So Where the Hell Have You Been?

There, now you don’t have to ask me that question. I appear to have stopped blogging for over a year (because unfinished unpublished posts in the drafts section don’t count) and boy do I ever have a years worth of excuses!  Want to hear them all?  No, I didn’t think so.

I’ve been right here this whole time, taking a long break from listening to myself, making actual real useful stuff with my hands instead of my head, and resting my brain.

I have made hats and mats and blankets and slippers and shawls.  Dolls and bears and zebras and giraffes.  I’ve made so much stuff it’s getting harder all the time to find anyone willing to take my latest greatest project home with them.  But I’m not finished and will keep going for as long as I’m able and for as long as Michaels has yarn sales.  I had forgotten how much I love to crochet, just like I’ve forgotten for a bit how much I love to write.

The memories that pop up on Facebook for me are getting downright scary.  Nine years ago my two oldest grandkids were nine years old.  Now they’re eighteen;  and the fifteen, fourteen and thirteen year olds are right behind them, with a grandma getting progressively more ancient by the minute.

Time for me to tell more stories while I can still remember things.  Maybe these beautiful young people I’m so happy to have in my life will one day have questions I’m not around to answer.  I mean seriously, look how fast one year, never mind nine years, whizzes right on by.  Maybe I have another nine in me, but you never know.

My grandma started saying “Well, this could be my last Christmas!” when she was in her seventies, and kept it up for almost 30 years.  I’d like to be that lucky.  Plus, the older I get, the greater the possibility of uttering totally bizarre shit that will make my descendants laugh and roll their eyes and wonder if that’s how they’re going to end up.  I like that feeling of power.

 

 

Ten Reasons Why Going Out For Coffee Tonight is Stupid

Coffee and Doughnut (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

1.  It’s dark outside.

2.  The roads are slippery.

3.  Coffee contains caffeine.

4.  I got off work at 5:00.  The coffee place is across from work.  It will be like driving back to WORK.  Gawd.

5.  Of the six people supposedly going, only one that I know of actually WANTS to be there.  That would be the inviter.  There appears to be a contest going on amongst the invitees to see who can come up with the best excuse to skip out.

6.  I NEVER win this kind of contest.

7.  There might be something good on tv.

8.  We could all end up with speeding tickets in our mad rush to get the hell back home.

9.  The Starbucks people will probably get seriously grouchy about having to brew a fresh pot of coffee at this bizarre time of day.

10.  W will ask me why I’m doing something I don’t want to do, and I will shrug and roll my eyes and not be able to come up with a sane answer.  I hate it when that happens.

What W actually wanted to know in this case was whether or not this person could make my life any more miserable than she already has if I don’t show up tonight.  Well I guess I’m about to find out, because I’m not going.

If you never hear from me again, it will not be because I drank a bad cup of coffee after 8:00 p.m.  So cross that one off your list of clues.

Get a Flu Shot and Cheer the Hell Up

Production of influenza vaccine (Photo credit: Sanofi Pasteur)

Yesterday W and I got flu shots, like we have been doing for the past several years.  The year I missed getting one I ended up with pneumonia, so now I’m a dedicated believer in them.  I’m in close contact at work with lots of people and breathing the same air, touching the same objects, wondering when the last time was they washed their hands, and why they can’t make themselves stay at home when they’re sick.

The influenza vaccine gives me some protection and makes me better able to fight off infections, and less likely to pass them on to other people.  I don’t really care if it’s all in my head, I believe they work.

Normally I don’t have any adverse reaction to the shot, but yesterday, OMG, the stupid needle hurt.  I gave the nurse the evil eye but she was not phased by it.  Maybe she enjoys her role of inflicting pain.  Or maybe she’s just not that good with needles.  Later in the day I could still feel the pain, although there was no redness or swelling, no matter how many times I checked.

I read over the information sheet she gave me, in particular the possible side effects section, and (no surprise for this paranoid hypochondriac personality type) realized I had every one of them.  Headache, muscle aches and pains, tiredness and irritability – the flu shot is a terrific excuse for all those things.  I should get them more often.  The fever and chills may have been caused by myself and W in our ongoing war of the thermostat.  He turns it up, I turn it down.  Somebody bakes, somebody freezes.  Temperature incompatibility helps to alleviate a lot of marital boredom.

And MAYBE the extremely stiff-neck pain I had later in the day was the result of reading my kindle for hours at a stretch, so involved in the story that it made my muscles tense up and my head hurt.  But of course today at work I won’t mention any of that, because this is my day to be out of sorts for a good reason.  Usually I don’t have one that’s even remotely believable.  So already the flu shot has made me feel better about myself and my moods.

There should be a section on their vaccine information paper about how long one can reasonably complain about the shot and how to fake a few of the anaphylaxis symptoms to garner sympathy without truly alarming anyone.  And how to recognize customers who have severely weakened immune systems so that you know who you can’t possibly offer to help because you might kill them.  I think two weeks of staying away from them sounds plausible.  Maybe I’ll call up Alberta Health Services and offer to write that up for them.  Lots more people would get the shot if I did.