Say Cheese

I'm working on my look for my driver's license picture. It expired on my birthday in August and I'm going to go renew it today. I'm thinking if I have that deer in the headlights look perhaps any one who sees it will feel sorry for me and not give me a ticket. Yes, that's going to happen.

Actually I've only had three tickets in 41 years of driving (wow that's a lot of years of driving). I got two parking tickets and a rolling stop ticket. I'm rather amazed I haven't gotten a ticket for speeding. You'd think a red convertible would be a target but so far so good.

I'm on vacation for two days -- was going to take the whole week off but decided to save some days for later in the year if I need them for moving. Going to hang out with Freckles and do some things around the place. It was either that or a quick jaunt to Paris -- I think I made the best choice.

Don't Sweat The Fashion Statement

I remember hearing on some comedy one guy saying to another guy who was wearing sweatpants "You know wearing sweatpants is kind of like telling the world 'I give up'." Well I'm in my sweatpants and I feel great. And I haven't given up ... oh perhaps I've been working on my conciliation speech but I haven't given up yet.

I went to look at an apartment on Tuesday. It was a nice place but there was this little voice telling me "This isn't the place for you" so I will keep looking. I try to pay more attention to this little voice because it was the one that told me not to marry my ex husband and not to watch The Bachelor -- it is a smart little voice. Now the "other" voices are just there to drive me insane. You know they say things like "Eat Beefaroni" "Join the Men's Hair Club" "Work for Lawyers" -- scary scary thoughts. Fortunately a pint of Ben & Jerry's will shut the voices up for a while.

Hope you have a good weekend planned. I have a long weekend coming up because I'm taking a couple days of vacation so this may mean a lot more days in my sweatpants -- yippee.

The Scarlet "F"

These are my new computer glasses -- I would have worn them but the glare from the flash didn't let you see them in all their splendor. They are my salute to Penelope Garcia from Criminal Minds.

So I had lunch yesterday with my friend John. I use to work with John about a hundred years ago when I was going to college and he told me that the people at work who read my blog have been worried about me -- that is way too sweet.

I'm fine, I really am. Unfortunately I have been forced to go into foreclosure with my condo. That is a bummer and has been heavy on my mind. Once I find a new place to live and get over and done with I will be so happy. I think it's all the unknowns that are making me crazy. And then there is the sense of failure too -- I feel like I should be wearing a Scarlet F - although if I did I'm afraid a lot of people would think the "F" didn't stand for foreclosure and assume I'm some kind of floosy -- hmmm I guess that wouldn't be all bad.

Any ways, I will survive this. I'm going to look at a place today. Hopefully I will like it and I can move in soon. Freckles has been very busy packing her things.

No Comment

Do I really need to even comment on this?

I will be spending the weekend looking for 14,870 men who want to meet me ... that should keep me busy for a while.

Milk and Diversity

Is it Friday yet?

My days are all mixed up. Is it Wednesday or Thursday or Thanksgiving? I hope it's Thanksgiving because I'm craving some stuffing.

Speaking of stuffing ... have you seen they are coming out with Triple Double Oreo cookies. It's nice to see Nabisco is jumping on the health and fitness wagon. If I were a parent and I saw that these were coming out I would be so pissed because you know your kids are going to want to get these. They are 100 calories each compared to 50 for an original Oreo.

But what I love is who are the spokes people for these cookies - four athletes who, well are a triple double stuff Oreo cookie. Venus Williams and Shaq are the chocolate cookie wafers, Apolo Ono is the tan chocolate filling and Eli Manning is the milky white filling. Am I the only person to notice this? It is the diversity cookie. If you eat one you are supporting diversity in America if you don't eat one you might as well put on your white sheet and go burn a cross you racist bigot.

So to summarize -- first off this is Thursday and there are gigantic cookies now that are politically correct. Life is good; thanks Nabisco.

It's My Brainiversary

I know the news world is focusing on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 but they have forgotten it is also the 10th anniversary of my brain surgery at Mayo Clinic. Here is a gross picture of my head after surgery. Every time I see this I think why didn't I have my surgery closer to Halloween - I would have had the best costume of all.

In case you don't know the story, I had a MVD for my HFS -- I love to say that, it sounds so techie. MVD = Multivascular Decompression and HFS = Hemifacial Spasms.

My HFS started about five years before my surgery with a small, but consistent tick in my left eye. I worked with my friend Amy at the time and for some reason she was having trouble with stuttering so we were going to start a new comedy duo Twitch & Stutter but it never happened.

The HFS kept progressing, as it is known to do, to the point where I couldn't read because my eye twitched so and it would wake me up at night. The worse part though was I was so self-conscious of the twitching when I was around people that I started to just stay home as much as possible.

I finally went to a neurosurgeon who recommended the surgery and I decided to go ahead and 10 years later I'm still twitch free. But the thing that I really like is that my experience has helped a couple of other people. First there is Mike Wuest, someone I never met who read about my experience on the HFS website and went to Mayo and had the surgery done. But the best is my friend Lori, who I use to work with, who just had the procedure last Friday. She is home and healing now but I was able to refer her to my doctor and to the Mayo clinic and now she is going to also be spasm free.

I have a hard time with the concept that everything happens for a reason but if is nice to know that my problem/solution helped at least two other people.

So 10 years later I am thinking how lucky I am that the surgery went well (yes I've heard ALL the brain surgery jokes) and that the HFS has never reoccurred.

I am a SPASM FREE ZONE.

I'll Be Back ... Really

To my faithful readers who have emailed and asked me where my blog is. I am having some pretty tough problems these days and I really don't want to write about them in my blog (we all have problems but we don't all want to hear about them) and I just can't seem to get my spark and spirit back right now. I hope to get some answers soon, and then I can make a few decisions and move on.

I appreciate you taking the time to check in here and please check in again ... I've been through tough times before and I'll get through this one too.

Thanks