HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MIKEY!

Thirty two years ago today I was really fat and sweating in a teeny tiny garage apartment and spending every possible moment in the shower. The water temperature was lower than the temperature in the apartment. I don’t remember if we had an exceptionally sweltering August that year or if it just felt that way because I was two weeks overdue w/child. The cradle was ready and waiting and I was packed and anxious to leave for the hospital. I remember the night before, sitting on the top step to our second floor porch, in the dark, gazing up at the Moon and stars and dreaming of holding a baby, probably blonde and blue-eyed. I didn’t know if it would be a boy or a girl. Less than 24 hours later, a Sunday, (both my kids were Sunday’s children) I was holding a beautiful little boy named Michael. What a day that was. Life has never been the same since… lol. Here he is today.

Happy Birthday Michael. I Love You, Buddy. Can’t wait to celebrate on Tuesday night at the concert!

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PS If a video shows up here without a post while I’m gone, plz don’t comment on it. I have to put it in a post. This holds true for always.

BRAIN DRAINO

I’ve been working on a post but I need the video from YouTube to accompany the post. Yet another reason why I never “work on a post.” I may have done it a couple of times over the years but normally I sit down, write, and click “Publish.” That explains a lot, doesn’t it? It comes out of my brain and into your eyes. Direct shot. Mostly I have an idea, at least, of what I’m going to talk about. And if I don’t, something usually forms in the way of a topic. Or I’ll just spew a bunch of whatever is floundering around in this vast wasteland of a head of mine.

Like now.

Before I forget, Raino commented here a day or so ago and referred to my recovering alcoholism. Just to clear up any confusion, I have never been (and hopefully never become) an alcoholic. I would never have the strength to recover from an addiction of that magnitude. Which is why I have tremendous respect for anyone who is and has. So, Raino, if you’re reading, I’m sorry if I said something that gave you that impression.

This week has been especially hard on me. Haven’t been sleeping and work was more taxing than usual, facing the threat of overtime has a way of inspiring me to work harder than normal. Too bad everyone I work with isn’t affected the same way. But I don’t talk about work here so enough of that. I’m kind of worn out physically and mentally. Seems like there is more that needs done every day and bad news at every turn. Actually, I’m probly more emotionally drained than anything. I’m not looking for sympathy or advice, just venting. What I’m going to do about it is this~ I’m retiring to my room after a nice hot shower with my laptop or a movie or a book and some new music and enjoy my own company for the rest of the evening. I’m also going to savor the fact that today was the last 10 hour day I’ll be working for awhile, until the big OT at least, if and when it comes. :-S

Happy Friday and have a great Labor Day weekend, Friends! Safe travels and good food are my wishes for y’all.

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*Update: Just read that Steve Foley, one-time drummer for the Replacements, died Monday. That hurts.

Thanks, Steve, for helping the ‘Mats find a home in my heart, for always.  Happy Trails.

I WINNED A PRIZE

There’s this girl you may have heard of. She goes by the name of Daily Piglet.* She’s smart and cute and oh-so-very funny. Evidently she thinks rather highly of me too, cuz she gived me this award.

My Award from Piglet

Thanks Piglet. You maked my day 🙂 How I will ever live up to it, all that ass-kickin’ I mean, remains to be seen.

Ok who wants their ass kicked? Line forms right here. Ok, I give up. You win.

*And she uses funny words like “winned” and “gived” and “maked.” Ok, maybe not those exact words but if you read her, and I highly recommend that you do, you will understand.

NEEDED A CHANGE

If you’re not seeing my new bloglook, click on Refresh.

Jujubee and I were talking yesterday about new looks for our blogs. She beat me to it. Hers is way more customized or custom-looking than mine. Guess Typepad has more choices. I tried about 4 themes and settled on this one. The only thing that I didn’t really like about this is not having the different Pages showing below my header. At first I didn’t have any, but after screwing around for about a half an hour I managed to put them there in the sidebar for ya.

The pic I used, you may have seen here before. It’s the last picture I took on my vacation at Martha’s Vineyard two summers ago. The lifesaver-thingy said Martha’s Vineyard before I mutilated edited it. Stupid me, though, forgot to “Save As” and ended up overwriting the original picture. Damn it. Oops. The picture was of the back of the ferry as we were leaving the island. Crying hysterically. 😉

Had a fire last night with the neighbors and some beer and pizza. Was a beautiful night for it, had a good time. We all pooped out kind of early (before midnight) due to busy days yesterday for all of us.

Speaking of busy, you know the list I shared the other day with too much stuff to do? Add a graduation party to that now. :-S

K, so I’m back to doing laundry after this fun little diversion. I swear to God, my son owns 432 pairs of socks. I will count them for sure when I’m done and let you know the real number. I may have exaggerated a teeny bit. Oh and dress shirts? I’ll count them too. I decided that he purchases clothes instead of laundering them.

PD is outside clanging something. Not sure if that is a distress signal or if he’s just paying the idiot neighbor back (not the same as the beer/pizza/fire neighbors) for repairing his downspouts loudly at 8am today (wtf?)… At any rate, I better go see.

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~Update: I was only 400 pairs off… I counted a grand total of 32 pairs plus 15 no-matches; 8 white and 7 assorted colors including argyles. That’s 75 socks. Seemed like more…

And oh yeah. Those 100% wool Club Room slacks that say “dry clean only” on the tag? Damn it. Oops. Read the tag a little late.

They look ok to me…

Just one more thing.  Geoffrey Beene?  Are you there?  I loooove your Grey Flannel cologne but you know, the button holes on your Sateen Dress Shirts bite like a blood-thirsty mosquito on crack.

WHAT’CHA THINK?

The Honorary Title – Stuck at Sea (OFFICIAL VIDEO)

YouTube must love me again. This and the following video were here in less than 5 minutes. I’m not sure why, unless it’s that I’ve been playing hard to get…

The Honorary Title (very cool website) has had my adoration since the first time I heard Bridge and Tunnel, a few years ago. (I may have shared that with you.) This vid is not my favorite song of theirs, but I wanted you to see them perform. The following post is only their music, a song I love. Not long ago I had a terrible time finding much of their music but lately I’ve been happily surprised to find a bunch of their songs on iTunes. Which means that they are now in my iPod. 🙂 Hope you like them. If you do, I also recommend the song below (Stay Away) and Far More, Along the Way and Thin Layer. (apologies for some of the sound quality.) I believe they have been featured on more than one occasion on the TV show One Tree Hill?

EVEN BETTER…

The Honorary Title ~ Stay Away

Make sure you listen at least until 01:08 when it gets really good. Loud is good too. 🙂 The singer’s name is Jarrod Gorbel and I’ve watched some interviews with him and I’d really, really like to hang out with him.

RANDOMNINITY (part ?)

Before I get into anything serious (not that there is anything serious going on, I just meant… well, I’m not sure what I meant… gah!) I’m just posting some odds and ends that are banging around in my head. You know, the things that pop into your head through the day and you think “I should post that,” but they never really fit anywhere so they go unshared. That, I think is where Twitter would come in handy, but like I think I said before, I’m not into making any more commitments like that.

I have too much going on to try and cram it all into the next few weeks of summer and am trying to figure out a plan. Haha. Me and a plan? Me + Plan = Hahahahaha.

~My favorite neighbors, H & S, are having an end-of-the-year Pig Roast on the 30th.

~My old friends from Art School who/whom I got together with earlier in the summer (on the sad occasion of a funeral) are planning a party the same day. Any ideas on how I can clone my own bad self would be appreciated.

~One of my favorite, must-see bands, Airborne Toxic Event are in Pittsburgh with the Fratelli’s on Sept. 2. I’m currently madly searching for someone to accompany me. And rueing the fact that the following day is a work day. I only wish to attend with another serious fan, which is proving a little difficult since few of the people I know personally share my tastes. PD does not fare well in loud, enclosed venues.  Which contain large amounts of people.

~PD has scheduled our yard sale for Sept. 6 & 7. Lots to do in preparation for that.

~The son, Michael, is moving in with us for an undetermined period of time. Going today to his apartment an hour away to help organize some of the moving.

~I would dearly love to take a weekend roadtrip to hook up with my bff Kate once more before school starts, as she is a teacher. Don’t see that happenin’… 😦

~Need to make a hair appointment as well as an appointment to have my eyes checked. It’s either my hair or my eyes, I believe, which is causing these confounded headaches. I’m sure it’s not the increased amount of wine I’ve been consuming. I only have one more Friday off after today before I go back to working 5 8-hour days. I can get both of those appointments scheduled for Saturdays, but those are filled up too…

~A dear friend has opened a comic book store in a town not far from here and I really need to get there to congratulate him and deliver the obligatory/congratulatory card and bottle combination which has been sitting on my counter for about two weeks.

~Somehow I need to celebrate Labor Day… not even sure when that is, as I write this. Where is my damn calendar?

Need to get out of here now. I have about 15 emails to respond to and lots of blogs to get caught up on. See what happens when you go away for just a few days? Remind me not to do that again 😉

HEAD’S UP!

I have lots and lots to tell you but I want to get the messy stuff out of the way. By messy, I mean something that’s going to maybe make no sense to you but will most likely make me look, well, like an alarmist. Which is something I’m not, usually. Furthermore, I’m not prone to making announcements here unless I have what I consider to be the facts to back me up. In this case, I truly thought I was sharing true and accurate information. I am happy to report that I likely jumped the gun. According to my doctor. Here’s the scenario in case you’re joining us late.

I was having some health problems and had some tests done. When I visited my doctor to get results, he read the radiology report of my chest x-ray to me which said “chronic pulmonary emphysema,” or so that’s what my brain heard. And that’s what I shared with you. And I was pretty freaked out by the time I decided to tell y’all about it. You were all wonderfully supportive and amazingly caring. Which is why I’m a little uncomfortable embarrassed telling you this.

I had pulmonary breathing tests done two Fridays ago and saw my doctor again this past Friday to go over those results. He asked me how I was doing right off and I told him I might be ok if not for the anxiety. “What are you feeling anxious about now?” he asked me. “This,” I said pointing with both hands (fingers) at my mid-section, thinking, “Geeze, did he forget already???”

“What are you talking about?” he asked me and I answered (I still choke on the word) “The emphysema. duh.” I wish you could have seen the look on his face. You know when you’ve told your kid a thousand times to wipe his feet and he’s just tracked mud the whole way across the clean floor? Was kind of like that, all incredulous-like. By now I’m totally confused and thinking he’s mistaken me for someone else. “Linda!” he yells. Yeah, yells. And shakes his head, biting his lower lip and crossing his arms while leaning back in his chair and I’m thinking There Is A Lecture Coming. Cause that’s his lecture warning thing he does. And he looks so cute when he does that. I should know, I’ve seen it enough times. His eyes are exactly the color of his blue scrubs.

To make a long story short, “signs” of emphysema and “full-blown” are not the same thing. I guess it’s sort of like you can have symptoms of cancer, as in  having  a mole that’s changed and irregular bowel habits and weight loss but not necessarily having cancer. Like that.  Anyway… my breathing tests more or less showed things that pointed in the direction of something more like asthma than emphysema.

I’ll take it.  Man, oh man, will I!

SO… I’m going to treat this as if I’ll likely have it at some point, and as Juju pointed out in the comments of that post, consider this a wake-up call. This is all I have time to write right now, but I wanted to let you know as soon as I could. You have no idea how much I appreciate all your prayers and good thoughts. I have the best blog readers in the ‘sphere. But you knew that already.

WP~FYC

Wolf Parade – Fine Young Cannibals

This is a live video taken from their performance @ Cat’s Cradle, from 8/22/07. I recently came across this band and I’m crazy for them. This is my favorite song of theirs. The recorded version is even better.

GIMME CAKE

Getting ready to leave for a party to celebrate the nephew, Travis’ twenty-first birthday. In case you need to be reminded who Travis is, read here. I’m looking forward to this and I’m sure I’ll have something interesting and heartful to report back. But being that we’re leaving for a three-day camping trip tomorrow and I have yet to pack one single thing, it will most likely be days before I get back to you.

And I’m behind on answering comments, I apologize.

Some more questions to keep you busy while I’m gone… (Too many of you answered them too quick! It was supposed to stretch out until at least Monday…)

~Tell me if you have someone in your life who inspires you as Travis does me.

~Have you ever seen a UFO?

~Do you believe in ghosts?

~Were you named after anyone?

Buh-bye.