Monday, January 28, 2008

Can you stomach this?

It's flu season, and all of Indiana is coughing. We've done nothing but talk to patient about coughs for two weeks now, and there's no sign of it letting up. Heck, even my youngest ds has a cough, and my kids never get sick. Being homeschooled, the cooties don't have an easy time getting to us.

But me, I have been coughing since the weekend after Thanksgiving. It's no lie to say that it started when I carried ds18's laundry up to the third floor of the dorm. I was fine one minute, then decided to carry it up to save him a second trip out to the car in the rain, and by the time I got to the car, I was coughing. By the time I got home 2 hours later, I was looking for an inhaler, and it's not let up since. Blame the boy's laundry. He tried to kill me with it.

So I saw the ENT doctor yesterday, cause my own doc is mystified as to why I cough every winter. DH is sure I have a tumor, but I told him it must be a seasonal tumor, because I only cough from November to May, and then it goes away. He thinks it's the two dogs, two cats, and the guinea pig that live here, but they DON'T go away, so it makes no sense that the coughing is seasonal. So this ENT doc wants to do a test where they put a tube down my nose for 24 hours, to test the pH of my esophagus, cause he thinks it's all from reflux.

I've always been a little backward.

Doesn't sound too fun though, having a little tube up the nose and down the throat for 24 hours. Definitely would make it hard to find a date, so I guess I'm glad I'm married. But God knows, the kids will have a high time laughing at their mama (not like they don't on a normal day, mind you).

And so, in thinking about my supposedly rotten stomach, I went looking for something to show off the hourglass shape that I tried (not so successfully) to have, a few years back. I found this fabulous vintage 50s Black Noir Wiggle Dress, from Rising Phoenix Vintage. Don't you think it would rock, with some stilettos and sparkly bracelets? I love the waist detail. Heck, it might even give ME a waist.

Well, you can't blame a girl for dreaming...........

Swim with the Fishies

My mother in law passed away in the fall. She's interred at a cemetery near us, where her in law are also interred. There's a spot there where my father in law will someday be as well. He likes to joke that they will set up a table between the spots where the two couples are, so they can play cards. Knowing him, they will.

I don't play cards much. I definitely don't play euchre, which is the game of choice in Indiana. Never could figure that game out, no matter how hard I tried. So I guess being interred at Washington Park East is out of the question.

I don't want a lot of fuss when I depart this earth. I told the hubby, take the money, have a barbecue (no funeral -- I just want food), then take a cruise around the world and find a trophy wife. That'd be just fine with me. Oh, and donate any of my organs that are still good. Though, with as many as I've had removed, I don't know that there will be any leftovers. Especially cause I'm not keen on bone donation. I watched them do that once, and was so grossed out that I didn't eat chicken for months afterward. But then again, since I have dead people bone in my neck, maybe I should reconsider.

So I told hubby, put me in the reef. Let me swim with the fishies. I'm a water sign, after all, and I love water, so just make me into a reef, and let the fishies play. Hub thought I was kidding, till I showed him this place, called Eternal Reefs. They'll take your cremains (what a weird word), and let those fishies swim all around you. What a cool idea. I love to recycle, and I think this is the ultimate. Of course, they don't have anywhere I'd like to be right now, cause I want to be off the coast of Virginia, where I was born, but by the time I get around to dying, maybe they'll have room. If not, South Carolina would be just fine.

So think about it, where are you gonna be when you die? I don't want to take up space on the earth, I wouldn't want to be buried on a hill, and I certainly don't want to be up in the air in a mausoleum -- I'm afraid of heights. And don't put me in a cemetery where the plots are so close together -- I hate sleeping next to the hubby as it is. He hogs the covers. So take me out, dress me up in something like this great vintage 50s Atomic Fish Print Dress, from The Fishpaw Lounge, and say Bon Voyage. I'd be just fine with that. Just make sure you have food for the going away party. I like pasta best.

Saturday, January 26, 2008

The Hills Have Eyes

I don't do scary movies. I don't mean I don't like them. I mean I NEVER watch them. I'm very easily freaked out. I won't sleep if I watch the scary stuff -- heck, I didn't sleep for three days after Titanic, and it wasn't even scary. It was the real thing.

I guess I have a vivid imagination, cause I've never been able to watch anything creepy. My siblings used to watch Dark Shadows in the basement, every day, after school. I was about five. All I remember is someone named Jeremiah, and a room covered in blood. Never saw the show again -- not necessarily because of the show, but because the brothers and sisters threw me out, screaming, and wouldn't allow me in the basement when it was on anymore.

That show probably explains a thing or two about me now.

My kids love the scary stuff, except the youngest son. He's a chicken like me, which is just fine. Maybe his day will come, but until then, whilst the hubby and oldest two are watching "The Hills Have Eyes," we'll be in the other room doing DDR or watching something tame. At least I'll have company.

So when I was thinking about The Hills Have Eyes, it reminded me of 'the hills are alive......' which made me think of my crazy sister, and all of the weird lyrics she rewrites. Like, "Put your hand in the fan and you will lose a finger.....put your foot in the fan and you will lose a toe..." But while I was thinking of the the hills being alive in The Sound of Music (ok, so it's flight of ideas day, folks), I went looking for vintage dirndls, and came across this little cutie, in my favorite color RED, from Digman's Violin Shop--makes it perfect, since the whacky sister plays the violin. Doesn't take a lot of imagination to figure out how adorable it is. So ok, it wasn't such a flight of ideas day after all, and since the dirndl is 1) adorable and 2) perfect for Valentine's Day. Nothing scary about the price either.

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Who let the dog up......on the table

Guys and girls, if you aren't aware, Valentine's Day is creeping up on us. Quickly. Now, if you read Random Acts much, you'll know I'm not a big holiday person, especially Valentine's Day. The idea of flinging a bunch of money at the person you love, just to earn points, makes me more than a little nuts. Okay, so I'm already a little nuts, but I wrote last year about Valentine's Day being The Black Holiday (which, I might add, is no longer the Black Holiday to the friend who came up with the concept -- I found out yesterday that she's engaged).

The hubby and I don't do much for Hallmark holidays. Mother's Day - he got me a Dyson vacuum cleaner. Not too romantic, you say? I told the guy that if he didn't buy me one, I was gonna go out and buy it for myself, so he may as well cut to the chase, save me some time, and buy it. What do you know, he did. Brough it to me at work, even. I told him he wasn't allowed to USE it till I got home, at which point I ran our cheapie $45 Walmart vacuum, followed immediately by the Dyson.

Filled that Dyson canister 12 times. Just in the living room. Yep, I suck. Or rather, the Dyson does. It's an amazing instrument, for those of us with a menagerie of four footed creatures.

And the hubby lucked out, cause I told him when he bought that Dyson that he didn't have to get me birthday presents or Christmas -- that machine made my day. Guess I'm getting old, but it was a great gift. And he won't get me a Valentine's Day gift. We've rarely done that since our first Valentine's Day as a married couple. He bought me roses, and a huge chocolate chip cookie.

The dog got on the table and ate not only the cookie, but the roses too.

That was the end of our Valentine's celbrating. And like I say, if someone shows that they love you 364 days of the year, or, this year, 365, then showing it on the other day of the year by buying a bunch of candy or flowers isn't really necessary. But you could definitely shower yourself with love and grab this frothy 50s prom dress, from Bombshell Frocks Vintage. The coat isn't included, but man, that frock will turn some heads on the big day. Just don't leave it near the dog.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Loopy

Handwriting is a strange beast. Methinks that, in this keyboarding world of ours, handwriting will one day be a thing of the past. And it's a good thing.

Handwriting supposedly says a lot about a person. I once did a handwriting analysis of my own chicken scratch, and found that I had a lot of interest in all things medical. Well, duh! The dh loves to boast of his third grade award for penmanship. He also loves to tear up our sons' writing, which is nothing short of illegible. There have been times that I have asked my oldest what the heck he wrote in a note to me, and HE can't tell me.

Now that is pretty bad.

But I've never beaten them over the head about handwriting, because after all, I'm a nurse, and I've certainly seen worse from the docs I work with. And ds18 can keyboard almost 120 words a minute, with no errors, so I keep it all in perspective and let it go.

I once worked with a doctor in Florida who, God love him, had, shall we say, less than a total command of the English language. He wrote pages and pages of orders, all of which were transcribed by a secretary, then double checked by a nurse. Occasionally, we'd come across something that was nothing more than a bunch of loops, in a long row. What the heck? We would look at each other, and then one of us would head over and ask him what in the world language he was writing in, because I knew Spanish, and this gibberish was closer to sanscrit than any romance language I had ever seen.

He would roll his eyes, sigh loudly, and then say, in an exasperated tone, "it clearly says bathroom priveges," or some such rot. What we realized very quickly was that, if he had no idea how to spell something, it just became a row of cursive lower case L's, and would only be translated by the author. I still think of him and smile.

So, to celebrate my favorite Spanish doctor -- who was quick to say that he was from SPAIN, not Central America -- here's a wonderful vintage 60s squiggles dress, from one of my favorite sellers, The Vintage Fashionist, on ebay. Loosely translated, it says, "buy me."

Friday, January 11, 2008

LOST has been found

Lost is coming back. After being gone for 9 months, the best show on TV is coming back, January 31st.

I will admit, I am a LOST junkie. I LOVE this show. And I don't watch much TV, really. Or, to correct that statement, I don't choose much of the TV I watch, because I generally don't get the remote till the dh is asleep. By then, I'm usually ready to crash anyway.

But LOST is a different matter. The dh is not only not allowed to have the remote, he's pretty much not allowed to speak whilst it is on. He asks too many questions, so he has just learned that he either has to sit quietly, or find something else to do that takes him out of the room, or we will berate him till he does.

But then again, dd said she won't watch it with me anymore, because I tend to scream a lot when whacky stuff happens on the show. And it happens all the time. It's a whacky, unpredictable show. Genius stuff, really. But, dd won't have to worry about it, cause I'm gonna have to watch it on the DVR this season, since I work every Thursday evening now. So she will watch it in peace, and hear me scream at 1am, when I watch it.

So, I went looking for something that would remind me of Lost, and found this Vintage Shaheen Fishtail Dress, from modmonkeyvintage. GREAT hemline, and it looks like The Others are running around on it. Not sure of the backstory on this one, but it'd look great on Kate. I couldn't get away with it, but that's ok, cause I'll be in my jammies and slippers, watching the greatest thing since sliced bread. Just don't talk during the show, or I'll have to take you out.