Won’t be eating these. That’s for sure.

When I was in school, if I ate (was forced to eat by dear old well-meaning mom) breakfast, I would be starving before lunch break. No breakfast, I could go all day without eating. Interesting? Probably not, but who cares? Is breakfast the most important meal of the day?.

it feels like I am a voice in the wilderness, shouting out my frustration when there is no one to hear, or if there is, no one actually listens. Everyday I read about the stupid things our elected officials say and do, and acknowledge yet again that people actually vote them into office repeatedly, and then today, I realized. I don’t care. If people are that stupid, they deserve what they get, and I am done fighting. For now, anyway. I am having a miserable week and am more than usually grumpy because of it, and just plain fed up with it all. Just everyone with bad news leave me alone. There is good news out there, I need to look for it instead. I can’t fix anything, and it eats away at me, and that makes me just as stupid. Right?

I want to feel good. I want to be ‘normal’. I want to be able to do what needs to be done when it needs doing, not months later. I want to be able to go outside. I want to have fun. I want to stop whining about things. I want the pain to go away and stay away. Who out there has that elusive magic wand that will fix everything? Anyone?

I will work on being more cheerful. Really, I will.

My daughter tweeted that it’s eleven years today that her father died.  Since he had left me nearly nine years before, I didn’t really remember the exact date, I just remember how hard I cried when I heard.  Not that I expected us to ever get back together, but it was just so very final then.  Eleven years, and twenty come Father’s Day since he left me.  I remember he wanted me to tell our other daughter he was leaving, so when she came for the day, she thought she was in serious trouble, since neither of us said much.  Well I sure wasn’t going to do his dirty work for him, so he finally had to fess up to her.  Long time ago.  Didn’t expect that it would still hurt.  That’s life, as they say.

Got a notice I’ve done 1,000 posts on here. Yay, me?

If I don’t like a law, can I just ignore it? Or does that only apply to rich, white, moronic Republicans?Senator McConnell to Fifty Governors in Letter: Ignore Federal Law.

I started out oh these many years ago with a webtv thingy. It hooked to your tv, which acted as the monitor. It had a wireless keyboard, so you could relax on the couch and surf. It had picture-in-picture so you could could surf and watch tv at the same time. It had a tv guide where you could get reminded when your show was on, and it would even change the channel at the correct time in case you weren’t paying attention. It didn’t have a hard drive, however. But it was lovely anyway. Then…then…then they sold out to Microsoft. The updates started. Every new update took something away, rather than added something. People started buying actual computers, which I think was Microsoft’s game plan. You think?

Minor sidetrack here: Speaking of selling out, which we weren’t really, Kashi is not Kashi anymore, and neither is Amy’s. Big food has taken over, which means the ideals the companies embodied are long gone, and you can no longer trust the food you are buying from them. It’s America. Greed is good. Food safety and integrity is boring. And not nearly as profitable, which is the only thing that matters anymore.

Anyway, then there’s Microsoft in general. Every new release changes things that didn’t need changing. Here’s a funny thing I saved ages ago, and I’m sorry but I don’t remember from where:

“At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated, “If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon.”
In response to Bill’s comments, General Motors issued a press release stating, “If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics (and I just love this part):

1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash, twice a day.

2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.

3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this.

4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.

5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive, but would run on only five percent of the roads.

6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single, “This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation” warning light.

7. The airbag system would ask, “Are you sure?” before deploying.

8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key, and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.

9. Every time a new car was introduced car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.

10. You’d have to press the ‘Start’ button to turn the engine off.

P.S. I’d like to add that when all else fails, you could call ‘customer service’ in some foreign country and be instructed in some foreign language how to fix your car yourself!!

P.S.S. No one over the age of 65 could drive more than one mile before having to have a grandchild come and restart the car.”

Number 9 is the one that relates to this post the most, I think.

Then there’s Firefox. I love Firefox. I do. All those lovely extensions. I can set it up exactly the way I want to make my computer day as efficient and worry-free as is possible. At least I could. Then they started updating every five minutes. Wait, where’s the… Why did they hide… What the f… ‘Where is the new tab button, Firefox’, is the latest query I ask every time I go to click the new tab button than no longer exists. Why? Why do you do this to us? What is the point of screwing with every single workable, makes-life-easier button? I used to be able to reinstall the previous version that I liked, but I can’t even do that anymore. You are forced to take the update or get constant annoying reminders. I keep looking for a workable-for-me alternative, but so far, no luck. Every day is frustrating now, thank you very much Firefox.

Started this post because I found a funny video that brought the rest of this post to mind. Here it is:

In general, I think the computing world is out to drive me even crazier than I already am. Come on, developers, thing of the users for a change, instead of your fellow geeks. It’s like when they assume that because they know how or where something is, everyone knows how or where. We don’t, necessarily. Just tell us, or make it easy to find, or something. Please.

Also, after doing the stairs twice in three days, I am barely workable. Hobbling around does not begin to describe it. It’s like my whole body has gone into spasm. On the other hand, I am in general much better. But it’s spring. Now I can look forward to hot and sticky, as well as everything else I have going on. God, am I getting grouchier, or what?

Last night. This is not me. 🙂

85 inches. Over seven feet of snow. According to today’s paper, which I checked online. I love winter. Even when it’s spring.

Yesterday was the first day of spring…and it snowed. It was pretty. Mostly gone today.

I saw the rheumatologist’s assistant yesterday, and she okayed me for going back to 5mg prednisone. Will I get back to when it was working well and I was a real person? Who knows. When I see the actual doctor, he will want me to cut back again anyway. Meanwhile, I am going to have the bone-building shots once I get the tooth out and healed up from that. A few weeks. Also found out that you should NOT be taking ibuprofen with blood pressure meds. Prednisone raises blood pressure, ibuprofen interferes with the meds you take to correct that. The more you know…or why don’t people tell me these things in the first place? I’ve been living off ibuprofen for months. Did not sleep well, because of not taking ibuprofen before bed, then fell asleep on the couch after I got up. Very pain-y today, and exhausted, from going out, yes, but also from doing the stairs twice in three days. I am not good with stairs at all. Please fix the elevator. Please. Anyway, I took two extra-strength excedrin a bit ago, so waiting to see if they have any positive effect. Tylenol alone does nothing, and last time I took the excedrin, it didn’t either.

Tried to explain the difference in pain to the physician’s assistant. Say you sprain your ankle. It hurts. It’s miserable. But you can still hobble around, cook your food, do the necessaries of daily living. The pain and exhaustion that whatever I have causes is more like you have the worst cold or flu ever, and just want to lie down and die. All The Time. There is not enough energy to get together a bowl of cereal, or a cup of tea. I live on coffee that I make a big pot of on ‘good’ days and keep in the frig, and power bars and bananas, with the occasional frozen dinner, or I order in Chinese or a steak sub or such. When I am together enough to be presentable to a stranger delivering food. Which is not always the case.

I really think doctors just hear ‘pain’ and ‘exhaustion’ and don’t really understand what that means. I probably am wasting my time trying to explain it, but never give in, never give up. Or whatever. LOL

Here’s something I came across today. Numbers 9 and 26…I say these all the time. Not in those exact words necessarily, but they are pretty much my philosophy of life. I firmly believe that good comes out of everything, if you only allow yourself to see it. I speak from experience. Oh, there are pictures, too.

Harry Potter: 26 life lessons learned from JK Rowling’s Boy Who Lived
By Sarah Doran

via Harry Potter: 26 life lessons learned from JK Rowling's Boy Who Lived.

So I read this blog:

Bill Mullins Tech Blog

and there’s a lot of good stuff, but also a lot of what crap goes on in the business/tech world. So my question is, why can’t I just stop caring? Why does it matter to me that the Koch brothers are total dicks and I should not buy products from any of their companies? Why should it matter to me that google actually IS evil, or Microsoft does this, or T-Mobile does that? Why can’t I just enjoy the products and not care about Apple using what amounts to slave labor to make their obscene profits? I would be much happier if I didn’t have a damn conscience. How did this happen? Who instilled this ‘I don’t want to eat food that comes from horribly abused animals’ ethos in me? How do I get rid of it? I just want a decent browser that works, toilet paper that doesn’t crumble before you even use it, and a good steak. Without guilt. Please?

Maybe I should just go with the wine?

That’s all I’ve got, so far. It’s definitely a day, but not one I am doing anything positive in. I am completely wiped after going to the dentist and lunch yesterday and having to do the stairs. Elevator is still down, and it’s not looking good for working anytime soon. I have the doctor tomorrow, so more stairs in my very near future. It usually takes a few days at least to recover, so I may have to just stay in the lobby a day or two after tomorrow. LOL

Need to have bone-building shots from being on Prednisone so long, so had to see dentist to have teeth put into good shape. In spite of lax seeing-the-dentist over the past few years, they are actually in pretty good shape. So yay.

Everything is overwhelming when you are in pain, and routine maintenance just gets lost by the wayside most of the time. I go if somebody says I have to, but usually, it’s ‘I’ll call tomorrow, do it tomorrow, whatever tomorrow’ and then tomorrow, it’s repeat, and many more tomorrows the same, until months may have gone by without me even really noticing. Time kind of takes on a different dimension when you are alone most of the time and hardly ever leave your living quarters. I read a story where Captain Jack (Harkness, not Sparrow) said he had spent six and a half years alone in a two-room space. I’ve spent most of fifteen years in a not much bigger space (I have a bathroom and a galley kitchen), and while not totally alone for all of that time, a huge chunk of it was and is just me and the cat. I figure about 98% of the time I am alone. Oh, maybe I’ve gone stir-crazy or have cabin fever and just haven’t noticed? It’s possible, I suppose. The few people I do see here and there haven’t mentioned anything, though. Maybe they don’t see me enough to notice that I am bat-shit crazy? It’s okay, though. I still have fun everyday. It’s a good thing. Crazy can be fun, people. Trust me on this.

Found it on dailyKos

Well I though it was funny. 🙂

Actually, it blew last night, but my Nexus would not let me post this:

I love the sound. The wind blew quite a lot in Colorado, when I was a child there. It’s a very comforting sound to me. We used to visit my great-uncle up in the mountains. He lived in a cabin in the woods and kept wolves. He was actually from Maine, originally, and had been and still was a trapper, I think. I remember animal skins pegged to the outside walls. There were tall pines all around, and the wind sounded like a train coming through. The smell of the pines was wonderful, too. And wood smoke. There was a river quite a distance from the cabin, and I would go there with my mom to pick watercress. Fond memories.

It was the cottonwoods that made the soothing rustling sound around our house. I remember long evenings at my grandparent’s house, sitting on the porch swing and just listening. I lived with them, right across the alley from my parent’s house, til I started school. There was huge old cottonwood in their front yard, and I could walk around it, feet and hands clinging to the rough bark, never touching the ground. My cousin Glenda, who lived with them, too, and I would rake the leaves into ‘rooms’ in the autumn to play house in. Hearing the wind blow always brings those days back to mind.

I miss, that, sometimes. My grandfather killing a chicken for tomorrow night’s chicken and dumplings, my mom and my gramma baking bread and making apple butter. Fresh-from-the-oven bread, with butter and hot apple butter from the pot it was cooking in. God, I grew up in the Walton’s. We even had a little store us kids would walk to. Once a month, my gramma would send me down to pay the store bill, and the man would let me pick a small bagful of penny candy. When I started school, I would stop in every cash-rich morning and buy two peanut butter cups for a nickle. Still my favorite candy.

Reminiscing. It’s a good thing.

and rainy. And cold. And dreary. But the snow is mostly gone. Spring?????

Here again I must say that you can’t fix stupid, but seriously, must you encourage it, Fox News??

New Study Proves Fox News Makes You Stupid

has died.

. A great loss to the world.

Astounded as I am, I say again that people actually voted for them. People here, in my country. People who may look like me, but clearly have problems with their brains being missing. Good grief, people. Good freaking grief.

Yep, this is about the behavior of some of our elected officials.

The Dailykos

and this one:

More About This

Starts out a bit slow, but then….

Came across this, haven’t seen anything else confirming or refuting, but thought it was interesting.
Scientists Find Correlation Between BPA and Autism | Fooducate.

it’s still a wintry day.

In England, from here: A Wintry Day

In Massachusetts:

Oh, those poor butchered trees. Everytime I look out, I want to just cry. In about a month, they will be blooming and I will try to remember to post a current pic and one from a few years ago before the butchering. Never let your highway department use a chainsaw unsupervised by anyone with a brain, people.

I am again slightly better, and actually got a couple of very minor things done today. Yay, me.

Slowly feeling better every day, but still lots of pain and very tired. I want to feel as good as I did last week all the time, please. It’s not perfect, but it was a lot better than this. I got things done. I really, really like getting things done. Really.

Maintenance came to see about the frig, finally, and they even called to let me know the guy was coming. I like our maintenance man. He is overworked, but very nice and always pleasant. He noticed me hobbling with my cane and asked me how I got out without a working elevator, which is down for a couple more months, I think. Nobody has ever asked me that. Or even noticed, as far as I am aware. I appreciated that he noticed. I don’t get out, is the answer. I can get down the stairs very slowly and carefully if I have to, but getting back up is even slower and painful and leaves me in extra pain for some days after. So I don’t go out if I don’t absolutely have to. Oh, that’s why I’m so pale. I never see the sun. Hmmm. These are like sunshine, right:

I used to know someone who called me ‘Sunshine’. That was nice.