Aftermath of a sleep study...

Last night was the sleep study. Thankfully, Fred got a bedwarmer last night, so at least one of us got sleep... Me? I got a hairful of pommade and electrodes stuck every which way on my head, face, chest and legs... And pretty much no sleep at all.

I'm falling somewhere between stage 3 and stage 4...


And I'm pretty sure I'm going to be running at about this speed all day... Yippee me!

Thank the ever-loving Lord and Lady for caffeine.

~M

Because I had to...

Starting to get better...

So, I got the test results back for my thyroid - it's down to 2.9, so finally within the range it should be.

I've also had my other meds increased a bit, and that's been helping as well. I'm not feeling quite as tired and listless as I had been, and am actually beginning to start to do things around the house again. Which is nice. Means that I might actually get stuff done around the house prior to the family dinner...

Speaking of which...

ANNUAL FAMILY HOLIDAY DINNER!
When: 12-13-08
Where: The Wilcox Residence
Time: around 4-ish, to whenever
BYOB! - we will have some sparkling cider for toasting

This is a pot-luck dinner, with us providing the main meat dishes of Lamb and chicken. Please bring 1 dish that will feed about 8 people.

Please RSVP to me to let me know if you'll be joining us, so I can make sure to get enough meat. :-)

~M

And we're done...

For another 4 years. Sort of.

At least, for the presidential campaign. Our neck of the woods is still counting votes for the state elections. We probably won't know the final outcome until later on tonight for most of it.

Either way you voted, you have to admit that this has been an interesting campaign, and a monumental one, besides. The only terror that I have at this point was listening to two people in the last two weeks talk about their views on voting in one way or another.

The first one I listened to was a gal who was my friend Ronni's roommate. She apparently likes to read out loud, regardless of the actual content of what's on the paper she's reading... Her non-stop commentary was about as follows...

"Gee... Hmmmm... Oh, hey! There's a woman running. Did you know there's a woman running? I'm voting for her, then!"

"Um... both of these names sound russian. Don't they sound russian to you? But I can't tell about the third one. What? It's possibly Serbian? Or Polish? Oh. Well, I'll vote for one of the russians then, I guess."

"I don't get what this measure is all about. What do they mean? Hmm? Oh, I know the booklet is on the table over there, but I'm just going to vote randomly on these ones. Why don't they make this more clear?"

It really REALLY made me shudder to think that she was actually allowed a vote, considering she wasn't really even interested in what was going on, nor interested in learning...

The other was the gal I ran into last night on the bus on the way home, who apparently runs her life by the old testament scriptures...

"Well, my belief is that you have to learn how to govern your own person first, and Man should not create a system of justice against itself without that learning - it's up to God to do that. That's why I don't vote."

I see. Never mind that without some sort of government system, imperfect or not, made by man or not, you have absolute chaos, and you won't have ANYTHING at ALL. I mean, honestly... Let's see here - we aren't perfect, and our system certainly isn't - but it's the best we can do for now, until we can figure out how to get around that pesky human nature thing. We can choose to do the best we can with what we've got, and work within those confines, understanding that, even as an imperfect system, we are allowing each person the chance to make a difference within the world by creating, adjusting, and generally managing said system.

She didn't like it when I pointed that out to her.

Honestly, let's really think about this here - no, I don't believe that the Electoral College is a good thing. It's old, it's outdated, and with the technology that we have today, it should go the way of the Do-Do and be ousted out. One person, one vote. That's what we advocate, right? That's what people from all walks of life and all countries come here for, right? True democracy... So, let's have some.

Do I think that my vote counted... I can't tell, unfortunately. Because the Electoral College is what matters at this point, it's what made the final decision. It is possible that a president could lose the popular vote, but win the EC vote. That, to me isn't right. But, there it is. The system isn't perfect, but it's there. None-the-less, I vote. Why? Because it's my right to do so, and without voting, I don't have the right to bitch about how the country is run. I do my part, and cast my vote as part of the system to help direct my country. If you don't vote (regardless of which side you vote for), don't bitch. You didn't do your part.

~M

Who am I...

Your result for The Which Wife of Henry VIII Are You Test...

You are Jane Seymour!

Third wife of Henry VIII

You are a beauty to behold and the only one of the kings wifes to do your duty - provide a proper male heir. And your quietness is often mistaken for stupidness! But in all reality you are quite moral and quite smart. You would of been a great queen if you had lasted longer than 17 days after the birth of your son. You had everything that was considered proper in a lady - you cleaned, you sewed, you sang (although people hated it when you did), and you played the flute. The only thing that you could have done to better yourself was be educated. If you would have survived it is likely that the king would not have had to remarry, you giving him a son would of made you the apple of his eye. But it is okay. You will forever be known as the one who provided what England needed. Your marriage lasted a little over 11 months.

Take The Which Wife of Henry VIII Are You Test at HelloQuizzy

Self-Destructive Tendencies...

I know, from a psychological point of view (yes, I minored in it for 3 years...) that everyone has some degree of self-destructive tendancy. This is accepted, but normally not entertained on a wide scale by most people.

I don't mind people having these tendencies. I have them myself, and occasionally feel the need to bring them out, play with them quietly in a corner, and then put them back in their little box for another year or so. It's not a problem, honestly, as long as my self-destructive tendencies do NOT directly impact others over a lengthy period of time (like, longer than an hour or so), and they don't cause significant amounts of drama repeatedly to those around me.

Sometimes, some people just don't know when they are moving from venting to drama... Case in point, this last weekend. A friend of ours came to spend the weekend with us because of issues with her roommates. Suffice to say, the relationship she's had with them has ended, and now she is feeling very cut off, isolated, and rather uncomfortable in her own home. This is all understandable. When anything like that happens and it's a non-amecable break-up, it tends to make things very uncomfortable.

So, she asked if she could spend the weekend with us to get away and relax for a bit. This was fine. She also asked if she could bring over alcohol. This also was fine, as far as I was concerned. Not really cluing into anything, and having it not occur that something bad could happen with it, I didn't say anything about it, other than mentioning that I wouldn't mind having a tipple of something sweet myself.

So, she arrives at our house whilst Fred is out and about with Boo, bringing with her 5 bottles of alcohol - 4 of them 30 proof, and one bottle of 151... Friday night we decide we aren't going to do much - Saturday is going to be a big day for most of us, and while it's been a long week, we're too tired to actually enjoy any "real" drinking - so we put it off for Saturday. I promise to teach both S and our guest how to play tablero, and we go to bed.

SaturDAY was fine - our guest declined to join us for the quilter's volunteer circle at the hospital, so we headed out, picked up Rikki on the way and had a great time sewing, then wending through a local fabric shop, and then to lunch and home (picked up ribs for dinner, too).

That evening, however, was a different matter entirely.

Again, venting is perfectly natural, and acceptable. I have no issues with it. HOWEVER - you do not... NOT... mix venting in with alcohol - especially when you happen to be our guest, apparently. I taught her how to play tablero, and we went through a standard-sized bottle of mead together with it. I fwas feeling nice and tipsy, warm and pleasant, but not overly out-of-control. I was enjoying the feeling, and felt that, should the need arise, I would be perfectly happy to either sober up or go to sleep with no issues whatsoever.

Our guest, however, decided instead to start straight-shooting 151, with diet pepsi shooters. I didn't even WANT to see her blood sugar levels at that point (oh, did we not mention that she's an insulin-dependent diabetic?) After she'd had about 8 shots, she suddenly turned white and headed off to the bathroom just in time to throw up... By then it was around 9pm or so... This was the beginning of the major downslide to the evening.

She proceeded to continue to get more and more sick, punctuated by bouts of self-pitying soliloquies about how horrible she was, and how she didn't deserve anything that anyone might give her at all... ever...

By 1am, she was still drunk, and I'd gone to bed. Or at least, I'd attempted to go to bed. Instead, while Fred and S attempted to deal with her puking on herself, the blankets, the floor and the couch, I had to get up and calm down Boo because she was getting so upset and hyped up on what was going on.

Finally got Boo to go to sleep around 2-ish, when they plopped our guest into the tub to wash her off. We finally got to sleep around 3:30 or 4-ish Sunday morning.

Boo woke us up at 7:30, convinced that we all had to be up at that point. I felt NO remorse for bringing a very rambunctious and happily loud baby out to the front room to play. Mwa ha ha.

New rules in the house from this point forward:

If you want to bring alcohol to the house, that's fine.
You are only allowed 1 bottle, of 1 liter or less.
Said bottle cannot be more than 80 proof.
No self-destructive stuff around the baby. EVER.

This was NOT a good saturday.

Halloween Photos