Thursday, January 17, 2008

Say Auugghhhhhh

Okay so I took the day off. Again. I was feeling like crap agian last night and when I awoke this morning I had the feeling that there was a tiny little dwarf in my head and he was trying to dig out with an ice-pick. A very, very sharp ice-pick. So my lovely wife suggests I stay home. To quote her 'that's why you have sick days.' Well she needed twist my arm. I got up at around 630 and called in. Or out. Whatever.
I tried to get in to see my doc and of course there was nothing available. I was told, however, that I could see a nurse at 1. I ran this by Maggie and she said "are you burning up with fever little man?! See if you can get an appointment with a doctor in another office." So I call back and request a doctor and am told I could see Dr. Hanna at 10. This makes us both feel better and I drive over to the Medical Arts Building, whixh is connected to CentraState Hospital in Freehold. This place is really nice. There are many wings and the doc's office is in one of them. Walking into this doctors office is a pleasant surprise. Big comfortable chairs, nice lighting, big heavy oak tables, nice lighting... Compared to the office I usually go to which is basically a crack den with a fake plant and a receptionist. But I digress.
I saw a young woman named doctor Hanna who, after listening to my plight, deduced that last week I had a viral infection which knocked out my immune system, thus allowing the rampaging sinus infection I currently posses.
She gave me a script and a sample of Nasonex, and recommended lots of fluids and lots of rest. So I fill my script and come home. I have a cup of tea and then..surprise, crawl back into bed and sleep for a few hours. I can't wait for this shit to clear up. I hate feeling like this. I'm completely worn down. Mags suggested I take tomorrow off and tehn I ahve the weekend to recoup. I initially tell her I'm going to wait to see how I feel in the mornign but I'm now leaning towards taking tomorrow off.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Have You Seen Me??

Yeah it's been a while. I always start a blog like a house on fire and then it tapers. I get bored easily, what can I say. Plus most nights I haven't the energy to sit in front of a computer and blab about my life. So here is a concise update on the goings on.
The Patriots are like 17-0, they are going into this weekends game with Stan Diego feeling pretty good about themselves I'm sure. And why wouldn't they? I'm not a Giants fan but I am happy for my buddies at work. Giants fans both, they are nice guys and deserve to have their favorite team in the playoffs. Sadly, if we meet again in the Super Bowl, the Patriots will beat them like a rented mule. Sorry guys.
Last Tuesday I took a sick day. It was weird because, well....I don't get sick. really. I have the constitution of a Yak and when I take a PTO day it is for no other reason than I simply need a day away form the idiocy that is 'BigConglomorate Shipping'. I get 25 PTO days per year and used approximately 3 because I was sick or unable to work. If I do call out it is because my back is killing me and I couldn't go anyways. But mostly I just need a 'Mental Health Day'. But I digress.
Tuesday I stayed home and relaxed. The beginnings of the Head Cold that ate Memphis had decided I would be his next victim. Fool that I am, I decided on Weds. that I was better enough to go back to work. This was a bad idea. And the more I worked, the worse I felt. On Thursday night, Crazy Dog barked all. night. long. And when I say barked all night long I am not exaggerating, he barked from 8pm until 5am, when I finally got up to remove his vocal cords. I'm not going to get into a whole big thing here about what a headcase Crazy Dog is. If one little things is out of place in the house. He will bark. And bark. and bark. and bark...until we find out what it is and remove it. He barked one night for three hours until I discovered that a sock was on the floor of the laundry room.
Anyways. I went to work Friday with 3 hours of sleep under my belt. It wasn't pretty. I almost had my hand removed while trying to adjust a machine, while it was still running. This goes back to the food-processor thing, sadly.
I caught myself in time and was able to remove my rapidly disappearing shirt-sleeve before my hand went bye-byes. The day lasted for an eternity and when I came home I ate dinner and slept. I fell asleep in my chair at around 7. Awoke in time to tape "Big-Boobied Girl Who Sees Dead People" for my wife and then dragged my ass up to bed. We have a lovely bed, btw.
I slept until 5am, when my wife got up with me and made me some chicken noodle soup. Yes she did. At 5am. She's awesome and you're jealous. I know. I went back to bed until like 8. Had lunch at noon and promptly went back to bed until dinner time. After which I well, went back to bed. Sunday was much better and today, well back to work. Mondays blow.

Sunday, December 30, 2007

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Wanted: Good Mojo

Hi all, or both of you..whatever
Late Monday our friend and coworker Thom suffered a heart-attack. He was tired and achey at work but stayed on through the day.We received news on Tuesday morning and this morning he underwent open-heart surgery. He had a triple by-pass people. Meaning he had his chest cracked wide open, the big artery pulled from his leg, etc. etc. I won't go into the gorey details but Mag went through it and it was not a day at the beach.
This event weighed heavy on us as Thom is truly one of the good guys.
Good news was received this afternoon about 3 that everything went smoothly and Thom was resting comfortably. Good vitals and all. He is, hopefully, riding the Happy Train engineered by Captain Morhpine.
So please, say a prayer for Thom or send him some good vibes or Juju or whatever you've got that you think will help him.
Peace out.

Sunday, December 16, 2007

It's About Time





Yes, the Tree is finally up. We have been slacking lately. My poor wife is getting home very late from work at night and by the time she gets here, she wants two things. Sleep and sleep. Although her new job is stressful, she's doing pretty well. She is in customer service and let me tell you...I would be very, very bad at that job. I'm a sociable kinda guy, I can get along with just about anyone but she takes alot of verbal abuse from the customers and she should be commended for not telling them to feck off. But I digress.

Usually our tree is up by the first weekend in December. Last night about 9 we decided the Tree should go up. The setting up and decorating is the easy/slash fun part. The killer is getting all the stuff down from our attic. See, we have no 'pull-down' stairs to our attic. What I need to do is get my trusty 16' aluminum ladder from the garage and maneuver it throught the house, up the stairs, and into our bedroom closet. Sounds like a good time right? Wrong. Once that part is done, I must hand everything down to Maggie and from there we carry everything down to the livign room. Then the fun begins. We put a little Tony Bennett Christams music on and had a little holiday drink while we decorated. The tree came out nice and we only put like have the stuff we have on it.

We enjoyed being in our warm, little home while a Nor' easter howled outside. The nastiness continued today and in between rain squalls I ran outside to hang a garland around our door and some lights over the bay window.

I am almost done shopping for Mags. I have two more little things to get and one gift I ordered is out of stock! Grrrrr! (to quote Cassie)Hopefully it comes in before the big day.

Monday, December 10, 2007

Travelin' North pt1

On this past Thursday evening, Maggie and I were discussing the possibilities of Meself traveling north to RI to see my friends and family. She would be unable to go because of work commitments. I shrugged and said "I 'spose". Don't mistake this response for a lack of interest in seeing my family. The lack of uummpph in my reply is a direct link to my feelings on driving for four plus hours. It is an easy enough ride. The NJ Turnpike to 95 north to exit 10 in RI and from there Mims house is just about 20 minutes towards the shore.



I got on the NJTP about 1030 and found the roads were dry and relatively traffic-free. Now the problem with this drive is New York City, which I pass through. Actually it's the 'George'. The George Washington Bridge. The bridge is an impressive span of concrete and steel and I feel it is very safe, as it was built by mostly Irish. The problem is that about 346 lanes of traffic from throughout New Jersey and New York merge into about eight, and then down to four lanes to cross the bridge. If you do not get there at precisely the correct time, you. are. fucked. We sat for an hour once coming back from RI at the exit to the bridge. It took us an hour to get to the freakin bridge! Last time we came up same thing. So I'm always wary. This day however, I was lucky to catch one of the large flashing highway traffic advisory signs. The sign read as follows. 'MASSIVE GRIDLOCK. NYC.USE MASS TRANSIT DUMMIES. Okay, the word dummies wasn't there but whoa be thee who did not heed that sign. I was, lucky enough, approaching exit 10. I jumped of the NJTP and got onto rte 287. Route 287 is about 45 minutes longer but it is pleasing visually and traffically (I just made that word up. feel free to use it). I cruised along at about 80 the whole way to RI and given that I added about 56 miles to my trip, I still arrived in an impressive 4 hours and 20 minutes. ZoomZooom.Zoom.


I make my ritual pitstop at the large service area at about exit 15 or so. Its got a McDonalds and a few other things. I make the bladder gladder and grab a wormburger from the Golden Arches and hit the road.


The worse part of this trip is the trip through Connecticut. It's pretty enough but it is a loooong ride and there is always construction going on somewhere. Giving headaches to motorists year-round. I notice soon enough the flashing highway sign warning of construction and a slow down between exits 21 and 18. im guessing that this is about a nine mile stretch of road. Sure enough the right lane is closed and we all crawl along. I see no sign of contruction vehicles for miles. I curse and curse and curse some more. Finally after 7 miles I spot the signs of construction. A backhoe in the road ahead. Many anger is amplified when I pass the "construction site". A backhoe, sitting idling. Three guys drinknig coffee staring at a hole in the fucking road. Honest. Me and the 80 year old woman in the Caddy next to me are shaking our heads. We exchange a look that says 'Come on, you and me, we'll fix that shit in ten minutes.' She nods understanding and creeps ahead.

Another bad thing about Connecticut is the lack of radio stations. I did get lucky and find a college radio station ( I love college radio btw) and they were playing, apporpriately enough, some good blues. Blues make you feel good. Like your shit you got goin' on aint so bad. Plus yo baby still at home wif your dog. anyways.

I cruise along in the rain, listening to Howlin' Wolf and Amos Milburn, who's just beggin' whiskey to let him go home.
The miles click by and soon I spot the sign that welcomes travelers to Rhode Island, and as I do, the rain changes to snow and a feeling of familiarity comes over me.

Sunday, December 2, 2007

Two Posts in One Day?? You Crazy Little Bastard!

I just enjoyed a nice dinner and watching the Devils game and now I'm sitting down listening to some music so I thought another post was in order.
So it snowed last night. The evil from the sky. I awoke to a light coating on the cars and lawn. Luckily I did 85% of the leaf-raking yesterday. We both slept in and by 'sleeping in' I mean we were not up at 6 freakin' a.m. I got up at about 645 and fed the animals. I then shut them out of the room and slept until about 945. Mag was up at about 8 or so I'm guessing.
I am in a slight funk. Christmas is coming up and I don't really care for the holidays. Honestly. Too much stress. I don't need stress. Stress can cause cancer and since I'm already predisposed to cancer I don't need any fucking help into an early grave, thank you very much.
I had a pretty full day today. We drove to our local Petsmart to have CrazyDog's nails trimmed. He is such a wild man in the parking lot. Cars scare the poop out of him (today it was literal) and I have to often pick him up and carry him into the store. He's little but at times it's like wrestling an alligator. We got into the grooming area and I'm giving the young lady behind the counter my info and I notice poop on the floor. I tell the young kid that the dog that was just in left him an early present and I told him his behaviour must've been kinda bad this year. He goes into the back to get towels and I notice more poop. I look down and CrazyDog is 'carpet-bombing' our local Petsmart. I want to scold him but he has never done this. Really. He's very good about doing his thing out of doors. I tell him in a soft voice that crapping on the tile floor is bad. I then rub him behind his ears because I know he feels the same way about coming here as I do about going to the dentist. After we're done we go out and make a donation to the local SPCA and head up Route 9 in the still falling snow. We hit the back and then come home for a sandwich. Afterwards we get back into the car and we take a drive to see Maggie's place of employment. The place is huge. Apparently the head honcho spend a truck load of money on the building, then he gutted it and spent even more on custom furnishings and making the entire building fire-proof.
Our trip took us thru a very exclusive town. I mean it is awesome. The homes are in the million dollar and up range. Mostly horse farms. Very pretty homes. We then hit a local artists studio where they do all kinds of glass-art work. Very talented folks here at Folio Art Glass.
I'm not one for shopping but there is some really neat stuff in here. Plus they have a super-nice little doggie.
Once home we both settled in and watched some Law and Order and ten minutes into the show, we both fell asleep. We snoozed for a bit and the Maggie made a killer turkey breast dinner with corn and stuffing.
Tonight will be a quiet evening at home. We'll watch Cold Case and then probably hit the sack.
Tomorrow the work week starts all over again. Man how the weekends fly by.

Who Thinks of This Stuff?


Many times a day I think of my sister Jen who passed away in June. I was walking through our lunch room and these things were hanging in the vending machine. For a minute I was back in time, sitting at the kitchem table in my parent's house with Jen, watching her douse her chips in ketchup. I knew I had to try them. I have to say, they were pretty nasty. But Jen would have loved them.