I was in a relatively good mood today. The weather was nice once again, and I got to talk to Nick about what we were all going to be doing when I get to the Golden Coast. I still want to make that perfume I mentioned in yesterday’s post. I want to gather the wildflowers by the seaside in Sydney. Those flowers are in full bloom right now, and they will be so nice for the next four months. I want to get to the batch in the mid-summer, so they will put out better, stronger scents. I have a feeling I will be doing this the Friday before we leave. I hope Mandy likes them!

I’m still cleaning up after my harasser. The lies were against me eleven years ago, after a two-year tango with my harasser lying to me. Ten years. That’s too long to be thinking about things like this. I should have let it go. I was doing so great, even though said racist harasser commented nearly fifty times an hour, for twenty-four hours from the same IP and computer. Damn. I attracted a shut in! But today, all of that is gone, forgotten. I am saddened that I lost all of my first round of archives. I’m going to print out some more pictures that my mother wanted and hope that she doesn’t destroy this batch. I’m unusually tired tonight and it’s not even 8pm yet. What is wrong with me?! Speaking of my mother, this is probably the last batch I do for her for a long time. I found out that she stole more of my medicine for her meth-addict sister, so I get to go to work suffering.

I called Nick in tears over this, and he said that he would get me another bottle or two of the syrup, and we could be together on the plane going over. Just us and Chloe. I could sip or chug as much of that syrup that I could take. I smiled at that thought.

When we get home from this magically summer ride, we’re supposed to start prepping to go to Las Vegas! Another road trip! Good thing I am up for these things! I feel so lucky and so blessed, even if I am one kidney short and my heart is still weak, and I am exhausted. I will get to Las Vegas and I will see Mandy. Those are just two of the things that I want to do now that the only thing holding back is my own tight grip on the railing to the stairs. If I leave, my place will get robbed, my pets killed, and my house trashed; possibly burned down. Or maybe the fire won’t happen, and someone comes in and steals our computers, DVD-R, flat screen HD TVs, Wii, you know, all the stuff we worked very hard to have and got with in a few years of being motivated.

I keep thinking about seeing my friend there with me in Las Vegas. Maybe Dallas. I have a seminar there about blood cancers, what treatment worked best for me, what to expect, and what parents and care givers can expect when their child is on chemotherapy. I usually hate these seminars, but this time, I am looking for an excuse, any excuse to get out of the house for a little while, drive down town and come home. I’ll feel like I’ve had a “real job” as my harasser says. Because a job should never be something one enjoys to do for larger salaries than some boring cashier at a video store. But I guess they truly value their child-hating cashier who laughs hysterically when kids get hut in the store. Make snide observations and then check their name when the pull out their credit card, to see how much more money they have. Strange that for someone who was running the family into poverty but was going to be the World’s Next GOD, they never finished their degree. They just got a professional degree and they’re working in a Blockbuster video along side people who are physically 16, 17, 18, 19, not just mentally.

Yes, the person who made fun of me for working at Arby’s when I was 16, is in their 40′s today, and they still work as a drone in a Blockbuster store, where they have been since 2003. It’s great, right? I got a PhD while they were on the web making me look bad. I ignored them. They lost their jobs, lost their schooling, their spouses, and here I am, independently working on my own research, research that was unique to the University before I came here. I have been doing work like that since I was thirty. My learning days and test taking seminars are over. I teach at those now. I have three to go and teach at, get my complimentary meals, snacks, and I can leave without cleaning up. Perfect.

Not as perfect as being on the Golden Coast, but I’ll take it. *all smiles*

My (asshole!) doctor wanted to blame the chemicals that I work with. They can cause severe kidney damage. Sure. If I had worked there for fifty years. He then blames the metformin that I have been on for the past four years. Well, he wanted me to take it because it causes weight loss. He also told me there were no horribly wrong side effects. Um, sure. See, I knew better. If I were an everyday person I could have a lawsuit against him at the moment, but as a bio-chemist, I knew the risks of taking the medicine and I still took it. Having my mother tell me that at 173 lbs, losing 30 lbs since Halloween night, made me less of an embarrassment to her. Of course she’s in her 60s and living off me, but I’m the embarrassment because I was a few pounds overweight. Technically for my height I wasn’t even obese, but I stopped eating, got depressed, and here I am. Though my loving doctor and mother want me down to 100 lbs even by summer. I was encouraged that I could do this. Ever see a 100 lb 6′ 1″ person? We don’t look good. We look like we survived the holocaust. We have no energy. Ten years ago I was down to 100 – 90 lbs and I looked like total shit. No tits. No energy. Constant pains. But damn, I wasn’t an embarrassment to my mother, her family, or my doctor. The people whom I should have truly been trying to please weren’t interested in my weight; I’ve always been perfect to them.

I was put on a double transplant list yesterday. Monday I pick up my pager to wait for the news that there is a kidney or lung (yes, those are fucked up too). I’m not sure if this will affect my trip to Sydney, or the trip to Las Vegas in March. I’ve already paid for my tickets and I want to go. My plane to Sydney is supposed to leave on Thursday morning and I return on Sunday the fifth. I had everything planned, from a new camera to a ton of GBs of space to take pictures and video. I even stocked up on spare batteries and a fast charger so I wouldn’t run out of juice on the trip. Then there’s my “artisan” make up because I was supposed to be a part of the filming we’re going to. I can’t get on camera with a dialysis cath in my arm with the bruises to go with it. This all has screwed up my entire pleasure in looking forward to the trip; I haven’t been to Australia for pleasure since 2003. Dennis was also looking forward to seeing DW again. I guess he can do that without me there, though. Nothing would be stopping him. I haven’t told anyone about this, other than posting it here, for people to sympathise with me over it. Let’s have that Pity Party for me!

On a lighter note, I have a couple of family members who are going to take blood tests and such to see if they match and I can get a kidney from them, possibly. I know my cousin BJ got tested. I’m not sure if I truly need my lung(s) replaced. That’s one of the things we’re going to discuss at the doctor’s office Monday afternoon.

Oh, and my TimeCapsule died and went to hell a week ago. I’ve gone through the motions of removing the hard drive in it (and have the pictures to prove it), and now I am waiting on my check to go into my card so I can get a cord for it. I have another TimeCapsule, but I can’t get the computer to recognise it. I hope that wasn’t the error with my older drive. After harvesting that drive, I feel as though I can harvest the drive from my old strawberry iMac, just to get the data off  it. That would be pretty awesome if I could get that drive too. I may update next with pictures of me harvesting my TimeCapsule drive and the iMac drive, if I can get it out. Right now I have to sit at my desk and update, and that’s a bitch. I usually update from my bed while I’m watching TV. Not anymore! Not until I can figure out how to get that TimeCapsule working. Any suggestions? Advice on anything I’ve posted? Email me if you do. Or leave a comment. Whichever is good for you.

Don’t forget to add my feeds:

here, there, and facebook or just plain add me on facebook. I’ll love you forever!

The kids ganged around their Hero of Time father, hoping to watch him succeed in beating a video game. All he really managed to succeed in doing was keeping the bed from being made for the past few days, twisting his ankle, and breaking a window, on top of hitting the potted plants in the bedroom, causing them to crash down to the floor. I was glad we don’t have carpeting in the bedroom. It was easy to sweep up the potting soil, but then I had to stop what I was doing and re-pot the plants. Three of which were thorny cacti and my thumb is still burning.

This morning, Chloe announced that she did, indeed, have homework this Thanksgiving weekend. Ok, so maybe she wouldn’t have had any if she had sat down three weeks ago and did it or even started on it. She has a diorama due on Monday, but there is nothing done! I gathered up the supplies for her, and an hour later, she wasn’t doing anything with it. Still watching daddy play his game. I read the directions for the diorama and fine-tuned her supplies, and still she did not touch it. I offered to help her with the cutting and placement. Nope, didn’t interest her.

After dinner tonight, she had the audacity to ask me if I could do the diorama for her! Um, no! She asked Dennis, and he lovingly introduced her to super glue. Yes, super glue! All that accomplished was Chloe gluing my desk drawer shut.

*snarl*

I gathered up her supplies, then gathered her up, and put her in her room and told her she was going to do the project tonight and tomorrow, or she was going to suffer the zero on the assignment. No help from momma or daddy, now. Her reaction was to cry, and scream that I was a bad, abusive mother, then scream for help from her daddy. When I saw the boys giggling about the ordeal where she could see them, I told them to either go back and watch the Link game or go to their room and shut the door. I then closed Chloe’s door and went back to working on sorting laundry. The boys scattered. I haven’t saw them since and I have a feeling I won’t see them until breakfast.

I am glad I took the super glue away from Chloe. She was going to glue my laptop shut and glue my phone’s charging cord to the wall. Little brat! All because I was ‘bothering” her to do her homework. Dennis asked me in mid-battle with some kind of strange monster on the game, if I was sure I had made the right choice in making Chloe do the assignment right that second. “Well, she’s had all month to do it, just now told me that she had an assignment, and so, yeah. I think I made the right choice in making her at least start the project,” I replied.

Upon checking up on her, Chloe had about 70% of the diorama done, and she was sleeping on the covers of her bed. See? It wasn’t that hard!

I have my NanoWriMo to finish and then I have my court on Wednesday. I have to call the judge Monday and tell him that I will be there. I thought the lawyer was going to do that. Oh well. I plan on being there, no matter what.

Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving, and that your Christmas shopping is going smoothly! Have a good night and a good weekend!

We head back home on Tuesday. Two more days and nights, and then it’s back home to the daily grind. I can’t say that this trip has helped me any, but I can’t say that I’m worse, either. I’m somewhere in between. Tomorrow is my 5th anniversary with Dennis. I hope we celebrate accordingly!  Have a good weekend, a happy Halloween, and I’ll see you next month!

After hooking up the new cable box, and this new one doesn’t fit my wireless cable router, so I had to snake a ten-foot fiber optic cable across the bedroom floor that I know is going to end up as a dog chew toy or stepped/stomped on, and broken, I then had the pleasure of setting up the universal remote and setting then figuring out the codes for the TV and DVD recorder. All that on top of finally being approved for a doctor appointment that I am going to have to go to next week before our anniversary. I’m slightly happy about the appointment because attempting to switch doctors has proven to do nothing more than waste my money.

Taking my bath tonight, Chloe came into the bathroom to pee, and saw me snoozing in the tub. She didn’t know one could sleep in the bathtub! She asked me what I was doing, and when I said I was trying to relax, she unscrewed the top off the Mr. Bubble bubble bath and dumped about half the bottle in the bath water, then turned on the faucet! What?! “Feel better? Daddy always says that bubble baths make him feel better,” she said. At first I  was in slight shock, but then as the aloe began to penetrate my skin and the bubbles began to feather out over the water, I started to feel less tense. “This is good. Thanks!” I said. Chloe giggled. “I wish I could relax this well in bed,” I commented. “Okay then! I’ll go put the rest of this in you bed’s water!” she said. I snapped back to reality. “Chloe! No!” I called, as I attempted to jump out of the water. I slipped on the floor of the tub and banged my chin on the tub side. I had to crawl out of the tub, and then slipped on the linoleum bathroom floor. Another bang to my face. I managed to capture Nurse Chloe in the hallway and take the bubble bath away from her. I somehow made it back to the bathroom to wash the bits of dog hair and other strange objects from my body, without my father in law getting a peep show of my naked body in the bathroom or the hallway.

Chloe’s heart was in the right place. I wish I could have finished that bubble bath. Just drying myself off was pleasurable. The silent little snaps of the bubbles as they popped, drying them onto my skin, still warm from the water. I think I need a bubble bath night every week. That should be my new thing. Just for relaxation. A time to get away from life for a while. I can’t do it often, but I can try to do it at least once a week. I deserve some me time, right?

I want to thank everyone who leaves personal support and love for me here. I appreciate it. As for those of you concerned about the personality stealer (which is all that I will refer to her as), I don’t care what she does. If she wants to claim that she and I have the same interests and likes, that’s fine with me. I know that she does not, and in doing so, she isn’t impressing me or anyone out there because I don’t like myself in the state that I am. I feel there is room for improvement and nothing that she says or does will make that any different. It scares me a little to think that she feels that she is a perfect person in mimicking me, and I feel bad for the next person that she pretends to be, but what can one say? I’m annoyed about it a little, and a bit amused, but that is all. Again, thanks for telling me. I appreciate it.

I haven’t been feeling well these past couple of days. I don’t know what it is. I am going to try to clean things up around here and see if I feel any better. I feel pretty bad tonight. Bad enough that I flushed my supper down the toilet rather than eat it. I wasn’t that hungry anyway, and spent a good part of the day trying to sleep. I still feel pretty bad. Back pain. Leg pain. Calf pain. Head aches. I was put on Coumadin a few days ago, and since then I have been a little dizzy. I am thinking of going off of it. I also want to get my act together and see a doctor, even if it is the asshole that I despise, because I need some of my old meds back. I need them to get my life back on track. Or maybe it’s the idea that my mother has been living with us for a year now with no signs of moving out or reconciling with dad? That has always made me feel exhausted because she harps on everything I do, and she can always do so much better than me. On top of that all, she hates Chloe. Yes, she hates her granddaughter for two reasons: One, the girl was born out of wedlock (as if my mother was even married before I was born, and even then, I belonged to another man) and two, I “baby” her too much by getting her a pristine education, won’t let her walk and run the streets at night, and on Halloween I (GASP!) won’t let her trick-or-treat at the registered sex offended (pedophile)’s house! What the hell kind of mom am I, not letting a child who hasn’t hit puberty get molested?!

Okay, I’m being sarcastic and witty. Time to publish my post, close my browser and get to bed!

Make your own here.

I went out trick-or-treating with Matt and my kids tonight. I wasn’t going to go. My back is broken. I have bone spurs, bulging discs and scoliosis. To make matters worse, that has lead to arthritis in my back and knees because I walk funny. We went three blocks, hitting both sides of the street, and then came home. Chloe kept running ahead of us, and I was so afraid she was going to get hit by a car. Almost every house was dark, cars were zooming around with no lights, and the mayor turned the city lights off months ago to save money. Add that to the fact that we have no sidewalks here, and I only have two hands to hold onto James and Ashe, and you get the perfect recipe for disaster. A tragedy waiting to happen.

I don’t know why Matt didn’t hang on to Chloe better. Oh yeah. Because he was painted gold, which oxidized before we got half way done, and with all that body glitter, not to mention he was just wearing short-shorts, no shoes, in cold weather, he could barely walk! And he laughed at me because I was dressed like an alien, but walking like Frankenstein’s Monster because of my back problems. DW tagged along behind us, not saying a word. I don’t know if he was scared or worried or both. Pictures in my journal soon. I promise.

The boys turned three today. Has it been that long? Three years? James is completely potty trained, but Ashe can read better than his brother, though he still has accidents sometimes. The kids are in bed now because of sweet overload. Two cakes plus bags of candy is going to equal some really bad belly aches in the morning. I’m debating not sending Chloe to school, but she may have missed too many days already and be in danger of failing.

Dennis called me from France this afternoon. France! Whoa! We talked and it seemed he just wanted to yell at me. He told me no more giving Chloe lunch money. WTF? The girl needs to eat, right? Then he told me to hurry up and pay the credit card bill so the card is turned back on because he may need to use it Friday. I hate to say this, but he’s supposed to be home for Thanksgiving on Saturday, and I am not looking forward to it, if he’s just going to complain about all of the things I haven’t done. He also made it a point to complain about the car being in the shop because it broke down Friday and stranded me. I didn’t do it. The thing breaks down every time I drive it. I think it’s time for a new car. But what do I know?

After a few minutes of silence, Chloe burst out, “HA HA HA! I SEE DADDY’S DING-A-LING!” she was pointing at the TV. Oh. God. It was an early digital video made from my first digital camcorder. Matt quickly ejected the disc. My face was beet red. “What are you watching in there?” Dennis called from the bedroom. “Nothing!” I called back, grabbing a hold of Chloe’s overall straps to keep her from spilling the beans to her dad.

Matt approached me with the disc. “No wonder you had to have a hysterectomy.. . … Um, by the way, can I borrow this tonight?” I took the disc away from him, “Oh no you’re not!”

A little later, I checked the video on YouTube that was generating so much drama just ten feet away from me. One of the fans had left the message that Dennis had the most perfect eyes she had ever saw. Hmm. Really? Because we were noticed in public the other day and someone commented that he looked just like [his stage name], except the eye colour was off. Maybe I should add some more pictures to his profile? Such as the secrets of his eyes:

Yep. Blue contacts. Behind those are the strangest colour eyes I have ever saw. They are golden. They have hazel borders. There are flecks of gold and green in those borders. His Driver’s License says he has hazel eyes, but I think that’s just because there was no box to check “weird golden eyes that would put Commander Data to shame”. But I have to agree with some of those fans. Those eyes can melt me and sometimes have me tingling in places I didn’t even know I had!

T’was the night before chemotherapy and all through the house,
Not a creature was stirring, just my clumsy spouse.
He hung my messenger bag up on the living room wall by a nail
In hopes that it wouldn’t fall in the night on that big pile of dog hair..

Okay, I need to stop that. But admit it! You’re smiling!