Chuck Dodgers in the 24 1/2th Century!

I have news! My dad has email. It's been a bit of a struggle trying to remember how to log onto the internet, connect to his email account, log in and send mail but he's almost got it down pat now. The biggest problem came in the form that the internet dialup has a different login and password from email. I am soliciting people to keep in touch with my dad via email and if you'd like to have his email address, just drop me an email and I will be happy to provide it to you. I draw the line at posting it to the internet population at large.

I thought about throwing something in here about my dad, internet bimbos and him being "newly single"...but I ultimately decided that people wouldn't get my sense of humor and I'd come off sounding heartless. Our sense of humor is one thing that my mom and I had in common - very irreverent. Right after she died, we were discussing something in a crowd and it turned out that the date of the funeral was going to conflict with something or cause us difficulty in some way. I said, "Oh, way to go, Mom." My family got it - my dad, Jeff and Robin snickered but other people just looked shocked. I kinda bit my tongue but ultimately I decided that my mom woulda got the joke so I didn't care if it shocked everybody else. She'd want us to go on as we did before. Anybody who came in at the last ten minutes of my mom's visitation would have been in for a shock. Caleb, Jeff, Robin, Tracy, Mike and I were taking pictures of each other and fooling around with my camera-phone. By this time everybody'd been and gone and we were at the very end of the evening. Caleb wanted me to take his picture with the pillow he'd made for my mom which was propped against the wooden box that held the box with her ashes. He started to move the box and only the top part moved - it came away from the base a little bit and I automatically said (gently but quite alarmed), "Oh, Caleb! Don't move that! You'll spill Grandma." I looked at Jeff. He looked at me and the whole bunch of us started to laugh. We laughed so hard we were holding our sides and Jeff made the joke that if that happened we could change the words of "Grandma Got Runover By a Reindeer" to "Grandma Got Sucked Up in a Hoover." My mom would have loved it.

In other news, Mike barely survived through the day today after he attempted to "mute" me with the remote control.

Caleb competed in a tractor pull in Missouri this weekend and...ahem...he took third place. Not bad for his first time out, thankyouverramuch. And save the hillbilly-tractor-pull jokes for someone who isn't proud of it, k? ;) If you would like to send him congratulations, I will also be happy to provide you with his email address. I think those are the only emails I'm willing to give out, though...let me think about that....uh....yeah, definitely.

Also, I owe everybody a HUGE apology - thanks to Mike's mom for tell me! It turns out that somehow because I've been getting a lot of, like, spam comments, blogger set it so that I have to ok any comments that people make. I had a whole slew of them! Who knew. Also, I would like to know if the poster of the "Sandy's 3 1/2 years younger than me. Guess who?" comment is Mike's Auntie Bren. If not, then it's my mom. She and Mike's aunt were born one day apart. Please continue to comment. Reading the comments is half the fun. Oh, but - please, please, please...put your name on your comment somewhere. If you can't change anonymous to read your name, then just sign it. My head hurts from trying to figure out who all the "anonymous"es are.

I had a follow up doctor's appointment today. Mike's boss is an MD and he agreed to see me. He continued my anti-depressant prescription and changed my antibiotic because the one I had wasn't working. He said he could see evidence of drainage and some fluid in my ear. I was all smiley thinking all would be well. Then the nurse came in with my prescription, a sample pack with my anti-biotic in it...and a hypodermic needle. I'm glad Mike was there because I couldn't stop staring at the needle long enough to pay attention. I kept thinking, "Please don't let that be for me." And she said, "And I'm going to give you a shot of (whatever the drug was) which will help with your drainage and allergies." This is the first I've heard of allergies...apparently the doc thinks my chronic sinus problems are partly allergies. Anyways, I'm already semi-freaking out about the shot when she said, "You'll have to get down, I'm going to put this in your hip." GET THE HELL OUT OF TOWN! Not only a shot but a shot in the BUTT! I seriously looked at her and said, "Heeeeeeeeeeell, no." But then I got down and she gave me the shot and it wasn't HORRIBLE although it hurt. Pain is not my friend. And for being such a good girl, Mike bought me a video game. It was a clearance game...he'd only promised me a CD and this was actually cheaper. It's a pirate game where I search for treasure and kill monkeys. Why monkeys? No idea...it's odd, I know. Anyway, after all this Anglo-Needle Torture (As opposed to Chinese Water Torture, get it?), the nurse tells me that they want to see me in a month and to make sure I fast because THEY WILL BE DRAWING BLOOD.


AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I know that I need to do this because I want to take care of myself and getting a sort of base-reading on where I'm at is a good idea but I'm like, "Who is this mad man?! Can't you at least buy me dinner first? Geez." I'm also worried that in a month he'll tell me I'm diabetic. Now I have no real reason to believe this will be true except that it's on both sides of my family and I've always figured it's just a matter of time. I'm not having any symptoms that seem to indicate that I have out of control blood sugars or anything and so I could totally be worrying for nothing. Anyway, I've already made several lifestyle adjustments. Positive ones. No more soda, little to no fried foods, no potato chips (my big weakness) and I've started eating these Quaker Ricecake snacks and adding carrot sticks to my diet. The Rice snacks do taste a bit strange but I can handle it. Also, Mike and I are on the cusp of a new "take a walk every night" exercise regime. It starts Monday when I have (hopefully) gotten rid of this cold. We'll start with a set distance and add a block or two every other night. So really, being a diabetic wouldn't be the end of the world. I guess I'm just worried about trying to work in another big life change.

I do tend to ramble, don't I? I'm going to wrap this up and go and give my husband a big Ranch flavored Quaker Rice Snack kiss. He'll love that. Almost as good as blue cheese kisses or peanut butter kisses. Anyway, COMMENT, COMMENT, COMMENT and I'll try and get the Polish Wonder here to do a posting of his own.

Peace!