realtor actually called me at work to suggest an "alternate plan", which consisted of "not telling FHA since they wouldn't find out anyway, and the seller could just give you the money to fix it yourselves". It was brave of him in several ways, firstly considering the manner in which our last telephone conversation ended, where I yelled at him and hung up on him; and secondly, because I work for a MORTGAGE COMPANY AND CAN REPORT HIS SLIMY UNETHICAL ASS TO THE TEXAS BOARD OF REALTORS. What a fucking piece of work this guy is.....
So....back to the drawing board. At least we have a nice ethical and hardworking realtor that we will be working with in the future and we won't ever have to deal with this slime ball again.

Songs that make me go "ahhhhh"

Everyone has their favorite songs, but there are some songs that give me a physical, almost visceral reaction. These go beyond being mere "favorites"; hearing them become necessary to my happiness in life, even if I just listen to them once every year or so. These songs are so important to me that I could literally listen to them over and over again for hours and not get tired. I did exactly that when I was a kid, much to my mother's consternation. I would play the same song over and over and over, getting the same thrill every time and discovering new facets of the recording in each listening. I considered this part of my "training in progress" at the time; I wanted to be a record producer. Fuck that, I wanted to be Brian Wilson or Phil Spector but without the mental illness and bad hair. I didn't get to be a record producer and I've struggled with mental illness, but I've got really nice hair...;-)
Now, on to my list, in no particular order:

Wolves, Lower - REM
Gimme Shelter - Rolling Stones
Love Will Tear Us Apart - Joy Division
Stroll On - Yardbirds
Surf's Up - Beach Boys
The Yellow Princess - John Fahey
Gardening At Night - REM
Victoria - the Kinks
Be My Baby - Ronettes
See No Evil - Television
Anarchy In The UK - Sex Pistols
Sunflower River Blues - John Fahey
Point of No Return - Georgie Fame
Over, Under, Sideways, Down - Yardbirds
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down - The Band

that's all I can think of at the moment.....what are yours?

More house buying fun!

After being in such a hurry to sell us a house with a defective plumbing system, the seller is taking his sweet time about getting it repaired. skeleton and I have gone over to the house and looked inside (I know the combination to the lockbox) and so far, the only thing that's been done is somebody looked under the kitchen sink. We could tell that because the cabinet door was open. Perhaps the seller found out that the plumbing leak was bigger and more extensive than he thought and hoped to pawn off on us.......thank the goddess for plumbing inspectors!

Please kill me now....

According to the real estate attorney who is handling the negotiations of the sale of this house, we cannot use our realtor because the slimy realtor "procured the sale through the use of his marketing", i.e., we called the number on the sign instead of our realtor doing it. So if we want to buy the house, we have to use the slimy realtor, or face a lawsuit from said slimy realtor. Period. End of Story.
Jesus tap dancing kee-rist......just shoot me now. But shoot the slimy realtor first and let me watch.
And that's not even the worst thing we're facing.....

The Roller Coaster never stops

uuunnggghhh...I'm dizzy.......
So this morning, I get an email from the owner of the house, saying how sorry he was that we terminated the contract and he was concerned about the comments I made about the slimy realtor and could we speak about it on the phone today?
I called him after work and told him everything that said slimy realtor had been trying to pull and he apologized, saying that his partner (the rude guy I talked to on Friday) hadn't told him any of this. I said that the slimy realtor was the only reason we terminated, because we really wanted the house. I told him that we wanted to resubmit our bid, but this time with our OWN realtor, of the decidedly non-slimy variety, and he was most amenable.
Soooooo....I emailed our non-slimy realtor who has agreed to represent us and deal with the slimy realtor (who's going to absolutely SHIT when he hears from her! ROFL) and she's going to type up our offer so we can resubmit it by Wednesday. The seller said that the plumbing leak will be fixed this week. We can have the plumbing system retested and get the house inspected and that should be it........she typed through gritted teeth.

Termination

We terminated our house contract today, because of the fucking slimy realtor. Not only wouldn't he fax back copies of option renewals unless I threatened to call the Board of Realtors on him, he babbled incessantly, not letting us get a word in edgewise and he also signed himself as our (the buyers) representative on the contract without telling us! I called the seller today to see if he got a copy of our option renewal amendment to sign and he told me that he had signed it and "your realtor" should have faxed it to me by now. I told him that this idiot wasn't MY realtor, he was HIS realtor. "Nope, look at your contract." So, I did, and the asshole had signed under our names as our realtor, when we had explicitly told him that we were representing ourselves. Lesson learned: get your own realtor....
So, after calling the realtor and letting him know exactly what I thought of him, I faxed over our termination of contract to him, the seller and the title company. Of course, i immediately got a phone call: "Now, Lisa, isn't this a bit"....click! I hung up on him. I listened to enough of his incoherent babbling for the past month.
Luckily for us, we've been looking at other houses with a reputable realtor and we'll be dealing with her from now on......
And the slimeball can look forward to a notice from the Texas Board of Realtors....

watch the TV news.....

If you see a story about the body of a fat, sweaty realtor found cut up into tiny little pieces, you'll know I finally went over the edge......

My opinion of the slimy realtor we're dealing with.........

House Hunters

The house we made an offer on turned out to have a huge plumbing problem (a leak in or under the slab). The seller initially said that he would only allow $1000 for any repairs, but this will be a multi-thousand dollar repair, according to the plumber we hired to test the system, on the advice of the house inspector. Apparently, houses that are 50 years old or more have cast iron pipes that were meant to last about 50 years or so. This house has also settled and the foundation has been somewhat repaired in places.
The seller is now saying that he will have his plumber look into seeing how much repairs will be, but not until Tuesday, the day before our option period is up. He asked if we would extend our option period, which we will do, but not at any additional cost to us. He also tried to rope us into paying for part of the plumbing repairs but of course we said no. We've already made it abundantly clear that we have no extra money to give him. He cannot sell the house in that condition, unless he finds someone who has a lot of money to pour into the repairs. The rest of the house is great, and he's a contractor, so he shouldn't try to cheap out.
We also looked at another house today, in case we have to opt out of the other one. It's great as well, but more expensive and smaller. It's on our side of I-35, so it would be much easier to sell, when we decide to get rid of it in the future, and it's a court-ordered sale, which could take a while to go through, giving us time to save up $$ a bit.
Choices, choices.......maybe the choice will be made for us next week.

I would tell you my opinion of my life today..........but I can't spell that sound.

Deadwood, The Devil and Daniel Johnston

Adrian and I indulged in a 2-day orgy of Deadwood, Season Two watching. We literally watched every episode of the new Season two box set, one after the other. What a great show....great writing, great characters, terrific sets and locations, amazing acting....

We also had a cookout for ourselves and spent the day hanging out at home mostly. We did go out to look at another couple of houses....

This week, we also went to see The Devil and Daniel Johnston, which evoked a strong reaction in me. Daniel is an Austin singer-songwriter who has struggled with delusional manic-depression for a long time and now lives with his parents after having been institutionalized several times. The movie documents his life and includes interviews with his parents, siblings and friends. The interviews with his now elderly parents affected me to the point of tears, making me remember when I was hospitalized for depression. My mother and I were in my psychiatrist's office at the hospital in Dallas, discussing my spending time in the psychiatric ward. My mother was crying, asking the doctor if it was her fault, did she do something wrong.....I just sat there silent and trembling, wringing my hands, scared out of my mind. I had never been in the hospital for anything, let alone for being crazy, and my mother thought it was her fault.....
Daniel's parents have to take care of him now, and it's very sad listening to them describe all the things he's done over the years due to his illness, once even trying to take control of the small plane he and his father were flying back home in, causing them to crash into the trees. Luckily, his father was an experienced pilot and they weren't hurt. Listening to their pain that their son is so ill, made me think back to how my illness (which was absolutely in no league with Daniel's) affected my mother and it made me so profoundly sad. I always assured her after that that my illness was in no way her fault, but I think until she died that she harbored some guilt about it.
If there's any person to blame for my life-long depression, it would be my father, and he'll always be in denial that he ever did anything to affect my life other than cause my mother to become pregnant in the first place.

Vacation and Anniversary!

Today is my 12th wedding anniversary with my honey Adrian. We are both officially on vacation and we leave for San Antonio tomorrow for 2 days.......very nice!
We also plan to look at some houses this week. We met a realtor who has been sending me lists of properties in our price range, and we've looked at one already, but the location was a VERY busy street corner with a bus stop right outside the bedroom window. The house was great though....maybe we'll find another nice one soon. It seems that our landlord does want to sell us the house we've been renting for the past two years, but now he wants more money than the price he quoted us just 3 months ago. We even had a contract drawn up and paid our Earnest money, then he decides that he can't get to the title company to sign it because he's got "loose ends to tie up" before the sale can go through. So we'll just find someplace else to go, before we're priced right out of central Austin....

Tea & Symbolism

I always have vivid and entertaining dreams, but I rarely remember them. These were so strange they stuck in my brain for days:

1. My co-worker is either getting married or renewing her vows in a stereotypical haunted house. After the ceremony is over, she leads me and her other bridesmaids up the creaky, cobwebby stairs to a bar on the second floor, where a guy named James is going to call and give us a quiz over the telephone. She then hands each of us tiny china saucers rimmed in gold.....the phone rang and woke me up at that point.

2. My grandfather and I are cleaning his pickup truck in a large light blue painted barn. We are discussing Mexican music and it's ancestry of German band music. Cyndi Lauper is standing in the back of the pickup, dressed in full 1980s regalia, with a rope tied around her waist. For some reason, my grandfather will yank on the rope periodically and Cyndi will fly up and bump her head on the ceiling of the barn, screeching "Owwww! My head!"......I have nothing against Cyndi Lauper, BTW. I like her music just fine......

The Land of Flattened Frogs

Today at work the power went out for almost an hour, so we all went downstairs and played frisbee. Then, I had a conference call in a hot office that lasted for an hour and a half and I kept dozing off. At one point, I almost fell out of my chair. I had another shorter meeting at the end of the day, but I was able to stay awake for it. On the way home, I had to go to 3 stores to find a place that carries Biotene mouthwash. It's the only kind I'm supposed to use because of the Sjogren's, and HEB stopped carrying it this week, the sorry bastards......
After work, Adrian and I went for a walk around the neighborhood and I counted 5 flattened frogs ground into the pavement in a 3 street radius. I guess Austin is hard on frogs......

Ever had a monkey on your back? Harold Lloyd had a monkey on his head......