That felt stupid

Last night, I was good and went to bed at 10:30. I woke up at 11:30 with severe stabbing pain in my right side. I took a couple of Gas-X, got the ice pack, went back to bed and couldn't get comfortable. After an hour, I got up, let the dogs out, got dressed, brushed my teeth and called my folks' house. At this point, I couldn't straighten up, the pain was so bad.

Fortunately, my night owl father was up, and I told him what was happening and that I was going to the ER. He asked if he wanted them to come get me and take me, or meet me there, and I said no, I'm less than two miles from the hospital, and I can get there before an ambulance could even get to me. As for meeting me there, he'd have to wake Mom up then drive twenty-five minutes, so I promised I'd keep him posted.

I put the protesting dogs in the basement, grabbed my insurance cards and a book, and headed out. I was literally in front of the hospital when the pain subsided, so I turned around in the parking lot and came home. It's still there, but not to the point of oh-dog-I'm-going-to-die, so I assume that it's gas and will eventually leave me. Either that or the turkey I took out of the freezer for my lunch on Thursday was bad and I didn't know it. I'm throwing out the rest of it just in case.

The embarrassing part was calling my dad and telling him it was all a big fuss over nothing. *blush*

Asylum Street Spankers Video

Today, I was armed and armored...

with strength on my right ring finger, unconditional love on my left wrist.

When I got dressed for work today, I decided I would wear the turquoise ring my grandfather made for me and my grandmother's charm bracelet. I don't believe that either item has any magical powers, but I do believe that they remind me that my grandfather helped to teach me strength, my grandmother loved me always, and that I am a Mansfield woman, and Mansfield women do not snivel.

And so I not only had the presence to walk into work and go over with MegaBookMan exactly what I did wrong yesterday, but any time anyone asked, I got to tell the story of my loving grandmother and my wonderful mother, and how the latter gave me the former's charm bracelet. I fixed my errors, started a new project, and kicked some XML butt today.

Oh, and after a calm, rational phone call to the neuro's office, I have official approval to increase my Lexapro dosage to 20 mgs/day.

I don't think XML is supposed to make me cry

Saturday night--unhappy restlessness;

Sunday--relentless silliness;

Monday--tears over a failure at work.

Time for an increase in the anti-depressant dosage, but of course the damn dumb doctor's office calls my home when I specifically gave them my cell number.

I don't want to cry again today.

Mad Scientist Sunday

Today, I accidentally made my first salt scrub.

I was trying to make a scrubby soap, but it wouldn't solidify (booo!). So I threw it in a bowl, added some more soap and some more salt, and used the hand mixer on it. It's mildly scrubby, mildy foamy, and very softening. Sadly, if you don't rinse thoroughly, it's a little sticky, but I can see getting addicted to playing with scrub formulas.

When I posted this on the Lush message board, I got lots of great comments from Lushies.

From MaryMargrt:

Yay Jammies...founder of Cockamamie Soaps and Salty Scrub Spurts?

From kogijiki:

[Mr. Kogi] has already come (lol) up (even more lol) with several ad slogans for you!!!!

MaryMargrt:

Come on Kogi (not literally)...free love...share the slogans Spew forth the essence that is Willies Salty Spurt.

From Rogue:

Jammies! I have some friends that would love the new Spunky Soaps! Let me know when you have them available!

I love my minivan Lushies!

*sigh*

I am restless tonight. I don't know what I want, but I want something other than a Saturday night with pizza rolls and the computer or a book or a bath.

*sigh*

Sometimes, I wonder what I did...

What did I do to deserve having my car rummaged through and all of my stuff touched? Actually, I know what I did to deserve that, I left the garage door open by mistake Friday night.

Less easy a mystery to solve is what I did to deserve the wonderful friends I have. Today was my training in Hyphenated Corp's proprietary XML-based system, and I did some serious brain-stretching today. At the very end of the day, when I was presented with the first book for which I am responsible, I had to spend about ten minutes discussing with The Nurturer what exactly the author was trying to do. In a section with fourteen footnotes, said author (an attorney) wants to add a new one, delete two, add three more, and tried to "help" by incorrectly re-numbering the footnotes. I think I have it figured out, but I didn't want to try it and screw something up at the end of a long day, so I will tackle it tomorrow morning.

On my way home, I stopped at the post office to pick up a parcel. The U. S. Postal Service is now requiring signatures for all deliveries from Canada. I guess someone has gotten wind of the insidious Canadian plot to take over by sending large quantities of moose poo through the mail. When I got home with my non-moose-poop-holding box, I discovered another box on the steps (apparently, UPS is unaware of any plots originating in New Jersey, other than a deep desire on the part of its citizens to get out). The Canadian parcel was from The Heather, and the NewJerseyian parcel was from MaryMargrt.

The World's Best Heather(™) sent me a Frosty Glitter bubble bar and a French Kiss bubble bar from Lush, two packets of lovely pens with different colored inks, a ten-pack of Playdoh(likewise ™), an Aspen Flower candle, two Italian soaps and six pairs of socks (one of which has frogs on it, and another of which is a lovely soft hot pink chenille--this woman gets me!).

As if that weren't enough, MaryMargrt is not only psychic, she's presciently so. Just last night, I was looking at bath fizzies from Propaganda Bath just last night, and today, I got her package, which had five of the little darlings in it--Orion, Cygnus, Diva, The Movie Star and Sadako's Snow. She also sent goodies from Isle of Eden, Fantasy Bath and a couple of yummy-smelling goodies from an unidentified company.

I don't know why I am so lucky to have such lovely friends, but tonight, I will smell almost as good as they made me feel tonight.

Every now and then, a gift

Last night, when I was feeling utterly crummy, I went to bed early and slept like a rock.

This morning, as I was puttering around getting ready for work, I made a discovery.

My volunteer tomato plant is in fact a grape tomato plant, and it's got at least two sets of fruit just ready to ripen.

This is one of the reasons I garden--unexpected gifts from my land.

Who forgot to tell me it's Monday?

Eeesh. Craptastic day today.

I finally got my paycheck, and it's $20 less than I expected. Okay, counted on, chickens or no chickens, hatched or unhatched.

When my mentor asked for help, I really thought I could be useful. Turns out I actually need the training on the proprietary software and fortunately, I admitted this before I made a huge snarl of her project. Still, I wanted to help and I feel inadequate for not doing so.

Then *trademarked product name* was being cranky and instead of just downloading files to the public server, I had to e-mail them to myself, convert them from .rtf files to .doc files and save them to the public server.

Finally, in asking Admin. Assistant 2 for help with getting my paycheck because Admin. Assistant 1 was out of the office yesterday, I stepped into a turf war and pissed off Admin. Assistant 3, who spent five minutes telling me all of my reasons for asking AA2 for help were WRONG, and I should have asked her, and I should never ever ever again ask AA2 for help, even if I am on fire and she is standing near me with water in her hand. And I got this lecture from someone with bleached blonde hair styled into a shag haircut.

Big surprise--I got hives and scratched my right hand raw.

Bad day on toast.

Okay, I'm curious

As to what the five or so people who read this blog think:

Die, Snoopy, Die!

Not the lovable beagle from "Peanuts," but the irritating law clerk.

I went in on Sunday to work my four hours, and found that Snoopy had saved telephone messages that didn't need to be saved, written things in the message book like, "Saved message because I didn't understand what caller was talking about," forgotten to leave me his hours and failed to send out three important letters Bosstopus particularly asked him to send. I wasted some of my time cleaning up his messes. I hope Bosstopus finds a nice part-time person very soon, or I shall kill Snoopy.

I couldn't resist posting this

From I Can Has Cheezburger?

Tagged by Scott The Nefarious

Who is also the biggest, floatiest kid in swimming class.

Eight Random Things About Me:

1. I've now screwed up twice on making CDs for work, but different mistakes each time.

2. I just received an extremely odd-looking frog in the mail (Thanks, Sherri).

3. I managed to scare one person on Goodreads and scar another for life, both with just one post.

4. My body chemistry is such that any scented product with rose notes in it will morph almost immediately into mosquito repellant.
"Ahhh, Jammies, your DDT is most alluring this eeeeevening"

5. Snoopy sent me an e-mail today saying, "I had to work from my desk because I couldn't get the Epson to accept paper" and all I can think is "WTF did you do to my printer, you evil law clerk?"

6. The admin. assistant at my new job is very abrupt and brusque and manages to make me feel exceptionally inadequate every time I talk to her.

7. I get big itchy hives when I'm stressed.

8. I've had such a horrible day today that I think maybe it's Friday the 13th and nobody told the calendar.

Geeky Yee-Haw!

This morning, the CD of forms I did to go with the New Jersey Motions in Limine went to manufacturing! Some admin assistant just like me is going to use those forms to create court documents.

Plus, I got all the way through Asprin, Robert, in adding books to my Goodreads shelf.

I am reveling in my geekitude tonight. *beams*

Wow

A bird post for Scott. ;)

When I went to let the dogs out late this afternoon, there was a hawk in the back yard. He took off almost immediately, but I had time to see that he was a pretty damn big bird, and that there was nothing in his talons and no yucky stuff on the grass. While I admire raptors and am appreciative of a chance to see them, I have to admit that I'm relieved that this one didn't get Rooter or what I have come to think of as Rob's bunny.

With a little research, I think it was either a red-tailed hawk or more likely a red-shouldered hawk. Either way, it was a beautiful bird, and makes me glad I live where some of the wild things are.

Of course, if it wanted to carry off a flower-eating deer, it would have my blessing. *grin*

My fancy pants don't fit

When Mom & I went to Gabriel Brothers, I was very excited to get two brand-new pairs of Lane Bryant pants for $2 each. One was turquoise twill, the other a black and white extremely fine check and both were size 24.

I'm now sure that they were at Gabes because they were mislabeled--both pairs are about six inches too big in the waist. It's a bummer because I really liked them both and they were one heck of a bargain, but good from the weight loss/morale point of view.

Despite the lack of fancy pants, my first week at work went well. I caught two errors in different books that caused other people to tell me "Good spot!" and generally felt useful. I'm overwhelmed by the jargon and acronyms, but I've grown up a lot since my last stint in corporate America, and I am not afraid to ask for a translation into English. There's a great mix of people on my team in terms of age, background, ethnicity, interests, and while everyone keeps warning me that the next few months will be a time of pressure and possible misery, I have enough lead time to brace myself and get settled in before the rush begins.

I spent this morning at the other office with Bosstopus, and we got much done. She went home for a four hour bike ride, as she is building her endurance for the MS Pedal to the Point in two weeks, and I came home and napped. *grin* I saw both a Monarch butterfly and a Swallowtail butterfly flitting around outside, but didn't manage to get any pics. I'll have to keep trying.

Josh is currently cutting the grass, and sadly, Amy did not come with him. I've got a lovely bag of Skindecent goodies for her birthday, as the scent she likes isn't currently available. I've also enabled Mallie, my friend Doc, and possibly a co-worker. I need to get a SuperEnabler suit (no cape).

As long as the size is marked correctly! *grin*

Edited to add the following, which I forgot to post:

Bigfoot poked the bathroom door open Thursday night while I was taking a bath. He sniffed the water, grunted sort of dismissively (and it was carnation, too!) and left.

None of this would be a problem, but he doesn't shut the door behind him, it's directly across from my curtainless kitchen window, the window looks out onto a major street, and it was night and all the lights were on.

I have no idea how many motorists I flashed before I could grab a towel and shut the door. Eep.