December 2005 Archives

Wow. There's donuts and pastries and cookies everywhere, maing. It's heart-healthy time at your local media department, and everybody's mouth is shaped like a hoover tube. I'm trying to moderate, but the smell of sugar and triglycerides is thick like a mudflow, and I'm floundering upside down trying to eat my way out.

Nahh, I'm being marginally good about it.

woops, Rob just brought in two chili dogs. Now I've switched to salt, oil & protein cravings. Curses.

Heh, I was just thinking about the title I gave this post. Based on site history for my other posts, I should have dozens of diabetics and their families hopelessly googling their way over here inside of a couple months. Sorry folks. Please try WebMD.com.

Alright, here's the scoop. I saw my doctor today. It was a good visit. I didn't feel as rushed as I sometimes do. Anyway, the cardiac holter record didn't show anything abnormal. But she's still going to have me get an x-ray, and a cardiac sonogram just to be sure. She did prescribe some Prevacid for acid reflux, to be sure and take that irritation out of the equation. Hmmm, what else...should I describe my bowel movements for you now?

I didn't think so.

She did prescribe geocaching as a way to get my lazy butt out of the house and doing something fun and active with the kids. Hah :D

Also got a flu shot. Now my shoulder hurts like I'm being frogged every few minutes. :P

You sure you don't want me to describe my--

ok ok :'(

A few rambling things.

1. My heart woke me up a couple times last week, pounding and racing. Not from a bad dream. I specifically remember the dreams. They were benign. One of them involved me classifying cats based on the size of their paws and colorations and dispositions. Man I have some boring dreams. Anyway, heart pounding like it's trying to pump molasses, feeling slightly short of breath. Probably not good, right? Or maybe it's just gas. What's new. So I called my doctor to make an appointment...I needed a checkup on the Hodgkins anyway. After hearing about the palpitation thing, she scheduled me to come in today and have an EKG monitor strapped on for 24 hours. So I'm walking around now with my shirt untucked, and wires dangling around my waist. Only slightly Borg-ish.

I'm a hypochondriac anymore, so hopefully I'll just be told that laying off the frijoles and pepperoni will probably spare me the 3 am cardiac frights. Regardless, I need to retune my food and exercise situation. I've fallen off the wagon and have been diving into the dairy and fried foods like crazy. Also, this place down the street from work called Chan Juan's has been calling me to lunch on a regular basis for deeeelicious, extra-spicy, wok-fried-while-you-watch Kung Pao and Curry Chicken. Ohhhh man it's good. And so close by. Anyway, like I said: there's a wagon headed thataway, and then there's me face down in the gravel. I'm gonna kill myself quick if I don't stop. So here's the warning sign, and it's suction cupped to 7 spots across my chest. I go in tomorrow morning to have it removed. Then I see the doctor Thursday to confess my sins and find out if I'm ripe to be roto-rootered. :6

2. A friend posted a link to the Mac beta version of Google Earth a couple days ago. I got my butt hooked right into that. I sat at the computer with Harrison for about an hour Friday night, flying around between Flagstaff and Phoenix, finding Grammy's house, Grandpa Peter's house, and our duplex on Osborn from 12 years ago. Then we flew over to Grandma Joan and Grandpa John's houses back in Oklahoma. We checked out her garden, and where the cows hang out, and got a laugh when Giselle pointed out Fangorn Forest. Then we flew over to the Grand Canyon and followed the Bright Angel Trail across every miserable mile ;) Miles to the west, the lush emerald of Havasupai Canyon was an awesome sight. Sunday night, I floated over an oxbowed, vericose river through the rusty, sinkhole-sprinkled breadth of Siberia until it emptied into the Arctic Ocean beside some remote Russian airstrip. I followed the Panama Canal from Pacific to Atlantic and checked out at how tightly the massive cargo ships fit into the locks. There are a trio of volcanoes just outside of Guatemala City that have to be seen to be believed. And on and on and on. What a cool cool cool tool.

3. We have a community goodie-bowl in our office. Rob and Barb have been bringing in pistachios for passers-by to offer up hospitality, and associate our team with yummy, nutty, goodness. I haven't eaten from or contributed to the bowl for a long time, and I've been kind of feeling bad about it. So I picked up a Jumbo bag of M&M's at the store and brought them in today. Hurray! Chocolate. Everybody was happy, and I felt better about my stingey ways. Then around 3 in the afternoon, one of our remote team members stopped by for a little chit-chat and started talking in a somewhat hoarse voice about his daughter who is now in the throes of her second strep-throat infection in 6 weeks. As he's relating this, he's just digging into that bowl of M&M's and chowing down like it ain't nothin but a thing. Strep in the house plus hoarse voice plus fingers all scrabbling and digging around in the M&M's tripped my biohazard alarm.

That whole bag's worth of M&M's was history as far as I was concerned. As soon as he left, I made a comment about it, and got the "oh yeah, I was just thinking that too" reaction from Jessica and Barb. A darn cryin shame is what it is. We should have planned better, and only dished out measured amounts of those delightfully colorful, chocolate pellets. That way if suspicious interlopers dove in, we could dispose of the potentially fouled goodies and reloaded the canister with untainted supplies. Too late now though. That's $4.50 down the crapper. That's why pistachios are safer. You have to peel away their individual little cloaks to get at the consumables inside, which removes the bulk of the incidental finger smearings from Virus Virgel and the Bacteria Bunch.

Sionara