I'll Never Understand and/or Things I Find Appalling

This will be a list with narrative. I will add to it as appalling things come into my life.

Air fresheners in bathrooms that smell like food. Apple cinnamon, fresh baked cookies, vanilla bean to name a few.

Findings unused toilet paper in bathroom stalls. PICK IT UP if you dropped it!

The person last in the toilet stall did not make sure their "stuff" did not go down. Pay attention to your "stuff." Nobody wants to see someone else's "stuff."

When people block grocery isles to talk to their friends they run into. OMG! How ARE you? How old are your kids now? OMG!

People who come to work but don't work. What is that about. Can anyone explain this to me?        

Don't even get me started on Smart Phone users.

And Now We Are 60

Granny Goes To Pot

Here is an email I sent to my much younger brother and his wife. I've not edited it at all to keep it real.

 (Spring-ish 2014)

Dear kids (d&d),

At 5:30 this morning while drinking my tea and watching the news, for no reason I started doing my adrenaline rush feeling I would pass out thing.  Still going on at 8:30 I called the dr who told me to go to the er, take an ambulance or call your husband at work and have him drive you. This will be a waste of time, I thought...but i got in the car and drove myself there. They decided I am having panic attacks.  So after leaving the er, I came home, ate lunch, put on my hippie scarf and earrings, and with my brand new medical pot papers drove down Broadway (pot shopping Mecca of Denver), and purchased my first legal pot and pot edibles. Then, I drove to the head shop I had passed and bought a lovely little water pipe (silvery white with a touch of blue swirling) because mj is very irritating to my delicate lungs. I almost bought a long, flowing hippie shirt to wear while smoking my mj (for ambience), but decided not to get one unless I become an actual pot head, like everyone else in there. This is what happens to normal people when drs take ones Xanax away.  The pot shop was a very strange experience. I was the only customer. I pushed a door bell in the foyer by a little window with bars and a man opened the little window door (much like on the wizard of Oz). Then they checked my papers and id, much like customs I assume. After being cleared, he pushed a buzzer and let me in (this was a medicinal dispensary only). But Kyle my mj technician was very helpful and gave me two free joints ( good customer service. I like that in my dispensaries).  That's how it's done. 

Sent from my iPad

I title this: Granny Goes Pot Shopping

Does it work? If I take it before bed (5-10 mg-I'm a lightweight) and wake up in the night, I go right back to sleep without a panic attack. However, I have pot hangover the next day. Smoking it, even with a water pipe, burns my lungs so much I start to have a panic attack and think I need yet another ambulance. Also, eating a gummy bear makes me feel like I'm having one of my bad brain fog days, which I hate, so I don't care to reproduce it on purpose with cannabis. It's not everything I dreamed it would be and speaking of dreaming, it produces some pretty funky, strange dreams. Just what I need, more of those!

If It's Not One Thing, It's Another, and Another and Another

The other day at the doctor's office, when the MA was walking me down the hall to the examining room, I swear I heard a nurse call out, "Hypochondriac walking!" 

And Now We Are 60

Thou shalt not give up! Not the aching arthritic joints, the thinning hair, the loss of items put down just seconds ago, the fading hearing in an ear or two, and the war against wrinkles shall stop this woman from fighting aging hand, tooth and brittle nails, the ravages of time.

It's been awhile since I've attempted this blog but having recently been forced into early retirement at 60 due to job-related stress, the keyboard comes back out. Even if no one reads this oft pitiful blog, I am writing for me as a creative outlet, a diary, and perhaps, a way to keep my aging brain from turning into a mushy mass similar to English porridge.

Since my last writing, I have had a diseased joint taken out of the base of my left thumb (pic below), which wasn't bad really. However, new panic attacks are preventing any more surgeries say, for my right thumb, or any other wayward, rebelling  body part attempting to cross over into the next world before the rest of me.

Red light wrinkle therapy! The latest in the snake oil salesman arsenal against aging. This was just too good a concept to pass up. There are "before" close-up photos, but they are much too disturbing to post and I will only post them against the "after" photos if, and only IF, it works. Rather than buy one of the fancy $100 dollar and up handheld devices, I bought a plant light with the same wavelength light bands and a $6.00 desk lamp.  Hopefully I'll see results before I'm 61.

This was taken in 2012. Note the dress. Time to retire that one. Goodbye old favorite dress.

 

A Pain in the Neck

Although walking upright has been quite an accomplishment for us humans, it has not come without it's own set of difficulties.  Are you a bit shorter than you were at say, 30?  Do you have a pain in the neck besides your husband, wife, or kids?  If so, you may have disk compression.  In my 40s I developed my pain in the neck.  I had this boyfriend who would put his somewhat hairy "paw" on the back of my neck and lead me around like a trained chimp.  He'd "steer" me around corners, to known destinations straight ahead, through isles at the grocery store, etc.  My neck began to hurt whenever he'd drive out to seem me (he lived about 900 miles away), but my doctor diagnosed it as minor disk compression (non-boyfriend induced).  So was it coincidence that the pain went away when I sent him on his way, permanently?  The pain did eventually return, even though I am now married to a husband who does not use me as a navigating device.  Because of the intensity of the pain in my neck, a physical therapist set me up with a "device" which separates my disks for a short time and relieves pressure on the nerve that hurts and causes a pulling sensation down my arm.  I LOVE it.  Love, love, love it.  My own little torture device that helps me to continue to walk upright.

  Insert head, tighten clamp on base of skull, and pump!

Annoying Things Said At Work

I am closing in on age 58 more quickly than I ever imagined and, as mentioned in my earlier blog entitled "Bored," there are things I am tired of.  When I was 15 I got my first "real" job that wasn't babysitting and have been working ever since.  For the past 43 years I have listened to coworkers and yes, myself, say the same things over and over and over about our jobs to include:  getting there, work in general, and the week.  Here are a few that now annoy me.  "It's Friday!"  Yes, it happens every week.  "It's snowing!"  Yes, it happens every winter.  "It's raining!"  Yes, weather happens everyday, now go away.  "How was your weekend?"  Fine, how was yours?  "I don't want to be here today (groaning)." "Really? And the rest of us do?  If you did, something would be wrong with you.  Then there are the "yetties."  "Is it over yet?" "Is it Friday yet?" "Can I go home yet?"  Don't forget the magical thinkers, "When I win the lottery...."  There are the rationalizers..."It pays the bills," "Thank God we have jobs"...and the whiners..."Do we HAVE to be here?"  "I want to go home."  "I had a hard time getting out of bed this morning."  Not me.  I got up 2 hours early, picked up a lottery ticket, mailed the bills, drove through an hour of rain which turned to snow, to finish what I haven't finished yet, on Friday, all the while thanking God or whoever in the universe might be listening for the opportunity to be at work today because there is NO place I'd rather be than here, EVER!