coffee

Insight From the Empathy-Impaired, and an Ode to Caffeine

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dontcare

I have feelings.  Sort of.  When I choose to acknowledge them.

I am not a warm and fuzzy individual. I never was, and probably never will be.  If I live to be my great-grandmother’s age (she was 94 when she passed) I will probably end up like the old battle-ax that lived across the street from my parents’ house who was dead and decomposing for months before the water meter reader had the bad fortune of being downwind.

By that time it was high summer, and the coroner opined that she’d expired some time in February.  Nobody missed her for that long.  Thankfully she hated animals as much as she did humans, otherwise some little ankle biter (I couldn’t imagine this woman as a dog lover at all, but I really can’t imagine her having a real full size dog) would likely have developed a taste for human flesh.

Dogs are not gourmets, nor are they picky. (note: this incident of “dog eats humans” happened in the UK.)  Mom had one dog (of the ankle biter persuasion) who would dine on soiled feminine hygiene items, and another that would eat entire pairs of underwear.  Decomposing, rotten old fossil would probably be a step up from those culinary delights.

Maxi_Pad_Tampon_Costume

I think I just found my next Halloween costume.

Mom’s dog really did eat these things though. Another reason for my disdain of ankle biters.

Even considering my fear and loathing of most social interaction, for some bizarre reason, I end up being everyone’s twisted Ann Landers.  Perhaps my carefully crafted outer façade is too good.  I’m trying to blend in and navigate through the sea of humanity with all its complex nuances and petty flourishes, but I’m not asking to get pulled into the fray.  Most of the time I just want to be left the hell alone.

natures gift skillet

An iron skillet is a multipurpose tool.

I considered the collection of iron skillets in the kitchen for a brief moment last night.  Yes, they are excellent for making fried chicken and/or cornbread (ironically, two foods I no longer indulge in) but I have to admit I was not amused by Jerry’s drunken forays into my room at 9:30 and again at 11:00.

I’m generally out by 8:30 or 9PM.  I don’t do late nights very well, especially when it’s a Tuesday night and I have to work the next day.  I have no idea how he can party like a rock star during the week and not fall asleep (or worse) at work.  I know I’m a long, long way from the days when I could party all night and go all day long too.  44 is a long way from 17- but 56 is even longer.  I don’t know how he can remain vertical the next day, especially after both swilling Natty Lites and staying up until all hours of the night.  I can’t do it even with coffee and Monster.

monster-energy-drink

I figure if I were going to die from caffeine overload, it would have happened back in the day.

Ah, the good old days- when “nutrition” for me meant the Four Food Groups: nicotine, caffeine, sugar and grease.  I gave up the cigs and generally avoid both sugar and grease whenever possible, but I don’t see me giving up the caffeine entirely.  I’m one of those people who likes coffee “thick,” and I’m not referring to loading it up with extraneous crap.  I like my coffee black and thick, almost like espresso.  I like espresso too, come to think of it, with nothing in it but coffee.

Espresso

No liquor.  No sugar. No cream.  Just coffee.  Concentrated.  Mmmmmm.

I could use a double shot right about now, come to think of it.   I like iced coffee too, as long as the coffee is super strong and there’s nothing in it other than ice and coffee, unless I don’t have anywhere to go, then I don’t mind adding a couple of shots of Bailey’s.  I don’t drink often, but I actually like the taste of Bailey’s and coffee- iced or hot.

baileys

A shot or two of this in some iced coffee would be a beautiful thing right now.

You’re Probably Doing it Wrong, Screw-Up #432 and “March Madness” is Driving Me Apeshit

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‘sdoing it wrong

“Isn’t that cuuuute? BUT IT’S WRONG!!!”

It’s good that I had the foresight to DVR some old 2 Stupid Dogs episodes.  It would have been better, if I could hear the cartoons and Top Gear episodes over the man-yelpings in the next room.  I know Jerry gambles on just about anything anyone is goofy enough to organize a pool on, and he really gets into that brackets noise.  He is also a big Ohio State fan, so I’ve been having to endure both the football season and basketball season.

I am so glad he has his own TV.

In a twisted way it’s almost nice that Jerry’s so occupied with basketball.  It gives him less time to complain about other things, and that’s almost a relief.  It does not,  however, keep him from his incessant whining over food.

If I fix something nice and homemade such as chicken-n-noodles:

chicken-n-noodles

I even make my own noodles- flour, eggs and a lot of rolling and cutting-

Then Cap’n Happy will decide he wants something salty and processed such as:

06-totinos-pizza-rolls

Admittedly, they’re tasty, but I’m sure there’s not much nutrition going on here.

The only reason why I have even a passing interest in eating for health is because I’ve pretty much been forced into it.  There was a time in my life when the “four food groups” consisted of caffeine, nicotine, sugar and grease, remembering always that alcohol is a sugar.  That worked for me for awhile- until my health crashed in my late 20’s-early 30’s- and I had to pay attention or else.  I really don’t care what other people eat, and I really have no desire to impose my dietary preferences / restrictions on anyone else, but generally it means I get to fix two meals- mine, and whatever junk food du jour that Jerry wants.

I still miss looking at a créme horn as a mid-morning snack and/or lunch substitute sometimes.  I remember days where my eating schedule would look like this:

6 AM: Black coffee, brewed to espresso strength, 32 oz tumbler to get started, another 32 oz to last the rest of the day.

11 AM: Créme horn scored from sales department’s leftover donuts, coffee, coffee, coffee

6 PM: Quarter Pounder with cheese, large fries, coffee

6:30-9:30 PM: Wine coolers and/or Bailey’s & coffee, or Kahlua and coffee

Of course, other days would look even more bizarre, like the two months somewhere in the mid-90s that I lived on nothing but Slim-Fast and coffee.  My abysmal nutritional habits in those days were supplemented by packs and packs of 120 menthol cigarettes.

gross ashtray

Nasty, I know.

So I am the last one on the planet who should be lecturing anyone on health and fitness, except maybe to serve as a warning.

I’ve always been the one to find the exception to prove the rule.  I’ve always found the movie Grumpy Old Men to be hilarious.  Burgess Meredith played the senior John Gustafson.  (See the classic bacon and beer tirade video.) His character reminds me of Jerry- cranky, fussy and of course, enamored of bacon and beer.  These are the guys who live to be 120, like the Russians who swill vodka and toke cigars their whole lives.

burgess meredith

I can’t help to think this will be Jerry in thirty years- drinking up my life insurance.

Maybe when I die and he gets all that cash (if he doesn’t blow it all on Natties and gambling) he might be able to afford real beer, like maybe Bud Lite.

Someone like me, well, I can watch everything I eat, work out 3-5 times a week, and will likely be taking the Dirt Nap by age 60 no matter what I do.   It must be my lovely type-A personality. I’d also speculate that my piss-poor draw in the genetic lottery didn’t help much either.

ohio_state basketball

I’m glad they’re winning, if for no other reason than it makes Jerry happy.  But why does a 1 hour game merit a week’s worth of commentary?

And why can’t they use the Oprah channel for all these damned games instead of TruTV? Or some other channel I don’t watch…like one of the 400 ESPNs?  I understand that there’s not much good on TV right now because all the jocks and wanna be jocks, and people who will bet on anything are watching basketball, but come on!  There is a niche out there called the Non Sports Fan.  It’s OK to pander to that niche, alright?

But just as I thought of my Non Sports Fan category of TV viewer, I thought of something non-sports that I loathe even more than 24-7 sports.  I absolutely can’t tolerate “Chick TV”: i.e. soap opera type fictional shows that do not involve either gratuitous sex or things catching on fire, anything involving non-talented schmucks trying to perform glorified karaoke, anything fictional and designed to make one cry, and worst of all, “improvement” type shows where some jackwagon from either coast tries to tell me how to dress and/or do interior design.

what-not-to-wear

Green shirt and green tie? That blecchy green?  And you’re going to tell me how to dress?

I have the 3 “c” rule: is it comfortable, cheap (as in inexpensive) and does it afford good coverage?

So what kind of programming is left for me?

–Top Gear.  But only the BBC one.  The one with Jeremy Clarkson.

–World’s Dumbest

-Anything on Investigation Discovery

-Most of the programming on The Military Channel, The History Channel and The Military History Channel.

-Some programming on Comedy Central, i.e. Tosh.0, and South Park

-Most of the programming on Boomerang and Cartoon Network except for Pokèmon and some of that other bizzaro anime stuff.

-Most of Adult Swim, except Family Guy.  I just can’t get into that show.

–1000 Ways to Die

If I didn’t pay the big bucks for cable, I would really be going nuts by now.

Happy Birthday Great-Grandma, Fighting Over Used Shoes, and Other Pointless Endeavors

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Great-Grandma couldn’t stand Ted Kennedy, or any of the Kennedy family for that matter.

Happy birthday to my great-grandma, who would have been 114 today, if she hadn’t died in 1992 at the age of 94.  I miss Grandma.  She was cool.  I would give almost anything for just one more afternoon of coffee and conversation with her, but you get what you get.  I’m just glad that she lived close and I was able to spend as much time with her as I did. Besides having a taste for insanely strong coffee and for discussing conservative politics, she had a collection of tabloids that would boggle the mind.  She always claimed to read them for the entertainment value.  I read them for the entertainment value too, especially the Weekly World News.

The John Deere hat is a nice touch.

Grandma also had a framed, signed picture of President Reagan which I am sure one of the twins (my grandmother’s evil identical twin sisters) ended up with.  I can’t believe the twins (who were in their early 70s at the time) had an out and out knock-’em-down, yank each other’s  hair out, fist fight over her stuff. Besides some clothes and a few nice pairs of size 8 shoes, the Reagan picture was probably the only thing she owned that had any monetary value.  If I know my twin great-aunts (and one of them is still alive-though the one who had the stroke died about five years ago) they were fighting over the shoes.  They wore size 8s too.

I have a strong shoe fetish myself- but even should they be size 7s, I’m not fighting anyone for used shoes.

My twin great-aunts’ altercation over a few pairs of used shoes and a whole lot of worthless kitsch convinced me once and for all: I don’t need dead people’s stuff.  My sisters can have it all.  I am just curious when I die (they are slightly older than me, but they are much better preserved, and will most certainly outlive me) if they will brawl over my used underwear (the bras won’t fit either one of them- unless they add a little extra stuffins,) and not a few pairs of size 7 shoes that only one of them can wear.   The oldest, who was my sadistic childhood nemesis, does well to fit her behemoth meaty feet into an 8EEE.  The other sister also wears a 7B, and therefore, my shoes fit her.

I’ll cut out the middleman and just put my old skivvies on E-Bay now.

Or, better yet, I could E-Bay Jerry’s nasty old whitey-tighties, after he’s worn them for a night of gambling, drinking and the Hershey Squirts:

Of course, there’s a dude who’s already thought of using what appears to be a soiled set of whitey-tighties as a safe.  I can sort of understand the mentality, though I would struggle with the temptation to pick out the cash and then toss the skivvies.

The replacement fridge is up and running quite nicely as of this morning.  The ice is frozen and Jerry’s Natties are cold.  Spuds is in the G&R, and all is right with the world.

The G&R still has the most awesome fried bologna sandwiches.  And cream pies.  And an original late ’80’s Spuds McKenzie.

Humor Me, Breathing is Fundamental, and Anytime is Naptime

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I love it.  My granddaughter is already learning the art of the stink-eye.

I think gradually, ever so painfully slowly, my sorry carcass is beginning to get the picture that drowning me in snot is rather counterproductive.  I’ve been on the Allegras for a little over a week and they do seem to help- that along with the saline rinses (now there’s a really fun activity- spraying salt water up your nose to rinse out your sinuses) and the homeopathic nasal spray made from capsaicin (capsaicin is what makes hot peppers hot) that burns like hell right after you spray it-  but it is effective, and at $11 a bottle, I can afford that. So far it’s working better than the steroid sprays that cost $100 + per script and as an added bonus, can give you glaucoma.  I’ve used the steroid sprays before, and they are effective, but I can’t afford them, and since I’m already at risk for glaucoma, I think I’ll steer clear.

Of course, as always, I have a sick sense of humor, even though it has been temporarily stifled by misery and fatigue.  I hate being so tired, but the word “tired” does not capture the depth of the sloggingly slow, painfully apathetic state I’ve been in.  The snots have subsided enough to allow me at least some sleep- but no matter how much sleep I manage to get I feel like I can always use more.  I hate dragging my ass through life.  I would love to wake up hyper- in a good way- with something fun to do that I actually have the energy for.  Maybe I’ve just been sleep deprived for so long that there’s no possible way for me to catch up. 

I do have to go next week and get my blood drawn for labs.  I wonder if yet again something is out of line with my funky-assed body chemistry. In the past I’ve had fatigue caused by low iron (that shouldn’t be an issue since the hysterectomy,) and low potassium (I have to take a supplement for that.)  I’ve had my thyroid stuff checked in the past and it’s been normal, but Grandpa had low thyroid, and he was virtually narcoleptic over it until the Drs found it and started medicating him for it.  Maybe my thyroid has gone south.  It would not surprise me.  I am the repository for most of my family’s genetically transmitted diseases after all.  I can only hope that if that is what’s making me want to sleep 24/7 that they actually run a thyroid test on my blood.  I have no idea which blood panels my new Dr. is going to run.  If I were him I would run everything known to man, because Murphy’s Law would indicate that I have a greater chance than most of having obscure and bizarre anomalies and diseases, especially if they are inherited. 

As a kid it always pissed me off that the world “wastes” so much time sleeping.  Back in the day I could run on four or five hours’ sleep and be wide awake and ready to go.  Now I can sleep on and off for 10-12 hours and still be dead tired.   Perhaps it is a bit of cosmic justice for being so wired as a kid, or punishment for all those years of chugging coffee, chain-smoking and taking all that mail order speed.  Pseudoephedrine and caffeine pills were easily obtained back in the 80’s and 90’s.  I could stay awake for days. Now I wish I could sleep for days, but even then I’d still wake up dead tired.

Maybe I don’t have enough excitement in my life.  Maybe I had too much excitement earlier on, and I’m so jaded I can’t get enthused about very much.  Then again, the odds of waking up with a hot young stud in my bed are next to none.  I wake up with dogs in my bed, but that’s not quite the same.

Clara manages to get herself in the smallest of spaces to sleep- while the other two dogs like to take up as much surface area as possible.

Here’s Lilo- all stretched out as usual.

Sheena doesn’t even try to get into the beds with her bad hips- but she can sleep on the couch- and just about anywhere else.

I force myself to exercise- 30 minutes a day of strenuous cardio most days- and supposedly that’s supposed to make one more energetic.  It’s done wonders for my upper and lower body strength- but not a damned thing for my energy level.  I can go through a workout and then turn right around and go back to sleep.  I don’t think it’s supposed to work that way but it does for me, and some days it takes everything I have to get through 30 minutes.

I think someone could make a killing if they could find a way for people to workout while they sleep.  Just hook me up to the marathon running machine while I’m sleeping.  If I could sleep and run a marathon at the same time, then I would be well on my way to a buff bod.

I’ve always liked the idea of stealth exercise.  Swimming is the closest I’ve ever gotten to it.  You feel great while you’re swimming laps, but don’t realize how much energy you’ve burned up until you get out of the pool.  Unfortunately I don’t have easy access to an indoor pool.  It was nice when I had the “Y” membership but Jerry whined and cried about it every time I went to the “Y,” because every minute I was at the pool was a minute I wasn’t available to fetch beer or otherwise cater to His Nibs. 

To hear him talk about it, I think somewhere back in the reptilian part of his brain he might have thought that other guys were “looking at” me in a bathing suit.  I think it’s funny he assumes that because I’m female that my partially clad body would cause other males to lust, (??? I’m not really lustworthy material by any standard????!!!!) but he fails to realize two very important truths- 1.) I purchase swim attire that affords me the most coverage I can get,  because 2.) there are laws in this country against cruel and unusual punishment.  Subjecting others to the visual of my incredibly pale, scarred skin is just plain nasty- nobody wants to see my stretch marks, surgical scars, varicose veins, burn marks, etc.  If I could find a swim top with sleeves I’d wear that too, so nobody would have to get an eyeful of my meaty arms.  As far as I can see, the visual of me in a bathing suit would motivate projectile vomiting rather than provide fodder for a hand party.