Headache

Blogging about ailments can be very boring and annoying. I really don't care right now, because it's all I can do without blowing a tire somewhere in my cranial fossa or something.

No, not the brain muffin. Just one of my blowtorch headaches.

I used to think they were hormonal and I was probably right. They'd come at specific times, for specific time periods and then disappear.

But, like, I don't have all those hormones thrashing around anymore-just some remnants trying to rev up a party in the streets that have been deserted for a bit now.

"Come on! Move your ass! Shake it! WoOT! WoOT! Shimmy shimmy!"

STFU. Now.

So, today and a couple of times last week I developed the fabulous blowtorch headache. Full moon, hormone remnants, blistering heat and humidity. I mean, Merv and Dot are asleep inside at 3 in the afternoon.
It starts like a sinus headache in your left eye, so you poke your left lymphnode under your chin and that part under your eyebrow and it feels like some asshole has inserted thumbtacks in there. So you take several Excedrin, the only, ONLY, thing that works.

And you sit or lie down for a bit and enjoy your head separate from your body. At least I don't get auras or nausea, so it's not migraine. And, it eventually leaves.In fact, you can tell it's leaving when the pain changes from one large icefloe of agony to separated bullets or bergs beginning to disperse around your head.

Then you only feel like someone punched you in the face.

And then you can blog some more.

With indepth and provoking content like this.


Shhhhh. It's not quite gone yet.

Happy Memorial Day

God bless our men and women in uniform, dead and living. Thank you.

RVnooers saga blah etc. finite yo

I have been operating in a total physical and mental fog today-slow and logy and duh-y. What didn't help is Dot dropping her big actual bone bone-the kind that looks like it's been taken from the leg of a wild boar, that you can shove peanut butter down and all, a real bone, heavy, with gravitas-and that bone bouncing back to hit my own personal left ankle.

That sucker hurts.I'm thinking there may be a mini-fracture. Who cares.

Anyway, one of the other days of fun last week the Floyds and we hit a restaurant, down one of the farm to market roads , that is no longer a "farm to market road," rather a full-fledged highway with all sorts of shit on it, and ate truly magnificent mudbugs. Huge glistening mudbugs. 3 pounds apiece with corn, taters, onions and one free beer. For $7.99.

Then we went to another icehouse and met a lovely barback/waitress who was cuter than a bug's ear.

Next morning we went for the 7 mile trek in the feral hog preserve that we frequent. Now, the Floyds are huge walkers and used to pain. They're not so particularly used to 85 percent humidity with 90 degree weather. But, what're worse are the deerflies.

Those fuckers buzzed us the entire way, occasionally leaving us, making us think we were safe. We'd Deet up some more (I believe they consider Deet a condiment) and meet up with them again. I used to think they were just an annoyance, something to swat away from your head, until, wearing shorts and sweating like a pig, they bit me three times BITE BITE BITE.  It felt like what I imagine getting stabbed with a hypodermic in a subway would feel like. It stung and surprised me and WTMAJORFUCK? They still itch/hurt/are welty. Sympathy welcome.

I eventually ripped off a bamboo stalk and thrashed it behind, up and in front of myself as I trekked, rather horselike. See, that's why they have tails I told myself.

Mrs. Floyd, a supreme sweat factory,didn't fare so well. They LOVED her. No courting, though, just, wham, bam, thank you ma'am. They cruised with her like remora the entire walk. She finally got freaked out enough that towards the end she just decided to run the rest of the way. I mean, they were gang-buzzing her.

We watched as she took off, all 6'1 of her happy self, flailing her legs out sideways and her arms around her head like a mental case, and hoped she didn't get lost.

She did, but we found her, pacing around a tree to keep moving since the flies were still in attendance.

That was more fun than spooking the people with kids in strollers and telling them we'd heard a mountain lion and watch out for the feral hogs or at least find a tree to climb.

Majorly good times.

Random Aside Dishes

I've been out of the blogorb (instead of the blogosphere, I shall call it the blogorb) for a few days because of visitors and work and the full moon (during which I turn into a pizza-eating cipher) but I'm catching up. Actual catching up, not Mr. and Mrs. Floyd "catching up."

Whatever-these girlies just made me perk up today. Fuckin' A! wOOt111!!!!

Really fucking A.

RVnooers' saga, Part 2 or something or other

It's been a week. I'm delayed on posting. Work seems to intervene as does sleep.Holy crap have we been tired. It's the 5000 degree weather and the full moon. And recovering from the rvnooers and Dot barking at nothing at 5 in the morning.

So, our second day of adventures started mildly with our friends taking a 300 mile bikeride in the morning, prior to which we wished them well and sat down.

Then, Mrs.Floyd and I proceeded to catch up a bit more while Mr. Floyd and Mr. Froth went looking for cigars and house repair items. That would be a good combo for a store. Home Cigar Depot. While we were catching up, though very mildly, we received a call from them to come join them at the ice house. To catch up like professionals.

Now, we had planned on traipsing to the local park thingie by the pavilion thingie to take in the Jimmy Buffett concert that night for freeish. Unfortunately, there were probably 30,000 extry peeps inhabiting our immediate neighborhoodish enivrons, which would have hindered our enjoyment and contributed to my distaste for mob scenes.

Okay-ice house it is. Which place happened to be the pre-function for the Jimmy Buffett concert! Busloads, literally, of parrotheads had descended, eating fajitas and drinking COPIOUS amounts of fruity and non-fruity drinks before they headed for the concert venue. Who knew? Hanna's Reef was the bar band and they were fabu. Played for a couple of hours while we ogled and gaped at all the brightly decorated, um, revelers. Revelers, they were. IT WAS EPIC.

I only have two pics that turned out, one which gives you the flavor of the whole bar, the other of a specific patron. I have other pics of arms, legs and blurry drunken people, but none worth posting. The ones that didn't turn out included really fat guys with hula skirts and no shirts and every conceivable hat concoction possible. Entire cities have parrothead groups and a lot of them alit her before the concert.

We went home at a normal time and ate, but I'm thinking some of these dudes were hurting quite badly the next day. I present Lady TaTa.

I present the rest of the pack.

 A lot of the hat people had already left to stumble their way to the bus.

RVnooers Saga, Part 1

This is going to be part 1 of a several parter, but certainly discrete in its completeness and able to stand on its own.

I have no idea, none, whatsoever, what that really means, other than I hate many-parted entries, but this group of posts all revolve around our Seattle friends (my college roommate and her hub, both of whom we’ve known since the earth was formed) who dropped in on us on Wednesday and left yesterday (sob, sniff, rats, shit, come BACK.) They’re retired, childless, and are periodically rv’ing around the country in a Winnebago View, a smaller version rv tricked out nicer than our house, and visiting frens’n’ruhlations. I call them RVnooers.

That’s like revenoors, only not. I’m a tad rusty on the explanation thing since I’ve been either laughing, walking, drinking, walking, laughing or laughing for five days. That is hard work.

So, the RVnooers arrived Wednesday afternoon, and  I left work early because I had already shifted a load of shit to my coworker, who owed me for shifting shitloads awhile back, and there was no point to me being there in vacation-mind mode.

We all proceeded to catch up at a Tex Mex place for a bit, went home and caught up some more (“caught up” included beer and wine and cheetohs-yeah, we’re all about the treating guests right) and waited for Mr. Froth to get home, at which point we headed out for more catching up and eating.

Our grand plans started with potential pizza at Grimaldi’s (yes, it’s spun off from the NY Grimaldi’s and I’m sorry—it is MEDIOCRE) but the plans were foiled due to a 45 minute wait. That’s just stupid. We told them that was just stupid so went across the street to an Irish bar and had perfect burgers.

Then we wandered down the street to a cigar bar to catch up some more (don’t worry-we’re all responsible-we don’t catch up too much unless we’re sitting down at home) and by that time I was ready to nap. It had been a long day, was maybe 10:30ish and I was TAHRED. So my friend, we’ll call her Mrs. Floyd, (since her husband, Floyd, ALWAYS fixes something when he’s at our house, like, Floyd the Carpenter, or Floyd the Plumber(It is such a deal. He has fixed our toilets, closets and this stop he fixed the brick front stoop! Therefore, we didn’t charge him the normal room rate for staying with us.)), (sorry if the commas and periods are misplaced, but I’ve got so many parenthetical things going I can’t keep’em straight,)))) suggests we just walk home.

So, we did. Just got up and left the guys to smoke their cigars and headed out. At 11 p.m. I’m wearing flat, uncushiony sandals and Mrs. Floyd has something similar on. We’re maybe 3 miles or so from home. Here’s the thing, Mrs. Floyd is 6’1 and kinda athletic so she’s used to walking, running, biking and, she’s 6’1, so I figure we’re cool.

Off we plod. At 11 p.m. Past the closed restaurants and through the wooded parking lot of my former office and down across the lake and I’m thinking, I am REALLY, REALLY, REALLY tired.

The moonlight-dappled pathways entranced us with their faery-like glow and the deep night twitterings of the gentle woodland creatures…



didn’t eat us or anything. We saw no animals, only one bicyclist. No muggers or bobcats. The boys met up with us two blocks from home and we got to ride the remainder of the way.

Then we went to bed.

This was only one-half day's adventure.

This is epic

Shortly, or in a few minutes, because we're short anyway, as in height challenged, we are going to relax in the hot tub.

The hot tub that has been out of commission for a year. Due to weather, work, other things to spend energy and money on and so forth.

Friday, Mr. Froth completely douched the hot tub. The filter works. The heater works. The pump works. As of now (shhhh) nothing needs replacing. AND, there weren't any dead birds or maggots in it because we replaced the cover a year ago and WHOOO FUCKING HOOOOO!

It's clean. It's bubbling. It's ready for butts to sit in.

I'm not actually a hot tub fan because you can't just lie back and relax because all of these stupid jets are getting in the way or the seats are too low or whatever. Plus, you can't hold a glass, a book and a cigarette all at the same time like you can sitting at the deck table. Oh well.

We've expended lots of physical energy today cleaning and spiffing and making things inhabitable for friends, so we're going to sit in the hot tub.

And I'm so totally not pissed about discussing getting the heartworm/flea medication for the cat which WOULD HAVE BEEN CHEAPER ONLINE. Whatever. I got Merv to the doc. You didn't. So shut up.Really. Time is valuable as is shipping.

Not to ramble or anything.

We'll see if Dot wants to enter the hot tub. Beebs and Elvis used to trrrry. I think she's a bit wary.

A Suggestion

Laura had an unfortunate encounter with nature. Rather, a non-encounter with nature, which is completely anti-environmentally correct. And we should correct that egregious error. We, being Mr. Froth and I, since as how we're parky sort of people.

It seems that a park in her neighborhood disallows things like loud noise, pets, sporting equipment, smoking, alcohol and profanity. Now, I understand those who want to keep common areas usable for all, but, we're talking about walking a dog while carrying a beer while enjoying the pleasantry that is a park.

Since we live in a community that has hundreds of parks, all of which pretty much allow pets, alcohol (if you've concealed it appropriately in the non-alcohol sections, and who cares in those that allow it), seem to attract many sports teams that practice at various hours of the day (noise) and ensuing profanity (my guess), and smoking (Mr. Froth walks the Dot whilst smoking a cigar) I feel qualified to blather about this incident.

I would suggest wearing very large sunglasses and putting a redcross bandanna on Jack. Then I would don a bike helmet with attached beercan holders labeled "saline solution" and have a pack of candy cigarettes attached to my belt, with dry ice in my pocket. I think the Tourette's thing has been addressed, so I'd go with that while handing the ranger a flyer explaining the malady. Perhaps a hidden cd player with all of the variety of farts available, at high volume.

What are they gonna say? It's a service dog. How loud of a fart is considered "noise"? Is dry ice smoke? Are you going to discriminate?

That would be fun. I may do this anyway.

Hope this helps.

It's a good thing

That I'm not one of those big bloggers like certain bonerous sorts are, otherwise I'd be overwhelmed with comments. Since I installed Sitemeter I realized why I didn't reinstall it before. Good thing it's free, because the cost/benefit ratio of tracking 5 visitors per week would be prohibitive.

In other news,we're douching the house in preparation for a visit from some great friends who live in Seattle,but who are retired, and are trekking about in, seriously, an rv. They aren't really the rv sorts, but, I guess they are. They offer us the once or twice opportunity per year to rid our home of truly disgusting, unidentifiable and persistent lifeforms-no, not children (love you guys!) but the detritus that accumulates when you ignore big chunks of real estate.

So far, Mr. Froth has declutterecd 1/100th of the spare bedroom (in which they won't sleep but which is the gateway to the attic, another total horror story and please don't let any inspector sort appear to condemn us) in order to move a box springs and frame into the room our friends possibly may sleep in. Their rv probably is nicer, newer and better equipped than the bedroom, but we gotta make the effort.

I just cleaned our shower. Now, I really do regularly clean it,but it's so humid and rank around here at times that stuff just sort of adds up...
Never mind. I killed it.

I had totally forgotten about the CocaCola chessboard I'd bought for Frothlet #2 awhile back. Apparently, so has he,so I hauled it out of the nightstand and arranged it on top of the non-working tv in the guest bedroom. So it covers up the melted part on top of the tv, which I have no idea about. It's not my tv. Nor are the dumbbells. Or the video games. Or that something that didn't actually move but looked like it would if I didn't spray it with Windex.
I DIDN'T HAVE A STICK! So, sue me. It was still kind of scientifical science work.

I don't remember anyone having a chocolate syrup spraying party upstairs within the last year. So, why are those stains...
Never mind. I killed them.

My toes look like hell. My fingernails have been attacked by badgers and they aren't even holding a double cheeseburger with bacon. Pisses me off.

Nothing much here

Dot killed the pan of potential taco meat at lunch. She ate the earbuds for my cd player. Scarfed up a third of the carpet in the kitchen area.

Elections turned out normal, so we don't have to deal with crazies.

Ate really good sushi yesterday for Mom's Day. And, Frothlet #2 took the hit on the bill! Seriously, we had some awesome shit. And I got hugs.

Frothlet #1 and his girlfriend visited as well, so I got my mother fix some more and more hugs.

Merv is logy and I think it's because of his vaccinations.

My toes need a pedicure.

I need to blow my nose.

It's degenerating quickly here.

Time Off Tomorrow!

Oh yes. Oh yes. My excuse is that Dot can't be left for three days with only a lunch break.
The truth is, I don't want to be at work for three days with only a lunch break.

Plus Dot is being a total asshole with Merv. Plus I have to clean the charnel pit that is my house.

Plus, it's a day off!

Dot-1 Chicken cutlet-0

The cutlet is dead. It might be usable as an adhesive.

All righty, then

Mr. Froth has gone to Florida to visit his dad for his 87th birthday. My sis in law is also going, which is going to be a good thing. I wish I could have gone, but work and finances preclude some things.

So, I'm listening to Earth, Wind and Fire, Illumination

People, if you haven't seen them in concert, go. They were here a couple of years ago with Chicago, who sucked. Unfortunately. Since Beginnings is one of my all time favorite songs of all time and even of all time.
They sucked.

But, EWF were STELLAR.

Plus, I've been listening through some CD mixes that a friend sent, who is the king of all pop/alternative/blues/whatever music and offers his picks for the year.

Am I lucky or what?