Dixie and her Couch

They had a fight...

Mikey and his Bankie

The correct response is "Aww..."

In answer to Violet's questions -

Yes, I've been in pain, and yes, it has been too nice outside.

First, my doctor decided to increase my Lyrica week by week about 2 and a half weeks ago.

I started on the 15th. I was taking 300mgs a day (100mgs 3 times a day) and he wanted me to add an extra pill each week. I started by adding it to the evening slot. That Tuesday night, I was exhausted, and fell asleep around seven something that night and didn't wake up until Wednesday morning. I was very sick that morning - dizzy, nauseous, and my vision got blurred. The third was the scariest, as you can imagine.

My mom called my dad and made him come over until she decided that he'd check my sister out, because she wanted someone with me.

I got better and better until last Sunday, when it was time to add the next pill. I took it in the morning, and was fine until 5 o'clock that afternoon, when I got incredibly overheated (in shorts and a t-shirt), nauseous, and dizzy. Only this time, I threw up. I was asleep by 6 and did not wake up until 8:30 the next morning, when my mom came up to check on me.

I increased the Lyrica to stop the pain. It did not do that, and Monday, I was told to decrease the Lyrica until I stopped it. I took 2 Tuesday and Wednesday and just one on Thursday. I came off of it okay.

Wednesday, the doctor decided to try to just take care of the pain since I wasn't responding to nerve medication or my usual pain medication.

Wednesday night, I started wearing a fentanyl patch. I ran out of pain pills on Thursday, I was in horrible pain on Friday and it did not go away until yesterday, late in the morning. And even then it still cycled through. Friday, the doctor said I was to wear 2 patches at once.

I'm pain free and not even particularly cloudy right now. It's great.

So I haven't had the mental energy to do this, and Friday I realized I forgot the video.

And the dogs have been really ugly.

And yesterday, mom made me go to yard sales and then we rode bikes around town (don't eat hot shrimp when you're overheated - very sick to my stomach until we got home) and then I fell asleep for an hour watching the Cubs kick some Cardinal feathers.

It's been very nice outside, and we have a swing now to replace the trampoline.

I haven't had the desire to write, and when I have, I haven't had anything to say.

Wickett and his Toy

I love this picture.

Dixie and her Heating Pad

Just who does she think she is?

I plugged that thing in and went upstairs to get in my PJs so I'd have a nice, warm heating pad waiting for me when I came downstairs.

Dogs!

Mikey and his Bed

All four legs up.

I think his head is next to her foot.

I almost forgot.

But I didn't!

Istanbul (Not Constantinople)
Istanbul was Constantinople
Now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Now it's Turkish delight on a moonlit night

Every gal in Constantinople
Lives in Istanbul, not Constantinople
So if you've a date in Constantinople
She'll be waiting in Istanbul

Even old New York was once New Amsterdam
Why they changed it I can't say
People just liked it better that way

So take me back to Constantinople
No, you can't go back to Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Why did Constantinople get the works
That's nobody's business but the Turks

Istanbul (Istanbul)
Istanbul (Istanbul)

Even old New York was once New Amsterdam
Why they changed it I can't say
People just liked it better that way

Istanbul was Constantinople
Now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Why did Constantinople get the works
That's nobody's business but the Turks

So take me back to Constantinople
No, you can't go back to Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Why did Constantinople get the works
That's nobody's business but the Turks

Istanbul

Wickett and his Becky

I have Becky's permission to use these.

I do not have Wickett's.

Dixie and her Pillow

Mikey's on Mom's slippers, Dixie's on a pillow.

She's so pretty.

Mikey and his Slippers

No, Mikey, those are Mom's slippers, not yours.

You are not the man of the house, you're not even the Alpha Dog.

Wickett is man of the house, Dixie is Alpha Dog, and you know it.

Two disgusting things today about the massacre at VT.

My mom is the personal assistant of a special ed high school girl with many problems, autism and schizophrenia are two mental problems for certain. Plus, she's most likely mentally retarded.

Her mom doesn't care and wants her to get an academic education, going to regular classes and not going to the special olympics because her daughter's not special in that way. What's bizarre is her mom has the same job my mom has, at a different school - special ed assistant.

Anyways, if the girl is in a good, docile mood and not asleep, they go to classes. The classes she goes to are the stupid classes, below normal freshman level.

The boys in the class were bragging that they could kill more with their AK-47, that no one would be left standing.

And since these idiots live in a more rural area, they probably hunt. It was only the white boys. Some are genuinely slow, but the assholes who say these things just don't give a damn.

My mom hates her job.

Contrast that with Becky's experience at school today - most of her classes are the 'smart' classes - she was put in psychology, a senior class. She hated it at first, but now she likes it.

The discussion in her classes?

Sadness, heartbreak over the loss of life. Some of the students live in a rural area, just like at mom's school, but Becky heard no such thing today.

Sick.

And thanks to Violet at Reclusive Leftist, I learned that there is a free gun giveaway in Virginia on Thursday.

Sick, sick, sick.

People suck.

Wickett and his Guard Duties

You get 'em, Titters!

I can't get over the snow.

I'm referring to the tragedy at Virginia Tech today - 33 dead at last count. The worst part? There were two shootings - two hours apart, and the campus police did nothing.

I hate TV news, local and national. But I watched the BBC World News on PBS at 5 for no real reason. (The accents?)

They had the best coverage - there are no background checks in Virginia? Since Columbine, the gun laws have been weakened in this country?

How does that make sense?

I had every channel on mute - they didn't cut into the insipid Inside Edition, but they cut into Jeopardy, and I was totally winning.

I didn't want to hear it, I prefer my news in a written format, when most of the facts are out - as it happens leaves you all messed up and confused.

So I had it on mute and some channels split the screen, so you had the talking head and footage from the school. In one, there were little light snowflakes, innocent and pure.

On top of a massacre.

I can't get over the snow.

Jon Stewart was great - he said he couldn't add anything insightful to the tragedy and he's going to bury the tragedy deep inside and freak out in 30 years over spilled juice, then went on to the e-mail thing.

Colbert hasn't said anything.

Oh, and I feel like shit. I finally got a new pain medication and it hasn't kicked in yet and the heating pad hasn't worked since 9 something this morning. Grr.

This Conservapedia seems bizarre.

I saw a bit in the paper about it, and it sounds weird.

Wikipedia is too liberal, too anti-American, and way too anti-Christian for the founder of Conservapedia, Phyllis Schlafly's son - a teacher!

On the about page, it says "Tired of the LIBERAL BIAS every time you search on Google and a Wikipedia page appears?"

What? Okay, then.

Some people see bias everywhere.

I only use Wikipedia for entertainment information - who wrote this, how many books did so-and-so write, what episode of what TV show, etc. I'd never use it for real work. There are free online encyclopedias that also appear in book form.

And I'm not using Conservapedia, even though it loves the facts, after adhering to certain rules.

Here are some of the weirdest examples of 'bias' in Wikipedia.

• Wikipedia says some scholars and authors question whether Jesus was a real person or not.
• It "often uses foreign spelling of words, even though most English-speaking users are American. ... Conservapedia favors American spellings of words."
• It uses BCE and CE instead of BC and AD. According to Conservapedia, since they're based on the Christian ones, why use them at all? I don't know, maybe because Wikipedia talks about other religions, and in many books and research articles, you see BCE and CE. I checked out a big, illustrated guide to world religions that seemed to be at a child's level, and it used BCE and CE - even when talking about Christianity.
• Its "entry for Johnny Appleseed, a Christian folk hero, omits a discussion of his strong faith and instead features baseless speculation about his health, a year of death different from that of his obituary, and a silly story designed to make a Christian preacher look foolish."

The entries are also too long and gossipy.

And there are too many on pop culture.

And too many on other countries and other religions, no doubt.



Conservapedia is, rather than the evil liberal Wikipedia, designed for education. (Private, no doubt.) No teacher wanted a source that said "Wikipedia", because it's user-edited, and could be wrong.

Since it's wrong from time to time, it shows bias.

What?

Anyways, it's so damn weird.

Whatever. I only use Wiki to find the name of episodes of Sabrina the Teenage Witch, really. At least lately. I also used it to look up satirical and parody-of-another books.

I wouldn't trust either, for anything serious.

Dixie and her Pink Collar

That would be baby Dixie. And our old couch. And an old, old rag rug that probably got torn slowly to pieces before being tossed out.

And yes, I took a picture of a picture. Our scanner is weird.

Mikey and his Blanket 2

Those would be the Mike-Mike's buttocks, I believe.

Something funny my mom told me.

Funny and awesome.

When she was 18 and had just joined the military, she needed some help in the reproductive area and got none from the military people.

So her friend took her to the local Planned Parenthood.

This was in 1980 or 1981.

Mom said there were many protestors shouting and calling them "baby-killers" and the like. And my poor mom just wanted help with birth control!

(She objects to abortion as birth control - she had a roommate who did just that in the early '80s. However, she doesn't want to force her views on others, just herself. But abortion being legal is forcing a view on many people. Hey - if you don't like abortion, don't have one!)

The best part?

Her friend was 8 months pregnant.



I wish I'd met her. She sounds like a person with a great sense of humor.

I'll be volunteering at Memphis's branch when school starts - I have 'clerical experience' at another charity, and I need volunteer hours. And I agree with everything they do and I'm glad Memphis has one.

Forget Brat Dolls!

What's hurting our country is brat dogs.

Like that one!

It's storming - heavy rain, around 40 degrees, some fantastic lightning, but not much thunder.

I thought it was the thunder that set off ol' crybaby Dixie, but no, it's the whole thing!

She got 2 benadryl in some white bread (and the boys got a couple of pieces too, I'm not a monster) around 6 or 6:30.

As it is now midnight, I figured the time is right to do it again - Wickett was the only boy to get bread. He's special.

If I go upstairs right now and leave her to sleep on the couch, she could pee in the house.

And it would be my hide. Because her pee stinks and it's bigger than one of the boy's bodies, let alone their puddles.

AND! To top it all off, I'm on this knew painkiller. My body's not responding to the Lortab (Hydrocodone and tylenol) anymore. This happened every few weeks the last time I was on Lortab for an extended day-to-day time: November 2003 to January 2004. Short, yes, but painful. "Acid burn" is too gentle for what it was. So the Lortab'd stop working, and we'd switch to another for a week or so, before going back to the Lortab.

And I think this is the one Limbaugh got addicted to. How? It's been an hour and a half, sure, I'm a bit sleepy, but still in pain.

AND! To top that off, our new, state-of-the-fucking-art heating pad refuses to work for me!

It has an LCD display and goes all the way up to 171 degrees Fahrenheit. I always set it there and get a nice red splotch on my belly after using, but GOD, does it work.

However, yesterday, being Friday the 13th, it hated me. HATED. I needed it at 10:30 when I woke up from my nap.

So I plugged it in, turned it on, and set it for an hour at 171 degrees.

And it just said "LO" at me in the temperature spot!



But tonight, when I'm pain and I need it, I plugged it in and took it out and plugged it back in and put it in different sockets and it still said "LO"!!!!!

And there is nothing, absolutely nothing, in the little paper that came with the pad that says "LO" or what to do when it says that. Not even on the Spanish side!

Then, I plugged it in to the socket by the door, and the temperature started to climb!

And I moved it to the computer and it's still working! Yes!

It's at 167. Mmm, nice and warm. You know what sucks? Needing this and having a hot flash. When it's 60 degrees out. And having a hot flash at 18, before your mother.

Back to Brat Dogs (tm), I wanted to try the heating pad upstairs and read in bed.

But if I do that, no one will stay here with the Baby.

And the Brat could get freaked and pee.

On the carpet!!

So, here I am, risking our computer and all that's on it by typing this. I'm all for storms, but I wanted to get on the 'puter.

But at least I've got the heating pad working.

"I'm going to throw this book at your head."

I went to the doctor today for a uterine nerve block.

It's a shot.

It doesn't go through the skin.

So he said he'd do a manual exam and poke the uterus to see if it still hurt like hell (yes, thank you very much) and then one afterwards to see if it worked. (It did.)

He didn't say how he'd give me the shot. The needle was so long, and the drum was huge and just so full of clear liquid! *PANIC PANIC PANIC PANIC*

"Do you want to know what I'm doing, step by step, or would you rather I just tell you when I'm done?"

"The second one. I'm going to read."

Then massive pain at the opening, must be the shot, turn the page, hey I hear the winding, "YOU DIDN'T SAY YOU WERE USING THE DUCK BILL!"

"I thought you were reading."

"I am so going to throw this book at your head."

"Who - me or your mother?"

"You!"

So the shot went in and it worked, no pain!

The problem with my care over the last few months is that he's been operating under the assumption that he gave me a nerve block on my second visit with him. He didn't. I'd remember, and so would my non-drugged mom.

But it didn't last.

I fell asleep on the ride home and woke up at the drugstore. In horrific pain that got worse when I moved.

He warned me it would feel worse when and if the pain returned, because I had a respite.

But such a short one?

That's not fair!

"Life's not fair!"

*prepares cheese grater, salt, and duck bill* If you tell me to live with the pain, I will use these.

The book I was reading? Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut.

It was the perfect choice for a private eulogy - it's about the end of the world and an awesome religion based on lies that says so up front.

RIP, Kurt.

Wickett and his Legs

Actually, those would be my mother's legs. And hands.

We found "Cute Wickett" for a few seconds and captured the wiley beast on film.




Take that, Corgi!

I feel like fighting.

I am hereby challenging Zuzu, of Feministe, to a cuteoff.

Her Junebug to my WMD of cuteness.






This is how she'll feel at the end, when she loses. If she ever pays attention. If she doesn't, I win by default!

Dixie and her Bed

A note - this is my bed. And it is stripped so I don't have to sleep on Dixie hair tonight. As soon as she left, I made it, MOTHER.

Two great TV shows today!

First, I totally freaked my dad out by calling and saying, "Can I speak to your mother, please?" (She is living there and she is his mother, not mine. Just like she's not his grandmother, she's mine.)

Then we got home and I raced upstairs to watch two episodes of Sabrina that I haven't seen yet.

Both were hilarious - I like Salem! In the second episode, he wore a little firecat's outfit. So cute!

But the first summed up what I love about Sabrina, and Melissa Joan Hart as well.

Look at her one day - she's not like the other teen stars of today - she looks healthy! She looks like a normal person - nobody on that show looks like they're anorexic, nor do they care. I love that. (My sister sees that as an attack on naturally skinny people - it's not, it's a celebration of a show about a teenage girl who doesn't fret about her weight! And it's funny. Because I like it, the laugh track isn't too much. And the books rule.)

And the mean bitch who ruled the school for the first two seasons? She wasn't skinny, she wasn't blonde, she was so normal-looking! But a rich cheerleader, so she ruled. I never saw that in school, when I was there, I was reading, talking to my friends, and impressing teachers.

Anyways, the first episode of today addressed her weight. She wanted a new dress because she and Harvey were nominated as the Royal Couple of the Snowflake dance. She found the perfect dress in the Other Realm, only it was a size too small, and since it was from a magical place, she couldn't alter it. (According to Salem.) So she decides to go on a diet.

After half a day, nothing!

Then she looks through her Magic Book and finds a magical version of those disgusting diets pitched during daytime TV shows and late night infomercials - only this one works, she loses the weight. (MJH wore looser clothes, I think.) Every time she's hungry, drink a shake. Only she drinks one too many and disappears! And uses an Other Realm camera (adds 100 pounds) every few minutes to re-appear until she realizes (while invisible) that people voted for her because she's a cool person, not because she can fit in a size 0. And that makes her reappear. Except her math teacher got caught by the camera and gained 100 pounds. And then so did she.

I like Salem's eating habits - sugar on bacon.

The second was hilarious - career fair, and Mr. Kraft quits and then starts working where Sabrina works, so she and Aunt Snitch make a potion that makes you realize your childhood dreams - he wanted to be Charles Lindbergh. And Harvey got caught and wanted to be MIGHTY TEEN! The spell will end when they realize their dream, and Sabrina made Mr. Kraft think he'd landed in Paris and Harvey realized his when he saved the world - Sabrina.

(They never should have broken up - the actor was on the show even after they'd graduated from college.)


Onto the second show - the X-files.

What? It's on at 4 on 23 right after Sabrina, unlike Ripley's Believe It or Not which is on at 3! Same with Jeopardy! (When we all watch, we all win like so much money. Trebek owes me big time.) The gall of those shows, all great ones, airing at the same time. Nothing's on at two, why can't it be Sabrina and then Full House? (Because then I wouldn't have been able to watch two episodes of Sabrina I hadn't seen yet today, duh.)

It was Bad Blood!

There are no words, only laughing smilies.

My favorite part, besides the whole episode, was when Mulder threw the sunflower seeds at Ronnie, and since vampires have OCD, he had to pick each one up one by one.




I have got to watch that show more often. I only have season 1 on DVD and one mythology collection (post-abduction to cancer to cure for her cancer).

Kurt Vonnegut is Dead

And I have nothing to say, no quote comes to mind but "So it goes..." (Thanks to the evil Pandas.)

I should have read the paper today. I know Jon Stewart will mention his death tonight. He has to.

And I'm reading Cat's Cradle next.

Reverend Graham believes he's right.

About everything.

Today, somebody wrote in saying they wanted to learn about religion and went to a bookstore and there were a lot of books and which book does the good reverend recommend?

The bible, since the rest are false prophets and the letter writer will go to hell if he reads them, or something.

The only thing mentioned about other religions in the Bible is that they're BAD.

The person said religion, not Christianity!

Of course, he wrote to a Christian Reverend. I'm sure an Imam would say the Koran's the only one you need to read and a Rabbi would say the Torah.

I have a book about religion I got at a yard sale for less than a buck. It's shorter than the bible (no begats) and it's just a guide to world religion.

The Bible can't help - it's hard to understand. They make classic books (Shakespeare's plays, mostly.) in a format where they put the unabridged play on one page, and the page across from it has it translated into modern English.

They need to do that with the Bible.

My sister has a 'teen' Bible - maybe it's like that.

Thursday TubeTreat Numero Dos

Told you I'd remember to do it!

Shary: In front of a tavern,
Flat on his face,
A boozehound named Barney
Is pleading his case.

Barney: Buy me a beer,
Two bucks a glass.
Come on, help me,
I'm freezing my ass.

Buy me brandy,
A snifter of wine.
Who am I kidding?
I'll drink turpentine.

Moe: Move it, ya drunk,
Or I'll blast your rear end.
Barney: I found two bucks!
Moe: Then come in, my friend!

Shary: And so, let us leave
On this heartwarming scene.
Bart: Can I be a boozehound?
Homer: Not till you're fifteen.

Mikey and his Killer Skills

Wickett's not the only killer, you know.

She's headless!

I won the internet yesterday.

Some guy named Dan told me I did.

I made a serious comment, but then had to go about quoting my hero, who doesn't see color, but people tell him he's white and he believes them because he can get a cab. You know who I mean. Colbert!

And his anti-Hungarian stance, which he apologized for because the Hungarian amabassador had an awesome guitar.

If only real racism was that easy to fix.

I loved the Word last night. Can I just say, those kids are idiots and don't speak for me? I want all the insurance I can get! I'm still taking 12 daily meds, and most will continue for a few years, if not the rest of my life.

Idiots.

I love Stephen and I heard he gets most of his things from The O'Reilly Factor, but I can't bring myself to watch the latter and say to myself, "It's a joke," because it's not and he's no where near as cute as Stephen.

Something Asinine on the Op-Ed Page Today

And I'm not talking about Ramirez's gross cartoon comparing Pelosi to Iran's president because she visited Syria. I thought that's what representatives of our country did. Talk to people, not blow them up or hang them.

I support her trip, I support her even more - she's so much more diplomatic than the people above her.

I'm talking about another bizarre letter to the editor. I will retype it, without the idiot's name, as usual.

You won't get the stupidity unless you get the Commercial Appeal, sorry. Though if you get any daily paper, you probably will.

The CA missed opportunity to inspire

I don't know why I was so surprised when I looked at your Easter Sunday front page. Instead of acknowledging this Christian nation with an inspiring Easter message to uplift people's spirits, we got articles on Mayor Willie Herenton, John Ford and the Winkler murder case.
Do you wonder why people think ultraliberals are anti-Christian? Would it have killed you to show a cross, spring flowers, anything symbolic of Jesus? Maybe the editors could at least devote one front page to uplift your readers' souls. This city has become so depressing, no wonder people leave.

Where's this anonymous (to everyone who doesn't read the CA) idiot live? Memphis.

First off, this idiot must have looked only at the front page of the Sunday paper. I read or at least looked at all of it, except business and sports, and he's full of shit. Yes, the Commercial Appeal, Memphis's only daily newspaper, did not look like a church newsletter on Sunday.

You want to know why the main articles were about Herenton, Ford, and Winkler? Because they're NEWS!

And this is a newspaper.

There were plenty of mentions of Easter and Easter services around the world - but not on the front page.

I like the ultraliberals thing. The CA is conservative and cares about money until the day they put their editorials on the front page. No, on Sunday, the editorial section is expanded beyond the usual 2 pages, and it's always interesting.

AND MENTIONED EASTER.

Also, spring flowers as a symbol of Jesus?

They are a symbol of spring, which we are still not feeling, as the sun didn't come out today and it was cold. I took a fan and a bag of ice pops to the Crisis Center for nothing.

They are also stolen from a pagan holiday that centered around the first day of spring. Christianity wanted to end all other religions, and took their dates and toys and said, "Jesus was born in December under an evergreen tree and died in April and came back as a bunny."

Or something.

I do respect Christians, but not idiots like this.

If he wanted inspiration, he could have, I don't know, gone to church? Subscribed to a conservative church newsletter so he doesn't have to see these liberals putting news on the front page.

How insensitive of them!


A somber note - the Winkler trial is so sad. She's the pastor's wife who killed her husband. The article was an interesting one on being a pastor's wife and the trials and tribulations of it and how it has to be a partnership or you'll end up killing each other. Of course, as someone pointed out in the letters section, it could happen in any relationship where there's a dominating party, not just in religious couples.

Hobby Lobby took out a full page ad on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Hawking pretty flowers that will die soon? No, 3 crosses and biblical quotes!

And many of Sunday's comics were just blatant, like BC and, BC.

By the way, I agree with everyone over at the CC. They should run the strips he had already made, and then stop it. But the plan is that family and staff will use his old drawings and put in new jokes, or something equally abhorrent. That's worse than running classic Peanuts. Nobody's tinkering with Schulz's work.

I am eternally grateful to Feministe.

A post making fun of a bizarre abstinence poster. (Abstinence feels good, it tells us, but Jill tells us that orgasms feel better.)

Somehow it turned into a discussion on choosing to be abstinent as an adult, and I was confused and knew nothing and admitted it and asked many, many questions.

And said that "Abstinence feels good, like a cigarette should," and no one cared, but they answered my probing, embarrassing questions about sex and dating.

So Zuzu (not the Brit!) did the right thing and made a separate post about sex ed, because I asked questions.

So many great titles, links, information, and stories - because I asked questions.

God, I can't wait for college - I inspired a post at a blog because of my incessant questions. My search for knowledge.

It's cool.

Wickett and his Ears 2

Ears my foot!

I said the microchip made him a cyborg, no, he already was one! Those aren't natural!

There is only one canine in nature with similar ears, and it is too cute.

Its ear size makes sense though, I think it lives in the desert, and large ears on desert animals are good because a lot of blood vessels are exposed, warming or cooling them off as needed. (Source - Magic School Bus book where they went to the desert taken from Crisis Center. Except they were talking about jackrabbits, not fennec foxes. But I think it's the same thing.)



So cute! What if I mated Wickett and a fennec fox?