Author: Sharon

Growing up in my childhood home, you got used to the TV being on. My dad worked the 3-11 shift and watched TV, particularly sports, or napped on the couch when he was home.

It was not uncommon for the TV to be on during a Sunday dinner. IF Dad chose to come to the dinner table, his seat was arranged so that he had a clear view of the TV set if he sat a little straighter. If he was too involved in his game, he might take his food to the living room table while Mom and us children ate at the kitchen table.

The TV was always LOUD. Very loud. It was offensive, in-your-face, drowning-out-your-own-thoughts loud. Dad was very focused. He was very much into the game, and there was many a fork full of peas that went flying across the kitchen when he didn’t like a call, or thought an error had been made. He’d erupt into an enraged critic, letting all know how he felt about the situation with a fist to the table or copious cursing and impassioned commentary  causing us to jolt at the kitchen table, our peas launched off our utensil by the unexpected rage and volume.

This is not a blog about the horrors of my father, nor his love for football, but I can’t say that my past didn’t color my present. He loved the game. He had season tickets to the Washington Redskins. He collected team paraphernalia and football was a part of his life. I get that some people are fans, some use football as a time to bond over a similar event, some are fanatics and some just like the community. That’s ok. I accept that and respect that these feelings exist.

I hate football, and I’m not a huge fan of sitting and watching TV for long periods of time. Is there anyone who didn’t see this coming?

OK, maybe it’s not fair for me to say I hate football, because I really don’t think I hate the actual game. What I find disturbing about football and TV is that they were the chosen focus of my father. Maybe a bit more of a clarification would be, that I become disturbed when I see others promoting their love of the game above their personal interactions with those who do not.

I get that some fans love the game and collect the paraphernalia and enjoy getting together for an event. All points well taken about how football can enhance your personal relationships.

But when choices are made to put a game above time spent with people who perhaps are not quite the fanatical fan that you are, I find that upsetting. If you tell me that you can’t come to a Sunday afternoon birthday party for your friend because you can’t possibly miss a game, I’m going to look at you as if you’ve grown another head. Especially if you also tell me that there is no excuse for me to miss spending time with you on your celebratory day.  Hello?! Priorities?

Because that’s really what it’s all about. You will always have time in your life for the things you make a priority. If you choose a group of strangers known as a football team playing against another team your priority, there is always time. If you make sitting on the floor and playing games with your kids a priority, then that’s what it is. So what if there is a game on that you are missing, that time you have with the children and their games  is all you really have. The here and now.

I love my family and friends and  would prefer to spend time with them above all other things.  My life is now, not after the game is over. I choose now to focus on the people that matter to me, not just during commercials or a break in the action.

I’m liking this new format less and less. No blog stats, difficult to get around, the themes don’t seem to be forgiving and in their attempt to make all simpler and more creative, they seem to have done the exact opposite for me and sucked the life right out of my love of blogging on MySpace.

I’m now hunting another playground. I still have my Multiply account, but I’m looking for a place where it’s easy to get to, you can read my stuff without an account and still leave comments if you want to (Can’t with Multiply) and is search-able on the web. I think I may have found a new home, but I’m not sure yet. I’ll definitely leave you guys a link if I do move and will keep checking over here to make sure it’s available for all. Or just cross-post from my new home to here. I could do that, but this doesn’t feel like home for me anymore. Blech…

I’ve wanted to do this for a while now, and this whole My____ change has finally pushed me into action. Last night, for 3 hours, I searched the web for a way to export all my blogs from here to another place. Guess what>!, it really can’t be done. There is one guy who wrote a script that will do it for you, but you need Java something or other and I didn’t have it. Being a big weeny and being afraid of infected downloads, I decided not to opt for the program and the java plug-in I’d need. In stead I did it all the old-fashioned way. I cut and pasted 471 pages of my MySpace blog into a word document. (I did find a program that pulled an RSS into a XML file or some such, but it only took part of each blog and that wasn’t what I was looking for AT ALL.)

Did you read that up there? 471 pages and over 100K of words. That’s a lot of freaking writing – and I loved all of it. And apparently, since I’ve got about 15-20 hits a day on my blog and was well over the 2800 views recently, a few others have liked it as well. YAY and THANK YOU! I’d still write if no one read it, but there is a little selfish thrill I get when I know someone has taken the time to read what I’ve written. It’s like making friends while I’m not physically there. (um, yes, we’ve established that I’m a bit odd – revel in it like I do!!)

Since I’ve gathered all the MySpace blogs for safekeeping and posterity, I went over to Multiply and thought about saving all of those as well. There are actually some that I would post here and then post there, but I think out of the 445 blogs (not pages, BLOGS) I’ve written over there, about half of them are duplicates, which means half AREN’T!!  And then I turn my head and I see my travel notebooks that I write in with an (sharp intake of breath here) INK PEN when I’m travelling and think… should I transcribe those? Would the stories be complete if I omitted all the other paper journals I used to keep? Would I have to change my name if I transcribed those? LOL… and what will I call this gigantic gathering of all things written by Sharon? (SCARY??) Because I’m realizing just how freakin’ prolific I am as a writer. Maybe not Pulitzer prize-winning, but it was never supposed to be that kind of writing, I’ve written far MORE than I’d ever realized.

So, what shall we call it?

Eeek! I have 27 minutes to compose and post or else I will be behind in my attempt to post every day in November. That’s right, folks… you may potentially be able to read my silliness every day this month. I bet you are shivering with antici—— pation. (Rocky Horror reference – would it be wrong to admit that this was the first year in all the times I’ve watched RH that I actually checked out Frank N Furters junque?)

Curled up in front of me and in between my arms, as I try to reach the keyboard and type around her, is my cat Bess. Many of you know Bess already. She’s been my bestest bestie for 16 years now and will be going in tomorrow morning for her 5th cancer surgery. We’ve removed all of her right breast tissue, and now we are starting on her left. Poor thing. I think she knows something is up, because she’s been lovey all day long. If you could spare a good thought for a little fuzzball of love, I’d appreciate it. (and with that description, she indignantly stalked off)

Where I work, there are more females than males, so the facilities get much more usage. The maintenance personnel have been notorious about not leaving adequate TP for the bathrooms. And no hand towels. I never know when I come in, if there is going to be enough paper products for the evening and have frequently sent Hubby off to purchase items at the store nearby. But we pay our rent to this building, so having to buy our own TP and hand towels can become annoying. One day, when there was a plethora of tissue in the men’s room, I took a few rolls and put them in our supply cabinet so they’d be there when needed since I could install this kind of system, and it would still be empty…

This evening, the gentleman who cleans up a bit before we leave, told me that we were out of tissue in the ladies. I had to use one of my rolls earlier in the evening for the unisex bathroom, so I was hesitant to give up my precious commodity. As I waffled between kind person who wants others to not get stuck without tissue and the bad person who wanted to tell him to just leave it empty, he asked me if I wanted him to flip for it. And because I found the irony, I called TAILS.

I guess tonight was not my night for hoarding tissue, because I lost. How much you wanna bet when I go next week, I’ll be sending Hubby off for tissue again.

And how many of you are scratching your head and thinking, “Did I *really* just read a blog about toilet paper?” Well, yes you did,  and I thank you for it. I promise tomorrow we will not denigrate any farther into the realm of personal hygiene and I’ll be able to impart words of wisdom, hilarious – or at least raucous anecdotes, and perhaps a bawdy tale or two.

Not my favorite thing, but I guess it’s necessary. I’m certainly thankful that it’s not my job to review others. I’d be a constant bundle of nerves if I had to confront people every day, whether they had a positive review or a negative one wouldn’t make a huge difference, it’s just the act of meeting them for a “discussion”.

I guess the onus of knowing that basically you are either the judge or being judged just doesn’t sit well with me. Sure, I understand that if someone is doing poorly it’s better to let them know so they can improve, and likewise, if they are doing a stellar job, you want to let them know how great they are doing, but ugh… it’s the uncertainty of what will be said that gets me.

I think I’ve done a good job this year. I’ve handled more and I feel processes that have been put into place are proving successful. If I can just slash the head off that ugly beast called Worry and Doubt, then all will be well. I’ll let you know later today what the verdict was.

UPDATE: The verdict was moot! Seems that my review is not going to occur today after all… or is it… the reviewer never confirmed with the boss. Huh… go fig.

I’ve been diagnosed with a fairly rare condition called hyperparathyroidism. What this means is I need to find a surgeon to remove a smaller than pea sized parathyroid gland that’s gone rogue and grown a nodule/tumor. Tricky part? It’s not a common condition and parathyroid glands can be tucked away in any part of your neck and chest.

Luckily, they think this is an upper right gland, so hopefully they have a good idea of where to dig around. And that’s just it. They cut a 4-10 inch incision into your neck. Then they go where they ‘think’ it might be and they dig around to find it while you are out cold and things are breathing for you. Nope, not the way I want to have this done.

There is a newer procedure called MIRP, or Minimally Invasive Radio Radio-guided Parathyroidectomy, that uses the same radioactive dye I had for the scan and then a special blunt tipped probe to zero in on the gland and remove it. It uses light anesthesia and a sedative, has a higher success rate and a lower complication rate (oh, like having the wrong gland removed, or damage to you vocal cords) and most people go home in about 2 hours. Um, yep… sign me up for that one, please.

The problem is that there aren’t that many surgeons that do this. Because this is a fairly rare condition and the probe is over $150,000.00 and a surgeon is required to take time off for training in this procedure, there aren’t many out there doing it. I have an appointment with a general surgeon next week, but I’ve put a call in to ask how many parathyroidectomy surgeries she’s done before I follow through with her. I did find a few doctors who do this in PA and GA and FL, which I would make an appointment with if I can’t find someone through JHU that does this. (You’d think JHU would have SOMEONE or something similar, right?)

Right now, it’s the wait and see game and I know this is a universal test of my ability to moderate and regulate my anxiety and worry and so, that’s what I’m gonna do. Breathe, relax and go with the flow… all will be well.. it always is. Happy, healthy, calm and strong

Not Clicking

There is a trunk in my living room that has brass edges. Recently, I’ve taken to absent-mindedly running my long-ish toenails (ewwwwwwww) over the edge of the brass and producing a clicking sound. This was driving Hubby INSANE, so he finally told me to get a pedicure.

Ladies, you can thank me later for this newly found way to get your man to offer to pay for and sanction a pedicure.

So today, I go in to get my pedi…

“You want design?” she asks.
“Yes, please. Can I get leaves?”
“Lines?”
“No, leaves…. like on trees.”
“Lines, yes, yes.”, while nodding head vigorously.
“Leaves, from trees, like in Fall.”, I say as I demonstrate my hand version of leaves falling from a tree.
She laughs, smiles and nods her head again.

I’m not sure she got what I was asking for but decide that I’m not really worried about it and I’m going to see what she has in mind soon anyway, so I might as well wait.  This is what I got… so what do you think? Lines or Leaves?

How about fish blowing bubbles behind sea anemone and a golden squid approaching from the right, ’cause that’s what I see.

In other news, I went and picked up the films for my appointment with the surgeon. Not sure I mentioned it, but I did find out that the scan I had last Monday shows a nodule on one of my parathyroid glands, which means surgery. Bleh… I’ll let you know how that saga goes when it’s time.

We met with the draftsman tonight to see if our dream home is plausible. Seems like everybody we discuss our thoughts with, kinda gets the bug for this building. No complaints here! He said he was very interested in the design and working with us on this unique project. The best part is seeing Hubby’s eyes light up every time we get a tiny bit closer to his dream.

I joined Nablopomo again for November. I think the last time I did this was in February. Not sure why I promise to write every day for an entire month, except the fact that I like doing it.

CRAP! Just remembered that tomorrow is Election Day. Uh oh, better go check out that list of websites I’d been procrastinating about.

Happy Halloween!

Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way…. no really, I’ll be giving out candy later to the few intrepid souls who still brave the house to house trick or treating in this area. For that reason, I insist on buying “good” candy. By that I mean chocolate candy bars. I’ve even tried to become tolerant of the vehicles that vomit a bunch of kids out of its doors to have them race up for their handful of candy and then pile back in, only to go a few feet to the next lit house and do it all over again. How lazy can you get?! Still they came out, so they get the goods.

But that’s not what this blog is supposed to be about. It’s about 101 Nights of Great Sex, right?

I made some great butternut squash soup, cornbread, a fresh salad and some apple crisp from freshly picked apples from the orchard for dinner tonight. While I let the soup bubble away in my cauldron, I popped a beer into the freezer (’cause I actually like my beer to be more like a slushy than a beer) and decided to wander the neighborhood for a little bit.; As we were heading for home, Hubby noticed the corner of a book peeping out from under a carpet of crunchy leaves and bent for further investigation. He crowed in delight at his good luck to find “101 Nights of Grrrreat Sex”, by Laura Corn. (could this be considered our candy Corn?) The premise of this book is that there are 101 pages that are sealed. You are supposed to pull out a page, tear the perforations and reveal the information/suggestion. I can totally relate this to unwrapping a piece of chocolate with a hidden center. Yes! What a great find for two empty-nesters, or as I like to say, 2nd time 20’s with more money!

When I got home, I liberated my beer from the freezer ’cause it was just right. We’d been listening to KDFC, a classical music station in San Diego, all afternoon. They were supposed to be playing “Scary Music” – as if classical music could ever be considered scary – and one of the most misunderstood songs of all time came on… Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana. Sure, this song has been repeatedly used for horror flicks due to it’s strong sound, but it’s totally wrong for what the piece is actually about… Sooooo……….

Lemme edu-ma-cate you guys a bit. (I know, how can a woman who likes slushy beer and says “edu-ma-cate” teach me anything?) Trust me… just ’cause I like informality, doesn’t meant I don’t know about this.

Carmina Burana is literally “Songs from Beuren” and are, basically, ancient text set to music about sex, drinking, love,sex, greed within the church, gambling, gluttony and sex! There is nothing evil about it at all, unless you consider that the would-be monks were lamenting all the stuff they’d have to give up to join the monastary. Girls,gaming, drinking and sex… you know, the basics.

But the cool thing, you see, is that for me.. it was perfect!! Here I was, freshly gifted by the universe with a book of fun things to try and a slushy beer and on comes Carmina Burana to remind me of all the adult fun I could still enjoy on Halloween. Tomorrow is All Saint’s Day, and I’ll atone then.

For those who are swearing they have NO idea of what song I’m talking about, just listen to the first few notes. I’ll be SHOCKED if you’ve never heard this attached to some horror show or sporting event.

And if you don’t trust my take on Carmina Burana, take it from Marin Alsop of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, my hometown favorites. She discusses Carmina Burana second in this video, but you can hear the song behind her explanation.

I was trying to spare you all the gory details and I still will, but I think you’re gonna get my drift soon enough.

For those of you with tender sensibilities, my apologies in advance.

Tomorrow I’m having a test done that requires much prep. Let’s just say I’m detoxing.

In between detox sessions, I got a phone call from my Dr.’s office that I couldn’t take immediately, due to a work phone call. When I listened to the voice mail, it was from the nurse who was calling me with the results from the scan I had on Monday. She didn’t leave a message that said, “All is well, please schedule a follow up.” or “Dr. wants you to make an appointment with X.”, she said, “Please call me back.”, which  I promptly do, but she’s not at her desk. So, I’m waiting.

I experience anxiety in my guts, with expected detoxing results, so now I’ve got double the prep working.

Then the phone rings and I’m thinking it’s the Dr.’s office and I’m right… but I’m wrong. It’s the office of the one I’m prepping for tomorrow. All kinds of things start rolling through my mind about how cranky I’m going to be if they cancel this, but how I’d love to have a sammich when the girl on the phone says, “I was verifying your benefits and there seems to be a $397.00 balance for your deductible. You’ll need to pay that tomorrow.” Wha? I mean, if that’s the way it is with my insurance, ok, but do you think that maybe telling me this 16 hours before the procedure is just a little shortsighted?? What if I didn’t have that money. The policy is that if you cancel under a 3 day window, you get slapped with a huge fee, so what would be done if I said… um… oh well, I ain’t got that right now? And honestly, I can find it, but it’s not like I don’t have to juggle a bit to get it.

I think I already established that I internalize stress in my guts.. so now I’m triply prepped… lucky me, but I certainly will be thoroughly detoxed, I’ll tell you that.

And because I love you all so much?, I didn’t pick photos for this blog!! Lol.

I looked at my blog from yesterday and wondered what I was on last night. How about you? Did you wonder what had gotten into me, too?

I’m blaming the moon. Ok, I know it wasn’t a full moon, but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

So- today – onward and… well, maybe just onward.

Today, my job is to find a new way – without using regular mass email- to send out a directory for work.

Dilemma:
My old system was obliterated by the evil forces of darkness.. in fact, I should repost the picture of the cat catching the boy on fire again since it’s kinda appropriate.

No, actually, it’s all just a control issue that resulted in mass deletion, but be that as it may, I’m still not able to send things out the way I used to.

Hmmm.. I’ve digressed…no, actually, I think I still may be on track here. Since it is election season let’s do some Fact Checking, eh?

1. Fact – Last year I could send out mass emails with an attachment from a source I no longer have access to.
2. Fact – This year I still need to send out the attachment, with the same factors and criteria as before, and I need to find a new way to do this.

Yep.. seems to be pretty accurate to me! Lol~

The dilemma is:
1. I have many email addresses on my lists that are fairly sensitive, and have some uber spam blocking  software.
2. The information I have I can’t just “post” as a download from our website, because it has personal information in it.
3. The email server I’m using doesn’t allow for attachments because of spam issues.
4. The company said I’m not allowed to print it because it takes up too much paper.
5. Google docs obliterated my formatting.

I’ll let you all know how it works out, but if there are any suggestions, I’m open and listening.

UPDATE – I figured out how to get around this. It was almost as if I wrote the blog, walked away and *PING* the solution came to me!
I should know that when I’m determined, NOTHING will get in my way and I’ll ALWAYS find a way to succeed.

As for the rest of this blog – meh.. I was frustrated. It’s now time for fluffy bunnies and happy butterflies once again….

The trees wore beautiful colors today against the steel gray of the overcast sky. Gorgeous.

I’d love to hug two of the women at work today, who helped me to cut and sort the tickets for the Winter concerts.

I’m not really paying attention to the elections. I know I should, but I don’t trust anyone who pays someone else to write their speeches. I’m not voting for a spin doctor, I’m supposed to be voting for an actual candidate.

My knitted socks are coming along quite nicely. I’m very proud of the fact that I’ll at least TRY to learn something new. Since I knit in the “continental” style, I had to work pretty hard to get it in my head how to purl in that fashion as well.

A fad spread through Europe in the 15th century, when wealthy sophisticates bought pricey pewter plates for their dinner tables. The plates became the silent killers of the Middle Ages. Food that was highly acidic would leach lead into the food, killing many upper-class diners with lead-poisoning. People noticed that the poisoning happened most frequently when tomato sauce was served. For the next four hundred years, rich Europeans thought tomatoes were poisonous and refused to eat them.

I’m planning on making turkey cupcakes. Yep, you read that right.. turkey cupcakes.

I’m against slots at the Mall.

‘Cause NO ONE wants to be treated like POTATO!!

I like bright pink duct tape, but the “tie-dye”  look is a close second.

I don’t have a costume for Halloween yet. I like to do something when I hand out candy. I don’t want to be a fairy, or a witch, or anything you’d expect…who am I kidding… I won’t be dressing up… or will I??