Meniers Disease, Change and The Coming Apocalypse

A lot of times it feels like I’m going nuts.  It’s nothing definite, just a feeling I have.

I’m not alone in thinking that, because the people I work around and interact with all think I’m going nuts too.

The reason I think I’m going crazy is because of Menieres disease.  I’ve got it…..or at least that’s what the ENT guy said, but he wouldn’t give a 100% certainty rating.  

Doctors rarely ever do.  Anytime there’s even the slightest doubt, they always seem to prevaricate, or provide a few caveats.

“Well Mr. Gaunt, it looks almost certain that you have Menieres disease.  I can’t be 100% certain, but I’m about 99% sure.  We could run a few more tests at several thousand dollars a pop, or……”

I usually opt for the “or” part and avoid paying scads more money out of pocket for that extra 1% certainty.  Either way, I know I’ve got crazy ringing/roaring in my ears, occasional episodes of vertigo and rare (so far) bouts of nausea.  I’m 100% sure of that, no further testing necessary.

I could do drugs to (supposedly) limit the symptoms, but……nah.  Not yet, let’s see how things go; if it gets worse than…..maybe.  Of course, if the constant ringing “feedback” I have finally does drive me completely crazy, I may not need the meds anyway.

If I was really fed up, I could change my eating habits, and cut out salt too.  Supposedly that helps.  But I hate changing things.  I’m not real good with change.  In fact, change for change’s sake sucks…..or could suck.

Change could also be okay, but more than likely it’s going to suck, at least for someone…..probably me.

Did I say I don’t like change?  I don’t like change.  It’s not that I am boring (okay, I probably am), but I just like things to be where, when, how, I want them and expect them to be.  Like this morning.

This morning I stopped at my usual morning coffee pit stop; the local QT convenience store, and ran face first into some change.

The first problem was that someone had parked in MY parking spot.  The audacity!  I mean, I don’t have a sign, but since I stop there EVERY Monday – Friday at about the SAME time each morning, then everyone should know that it’s MY spot right?  Easy in, easy out.  That’s one reason I chose it, and now some assface was using it.

Grumbling about the rudeness of it all (and it was even an ugly stupid car) I walked inside to get my joe.

When I reached for a 20oz. cup from the dispenser, the colors were wrong.  The middle cup (16oz, 20oz. 24oz.) was some weird, different shade of tangerine or something.  For a second I thought they had loaded the wrong cups in the middle dispenser but no, it was a new cup.

A thick, styro-fucking-foam cup.

The old ones were Styrofoam too, but they were thin, and had nice dimples on the bottom that felt right holding it while I drank.  These were big, fat, ugly cups with the the QT label wrapped around them and no cute dimples.

Unnecessary change.  Aaaarrrrgh!!

So I try to do my coffee routine, except it isn’t routine now.  Now I have to find a new mark on the cup to judge my sugar pouring by.  You see, I also used the little dimples on the old cup to make sure my sugar input was accurate and consistent every day.  It’s going to take a few trial and error attempts to get the right amount of sugar.  I don’t like trial and error either.

After dispensing the cream / flavor shit from the automatic machines (which never work right) I stirred with the new thicker straws they had changed out a couple months back and grabbed a lid.  Wrong size.  The old lids don’t work with the new styro-fucking-foam cups so now I have to use a different lid.

Sheesh!

Well, at least the lids seem to be a design improvement over the old ones.  They have the little flip over tab to close up the sippy hole.  For a chronic spill-fool like me, closing the sippy hole is always a good idea if you aren’t actively drinking.  So you see, some change is okay, but the lousy usually outweighs the good.  And all change upsets my routine.

The reason I like routine is that I can let my mind wander to pleasant thoughts while I go through the motions of living.  I probably look like a mouth-breather while I mentally wander, but I don’t care, it’s my happy time inside my head.  But change?.....change makes me think of strange things.

I start reminiscing about childhood, bad parenting, grade school failure, disastrous relationships and shit like that.

Which then makes me realize that I’m getting older, and if the apocalypse is going to come, it had better get here soon or I won’t have the energy, strength, or…….whatever…… left over to kick ass and kill zombies.

Because kicking ass and killing zombies is what the apocalypse is all about right?

I think the apocalypse will happen when a huge asteroid or comet impact (remember Shoemaker-Levy 9?) causes an almost extinction level event and brings in alien viruses from outer space.  We’ll all die eventually, but in the meantime there will be plenty of ass kicking and zombie killing to do.

If it’s going to happen, I hope it does before I need to use a walker and hearing aid.  No one can kill zombies if they have to hold on to a walker and can’t hear ‘em coming.  Have you ever seen a hero in a zombie flick that scootches around using a walker?  I haven’t, and judging from the rate of deterioration I feel like is happening with my body, I’ve got a couple years left before I am just zombie food.

Which brings up this thought; apocalypse happens to every person at some point.  Whether it’s death dealing cancer, heart attack, bear mauling, garbage truck smack down, or being eaten by sharks, everyone suffers their own personal apocalypse at some point eh?

Usually it’s totally unexpected, and often happens when the person is old and decrepit.  

Maybe that’s why zombie apocalypse stuff appeals to people because you can see it coming.  That gives you the opportunity to scream a lot and kill the undead in the process, but eventually you’ll be zombie food, or worm food, or something.

I’m okay with that, I’ll be crazy by then anyway; wandering around, listening to the loud ringing in my ears, mouth-breathing and grumbling about how things have changed so damn much.

Task "A:" Every Ten Years (or so)

Every spring, something makes me decide, against all better judgment to do some yard work.  

Mount Leaverest

There are two times of year when I have that urge, autumn, and spring.  Usually I resist the urge until it goes away. 

Occasionally I succumb and do something stupid like prune bushes or try to fertilize stuff.  It never ends well and I usually only succeed in spending money in a totally unnoticeable way.

This year, the weather started warming up and on a particularly beguiling Saturday morning I decided to clean out the accretion of leaves from the azalea beds.  

Not being a complete bone head, I stopped to evaluate my mental health, and assess the amount of work needed to complete the task. All this preparation prior to even putting on my work clothes.  I was going to KILL awesomeness today!!!

It seemed like a simple enough task; rake out the old leaves from under and around the azaleas, and spread some fertilizer.

Simple enough.

I glanced at the sun beginning its climb up the eastern slope of the sky, and smiled to myself.  With some enthusiasm, I could be finished by mid-afternoon, and have the rest of the glorious day to waste any way I wanted to.

This is the kind of thought I usually have right before some Armageddon like event.

It’s like when I go to the auto parts store to inquire about the likelihood that I can do some sort of Zen level repair.  The guy behind the counter that was born with a torque wrench in his hand says, “Sure! It’s easy!  All you gotta do is…..” 

Then he proceeds to tell me three easy steps to a new engine and I get all excited, jumping up and down and yell, “SOLD!”

Twelve hours later, after suffering defeat after humiliating defeat at the hands of an alternator, I’m convinced cars were built for the sole purpose of destroying my sense of manhood.

Anyway, that’s cars and this is just a bunch of leaves so……

A quick trip to the shed and I secured everything I needed. Or I would have if I had actually been able to make a quick trip to the shed and secure everything I needed. I can't do quick trips; my quick trips are punctuated with long, frustrating interludes.

I’m one of those people who can’t simply accomplish task “A.”  Task “A” usually requires that I finish task “M” which was started a month ago and never actually completed.  Task “M” didn’t get done because it required that task “F” be fixed again.  Task “F” was never properly accomplished the first time because while doing task “Q” I used the wrong part/chemical/bolt/beer. The subsequent effect was that task “X” (which task “F” relied upon) never actually got finished………. leaving all dependent tasks deficient.

By the time I get the backlog of tasks updated, I’ve often forgotten what the original task was that I was setting out to do. It’s okay though, the next time I try a new task, I’ll be reminded what I've forgotten to do and I can get it done then.  This is a messy system but effective given enough time.

But I digress as usual.

After repairing the shed door, setting a mouse trap, sharpening the pruning shears, rearranging paint cans, and washing the dog, I finally pulled out the rake, ground sheet and other miscellaneous tools and set to work.

A quick glance over my shoulder told me that the sun had somehow managed to get from the east to the west without ever once warning me the day was slipping away.  Stupid sun!  Of course, that realization made me also realize I had missed lunch.

Well, no time like the present to tuck into a good sandwich.

An hour later, after loading the dishwasher, putting in a load of laundry, and gobbling a banana while remembering I had failed to get sandwich fixin's the last time I was at the store, I was back outside to “get this bitch knocked out!”  I attacked the job of raking out the azalea beds (a loose euphemism for scads of azaleas gone wild)  with gusto.  

Later that “gusto” would become desperation punctuated with bursts of maniacal laughter, but for now I still had some positive enthusiasm.

One thing I failed to take into account before embarking on this ridiculous yard work project, was that I had never actually done it before; at least not in the last ten years or so.  The “build-up” of leaves was so deep, it would have taken a track hoe half a day to dig down to the bottom.  

By the time I had excavated down to the level of the early Pleistocene epoch, the sun was low in the sky and all I had managed to do was create several piles of moldering leaves large enough to be spotted from the ISS.

Obviously the neighbors must have been using my azalea beds to dump their own leaves.  They must have carted loads of them in bag by bag over the years at night while I slept.  Funny I had never caught the scoundrels doing this heinous deed, but clearly there had been mischief afoot.

Now I had raked them all back out in a slightly scaled down version of the Himalayas sculpted from organic material.  It was going to take more than a little while to rake all these mountainous piles onto a ground sheet and cart them across the back-forty to dump them in the woods.  A task I didn’t relish doing another day, but light was fading almost as quickly as my will to continue.

For one brief, mad moment, I considered bringing out lights and working into the darkness.  If I could just make a hard push, and get it done…….. but pain, hunger, depression, and thirst drove me indoors for the night.

The next day, Sunday, dawned even brighter and more glorious than the day before.  Of course that was merely Mother Earth's way of mocking me, because she knew I had an assload of work to do and wouldn’t actually be able to enjoy such a gorgeous day.

Determined not to let incomplete task “W” side track me, I gulped a quick cup of coffee, downed a banana (while making a mental note to PLEASE remember to get some damn sandwich fixin’s soon) and headed out the door with substantially less good will than the day before.

To make a longer story long, I spent the entire day spreading the ground sheet, raking moldy leaves onto it, half-carrying-half-dragging load upon load (each load the approximate size of an adolescent elephant) across the yard and dumping it in a spot near the edge of the woods.  During that entire time, my dog Tinker spent her day alternating between galloping through the piles of leaves, lying in the sun / shade, or romping about.  The whole time she kept eyeing me with that “stupid human” look and telepathically suggesting we give up this madness and head to the park instead.

I had reached an out of body state by that time and could not be dissuaded.

By the end of day, with all the repetition (the mind numbing, back breaking repetition) of raking, cussing, grabbing, dragging, cussing, dumping, raking, dragging, cussing, etc…, I had gotten pretty efficient at moving the mountainous piles.  Such was my efficiency that before the sun had crashed on the second day, I had transported everything overland and had created one humongous pile of leaves. A mound of organic material substantial enough to eventually become a new feature on Google Earth.

Even though I had totally wasted one of Mother Nature’s best weekends on record, I had to admit that with all the fun stuff I could have been doing instead of cleaning out the azalea beds, nothing would have been nearly as satisfying.  At least that’s the lie I will keep telling myself in the hopes that one day I might believe it.

On the other hand, with all the experience I gained, it’s good to know that things should go far more quickly and efficiently the next time I have to do this……say in ten years or so.

Dull and Disrespected Tuesday

Tuesday is the most disrespected day of the week.  

Nobody gives a rip about Tuesday

People hate Monday.  They’re already thinking about Monday on Sunday.  It’s like, “Damn! Here it comes.”  They despise Monday and wake up in foul moods wishing it were not true.

Wednesday is hump day and….well….you know.  Wednesday kinda says….”hey, you can do this.  You made it this far, you can make it!”  It’s also hump day and…..well, that’s kinda fun to say.

Thursday is slightly disrespected itself, but at least Thursday has a little something going for it.  The next day is Friday so Thursday is kind of like the Christmas Eve of the week.   Actually Friday is the Christmas Eve, so that would make Thursday more of the Christmas Eve Eve….but you get what I mean.  

Everyone loves Friday so Thursday basks in a little of the pre-Friday glow.

Then of course you got Friday itself.  #TGIF and all that good stuff.  Actually I don’t know why people really get all that excited about Friday, you still got to get up and go to work.  Maybe it’s because at 5:00 when the whistle blows (does any place still use a whistle?) it’s the official beginning of the weekend.  Either way, Friday holds a position of admiration and respect.

Saturday and Sunday don’t need mentioned really.  Who doesn’t like Saturday and Sunday, except maybe sociopaths and workaholics.

But Tuesday?  Nah.  Nothing  to look at here, move along.  

It’s true.Look around on the interwebs.  The best Tuesday can hope for is a few memes of octopi, or kraken with the hashtag #TentacleTuesday or something.  Perhaps some risqué adventurer will post memes of women’s……er……..features along with the #TittyTuesday hashtag........

o.O

.......but that’s about all you get with Tuesday.

Well, I guess that’s not entirely true.  You can wake up on Tuesday and be relieved you got Monday over with.  WhoOOoot!  Eh?  But that’s more about Monday than Tuesday anyway.

Not much to say about Tuesday really, it's rather dull and tawdry.  It doesn’t really deserve respect I suppose.

BFS’s (Big Frackin’ Salads) and Depression Ambushes

I hate it when someone brings something for lunch that smells damn good!

You see, I pack a BFS (Big Frackin’ Salad) every day for lunch so my lunch doesn’t smell like anything….well, maybe a freshly mown lawn.  It sure as hell doesn’t waft up the nostrils like, say, the arma of frying bacon or warm beef stew.   

It seems like everyone else that works here brings killer lunches.   Meals that scream “tasty!,” “filling!,”  and “not mine!”   

Instead, I open the fridge, pull out my salad and then….

I smell something someone has heated up in the break room, and I suffer a depression ambush.

A depression ambush is that sudden, overwhelming feeling of FML that usually comes in response to…..well, to having a salad for lunch while all the other people seem to be sporting steak and potatoes or NY style pizza or something.

Don’t get me wrong, my BFS lunches are pretty awesome.  I spend real time on my salad making enterprises.  They are packed with greens, olives, onions, etc…..  My one tip to protein is a small handful of almonds (do sunflower seeds have protein?) and the occasional bug that slips past the washing phase.  Load it with super-high-fat salad dressing, and I have a pretty decent lunch. 

I usually look forward to it every day…….largely because up until lunch time I only ever have coffee and a banana so I’m starving like toothless horse in short grass.

But then some person who hasn’t heard of the concept of healthy diet, starts warming up something from America’s Top Chef or whatever, and my salad starts to seem like what it really is; an assortment of things that humanity originally started eating only because they couldn’t catch real food. 

It’s like grade school all over again, only I have healthy food rather than the pathetically dry sandwiches on day-old bread, with mealy apples.  Lunches that I used to get, while my friend Earl had sandwiches of fresh Wonder Bread with half a pound of Oscar Myer lunch meat, Snack Pack puddings, Cheetos, Ring Dings  and other tasty things.

I’m not bitter……(okay maybe a little)...... but I realize now that I make the choice to eat what I eat.  I choose to eat things that will (hopefully) slow the deterioration process (some call it aging) that my body is going through.  Stuff that will potentially prolong my life by a few minutes…….

(Unless of course I meet an untimely demise by a car accident, home invasion gone awry, drone strike, bites by large venomous snakes, ship wreck, exploding gas lines, or errant meteors.)

……or at least make me a feel a little more fit while my pathetic life lasts.  

So what if I have to suffer through a produce department for lunch?!   

Who cares that I am desperately chewing spinach and hoping for porterhouse?  

There are good reasons for doing so……..like.

The grim satisfaction I get when I walk past all those people, eating their aromatic, drool inducing victuals, and pat my firm, flat stomach and think…….

……"Damn!!  It even looks good too!!"

That's usually when I suffer another Depression Ambush                             

Don't Poke Me Dude!, #Snowpocalypse, Tickle - Stun - Kill .....and Other Useless Thoughts.

Don't Poke Me Dude!

Someone new to Google Plus asked why they don't have a "Poke" button.  On G+?  Gasp!

I suggested they keep their seditious questions to their self and not air such incendiary sentiments in public ever again.  No I didn't.  I kindly informed them of the real deal.

Plussers can be a.......spiteful lot when it comes to suggesting that Google adopt any sort of Facebook like feature.  There is a lot of anti-FB feelings over here on the +.

I get it.  For the short time and limited scope that I was on FB (200 friends +/-), I hated getting the recommendation that I should "poke" so-and-so because I hadn't interacted with them for awhile.

Uh....I don't want to poke the dude alright?  Leave me alone about it!!

I also hated all the stupid game stuff people were always throwing around.

So-and-so gave you three golden coins and wants to give you a....... "Awww, go Jump In A Lake So-and-So!"

So when someone suggests that G+ needs a poke button?  I say hellz no!........
But maybe a taser button, that might be cool.

#SnowPocalypse

Also equipped with Wendy's salt packets

When there is a threat of snow here in the south, people bug out.  I mean, really bug the freak out.

They buy bread and milk.  No one really knows why da frack they buy bread and milk, they just do.

So today we got word that there is going to be several inches of snow in the next couple days, and some ice on top of it all.

Now I don't mind snow, but ice I hate.  Ice is what knocks out the power and without power  I have limited internet access.  My brain can't function without the internet.....in fact, the internet is my brain.  Or, maybe the internet has ruined my brain.  Either way, I hate not having useless stuff (like this post) to peruse and make fun of.

Which is one of the reasons I like G+.  But I digress.

The first winter I moved to the south, we had 12" of snow.  I knew it was coming but being from the north, and having spent three winters in "The Rock" in Germany (where it snowed in November and stuck around till May) I thought nothing of it.

My brother and I were heading home from work and decided to pick up a 12-pack.  The store looked like a flash mob had taken over.  Insanity prevailed.

Thankfully everyone had savaged the bread and milk, and there was plenty of beer left.  But I could barely understand what the H was going on.

The next day, the snow came.  The entire southeast shut down, and I understood.  People here panic buy because evidently they have only one or two hours worth of food in their house at any time.

I also found out that first year that there is no such thing as snow removal here.  The weather is the removal.  If it gets warm enough, the snow will go away.  So I suppose snow removal is everyone thinking positive, sunny thoughts.  I learned as well, that Cleetus thinks a 4x4 means he can go anywhere.  Which was true if "anywhere" meant the ditch on the side of the road.

So tomorrow Snowpocalypse comes again.....maybe.  I panic bought this time and probably will do a little more panic buying tomorrow.

There was still plenty of beer on the shelves.

Set phasers to tickle

Tickle - Stun - Kill

Why did the phasers on Star Trec only have two settings; stun, and kill?  Doesn't that seem odd?  Like, shouldn't there be a setting between stun and kill?  Or something before stun?!

Maybe you don't really want to stun the creature, maybe you just want to incapacitate them juuuuuust a little.  How about a tickle setting.  You could tickle some monster just enough to get away.  That would be kinder than stunning them.

Or, maybe stunning them isn't enough but killing them is a bit.......overkill?

Say your mother-in-law comments on your job again.  Stunning just won't get the message through to her that you're sick and tired of her sarcasm, but killing......well, maybe too much.  So you could have the 30 day paralyze setting or something.

Yeah, two settings seems a bit weak in this day and age of options.  And isn't Star Trek in the future even?  (I'm not a Trekkie)  So options should be all over the map.

Could you imagine the uses for say.......foot rub setting?

Just Take Out The Trash!

There are some things that I wouldn’t buy even if I literally had all the money in the world.  

Even if I had already bought everything I ever wanted or had even thought of wanting.  Even if I and was told to spend some money or lose my entire fortune.

Okay, not that last one.

The fact is there are some things that are plain ridiculous and useless.  The Hands-Free Infrared MotionSensor Trash Can by NineStars Products.com is one of those pointless things.

I was at a friend’s house the other night.  Apparently he (or his wife) think differently than I.  They are the type to buy anything they think is techie.  It’s a Jonesing thing with them I think, so hey, why not a motion activated trash can?  I was glad they had bought one because frankly it was amusing to watch.

We were all hanging around gnoshing on snacks using paper plates, etc…, so the opportunity was ripe to see people’s interaction with the the trash can.

Ms. Touchy-feely kept trying to open the lid with her hand.  Even after a couple trash trips, she still reached for the lid to open it.  Each time she did, the lid would start to open, and sort of surprise her.  Then she would drop her trash in........ and push the lid back down...... by hand.  The automatic drop of the lid didn’t come quickly enough for her, she wanted it closed pronto!  Clearly the idea of a “hands-free” trash container was beyond her mental grasp.

Then there was Mr. Goodbye, who stood and waved at the trash can.  He grasped the touchless concept quickly enough but couldn’t perfect his usage technique.  I didn’t see his first approach, but perhaps he had already figured out it was motion sensor operated because the first time I did see him make a trash run, he walked up to the can, and waved at it.  

I mean waved, kinda like he was saying goodbye to a short dude.  When that didn’t work, he moved a little closer and waved again.  It took three attempts, with his final wave mere centimeters from the sensor.  

Of course when the lid did open, it hit his hand negating the touchless benefit.

Each time Mr. Goodbye deposited his trash, he would stand there and watch the lid drop, which usually took place about a second after the trash drop.  I estimate he spent about five minutes that evening, just staring at the trash can.

When I made my trash drops, I just got annoyed.  The advert might say it works from 10 inches away, but what difference is 10 inches from 2?  I just want to drop my damn trash. I don’t want to have to wave my trash over the can, like some magic trash-wand, and then quickly move (without dropping anything) to avoid having the lid flip my plate onto the floor.  

Give me an open topped can any day, or better yet, what about a damned foot pedal trash can?  Why isn’t the foot pedal activated trash can lid good enough?  Remember those?  They might not be touchless, but they are hands free, and make a whole lot more sense.  I don’t give a rat’s behind if my shoe sole touches the can, it touches a lot worse than that.   And (bonus) no batteries!!

Who the hell wants to replace batteries in yet another fracking device?  It’s bad enough little Suzie’s Dolly-Pukes-A-Lot needs new batteries every other day, and Tommy’s RC cars require so many batteries that a part time job is needed to supply his addiction.  Don’t we have enough batteries going into the landfills every year without thinking up more ridiculous devices that will contribute?

10,000 open and close cycles per battery change might seem like a lot, but if you have little kids, or cats, that lid might never stop moving.  Those 10,000 cycles will be gone in a day.  At some point, you’ll be standing there with nasty stuff all over your hands waving at the damn trash can and it won’t open because Morris the cat, or the two year old played flipsy-doodle all day with the sensor eye.  

When that happens, you won’t be thinking how cool your new trash can is.  At that point , the first thing that will enter your mind is, “damn!  I don’t have any batteries.”  

I bet the lid gets used by hand for a few days before you make it to the store for a new 100pack of AAs.

Even though it barely operated for Mr. Goodbye, it seemed to have a mind of its own other times.  One time when I walked by, the lid popped open.  It must have been getting hungry and decided to make a grab for me.  It felt like I was passing by the homeless guy with a sign.  I was like, “sorry man, I don’t have anything for you.”

Or what about the honest claims they make on the NineStars’ website?  Talk about truth in advertising; they haven’t even heard of the concept!  It seems they think this lid can alter the workings of biology.  As if enclosing trash in a container with a “touchless automatic lid” can:

“Create a germ free, odor free, bacteria free environment.”

Huh, didn’t know that it was possible to do that by simply closing the lid.  There are still germs and odors galore inside there.  Just wave your hand over the lid for a reminder.  And then there’s this gem:

“There will be no cross contamination to worry about when you're preparing chicken, meat and any other foods.”

I’m not sure, but I don’t think the trash can is where cross contamination usually occurs.  If it does, maybe the person who allows that to happen needs to rethink their food prep practices.  But hey, maybe I’m the only one who doesn’t do food prep on the garbage can, and it is nice to know you can:

“Turn an every-day chore into something fun.”

Okay, absolutely NO ONE is buying that one.  But go ahead; keep trying to make it seem useful.

Yup, I can honestly say.  This trash can was great entertainment for a few minutes, at someone else’s house!  It won’t find its way into my kitchen……unless it could also take an overloaded trash bag out to the curb. 

Now there’s an idea.