This little piggy couldn't go to school, this little piggy couldn't go to market....

....and now the government is going to make all us little piggies go wee wee wee all the way to our semi quarantined homes! REALLY?!?!?! Okay, I am veto-ing the vote - I promise true love will prevail and you will hear that story soon, but I have to talk about more pressing issues - like wide spread media panic!!

I gotta talk about the Swine Flu - or the H1N1 strain for those of you on the Pork Appreciation Board of America who have lobbied for a name change in fear that God loving Republicans (like the first President Bush) will stop eating Pork rhines in fear that they might catch this pandemic flu from those crunchy salty treats. I have to admit - this is creating a field day for my schizo bi-polar hypochondriac inner child, but now this issue is invading into my much calmer, rational, logical mind.

I see the writing on the wall - schools are slowly starting to close. Official news conferences are being held with muckity mucks stating that school officials will not be penalized financially or otherwise for closing, the Vice President is saying that health officials are advising them that the best way to handle this is to restrict mass groupings such as the classroom setting, I am getting letters from my child's school stating they are keeping in close contact with local and federal officials for the best way to handle this with the safety of our children in mind. I get it... the kids are gonna get summer a little early and we working parents are gonna be more than screwed - because no school also means no childcare.

I am not trying to sound heartless here - I am trying to put this into perspective. This is a flu strain. This is a viral infection that leads to symptoms that are irritating and uncomfortable and TREATABLE. The unfortunate few in our society that would be compromised by this flu would also be compromised by any other strain: the elderly, small children, and the sick. Perhaps we should keep scary words like "pandemic" to situations that could actually wipe out the majority of the human population - not something that could up the sales of Tylenol, ibuprofen and thera-flu.

The media is going to kill us. They are going to drive us crazy and send us jumping off bridges and crashing our cars into each other. Here in Houston alone the media and "experts" had a million people stranded in their cars fleeing from a hurricane that never came, yet this week they had no clue that a storm would come over night and we woke up to 10"+ of rain and could not drive in our streets and thousands of peoples homes had their furniture floating in a foot of water. My point is, no amount of pretty graphics or scrolling snappy phrases can alter the facts. They have NO CLUE about MOST EVERYTHING. And rather than just say we don't know much, we are going to come up with some really great theme songs and incredibly bright colored interactive TV screens to make it look like we know more. Look... I can draw a squiggly line here.....to emphasize my point about nothing even more.

So here is what is probably is going to happen - more people than normal are going to get sick later in the season that when people usually get sick. It's going to suck - but then it will pass. Yes - people will die - it is sad - it is terrible, but it is a fact - not a pandemic, not a plague. If you get sick - get treatment. If you get sick - stay home - take care of yourself - get better.

And by the way ... I reserve the right to allow my hypochondriac inner child to go running through the streets squirting all of you with Germ-X and screaming "The End is Near!! The End is NEAR!!!"

Will you update already?!?!

So I get the sweetest most "loving" question from my sister today..."Will you update your blog already? What?! Do you think this thing is only for you or something?!?!"

Now admittedly, I have to say - I really do think no one comes here - even though the growing stat clicker thingy at the bottom of the web page tells me other wise ( Come on 40,000 hits!!!) and I often get terribly excited when people tell me things about my life that they read about on the blog.

So... thank you... thank you for caring.... thank you for coming... thank you for reading. I suppose if it was terribly boring or controversial or irritating you could just wander away to some other random blog, but you don't.... you come here... and for that I thank you.

So let's tease you about topics to talk about in the upcoming days/weeks/oh who knows, maybe months ...

Swine Flu - Yep - the Jews were right - The pigs really are going to kill us.

My Backyard Swamp Opus - or the story behind why home warranty people should be thrown off very tall bridges.

How Reality TV is going to ruin my REAL life - dealing with my obsession to people watch and how it could possibly lead to me getting arrested for confronting/question really stupid people.

Releasing My First Love - The story behind how my first fiancee FINALLY moved past our long engagement and is now marrying the most incredibly wonderful woman in the world...

I'll even let you vote... what do you want me to talk about? Do you have a topic you think I need to butcher?!?! BRING - IT - ON !!!

Come on you lurkers - you know who you are.... comment.... I DARE YOU!!!

A glance through the looking glass....

I have been silent and vague again and I am sorry, bloggy world. It is another one of those times that life has brought me to a buffet of challenges and as usual my plates, bowels and glasses all runneth over. Most things seem to be swimming aimlessly in swirls in my brain still - not even enough clarity to write out here - but there is one thing that would like to share:



Recently life has dealt a deck of cards that is well... sucky, for lack of a better poker term. Recently I have been given the opportunity to be a silent witness, secondary support in a family situation that is best dealt with extremely sensitive hands. During the process, I find myself almost back in my little girl shoes - "Be seen not heard. In this position - which for any of you who know me, knows it is incredibly difficult for me to keep my opinions to myself - I am given a rare opportunity to look through the looking glass at literally generations of patterns, habits, character traits - some good, some not so good, some down right amazing. I see myself in my mom, I see myself in my grandmother.

Because my grandparents lived several hours away - I had no day to day relationship with them - just short visits mostly around holiday weekends. Now that my grandmother lives in town, I am blessed with the opportunity to see the day to day grandma - not the polished in her holiday best grandma. I see habits and traits that we share even though 60 years separate us. I see speech patterns and story telling techniques - ways to tell the good parts and skim over the bad or not so attractive moments. I am amazed to see the "inner circle" communications - you know, the family talk and quiet whispers amongst the inner sanctum of your immediate family - followed by the instant "turning on" of the sparkle and shine persona when outside people enter the situation. I also see the wondrous trait of not being able to hide our instant like (or dislike for that matter) when it comes to meeting new people. I have always been known for my hugs - great full loving hugs whether we have known each other for years or minutes - the other day I almost cried when I realized this was not an original personality trait - nope - it came from my grandmother who passed it on to my mother who in turn passed it on to me. We had been at a physicians office for my grandmother - someone she had never met - and after an hour of visiting, a simple nice to meet you and handshake would just not do - nope - my 90 yr old grandmother pushed her walker aside to embrace the physician with as much love as if she was a member of our family.
It is so hard - so hard to witness forced change. It is so hard to stand in front of the imaginary judge and jury with two impossible options and choose - knowing neither plan "A" nor plan "B" is perfect or right, but rather the lesser of two evils.
It has been a few weeks since decisions have been made and things seem to be settling, but change and transitions are always hard. I choose to take the number one lesson I have learned from my grandmother and keep trucking along - keep your head up and keep moving forward.... oh, and always have your lipstick and rouge on when you do it...

Happy Birthday to me....

I've never felt so dumb...

...what the f*&^%% have I been doing with my time.....

The raining, the pouring, and oh.. the snoring...

So, uhm.. did I say something about blogging everyday for Lent - yeah... right.... next year....

Let's see.... I have had a migraine for about 10 days - what sucks about my migraines is that I have what I call functioning migraines - meaning, the throb is there constantly and I can function through my day - it just absolutely exhausts me and by the end of the day, the throb has become so mind blowing that I feel like someone has taken a shot gun to the back of my head. I went to the neurologist last week to talk about the fact that we have been playing with meds for almost 2 years and it seems that we are on a upward swing when it comes to frequency and duration again, so now we are back to tweaking and changes and ... oh... we will see... I just want them to go away.

Last Friday night I plan to try one of the new knock you on your ass medicines before bed in hopes that it will take the headache away by the next day. I tell my husband - let's go get something to eat, then I will take my medicine and call it a night. We decide on Chinese - now, recently I found out that I am allergic to sesame seeds, so I take great caution to make sure where I go has no sesame seeds or sesame seed oil. I have had Chinese since the new diagnosis with no problems. Fast forward to Friday... I walk in the door - do you cook with sesame seed oil? No, Ma'm - just vegetable oil - sesame seed oil is too expensive. Great. We are eating. CRAP... tingle tingle tingle - Excuse me? Are you sure you don't cook with sesame seed oil? No, we just season with it!...Michael - eat faster - scratch scratch scratch .... GREAT!! Now I have a migraine AND a severe allergic reaction!! Get home... I have not gotten to the full break out and I am totally chicken shitting out on the epi-pen - i am in the bathroom and I hit myself with the tester several times to psych myself out, and I notice the liquid benedryl for the kids. Call my mom - can't I just TRY the benedryl first and if it doesn't work THEN I will shoot myself?!?! She says yes - she is a nurse, so between that and the fact that she is my mommy, her word is just this side of the Bible. I double the dose and lay down... it was 6:30. I woke up 14 hours later. I do not remember anything. Apparently I stirred slightly, but Mike stayed beside me, checked my breathing, and kept my mother informed.

My phone died. I just got it and it was already out the door. The flip hinge decided it didn't want to work and I decided I wasn't going to be pro-active and deal with it in a timely manner, so when we finally did get around to it, it turned into a looks like drop damage, even though the break is on the inside of the phone and there is not a damn scratch anywhere on the outside of the phone. I just don't have the energy to be screaming at another person - currently screaming on a daily basis to the home warranty people about the pool (another post) - so I just dealt with my irritating phone. Well.... sometime in my comatose state early Saturday morning some little munchkin had something to do with the phone's final demise... the details have something to do with the counter top, shifting of things and the floor - all I know is my phone is now in 2 pieces. I tried getting a new one - no - why would we be so bold as to get the insurance? So I am using my sister's old one now - the face is broken, but it works - and it was free and I am too cheap to go get a new phone. Moral of the story - if you called or texted me recently - I probably did not get it, please hang up, redial, and try again.

I suddenly feel remarkably like Eeyore with all the complaining I have just done in this post.....Oh Bother.....