There are people in the world, stupid people, who just don’t get it and never will. They will never bother to read directions, and they will always be perplexed as to why things don’t go right for them.
Trust me on this.
This week has completely extinguished any faith I had in weathercasters. Even when it was apparent that it was sleeting outside, the forecasters insisted that it was dry. When it was in the 20s, they told us the lows would be in the 30s. Jim Spencer started to get with the program and hop around like a little demented, hyperactive frog, proclaiming our wintry doom. He’s always good for the entertainment factor, if not his forecasting skills. Fox, in a laughable attempt to take the high road (come on, it’s Fox), ran commercials claiming they’d have sedate weather updates and would be our eye in the storm. Every day we’ve been promised highs in the 40s. Last night it was supposed to warm up and melt by 10 pm.
Needless to say it’s still frozen outside, although very slowly melting. It’s 35 degrees, not the promised 45. I shouldn’t be surprised if there’s a tornado or something tomorrow, and the weather people in Austin completely miss it (although once Jim Spencer hears of it he’ll start his insane frog-jumping and frothing again).
There’s this cold white stuff all over the ground and cars and trees and stuff!
Ok, people – it’s 2003 already and nobody can seem to decide what to call the decade. Is it the “Oh-ties”? The “Aughties”? What are they going to call the seriously dumb television show in 30 years based on this time, a la That Seventies Show?
Better late than never to join in! Since David Nunez says I’m not allowed simply to say “sleep” when asked the question, “What would you do with four hours free in Austin?”, here are my thoughts.
Geocaching – I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time, but never gotten around to it. Looks like Austin is a real hotspot for caches, and seeing as how there’s one practically in walking distance to my house, it’s crazy that I’ve never done it.
The Capitol – I’ve never been. Can you believe it? Bad Texas. Bad, bad, no biscuit.
Revisit my past – see what’s the same and what’s different on the drag. Maybe stop at Dirty’s for a burger and some tots.
Zilker park – I’ve only ever been a few times and really enjoyed it each time.
The lake – hang out by Lake Austin or Town Lake or Lake Travis (all the same body of water, really one big river, just delineated by dams). Especially in the summer, the water temperature is really nice and much balmier than chilly (and overrated, IMO) Barton Springs’s year round 65°.
I think that the trick is to take the tourist point of view of the city in which you live. If you have four hours free, you may be tempted to take a nap, or do the laundry, or yard work, and miss out on what your city has to offer.
On a side note, it’s sleeting like mad here right now and the power keeps trying to go out. Yesterday it was in the 70s and we were all wearing shorts. Hub and I are charging up our laptops and cell phones so that our net access won’t be affected if the power goes out. Nerds!
The other day we took delivery of our new Louis Phillipe panel bed, and I ran out to get a dust ruffle and a new mattress pad and hub went to get our Oriental rug (which looks an awful lot like this) out of storage and I washed the new sheets and cleaned up the bedroom and we started to put everything together. I spent half an hour trying to get the Kool-aid barf stain out of the rug until we decided just to put that part under the bed. When I tried to put on the bed skirt, I realized the package was mislabeled and it was the wrong size. The mattress pad (viscose foam) stunk horribly, so I lit a nice soothing vanilla candle and put it on my nightstand, then curled up in the new bed in the new sheets on the new mattress pad and read a nice murder mystery book.
At this point the cat jumped up onto the bed, purring madly, and started bumping me for attention. She does the “pet me” dance for about 5 minutes before I notice the smell. Burning hair. The dumbass cat had apparently dunked her tail into the candle and caught her fur on fire, never noticing. After giving me a puzzled look because I started madly beating on her tail, she ran off.
We ended up taking off the mattress pad anyway, because it was too hot.
I’m sure you’re all dying to know how my boob’s doing. For those playing at home, I had a biopsy in 9/02, then a cleanup surgery in 10/02, then have been battling the wound since.
Last week it was completely closed and relatively pain-free. Tonight it’s opening back up and hurts like hell. I’m just a wee bit bummed, but will save the foulest language for my pillow, since it doesn’t care how many times I holler the F word at it. My doctor, on the other hand, probably would mind… but I’ll call him tomorrow and try to be coherent.
3/10/03 will mark the six month anniversary of the first surgery. I’ve been fighting this for damn near half a year. I can’t help thinking that it’s my own fault it’s happening; if I hadn’t been so dumb and gotten the worthless breast reduction, I might actually have some blood flow (and feeling, and function) and I wouldn’t have a damned wound for half a year that should have been healed up in under a month.
Kids, please take it from Auntie Addlepated. Think long and hard before getting a reduction. Or implants. On the BFAR (breast-feeding after reduction) mailing list, the stories of heartache outweigh the stories of people who are happy with their surgery by about 3 to 1. If you’re considering a reduction, go to the BFAR webpage and sign up for the BFAR info list and talk to women who have actually had the surgery. Talk to a lot of them – do not form your opinion based on what just one person tells you. I wish I had. And if you have reduction questions, don’t be shy – feel welcome to ask me.
I found out how to say “I love you” in babyese, since a baby told me she loves me.
“Eh suvv sum!”
