Bitchy McBitcherson's Blog

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  • My Grandfather

    He is more coherent and has better motor control, so they are keeping him at home for now. This is good news. Unfortunately my grandmother has come down with the flu, which is always a risk for somebody at her age and health level. Plus my aunt also has it, and is the primary care provider for both of them. Definitely a rough week in that house.

    I am still so pissed about the lack of what I consider decent medical care. Unfortunately, like the major airports, the nearest major hospital (and any significant second opinion) is also a 4-5 hour drive away.

    For the moment things are not dire, but it is clear that I really need to move up a visit on my priority list, if I want to make a real attempt to get in another visit where he knows who I am, and I do.

    I must concentrate on getting my taxes done. I need that off the table so I have some flexibility.

  • I Believe

    Main Entry: be·lieve
    Pronunciation: b&-‘lEv
    Function: verb
    Inflected Form(s): be·lieved; be·liev·ing
    Etymology: Middle English beleven, from Old English belEfan, from be- + lyfan, lEfan to allow, believe; akin to Old High German gilouben to believe, Old English lEof dear — more at LOVE
    intransitive verb
    1 a : to have a firm religious faith b : to accept as true, genuine, or real
    2 : to have a firm conviction as to the goodness, efficacy, or ability of something
    3 : to hold an opinion : THINK (I believe so)
    transitive verb
    1 a : to consider to be true or honest (believe the reports) (you wouldn’t believe how long it took) b : to accept the word or evidence of (I believe you) (couldn’t believe my ears)
    2 : to hold as an opinion : SUPPOSE (I believe it will rain soon)

    I believe that when I use the word believe, I am most often “holding an opinion”.

    I believe that by strict definition anything is possible, because we don’t know everything there is to know, but I am really not interested in expending any energy thinking about, hoping for, or discussing things which are so damn improbable that I am comfortable shoving them into the might as well be impossible closet. For instance, it is technically possible that tomorrow I will think completely ignoring your child while he screams and throws food in a restaurant, until he reaches out and slaps your face hard (twice) while you respond “Aww… That’s not nice.” (twice) and immediately going back to ignoring him is excellent parenting. However, I am not going to be hedging any of my bets that is actually going to happen. Wayne Campbell said it best, “It might happen, yeah, right, and monkeys might fly out of my butt.”

    I believe that someday I will die. I also happen to believe that my To Do List is going to be unfinished when I do die, and that pisses me off.

    I believe that my house would be cleaner if I did not have two cats and two dogs.

    I believe that I am a real entity and the people around me are real entities and are not simply figments of my own, or some other creatures imagination.

    I choose to believe in the study results that show drinking a glass of red wine a day is good for your health. I also believe they will do tests that show that doing so is bad for your health. I also believe that I won’t really give a shit.

    I believe a few other things, and I have a whole bunch suspicions.

    I believe that it is currently April 8th, 2007 in my time zone according to the Gregorian calendar (which I do have some issues with).

    One thing I definitely do not believe in, is Easter.

  • feeling sad

    My father called today.

    My grandfather is not doing well.  Yesterday he complained of having no strength. He had to be in a wheelchair all day because he could not get around with his walker. He was too tired to take a shower (he usually sits on a chair and my aunt helps him) last night, so they waited until morning. This morning he was completely unable to help my aunt with the shower, she had to do everything. After she got him out, he passed out for 2 minutes. Afterward he couldn’t move his legs. They took him to the hospital and the hospital drew blood (saw nothing) and did a CT scan. The CT showed swelling of his brain. For some fucking reason which has my grandmother and aunt extremely upset, they sent him home instead of admitting him to the hospital.

    When getting him ready for bed, he couldn’t even move his arms enough to get them into his pajama top, my aunt had to do everything for him. He could not tell her who the president was. When she asked if he knew who she was, he said “My girlfriend.” She doesn’t know if he knew who she was and was completely joking, he didn’t know who she was and made a conscious joke to cover for it, or if he was really that confused. I am guessing the second, personally.

    In the morning they will see how he is doing, if he is significantly worse they will go to the hospital again. If he is the same they will take him to the nursing home. If he cannot move around at all on his own, they need him where there are more people to care for him and where there are nurses around. Luckily it is close to their house and an easy visit.

    I am not sure yet whether or not I am going. My father hasn’t figured out yet whether he is going. They live inconveniently far. It is a 4-5 hour drive from a major airport. It is a long drive for either of us from our homes. I am frustrated that they sent him home, that smacks of giving up.

    My biggest fear is they will put him in the home and two years later his body will still be technically alive, but he won’t have control of it, and his mind will be completely gone.

    I am probably not going to be very available the next few days, I need to get a bunch of work done so that I can leave if I need to. Or I might be around a lot to distract myself. I am not sure. Hopefully I will be working.

    I was the first grandchild by far. The first grandchild to the oldest child on both sides. I was 13 before I had a cousin. I had completely different grandparents than my cousins did. My grandparents were young and active and did a lot of stuff with me. My paternal grandfather took me fishing. He took me shooting. He took me camping. I have a lot of good memories of him. I am not as close to him as I am to my paternal grandmother, but to an extent their relationship with each other is what makes me the saddest. Watching both of them watch as their partner over all these many decades slowly succumbs to old age and poor health is sad.

  • What else goes well with tequila?

    Lime Tree Under Attack
    My lime tree is under attack. I go out regularly to check for new suckers and pull them off and dispose of them. Nomally disposal consists of putting them in a Ziploc bag and throwing them away. Today I accidentally squished one while trying to deal with it. The insides were a disturbing shade of yellow. Just call me Lady Macbeth.

    I used to be a very big fan of limes, and I enjoyed using the ones off my little tree last year. This year I am far less amused.

  • Cooking, Singing and Making the Dogs Howl

    Last night I spent a bit of time trying out Cooking Mama – Cook Off on the Wii. I loved the DS version and was really looking forward to playing it on the Wii.

    As usual, we rented from Gamefly. Their “keep it” feature is very convenient. Their used prices are reasonable, so it works out very well. We spend a lot less money on video games overall, even considering the rental fees. We get to try more games and we only buy ones we actually like.

    I like games that I can spend whatever amount of time I have available playing, and then I can leave and do something else. Needing to play another hour to get to the next save point, or leave a game on pause hoping that the cat didn’t screw something up is not to my taste. I like the quirky games. I like the thinking outside the video game box games. I like them in theory even when I don’t like them in play. I want to support them so that some other developer can interest a publisher in some offbeat, not a sure thing that I absolutely will love.

    I still like this game, but I don’t like it as much as the DS version, so far. Most of this is do to my own SPAZ FACTOR. Hand eye coordination is not one of my strong points. This game, like Trauma Center is simply easier for me to cope with in small gestures with the stylus on the touch screen that waving my hand around. Maybe I am too lazy for the Wii? Anyhow, after approximately 45 seconds of Cook Off, I was feeling like, in my hands, it was mainly a recipe for carpal tunnel syndrome. That is certainly not going to stop us from buying it (we already did) and I am still going to play it. However if I stop posting, perhaps it will be because I can no longer type due to a Wii injury.

    Along with the new recipes and new interface, you can now play against other people. After approximately 45 seconds of competitive Cook Off against the husband I wanted to smack him over the head with the remote. I refrained. Barely.

    Next I spent some time checking out Karaoke Revolution Country. I have not made a firm decision yet, but I think this might well have the distinction of being the first KR title that I do not purchase.

    I started out using a new microphone purchased by a friend after one of her kids broke ours while they were borrowing it. My first song choice was The Gambler, because it is a one note (easiest level) song I know it and it is typically easier to cope if you have some familiarity with the words and melody. I totally sucked and attempting to hit the green was making my throat hurt like hell. I can often sing male vocalist rock songs just fine in the game, but looking back, I’ve had trouble with country before, the few times country showed up on the other games. Now KR is not about singing well, it is about using your voice as the controller. I do not have particularly good vocal range and with the lower male voices I don’t tend to do well. I can’t sing high enough to hit the correct pitch in higher octave and I can’t sing low enough without straining my voice. Either direction I go, it is completely painful for myself, and everybody withing earshot. It makes the dogs angry too.

    Next I tried Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Cowboys. I also know the words to this, although I wish to insert “Chipmunks” after Cowboys and make other alterations as well, thanks to Alvin, Simon, Theodore and Dave. Same problem as before, except much much worse.

    I switched to a two note song that was at least by a female vocalist. 9 to 5. That went better. However at this point my voice was completely raspy. For my final song attempt I went with How Do I Live which is a three note song, but again, at least by a female vocalist. That was also okay, but I was exhausted and not have any fun at all.

    I also tried the mini-games. This is the first KR with mini-games. I sucked at them in ways that are difficult to describe.

    In those 4 songs, I opened up some new outfits and other random crap, but no extra songs. Looking through the songs that are visible, there just are not very many I have any familiarity with. I have not decided for certain not to buy it. I’ll let the kid mess with it first. She is much better at her vocal control than I am, but she is going to have even less knowledge of what the songs are.

    We’ll decide by Monday whether or not to send it back, unless the dogs have done themselves a favor and eaten the disc.

  • I am not a social caterpillar.

    I keep trying to write something about my weekend, but I am still too tired to manage. It kept trying to turn into some large thing about introversion, which wasn’t what I actually wanted to say about the weekend.

    I am antisocial. I am an introvert. These two things are not the same. I have always been an introvert and have no reason at all to expect this to change. There have been studies which show differing brain activities between introverts and extroverts. This lends credence to the fact I was simply born this way, and will continue to be this way, short of a serious head trauma.

    Main Entry: an·ti·so·cial
    Function: adjective
    Date: 1797
    1 : averse to the society of others : UNSOCIABLE
    2 : hostile or harmful to organized society; especially : being or marked by behavior deviating sharply from the social norm

    Main Entry: un·so·cia·ble
    Function: adjective
    Date: 1600
    1 : having or showing a disinclination for social activity : SOLITARY, RESERVED

    Main Entry: dis·in·cli·na·tion
    Function: noun
    Date: 1647
    : a preference for avoiding something : slight aversion

    Today I will just look at antisocial in the first definition provided by Merriam-Webster. I am not always unsociable. This is a learned behavior, and is affected by my moods. There have been times in my life when I was not antisocial, there are times when I am less and more social. Being social always drains my energy reserves and I always need time to recuperate. However sometimes I am much more open to that, and sometimes I am even less enamored of social interaction than I am right now. I know many introverts who are much more social than I am, either by choice or simple function of their chosen career or significant other.

    There are many factors that play into my general antisocial nature, but probably the biggest one is that I just don’t tend to like people. Liking somebody is a big deal to me. This is not the same as hating everybody. I am not sitting here feeling intense hatred for everybody I do not actively like. I do not have enough energy to be bothered with that. Most people fall into the vast sea of indifference. If forced to look directly at them I might briefly feel something else toward them, but it is of little consequence.

    Admittedly this likely has ties in to my introversion. I have a friend who is an extrovert. Her assessment of people, if we speak specifically about them, is very similar to mine. She dislikes the same sort of behaviors and is very easily annoyed or disgusted by things. However her overall view of people, while not actually more optimistic than mine, is warmer than mine. I am convinced that this is because being around all those people, who are essentially in her sea of indifference, still gives her an energy boost.

    I know another extrovert who is so much an extrovert I actually believe it is pathological. It is basically impossible for him to not like somebody, no matter how much of a real and true complete asshole they are, because he simply gets such a big ass high from being around people. Literally the more the merrier for him. So much so, that he drives away people that are supposedly closer to him because he invites anybody he can think of to anything, even people that ones close to him have real reasons for disliking. He can sit through a party and do nothing but have a fight with somebody, and he is having fun. It is almost impossible for him to grasp that maybe the person he is fighting with is not enjoying it just as much. He feels like all human interaction is good. This is not a conceptual thing, it is real and physical for him.

    Since being around people drains me, I prefer to do it, either for work, or with people I really like, and I don’t seek out a lot of interaction with the masses. I know introverts who like a lot more people than I do, it is not solely a symptom of introversion, not at all. I also happen to have a very long and detailed memory. I don’t make an effort to hold a grudge, I just can’t help it. I still feel exactly how I felt when whatever happened, happened. I can hear the sounds. I can smell the smells. I probably know exactly what I was wearing. Plus the older I get the less tolerance I have.

    Now I find myself tempted into launching into something about friends, but I am way too tired for that as well. I also happen to be antisocial according the the second definition provided by Merriam-Webster, but that is also a post for another day. Today I am just going to stick with this.

  • Two Out of Three Ain’t Good

    Tonight we went to go see Speed the Plow. When I saw that it was part of the 2007 season I was excited. I really enjoy Mamet and the first reviews of the show were solid. I wanted to go see it, but it was running for 3 months and I was busy and picking the night that I would have enough time to see it seemed like too much work. Then on Tuesday I realized that it was closing this weekend. That was it. I was out of time, and we have people in town this weekend that would not want to go see it with us. That left us with only a couple of days left. I got tickets for tonight, even though we were so busy it was difficult to imagine going.

    I really like both of the men cast in the play (Greg Germann and Jon Tenney). Alicia Silverstone is also in it, and even though I did not instinctively think she’d be a great stage actress, most of the reviews said that she was the reason to see it. That she really did a good job and was the best performance in the cast.

    We arrived and rapidly discovered that out of the huge cast of three, two of the roles were being played by understudies. I was so disappointed. Plus in this day and age, they could really be updating the website on a daily basis with casting changes. I bought the tickets the day of the show. I was at the site. I could have seen and made a choice about whether I still wanted to go. In general I don’t mind seeing understudies. I often times find they are wonderful and talented and throwing themselves even more into the part because they are getting a big break when the regular can’t be on stage. Still, in such a small cast… Especially considering that the cast was part of the reasons I was looking forward to it. The man who took Jon Tenney’s place to a large extent seemed to be doing a Tenney impression, and doing it well. The woman… Well, frankly I just did not enjoy her at all. She was not *anything* enough. Now admittedly Mamet does not always write his female characters quite as well as I would like, but this was not about the dialog. I also don’t know what the director asked for, so to blame it all on the actress would not be fair. However, if she is playing a part that is getting mentioned in the reviews as the key performance from another actress, it makes me suspect that the something that went wrong here could not be squarely blamed on the direction.

    The character is rather pivotal, so that was definitely a let down. I did enjoy the play though. Greg Germann and Rob Kahn were both quite watchable.

    The seats were angled somewhat uncomfortably, and just completely wrong for the kid’s back. She was in pain throughout the show. I was cold, but when I leaned over to whisper that to the husband, he thought I said I was bored, so it didn’t occur to him to offer me his jacket. During the intermission I saw he had a jacket and borrowed it, but I only got to use it for a few minutes before we put it behind kfz to try to provide more support to her lower back.

    This was my first time seeing Speed the Plow, but I know Mamet, so we did discuss whether or not to bring kfz along, but we decided that taking her with us to see something by a playwright that I really like had enough value. As expected ,it was full of vast amounts of swearing and people hanging out somewhere between morally questionable and full on reprehensible. It will give us something to talk about tomorrow.

    We went out for dinner after the show, and the husband was putting his leftovers in a togo box as the waitress brought him a refill of iced tea. She suddenly grabbed her eye and went rapidly away from the table, with his iced tea still in hand. It turned out he had managed to splash spicy mustard directly into her eye. That hasn’t happened to us before.  Seems worth a few points.

    The rest of the day was busy and exhausting. I am amazed I could even stay away through the show. We had fourth row seats, so loud snoring probably would have been quite distracting to the actors. Now I just want to go to bed, but I still need to take care of some things. I am just going to power through the bare minimum.

  • Long haired cats = Eew

    That is all. Nobody wants the details. I wish I didn’t have the details.

    ick

  • And For My Next Trick… I shall place my head inside the mouth of this vicious creature.


    And For My Next Trick…
    Originally uploaded by mstori.

    Our friend got a new dog, a 7 month old Border Collie named Apache. He brought her over to meet the humans on Sunday night. Willow decided to come check her out too. We did not let her meet Indy or London yet as we didn’t think she was ready for that crew.

    She is very sweet.

    She peed on our floor… but, really, who doesn’t?

    Photo amused me, so here it is.

  • In Case Anybody is Keeping Track – Because Targus isn’t

    By 10 AM there was no new tracking information from Targus in my email box, nor by access my order on their website. DHL still had it marked with an expected delivery date in the past. I called and waited on hold again to speak to somebody with an even stronger accent than the first day.

    He put me on hold for a long long time. Then he came back and told me a replacement had been shipped by UPS. I ask him for the tracking number. He gives it to me. This proves very painful due to the strong accent. B?V?C?T?D? I am not sure, and “?, as in ” doesn’t work very well when I can’t understand the word either. We finally arrive at a number that he tells me is correct when I read it back to him and THEN he tells me, “When I look at UPS for tracking, it shows nothing. It was sent UPS.” Just for kicks I try too, but the number provides no information.

    I ask for clarification that it shipped yesterday and is supposed to arrive today and he says that is the case.

    It just showed up, by UPS. Definitely not next morning delivery, but I will take it.

    We really didn’t get very close on the tracking number.

    Hopefully the part will work.