The Agnony of Aging

What follows is the IM log from me and CBF as she throws out her back during our chat:

Me: We're getting cable back!!! Along with DVR!!!!!!!

Crazy Best Friend :( 2:22 PM): DH-- you can DVR all of the HGTV kitchen reno shows and we can discuss. Gee, that sounds like such fun, doesn't it.

Crazy Best Friend:(2:25 PM): Those fug girls just slay me. Comparing a floral print dress to the cans in Sleeping with the Enemy? Genius.

Me: (2:26 PM): i haven't had time to read them

Me: (2:26 PM): my blog time has been seriously cut with my new deadline, deadline

Crazy Best Friend:(2:27 PM): Following them on twitter helps. They send out notices whenever they post a new fug.

Crazy Best Friend:(2:27 PM): Damn-- what is this project you are working on?

Crazy Best Friend:(2:29 PM): Oh DH-- I just pulled something in my back.

Me: (2:37 PM): it is not a new project, my "turn around" time is going to be cut from 10 days to 7 days

Me: (2:37 PM): oh CBF, better get it looked at!

Crazy Best Friend:(2:38 PM): I think I need to have a chiropractor on retainer.

Me: (2:39 PM): that sounds great, i need my back cracked daily

Crazy Best Friend:(2:41 PM): I've never been to a chiro--- have you?

Me: (2:44 PM): oh yeah

Me: (2:44 PM): for my neck

Me: (2:45 PM): i pinched a nerve in high school

Crazy Best Friend:(3:25 PM): DH-- I can barely move-- seriously. Like I can't get up without shooting pains.

Me: (3:31 PM): take some drugs, and then call and make an appointment

Crazy Best Friend:(4:11 PM): I can't even dial my phone to ask someone to help me get up.

Me: (4:12 PM): dude, that is not good. send them an e-mail???

Crazy Best Friend:(4:12 PM): I did-- everyone is at lunch.

Me: (4:13 PM): so there is no one to dial anyway

Me: (4:13 PM): how in hell did you throw out your back while sitting?

Crazy Best Friend:(4:13 PM): You make an excellent point. If you could only see how I'm sitting-- sideways to the keyboard, partially slumped in my seat.

Crazy Best Friend:(4:13 PM): I hurt it bending down to my little dorm-room size fridge to get a diet dr pepper.

Crazy Best Friend:(4:13 PM): This is really quite sad.

Me: (4:13 PM): can you wheel yourself out? with your feet?

Crazy Best Friend:(4:14 PM): Oh God-- please don't make me laugh.

Me: (4:14 PM): dr pepper! your death CBF! (the dentist told her, after $4K in dental work, that yes, indeed soda, DIET soda will rot your teeth and jack up your insides.)

Me: (4:14 PM): sorry

Crazy Best Friend: (4:14 PM): Again, do not make me laugh-- now my hips are hurting.

Me: (4:15 PM): why when you tell someone to leave a voice mail they don't?

Me: (4:15 PM): never mind the jerk is leaving a vm, it is the 5th time he's called, i'm not joking

Crazy Best Friend:(4:16 PM): As you said earlier DH, people are stupid.

Crazy Best Friend:(4:17 PM): Oh-- there's someone down the hall in my dept-- going to email her and ask her to help me to my car

Me: (4:17 PM): are you sure you can drive?

Crazy Best Friend:(4:18 PM): I dont' know, but I'm limited in the options department. If I can get home, I think I will be ok-- I have some muscle relaxants there and a place to lie flat.

Me: (4:18 PM): i mean if you can't even dial a phone.......

Crazy Best Friend:(4:19 PM): because the phone is too far away. It's like an arm length and a half from me.

Me: (4:19 PM): ah, gotcha. please be careful CBF

Crazy Best Friend:(4:19 PM): This is such an I've fallen and I can't get up moment.

Crazy Best Friend:(4:20 PM): damn, person down the hall is apparently not in her office.

Me: (4:21 PM): hell!

At 4:30 I received this slow spoken distressed voice mail: "OMG DH, I made it to my car but I have really miscalculated getting out of my car and getting up the stairs to my apartment. Hopefully there will be someone there to help me up the stairs. Because you know people are so helpful and neighborly. Also I noticed that one of my tires is low. But I don't think I'll be stopping off at the gas station and getting air at this point. OH LORDY how could I have managed to get myself in this clusterfuck?! Also I hope I don't have to turn around and look over my left shoulder for any reason at all. Byyyyeee."


I called her back 20mins later. She was lying on her couch with her phone in her bra for easy access. I tried so hard not to giggle and laugh as she told me about the screaming as she exited her Land Rover, or the "oh god!" with each stair of 15 it took to get to her apartment, or how she can't drink anything because she can't bend in order to sit on the toilet and pee. "This is the road map of aging DH. (she is 7 yrs older than me) I am your future. This is what you have to look forward to with getting older. STOP MAKING ME LAUGH! ( i couldn't stop giggling) I pulled a muscle a few weeks ago while shaving my legs. Oh god. I may have to call someone tomorrow to help me get up!!!"

Me: “Why haven't you taken that muscle relaxer yet? That would have been the first thing I did when I got home?"

CBF: "Because I'm talking to YOU!"

Me: "Oh, well I'll hang up now then."

CBF: "Thank you for being so supportive and non-judgmental in my time of need."

Me: "Always CBF, ALWAYS." *giggle*


Hurting your back is not funny, that's not why I couldn't stop laughing. Hurting your back while getting a Diet Soda?? Now that IS funny, especially when you have a flare for the dramatic like CBF does. EVERYTHING becomes a GREAT TALE of HUMANITY!!!
She slays me.

A Dinner of Text

Text Message from F: "If I don't go do my hobby I will make an awesome dinner recipe from PW.com and co-worker."

By PW.com F means Pioneer Woman. I have printed MANY a recipes from her site and I'm constantly telling him about it. We also made this sandwich for my family once and F was HOOKED on PW's cooking.
When I got home he proceeded to tell me how great the dish that "Pastor Ryan made" looked when his co-worker had the leftovers for lunch. It cracked me up that he knew who Pastor Ryan was. Needless to say, he DID NOT make dinner that night, but promises he'll make it soon because he's gone out and bought all the ingredients for it.
I did not know however that he actually goes out and READS her blog every now again. We even discussed the fact that she went to BlogHer and spoke. I of course had to explain what BlogHer was, F has only just gotten his toes wet where reading Blogs is concerned.

Which were THIS Blog is concerned, is a good thing.

Face Plant

I was out shopping on my lunch hour using a Birthday related coupon to fill out the summer wardrobe, when I saw someone take a header. I was on my way back to the office and was stopped at a very busy intersection. I looked up to see an Asian woman crossing the street. She looked to be in her mid to late 50's. Her hair was sloppy and she had on all black with the exceptions of the bright red flames(or so the patterned appeared to be) crawling up her black stockings that were born out of her bright red "exercise" sneakers. (do these things really work?)

She scurried across the cross walk and up onto the sidewalk where she paused and began to move again. That's when she tripped or out walked right out of her shoes because the next thing I saw was her falling face first onto the sidewalk. Her arms didn't go out, in fact I think her forehead took the majority of the impact. Her legs went out and up behind her with such force that her skirt flew up and I saw the black lace of her satin bloomers. Her one shoe tumbled off the curb and back into the street.

I covered my mouth in horror. *ooooooooh!*

The light changed.
As I inched forward I looked over to see her sitting on the sidewalk, rubbing her head and checking for blood.

I drove away wondering if she was going to be ok.

That was a damn nasty header.

Isane to Get This??

Have any of you seen this new workout infomerical? I've heard of Jillian's 30 Day Shred. And when I Googled it, I got all kinds of hits about people Blogging their way through it with Jillian. But over the weekend I watched a new infomerical about INSANITY. Where they were all about showing how much these people sweated. Zoomed in on the puddle of sweat on the floor under one person. And the voice over is pretty hilarious because it is all 'no bullshit! if you can't commit, don't bother trying!' Which of course made me want to try it out. And as opposed to 30 days, it is 60 days. With several CD's, a calendar poster telling you which workout to do on which day, (way cool, who couldn't use that kind of help?) and a chart to chart your progress from day 1 to day 60, and a FREE T-Shirt if you send in your before and after photos! This is definitely aimed at people who already are workoutaholics. Those people who spend hours in the gym anyway and just can't seem to lose or tone that last little bit.
As I sat there and watched the hottie Shaun T "push, dig deep!" I wondered if I could commit to 60 days of working out. Many people who try the 30 day shred never finish it in 30 days. But I REALLY wanted to try. What held me back? The price. "Just 3 EASY payments of $39.95!!" The math? Rounded up, $120 bucks, and that didn't include Shipping & Handling.
I already have a lovely, dusty collection of workout videos sitting in the basement under the TV I bought specifically for working out in the basement. Yeah. But as my b-day creeps closer, I can't help but not want to be, flab. We haven't been to the gym in AGES, and boy howdy, I can tell.
Do they have a video out there that can cure lazy?????

GAG!

The LAST thing I want to hear is a co-worker pooping.

Especially when I know they don't wash their hands.


GAG.

Bizzaro World Visit

I told you all that F and I were heading back East for a visit. And usually I have several stories to share with you about how crazy my outlaws are, but this time. Well THIS time, it was, well, NORMAL. There were no fights, no yelling matches, no cutting comments, and no cold shoulders. I felt like Eileen in the Bizzaro Seinfeld episode.
FIL called me by my name and said PLEASE when he asked me to do something.
SIL complained only once to F about us not visiting with them when we come out to the East Coast, and that only lasted until F put her in her place about not coming to visit him AT ALL except for the wedding (he’s lived in the Midwest for 4 years now and before that he lived in another state on the east coast for 6 years and they never visited him then either.).

There are 3 moments that stand out in my memory about this visit.

1) While attending a funeral at which F was a pallbearer, I ended up sitting with, FIL, MIL and BIL. During the funeral Mass BIL’s cell phone began to vibrate. I was HORRIFIED when he ANSWERED it. I had to restrain myself from jabbing him but GOOD in the ribs when MIL and FIL told him to put the phone away. I never shared this with F because the deceased was a close personal friend’s parent and F would have blown a gasket if he’d known of his Brother’s behavior. It would not have been pretty.
2) Remember SIL telling me 2 days before our wedding that she planned on divorcing BIL within the next 2 years?(she also shared this bit of info AT our wedding with the fiancée of our best man) and BIL telling me he was leaving her within the next year, again, AT our reception??? Well apparently things have changed, because now? Now they plan on RENEWING THEIR VOWS. This involves SIL getting baptized and all sorts of long involved things. And they are not just going to renew their vows, oh lawies no, she wants the whole WHITE WEDDING with cake and invites, the whole 9 yards. I guess to make up for the court house ceremony they had before where no one was invited.
3) MIL and I had a battle of wills, over food. The minute you step through the door at that house, you are offered food. Which is all fine and good, although I do wish they’d let at least let me pee first, but whatever. I had JUST rolled out of bed after an afternoon nap when immediately MIL wants to know if I’m hungry. I made the mistake of saying Yes. For the next 30mins she named off things she had, then started pulling stuff out of the freezer and proceeded to start to make it. I kept telling her, that, yes I was hungry, but at this point in time I didn’t know what, if anything, I wanted to eat; please stop asking me. Finally, I had to leave the room to escape the barrage of food and questions. After 10mins of silence, MIL summons me back into the kitchen. F and I rolled our eyes at each other. He felt my frustration. As I walked into the kitchen you could cut the tension with a knife. I thought for sure I was about to get my ass reamed.
“DH, you are like my daughter now. You must feel comfortable in this home, what is here is yours. Now tell me, what do you want to eat???”
“That is fine, I understand that. But then as your Daughter I’m telling you, PLEASE STOP trying to force me to EAT!!! Ok???”
It was a tense few moments while this conversation took place. But then she laughed, said OK, and I went back to watching TV with F. If she said anything to him later, I do not know. I did not end up eating anything until much later that night while we were out with friends.
I was forbidden from telling MIL this so that her feelings would not be hurt that she was not the one to feed me.
When we got home and I started unpacking the cooler I found all kinds of food in there from MIL.
Guess she won after all.

Who Thinks About This Stuff?

4 charged after bodies dug up at Ill. cemetery
Hundreds of graves disturbed at final resting site for many famous blacks



As many as 300 graves were tampered with, Dart said. Some of the graves were dug up and the bodies dumped elsewhere, including in an open area at the back of the 150-acre property, and the plots were resold. In other cases the graves were "pounded down" and another person was buried on top, Dart said.
Cemetery records were destroyed and plot deeds were altered, officials said.
Dart said Towns, the cemetery office manager, was the alleged ringleader of the scam. "She was the one taking the payments, she was the one directing individuals to dig," he said.
"Having prosecuted many, many violent cases throughout my career in the state’s attorney's office, I must say that this crime, it’s a whole new dimension that shows us what lengths that people would go through for financial gain," State's Attorney Anita Alvarez added.
Famous namesThe sheriff's investigation began six weeks ago when the cemetery's owner reported that an employee who began feeling guilty revealed what allegedly had been going on, possibly for as long as four years, Dart said. "All of us who were working on this for the last week were pretty distraught," Dart said. "You start with the premise of your own loved ones and how they are cared for after they are buried, but there is also a true significance to this particular cemetery."
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who joined officials at a news conference announcing the arrests, said that he's been besieged by phone calls from worried relatives of those buried at the cemetery. "There should be a special place in hell" for the perpetrators, he said.
AP
Emmett Louis Till, a 14-year-old from Chicago whose weighted body was found in the Tallahatchie River in Mississippi in 1955, is among the people who were buried at the cemetery.
Chicago native Emmett Till, whose 1955 lynching at age 14 added impetus to the civil-rights movement, is buried at Burr Oak. It's also the final resting place of singers Dinah Washington, Willie Dixon, and Otis Spann, as well as former world heavyweight boxing champion Ezzard Charles, Harlem Globetrotter Inman Jackson, and several Negro League baseball players.
"For many years, this was the only cemetery where African Americans could be buried," said Spencer Leak Sr., president of Leak and Sons Funeral Home, noting that Burr Oak once was owned by Ebony Magazine publisher John Johnson.
Dart said the scheme appears to have targeted older, unmarked graves that had not been visited in a long time. There was no indication the more famous sites were disturbed.
Frantic searchUpon hearing the news, hundreds of people went to the cemetery Thursday looking for their loved ones' graves; many couldn't find them. A couple told WMAQ-TV that they found headstones that apparently had been recently tampered with, and they were not sure who was underneath the headstones.
The sheriff said it will take a while to sort out the mess and urged people with relatives or friends buried in the cemetery to be patient. "We're not necessarily talking weeks, we're talking months," Dart said.
Perpetua Holdings of Illinois Inc., a subsidiary of a Tucson, Ariz.-based funeral home and cemetery development company, has owned the cemetery since 2001. A message seeking comment was not immediately returned.
The Cemetery Care and Burial Trust Department, a division of the Illinois Comptroller's office, has said it has received complaints in recent years about poor upkeep at Burr Oak, including sunken or tilting gravestones, unmanageable roads, drainage problems and weeds.

People are just freaking sick, why would you do this??? They need to be beat.

Captain Spanx

Remember the battle of bulge vs Spanx that I had at SES's wedding? Well that battle was fought again while we were Back East.

It was HOT. The humidity was high. (do we notice a pattern here?) and MIL and FIL do not believe in the advent of A/C. (they had one window a/c unit that they ran while the windows were open.) I was confined into a very small room with one high velocity floor fan. Once again I did the yank and tug dance as F stood by waiting. I had asked him to be on standby when those last few crucial inches needed to be bridged. I'm sure his mother was wondering what was going on. The craziness of it all finally hit me and I began to giggle.
F:"This is NOT funny." he challenged.
Me: "It is. It is because it is so pathetic. Now please tug."
This time, having learned my lesson, the seams were in the proper place. The battle also took less time because I'd fought it once already.
Wriggle.
Tug.
Grunt.
Wriggle.
Squirm.
Cry.
Break down from insanity.
Thank goodness this battle won't have to be fought again until mid-
August when we have a wedding to attend.
Please, I beg, let our hotel have good a/c this time!!!!

East Coast vs Midwest

F grew up on the East Coast, while I am a life long Midwesterner, and therefore we say some things differently. The most common is Soda vs Pop, although I have turned him to the pop side for the most part.
This regional speech pattern tripped me up the other night when F called me on my way home.

F: “You almost home?”
Me: “Nope, I just left work. Why?”
F: “Can you pick up a PIE???”

I paused as my mind started to race trying to figure out why in the world F would want me to pick up a PIE?
Then it dawned on me, that by PIE he meant a PIZZA pie.
I choked back my question of, “What? Like a cherry pie???” and answered instead:

“Sure! Deep dish or regular??”

I giggled to myself the rest of the way home, knowing full well that if I had asked him if he wanted a cherry pie I would NEVER have lived it down and he most certainly would have posted it on FaceBook for the whole world to see.
So instead, I’m telling you, my digital friends, because I can’t hear you laugh at me after you read this.
Seriously though, it would have been a legitimate question!!!!

Lost.....

*LOST*
One King Sized, White, Fitted, Egyptian Cotton Sheet.


Damned if I don't know how in hell I lost a King Sized sheet between the bed and the dryer. I have lost my mind and this is driving me bat shit crazy. Not a pillow case which can easily be hidden under something else, just the extremely LARGE fitted sheet.

I have lost my mind. Which apparently is wrapped in King Sized, White, Fitted, Egyptian Cotton Sheet.

Mmmm, Tasty!!!

I was standing in an open office area talking to my friend, GA, when I felt a sharp quick pain on my neck. I swiped my hand against the area thinking my shirt or my earring was pointing me. Then GA gasped.

GA: "*GASP* OMG, DH! What IS THAT!!!!"
Me: "OW! What?"
GA: "LOOK!!! That THING was on you!!!"
Me: "OMG!!! OW! It BITE me!!!"
GA: "Is it a wasp?....... I don't think it's a wasp. ..........I'm going to kill it!"

a box is grabbed and a rather weak swat is taken at the crazy looking bug.

GA: "I don't think this is going to work! OMG! (she skips back as the bug falls to the floor.) We need to kill it!"
Me: "I'll get the spray!!"

Our office is notorious for having wasps and what-not flying about during the summer, so we have a stash of wasp killing spray in the kitchen.

I grab the spray only to find the stupid thing won't work.

Me: "It won't work!!! How are we going to kill it!?!?!?!?!"

At this point a 3rd co-worker shows up, announces she'll kill it with a wad of paper towel and proceeds to do so. GA and I thank her as she exits the area.

GA: "DH, your neck, it's red, does it hurt?"
Me:" YES! dang, it itches, I can feel the bump."
GA: "We should put ice on it, that will help."
Me: "Ok."

She makes an ice pack for me, which I apply to my neck. I head out to the bathroom to check out the damage in the mirror and come face to face with my boss and a few other co-workers who all give me puzzled looks because I have a wade of paper towel pressed to my neck.

Me: "I was bite! See????" I say as I remove the paper towel icepack.

Collective horrified *GASP*

Me: "That is NOT encouraging !!!!"

Collective shrug

The bump wasn't that big, but it hurt and itched pretty badly. One of the co-workers fished this out of the First Aid kit which I held to the bite until I could hold it no more. The bump is GONE. The PAIN is gone. Safetec Sting Relief is AMAZING!!!!!
Bless you Safetec Sting Relief, BLESS you!!!
I also took 2 Benadryl to keep a potential face swelling from occurring and now I'm so wiped out from it my legs are twitching and I'm doing all I can to stay awake. I think it has affected me even more because I keep feeling like something is on me and is biting me.
WTF???

Yes or No, How Hard Is It?

Ok, here’s something I don’t get. Remember our Tenant? The lease is up at the end of the summer, like in 2 months, right? So we ask Tenant what the plan is on their end.
Tenant: “I’m not sure what I want to do.”

F: “Well, we need to know by the end of the month. If you want to stay, that’s fine, we’re willing to redo the lease. If you want to leave, that’s fine too, no hard feelings. But we need to know so we can either rent it to someone else or put it on the market to be sold.”

Tenant: “Ok, so by the end of this month, I’ll let you know. I don’t want to leave, I know that much.”

Um, ok, what? If you don’t want to leave, then what is the hesitation? If it is a money issue, tell us. Despite all of Tenant's personality flaws, the house is well taken care of, clean, and tidy. I'd much rather stick with that, than get someone in there that trashes the house but appears to be "normal".
So dude, PLEASE decide to stay. The housing market still sucks and I would totally get screwed if we attempted to sell again, and I don't want some crazy ass in there that doesn't care for the place like you obviously do.
And stop dragging your feet already!!