a99kitten's Musings

This morning I realized that I have had my make-up bag and toiletries bag for about 20 years. Yep – got them in kindergarten ;) Ok…maybe not kindergarten…

I am a huge tartan (aka plaid) fan and these are in the black watch pattern. I bought them at the Ralph Lauren store in Palo Alto and they were not cheap. But guess what – they have lasted me 20 years and they are still in excellent condition.

I have always been a firm believer in “You get what you pay for”. And while yes – there are definitely times you can find a good deal on things and pay less or find one manufacturer that makes the same thing for less or, of course, some things are just ridiculously overpriced (looking at you Chanel with your $500 cotton white t-shirts – really? Is it magic cotton? Will I automatically transform into a Princess if I wear it?) If things are just cheap in price, they are probably cheap in quality. And cheap tends to transform into disposable. And that’s what I hate. While some things can be and are meant to be cheap and disposable I guess – this should not apply to everything. Because where is it being disposed of? Our planet does not have unlimited landfill space for our garbage.

If you know me at all, you know I am not a bleeding heart tree-hugger. But I do care about the environment and the planet. Guess what – hippies aren’t the whole ones who care! In fact, I care much more about animals and the planet than I do most people. I recently had to put in a system at work to force people to recycle their cans and bottles (keep in mind I had recycle bins IN THE KITCHEN already.) ALL of the employees here with Obama stickers on their car and/or desks were guilty of throwing away recyclables at one time or another. All of them. But yeah – anyone who might have voted Republican in the last 20 years is clearly anti-environment….grrr….

Anyway…

So I really dislike cheap, disposable crap (for lack of a more refined word and really it’s what it truly is) such as clothes, shoes, furniture, electronics, cars, etc. I mean WHY do we have disposable cell phones? I think they were designed specifically for criminals because otherwise – there is no REAL reason for them. But then they go to the landfill. Disposable cameras? Sure – I see the novelty in them (and wedding planners love offering this option) but really…not so needed and a giant waste.

People used to save up and buy nice things that would last. But now you don’t need to – just buy a cheap item, use it and throw it away to replace or upgrade. Hell – I’ve had my Jeep for 14 years now. And the next vehicle I buy, I will likely have it for as long (assuming it lasts as long!) I’m pretty sure plenty of drivers tooling around cannot say the same thing. They buy cheap pieces of plastic junk. One hit – smushed. I won’t even go into the lack of safety in that – especially considering how many horrendous drivers are out there that shouldn’t be operating anything heavier than a bicycle.

Same thing with clothes and shoes. Tons of stores and websites out there offer poor quality crap that you can buy cheap. But then it rips, fibers break down or you just get sick of it so out it goes because why? Eh – it’s cheap – who cares.

And part of this is mental – you pay $10 for something – you think less about getting rid of it for one reason or another. You pay $100 for the same type of thing, you will take care of it, make sure it stays in good condition and keep it. And only get rid of it when you really have to. Will there be times you should/need to buy the cheap version – sure. But try to do this less and less. Need to buy something? Save up for the quality version. And then keep it. And take care of it.

So maybe what really needs to happen is people need to change their mindset, not really so much their buying habits. Stop thinking of things as disposable. Of course this probably applies to a lot of areas in life – not just buying material things…

I think this might be my favorite song of all time. Makes me swoon every time I hear it…

I wish I had a time machine to go back and see these guys live. Back when our entertainment figures entertained us with singing, dancing and acting and not flashing us their panties or beating their wives. Some of them likely did all that but we didn’t have 24/7 media coverage and paparazzi staking them out, waiting for them to fall, so the public just got to be entertained by the arts…I think I might belong in a different decade…

This joke was emailed to me…I’m still laughing at loud :)

So after landing my new job as a Wal-Mart greeter, a good find for many retirees, I lasted less than a day. About two hours into my first day on the job a very loud, unattractive, mean-acting woman walked into the store with her two kids, yelling obscenities at them all the way through the entrance.

As I had been instructed, I said pleasantly, ‘Good morning and welcome to Wal-Mart. Nice children you have there. Are they twins?’ The ugly woman stopped yelling long enough to say, ‘H*** no, they ain’t twins. The oldest one’s 9, and the other one’s 7. Why the hell would you think they’re twins? Are you blind, or just stupid?’

So I replied, ‘I’m neither blind nor stupid, Ma’am, I just couldn’t believe someone slept with you twice. Have a good day and thank you for shopping at Wal-Mart.’

My supervisor said I probably wasn’t cut out for this line of work.

This would be me too :)

Today is the last day of my Christmas vacation. I’m bummed :( Not at the prospect at going back to work. I don’t mind work. More at the prospect of leaving my winter wonderland. I love my house here. I love my time here. The huskies love their snow time here. Being here makes me happy.

It’s been a fun vacation. Didn’t do everything I wanted to but did a lot. Ice skating was high on my list but it’s so crowded here for the holidays with tourists, it makes more sense to wait a week or 2.

Leading up to my time off, I was so busy and stressed out to get stuff done that I didn’t have time to look forward to my time off! But once I got here, instant decompression. It was a white Christmas which was key for me. Christmas Eve and Day were nice even though husband was sick. Made a yummy ham that we are still eating the leftovers from :) Made some yummy food this vacation – but tooooo terribly unhealthy! The penne with Italian sausage was my favorite I think – numnumnum!

I got some movie watching done which was high on my list too! Watched:

Love Actually (Christmas tradition)
Christmas Story (another tradition)
Die Hard on Christmas morning :)
The Taking of Pelham 123 (Travolta plays such a great bad guy)
Paranormal Activity (boring)
District 9 (good!)
Inglorious Basterds (good!)

I also finished 2 fun books and started another. And even got through one of my past Vanity Fair magazines! I am so behind in my VF reading. Ever since Dominick Dunne stopped writing his column, I don’t rush to open them as quickly as I used to. But still some good articles and nice pictures :)

Friends came up for New Year’s and we had a fun blue moon shoe hike, 2 fun dinners (1 in and 1 out) and a nice New Year’s Eve at 2 mellow neighbor parties and still safely and warmly in bed by 1am :)

Regular season football is coming to end today. This saddens me too. Even though I got knocked out of fantasy – boo!! I won Survivor and 4 weekly pools so far so can’t really complain – fun AND profitable season :) Watched some exciting football games this past 2 weeks for sure (MNF – MIN at CHI was GREAT!) Plus watched the Gators and Tim Tebow dominate in the Sugar Bowl. That was nice :) I would LOVE to see Alabama lose miserably to Texas this week to make that even more fun :)

The most important thing is that I got a LOT of snow play (and exercise!) in with the huskies. That was my main goal :) Every single day we went out for multiple snow walks and hikes. And the weather definitely cooperated. Tons of snow and nice cold weather for the boys. I think this December is one of the best Decembers in recent history for snow. YAY! So hopefully January – March cooperates as well. We walked through our neighborhood pre-plowing so it was deep, we hiked up snow trails, went snowshoeing (well, the huskies don’t use shoes!), played in snow piles and dug snow caves. Pretty sure they had a good time! I know I did :)

So a nice vacation for sure. And thankfully I get to come back next weekend if I want – hopefully to some fresh snow! :)

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. Never have. I’ve never understood the purpose behind deciding on 1 day to do (or not do) things that should probably be resolved all year (all life?) long. Need more exercise? Why wait until 1/1 to start? Need to eat better? Save more? Stop being a douche? Stop drinking so much? Stop taking drugs? Be nicer to people (these seem to be the common resolutions.) So WHY are you waiting? Plus from what I’ve seen and heard – most people ditch that list by mid-January. Why annual gym memberships are a great business for the gyms…

My new year’s list is more a “things to do” list. If you know me, you know I always one of these. Almost every day starts out with my daily list – my daily battleplan to attack the day. And my things to do list is always a live list. Always stuff to be done, always doing stuff, always more stuff that comes up and has to go on the list. That could almost be a George Carlin routine if you added some curse words.

You could apply my same “why are you waiting?” to this as well. But again, if you know me at all, you know I am *always* doing stuff :) But there are projects I either newly thought of or never really put on the list but I want off the damn list and this will ensure they get done!

Another section of my list is the “things to always make sure are done” section. This section isn’t the obvious junk like house cleaned, bills paid, dry cleaning dropped off/picked up, etc etc. since that list is always running in my head on a permanent loop. No, it’s things like:

take time to read every day if even just for 15-20 minutes.
brush the huskies a little each day so they don’t hate you for 1 BIG brushing session :)
sit down and relax – stop running, running, running and not enjoying.
exercise every day.
spend time with my friends doing fun things – plan them!
look at what you have and not what you don’t. And enjoy it. (this will however not make me not shop!)

I need to keep this list in a place I can see it all the time. Because they are important things to remember and to do. I’ve been *pretty* good on most them all last year but want more of #5 and probably need to work more on #3. I definitely need to concentrate on putting more of an effort into relaxing a bit more…hey…that doesn’t sound so relaxing! ;)

This morning I woke up to lots of fresh snow outside! The trees were covered in fresh, fluffy whiteness, the decks were all white, our driveway hadn’t even been plowed yet! Needless to say, the huskies (well, Angelus) were anxious to get out!

Since the vet had to shave Storm’s belly for his ultra sound, and it hasn’t really grown back yet besides peach fuzz, he is not quite as excited about the snow right now. Imagine your bare skin out there in the snow! So he goes on shorter walks or on completely plowed/smashed down snow walks. I actually don’t wear my gloves when I take him so I can gauge how cold his belly is getting. So no freshies for him :(

Angelus on the other hand cannot get enough of it. He does get tired after awhile of going through the deep stuff. But then he will rest for 10-15 minutes and wants to go again! He is definitely a 9-yr old puppy :)

Every day we have been here for our Christmas vacation, I have taken both of them on a short morning walk and then take Storm back home. Then Angelus and I go out and search out a snow adventure :) And if you let him lead, he will find one!

We finally figured out a weird loop trail/street walk that we couldn’t figure out before. Figured best to do when it was snowing and everything looked the same ;-) But we did it! We started out from our driveway and then took the fire road up the hill which was now just a deep snow trail…up hill…can you say legs burning? But I let Angelus lead and this was the way he wanted to go. Thanks bud… But then we made it to the top (well, the “top” where I decided to turn right) and then took a few streets, a few snow trails and eventually, after about 2.5 hours ended up back on our street. That was the first day Angelus actually looked a little tired. He did find a few spots where he had to dig some snow caves which probably makes him a little tired after awhile :)

But this morning, we walked with Storm for little awhile – I think he liked the snow :) Our street was kinda-sorta plowed. But our driveway was not so they were gliding through it. It really is amazing to watch huskies in the snow. Talk about completely engineered for the weather. We saw our new neighbor and their little dog (who is a little savage beast – what is with little dogs?) Then we dropped Storm off at home when he said he had enough (he sits down and says with his eyes “I’m not going any farther”.)

All of the side streets had not been plowed yet so it was going through a snowfield just walking through all of the neighborhoods. We saw a family trying to push their non 4-WD truck of the snowbank in their driveway – good thing they had 4 teenage sons! But everyone had a smile on their face – how could you not in this pretty snow?!

Then we came upon a guy who was the biggest grump ever! We saw him on one street walking his black lab and I smiled and said hi – he just scowled. Ummm..ok. Then we saw him on a another loop and his dog barked at Angelus so Angelus grrred back (but in his friendly tail-wagging let’s play grrr) and the guy got all pissy! After his dog was barking and pulling first. Whatever dude. As he is literally dragging his barking and snarling dog away I hear him say (in a non-authoritative voice so no wonder his dog was not listening) “no, no, we don’t want to get near that kind of dog” WHAT? Dude – my dog is behaving and not yanking MY arm of the socket. I think I found who Dr. Seuss modeled the Grinch off of.

What made me giggle a couple minutes later was I saw him way ahead of us (Angelus stopped to play in some snow…)

…and I saw 3 off-leash dogs shoot out of trail and onto the street and start running up to that guy and his dog who was now pulling and yanking. The dogs were pretty harmless(ish) but it was sure annoying him. Normally I would agree with his annoyance about the off-leash dogs (and still seeing no people yet) in the street but meh…he was grump.

I mean – it was a gorgeous, snowy day. The kind of day Dean Martin sings about! Everything was so fresh and fluffy and white and pretty and marshmellowey world-like! How could you be outside walking around in that with your buddy and be such a sour-puss??

So the 3 off-leash buddies came up to us and one of them tried to get a little pissy with Angelus but he handled that. And then everyone was fine. Dogs generally figure things out pretty quickly if you just let them.

So we continued on our way and then stopped at the open field and Angelus decided this was a good place to lay in the snow and eat some. So I climbed up there with him and we hung out for a few minutes :)

As we pulled into our driveway, it was still unplowed. So I let him off leash and he jogged down to a snowbank and climbed up there and dug a bit. Then he thought we should just hang out there for the day :)

I got up there with him and we laid in the snow (thank you waterproof clothes) for awhile. Then when I said we should go in…I got mopey face from him :)

So we went in. But we will be going out again for another snow adventure! It’s still snowing as I type. And according to weather.com we are supposed to get more snow today, tonight, tomorrow and Friday. So really – this has been a very merry husky Christmas :)

An old, blind cowboy wanders into an all-girl biker bar by mistake.
He finds his way to a bar stool and orders a shot of Jack Daniels.

After sitting there for a while, he yells to the bartender,
‘Hey, you wanna hear a blonde joke?’

The bar immediately falls absolutely silent.
In a very deep, husky voice, the woman next to him says,

‘Before you tell that joke, Cowboy, I think it is only fair,
given that you are blind, that you should know five things:

1. The bartender is a blonde girl with a baseball bat.

2. The bouncer is a blonde girl.

3. I’m a 6-foot tall, 175-pound blonde woman with a black belt in karate.

4. The woman sitting next to me is blonde and a professional weight lifter.

5. The lady to your right is blonde and a professional wrestler.

Now, think about it seriously, Mister. Do you still wanna tell that joke?’

The blind cowboy thinks for a second, shakes his head and mutters,

‘No…not if I’m gonna have to explain it five times.’

…I mean after all, Vader did redeem himself :)

This makes me smile so much!

I was exhausted today. I slept 1.5 hours from 6:30am till about 8ish. I was up all night because my SVT kicked up. SVT is Supraventricular Tachycardia. Basically the heart’s electrical system doesn’t work right, causing the heart to beat very fast. The heart beats at least 100 beats per minute and may reach 300 beats per minute. After treatment or on its own, the heart usually returns to a normal rate of 60 to 100 beats a minute. It’s caused by an extra little piece of skin/flesh that gets in the way and short circuits the heart/blood pumping machine. As described quite simply by Dr. kitten courtesy of webmd :)

I have been getting these little “episodes” since I was about 20 or so? Although they used to only ever last 2-5 minutes and I’d get them *maybe* once a year. Now I would say I get them 3-4 times a year and sometimes they last 2-5 minutes and then they have lasted about 8 hours (much like last night’s.) I’m pretty darn healthy (super low blood pressure, super low heart rate, exercise regularly, no smoking, no drugs, drink very little, eat pretty well, no weird issues that have come up) so feel no need to go to the doctor unless I’m bleeding out my eyes.

A chiropractor friend of mine suggested going to the doctor and checking it out since it was a heart issue. He didn’t like my plan of ignoring it with my usual “Ahh..I’m fine”. Ok, fine..sounds like a good idea to get a check-up but I HATE doctors. I like my dermatologist. I’m sure I’d love my plastic surgeon :) But regular doctors – I think they are basically like weathermen. They have all this information and technology and still it’s like throwing a dart at a dartboard.

But I did go in for a physical and asked the doctor about it. She told me it was anxiety. I told her she was wrong. She assured me it was. I told her again she wrong. Not a believer in that. Sorry. She smiled. She said next time it happens, take a walk outside to distract myself. I’m a big believer in taking a walk as a cure for many things but I did not think this was one of them. But, hey – she went to Stanford Medical School and I didn’t. She was the doctor with her own clinic. I wasn’t.

The next time it started I was driving to work. It’s a weird feeling – my heart starts to pump very hard (you can actually see my chest pumping) and my blood is racing. So much so that after a little while, my arms and legs start to feel cold and tingly and I get a bit nauseous and dizzy as no blood is getting to my extremities as it’s been short-circuited. I was only about 15 minutes from work so I got there and decided to try this walk around thing. Turned out exactly as I assumed it would. My heart started pounding more – to where my chest actually hurts. I had the dogs with me. I got them inside and asked one of my co-workers to watch them so I could lie down. She clearly was worried as she called my husband. Now, up until now if I laid down for a couple minutes they always went away. This time it had been going for 25 minutes and wasn’t stopping.

After about 30 minutes of lying down, a friend from work drove me to the ER and on the drive even I started getting a bit worried – like maybe this is a big deal? TIP – if you ever want INSTANT attention in a crowded ER, say it’s your heart. Man alive – I have never seen people move so fast! Was like an episode of ER. The nurse had me taken to the back, on a gurney and hooked up to a machine with 2 other nurses/interns taking vitals, etc in like 3 minutes. And yeah – this will freak you out.

The nurse looked at my heart rate and said “page the doctor!” Great…this sounds good…afterward she told me my heart rate was higher than she has ever seen register. Sheesh…do I get a reward for that? A lollipop at least? As I was laying there, waiting for the doctor it stopped. Bam – just like that. I told them but obviously they were not letting me just get up and go. They let my friend come back to sit with me. The doctor came in and described my symptoms. I said yes – those are it. He explained what he thought it was (SVT) but strongly urged me to see a cardiologist to run tests to confirm. Meh. Ok…he also said my blood sugar was low and asked if I was dieting a lot. No. But I never eat breakfast. He gave me frowny-face. And told my husband (who had arrived by now) to make sure I ate and rested for the rest of the day (Nice! Doctor’s orders!)

So I did go to the cardiologist and he confirmed it was SVT. Not really serious in the grand scheme of things as long as I didn’t get these episodes too frequently. You can’t die from it unless you keep walking while it’s going on and pass out from the lack of blood and then crack open your skull on the sidewalk. Keep walking eh? I told him what the doctor told me about it being anxiety and to go for walks when it started. He said that was the most irresponsible non-diagnosis he had ever heard and was angry that a doctor would say that without running a simple test to check for SVT which is not all that uncommon. Ha! Knew that crazy doctor was wrong! The scary thing is she offered me a prescription for psych drugs then too – you know to “calm me down” if I wanted. How many people just listen to her?

He said when it starts, lay down. Feet up. Stay hydrated and relaxed. There is a medication but he said the side effects are worse than the episodes so unless they are crippling and frequent, he didn’t recommend the meds. You can also get surgery to correct it I think bu I’ll leave the surgery to the elective kind ;-)

Since I now know what it is, it’s not scary. Just annoying. It has happened while I’m on the beach with the huskies (highly annoying as I have to sit down and they are not big on sitting down while at the beach!) and at work. Kinda sorta funny looking to be laying down on the floor in my office.

It happened again a couple years ago and it lasted all night long. This was by far the longest one. Started when I went to bed and by 7am or so it still hadn’t stopped (and I hadn’t slept) so off to the ER I went again. Again – heart – instant service! They gave me IV fluids (which by the way I love as my skin looked SO awesome for days after!) and ran some blood tests to rule stuff out. Hello – I already told you what it is. But you can’t tell doctors your diagnosis…sigh…

Since it wasn’t stopping and my heart was still in full race mode there are 2 ways to stop it: administer a drug via IV or use the de-fib machine to “reset” the heart. Umm…let’s try the drug first. So as the doctor is getting ready to give it to me he says “this will make you feel like you are dying. I just wanted you to know how you will feel so you don’t get upset.” Oh, and he had the nurse bring over the de-fib machine. The medication slows your heart waaay down, so if it goes down too much, they need the de-fib to restart. But they would start by giving me the minimum dose to try and avoid that. Great…

Wow – the doctor described that feeling perfectly. It actually felt like everything was fading away, breathing was more labored (even though he said it wasn’t actually – just how I felt) and the only way to describe it is like light was collapsing into darkness. Tears instantly came to my eyes even though I tried very hard to stop that and tell myself it was all fine. Not something I would recommend for fun…

BUT, then it was fine. That feeling only lasted maybe a minute (although it felt much, much longer) and then my heart was normal. He said my chest and body will hurt for the next day or so as my body just went through the equivalent of running a marathon for 8 hours straight. He said rest, hydrate and eat only. No doing anything else. Luckily this was a Sunday so that was an easy order to follow.

Since then I have had a few episodes that lasted 30-40 minutes, and the rest very quick, but nothing like that one. Until last night. I can always feel them coming on in the few seconds before they start and I was like “oh crap – I don’t have time for this.” But I got a glass of water, into bed and laid there for a bit watching TV. I fell asleep for a few minutes but it’s not so easy to sleep when your heart is racing. Husband was out of town with Angelus so I decided to wait it out and not try the ER. And that’s how it was until 6:26am. And then it just stopped. Storm was still sleeping (yay for my sweet doggie!) So I tried to sleep until about 8:00am and got up.

For 1.5 hours of sleep – I think I’m doing OK today! I must be naturally high on Christmas and the knowledge that my 10 days of holiday time in Tahoe starts in 2 days :) Although my chest and arms are quite sore. The plan was to leave work early but that didn’t really work out. Need to make sure a lot gets done before holidays and year-end. But I didn’t stay too late, got home, put on the game and proceeded to run around and do a few chores. No dummy – SIT DOWN! But now I’m sitting. Hopefully I’ll be sound asleep by 10pm :)

So in conclusion…don’t listen to some doctor’s diagnosis when it sounds completely wrong!

OK…this made me giggle….I was making some “nutritious” food for myself on game day – Weight Watcher’s Smart Ones Mini Pepperoni Pizzas while I watch football and pack for my Christmas trip to Tahoe. 1 serving is 280 calories and satisfies my junk food craving.

I’m not big. I’m actually pretty little. But guess what? It takes work to stay little. Quite frankly, I have run into bitterness from heavy people who think that thin people just eat whatever the hell they want. This was generally true was I was a teen or in my 20s. But no – I don’t eat what I want. Considering I always want TONS of carbs – I cannot. Pasta, rice, potatoes, bread – you name it – YUM! Wish I could eat them all day. I’m not a big sweets person. I like chocolate stuff and cheesecake but would take an order of salty french fries over a dessert any day of the week.

So when I read celebs or models who say “Oh, I eat whatever I want. I’m just lucky to be a naturally thin size 00.” I want to punch them in the face. You might eat whatever you want, but then you throw it up. Or all that coke and/or Adderall you do might help. Be honest. Meh. Are there people who are thin – yes. But sorry – they do not all reside in Hollywood. They work at it. Whether by unhealthy means or healthy ones. They all do something.

I do watch what I eat. Pretty much all of the time. And exercise every day. Every day. And have for a very long time. But I also don’t take any diet drugs, narcotics, pharmaceuticals, throw up, eat cotton (a nice ballerina and model trick) or any other weird solution. Caloric intake less than calories burned. The way it has to be. My blood pressure and heart rate is low (so low I had a nurse ask me if I was sure I was alive…I told him that was his job to determine) so I am not too worried about my health. And I do pretty much agree (kinda twisted I guess) with Kate Moss: “There is nothing that tastes as good as being thin feels.” But do disagree with the Duchess on the 2nd half of her statement (There is no such thing as too rich.) “No woman can be too rich or too thin.”

Anyways – back to the pizzas…directions to make me giggle…actually laughed out loud:

1. Preheat oven.

2. REMOVE 1 tray (4 pizza minis) from carton. Return second tray to freezer.

Ok…when I read this I had to wonder how badly they wanted to say:

2. REMOVE 1 tray (4 pizza minis) from carton. Return second tray to freezer fattie. Do it now. And step away from the freezer.

Right? That’s what the box said to me anyway. So I put the 2nd tray in the freezer. Oh well…no pain, no gain! And I know there will be plenty of bad eating over Christmas…