Insomniac Bloggery Anyone?

So it's 240am and here I am.  Sitting the dark.  Sweating my arse off.  Blogging.

Well...kinda, at least.  I took a moment to check the temp. on my way here and found that it's still about 80 degrees in here.  Goddamn that's hot!  It was actually that hot at 5am yesterday when I came stumbling down.  So you can probably guess what kind of day I had.  

It's actually been a kinda wierd last couple weeks.  For those of you who don't keep up with the world around you there's been a bit of a hysteria over the swine flu.  I'll admit, it was a blip on my personal radar till 2 kids at the local high school caught it.  After the 3rd student, they actually shut down that high school and soon the entire district was down.  Yadda-yadda-yadda - we come tonight, I'm sleepless in San Antonio and my kids (thank the gods!) have school in the morning.

Speaking of which, i should make brownies.  You know since it's only 80 degrees in here.  (:

Work in Progress

I don't generally go for writing what looks like a poem but inspiration hit and the story in my head didn't have time to be written.  Feel free to comment and opinon...like I said, it's a work in progress.

Ice queen rose from her throne to see

The play of battle down below

Snow white world lay to ruin

By glinted steel marred and bloodied

Darker than the colour of her gown

She cast her glance to the king at her side

Resplendent in darkness as she in light

Of velvet and furs

To his cloak of dark

They watched together

Of opposing forces

To the kaleidoscope of banners

Dancing…rising…falling

To the great Ebon Knight

Her saddened eyes cast

Silent farewells his leaving

No falling for the banner

Of burgundy and gold

Left it did once and for all

Betrayed her one last time

Turned to her king

The snow white queen

With marbled cheeks

Glistened with frozen tears

What Else Could I Write?

I don't have the right. Yes, yes, all applogies for my lack of contact these last few months. As those of you who follow my blog, hear me bitch in game or know by keeping up with me in sporadic phone calls and im's know - I moved! After a nearly week long stay in hell..i mean a hospital! To be honest, after the move I really was still pretty sick even up to moving into an actual house. Now I'm still in a mess of trying to sort THAT out and just plain lazy so I hope you guys will forgive me and take this as a promise that I'll be good and post with more alarming regularity. (:

Just think of things we have to discuss! Oh, and yes...that last book on my bookshelf (though I'm not sure we can let a website count either) is fake. Perhaps the book I was meant to write myself. I'll get right on top of that...you know, when I've run out of laundry to do.

I just had to add a lil something to the end of this sad lil post...I put up a poll and see if you guys want to input what my next post will be about. I may or may not follow the calling of my people but don't let that discourage you. (;

10 Things I Learned in a German Hospital

These next few blog posts were actually thought of (during lucid moments) then written on paper (when I got a hold of E and his wallet and dragged him to the gift shop for supplies) while staying at the krakenhaus (hospital). They may, at times, seem to jump around datelessly or repeat one another at points. For that I ask the forgiveness of my loyal readers.

1. It’s possible to look so dreadful that you do not get to stop and collect $200 (or is that (or should that be €200?) – You go directly to a gurney and the paperwork will eventually catch up.
2. Some Schwesters are more like Nurse Ratchet. I have no idea who that is but she sounds like a mean person. While much to my delight it can be reported that most the schwesters were absolutely wonderful women, I encountered this one woman who was totally not. I mean…maybe it was cause she seemed to constantly scowl at me and quite roughly try to get my blood pressure. It was like she felt it took a lot of gall to show up in her ER and be sick.
3. I’m glad I wore brand new panties cause while I figured I’d be dropping trou, I had no idea they’d be prominently on display as it would seem my affliction would be abnormal enough to warrant the amount of people who were looking at me. I really dislike the vulnerability of being so on display – thank god for blankets!
4. German ingenuity has set it so pillows are collapsible for ease in transport and storage. Unfortunately it also means they collapse under the weight of your head, thus rendering them useless. Mattresses aren’t much better. I’ve started this blog post the old fashioned way – with pen to paper and from where I’m sitting, just looking at my bed makes my arse go numb! >.<’
5. Saying you have no pants on around these parts mean “you have no panties on”. To save on shock value and confusion, refer to them as trousers.
6. Thank goodness for understanding roomies. Mine, of course, is German however she speaks rather good English. This has been helpful when doing things such as ordering meals…I’m still wondering what ever happened to my chicken noodle soup since the stuff in my bowl was more like farina…or gruel. Ok, It wasn’t that bad…kinda homey, actually. Anyhow, she’s been a real dear. I was pretty much in and out of it my first day in and at one point I gave a chortle so loud (in my sleep) that it woke me up (obviously, since I mentioned sleep in the last set of parentheses) and I found her observing me with a grin. Hopefully I’m too sick to give my usual multi-o’s while sleeping cause I don’t think she’ll find that quite as funny.
7. If I ever need a CT Scan of my head…They’re gonna have to sedate me. Luckily this was just my leg but the closer I got to the circle, the more panicky I got.
8. That being said, when they say injecting the dye might bring on a weird feeling of pressure, wave of heat and sudden urge to pee, what they really mean is that it’s going to shock and surprise you so bad that you flail about on the able and by the time you want to question the weirdness of it all, it’s all over and you’re scooting back onto your bed.
9. You know the food is bad when you notice your growling stomach is dueling with the person’s who can actually eat and drink.
10. Your natural stealth rating goes down by -50 when you’re attached to an IV. It may have helped if the wheels of my trolley would roll. That seems to be an ongoing issue as it seems my bedside table won’t roll either.
11. Night schwesters like to wake you up by causing pain. Usually in fiddling with said IV – replacing saline, connecting to antibiotics…doing gods know what with my hand. I think that last schwester was about to get smacked since I woke up feeling with her messing with my hand and for a moment I forgot what was going on – luckily I lifted from my sleep fog.

Other small things of note:

• My condition is apparently so odd that three doctors come in for rounds.
  
• Elektroniks don’t like me – I don’t think anybody’s been able to get my bp and my pulse most certainly is NOT 485.
  
• On that note about bp – getting that done on the same arm as an iv hurts like a bitch!
  
• Injections to the thigh don’t’ hurt as much as I thought they would. To be honest the first one didn’t hurt at all but I was really out of it.
  
• The shower in my room is super claustrophobic. I was doing ok till I hit my IV line which not only hurt but made me freak out. There’s just nothing graceful about dripping all over the place trying to breathe and not pass out.

Schulanfang

For those of you who couldn't tell - Schulanfang (probably roughly) translates to "school" beginning".I just had to show off how stylin' my lil Diva was when she went off to her first day of school last week. You can't tell from the pic but that Tinkerbell backpack is not only spiffy sweet looking but it's glittery too! I'd totally go for one myself if it were like...a messenger bag and I was slightly less self conscious. After a summer filled with vaccination catch ups (did you know Hep A isn't a common vaccine in Germany) and spazzing out over lost birth certificates...oh and wondering if the school had forgotten our entering kindergartener the first day of school was upon us!

Even E got up early for the momentous walk to the bus stop so it was a full party. Ok, not a full party since that would be five members but come on, you guys know what I mean. It was a pretty jovial group - I guess older kids are still excited about school and then there was the lil cutie-pie who goes to the German Kindergarten (preschool) who's always happy and if I recall - even our other resident darling who's started the American preschool along with her still new smelling baby sister. Dear gods...did that last sentence even make sense? No? Oh well, figure it out for yourself - make it up as you go! (: Surprisingly, and I hate to admit it, I found myself choking up when the bus came. One of the hardest things to do was smile happily while taking an all too short hug from my baby before she gleefully hopped up on her bus to go to school. I've never left the Gang of Moms so fast - I didn't want them to see me cry. Thankfully, I didn't cry loudly - I'd never be able to show my face to the neighbourhood again.

Some of you guys may be wondering what happened in regards to my blog posts - or lack therein. I really have had things to say in the over a month time period that's gone by. I have pictures and tales to go with those pictures and in due time they'll come out.

As to what happened to me for the last part of this summer? I guess the big part is that my Vavô, my Grandfather passed away rather suddenly and it's something that's hit me rather hard. I remember how when I was a kid visiting family "up North", I'd get to spend the night and how in the quiet of early morning, he'd go off to work. There was something oddly peaceful about it... Some of my fondest memories come from summers there - of hanging out under an awning of grapevines in the back yard and having him tell me I'd get a tummy ache for eating too green grapes. I'm eternally grateful I at least got to see my family before I left for Germany. The last time I saw my Vavô, one of the last things he talked about was how I used to speak in Portuguese (hard to fathom considering how now I speak a lot of Spanish and my Portuguese is not only bad but with a Brazilian accent) and that he still had tapes of me talking about moving to Alabama, asking why I had to leave him and why couldn't he come with us. We're talking about tapes from back when I was bloody four years old...that makes for something really long kept. Sentimentality of it just breaks my heart. In less than a year I've lost both Vavô and one of my Vavó and didn't go to any funerals. I mean...I realize with the distance, I couldn't go but it doesn't stop me from feeling like a crappy person.

Bridge under the water, I guess...in the end I'm feeling more like posting so I will.

Guess Who Learned How to Fly

Hell yeah baby - you guys saw it first how on the 1st of this month I hit 60 and got my epic mount. Now behold--I'm on an epic flier! It happened on Sunday, July 27th sometime in the evening before dinner. I think... Anyhow, I was lucky enough to have some of my favourite people around - both E and Danasha were on hand to hear (or read) how close to 70 I was as we quested along before finally hitting it and immediately rushing off to learn how to fly and soon after that, even Urs made an appearance - sweet!

I'd like to thank Danasha for sharing the awesome pictures she took of the three of us flying over Wildhammer Stronghold (I think that's where we were) since I'd gotten an appropriately odd camera angle ready only to find my stupid machine didn't want to screenshot the occasion. She shows that she is a far more skilled flier than I am because there's no way I'd ever be able to position myself for this sort of shot - half the time I think my characters would be upside down, holding on for dear life if it were in the mechanics of the game. In fact, it would seem everybody took that into account and posed around me.

It was actually coincidence that E and I both went with green. As a hunter, the colour seems only natural for him and for me? I already have two in purple so green would be the next natural choice since I seem to have a purple and green theme going on. No, seriously, I do! Now, for those of you looking at this and wondering why Danasha has such a cool flier - that would be her wicked awesome netherdrake...I soooooooooooooooooooo want one!!! Check out that impressive wingspan! I'd never noticed how fabu it was!

Seriously - check out that wingspan she's got going on....le sigh....maybe I'll get one someday...

Is that the voice in my head…

That tells me to kill and kill again? Why yes! Yes it is! No, I’m not off to kill people…not yet at least…but yet once again, I’ve become compelled to try and kill out plant life and this time I’m starting at the root of it. Seeds, actually.

Truth be told, gardening is not my forte. I like to say that I’m allergic to life – grasses, pollens and trees make me sneeze and itch. Ragweed gets my eyes all red and icky. Mold gives me an awful headache. I hate being in dirt, having it get under my fingernails. I don’t know a weed from a flower and rather like thistles anyhow and don’t think they should be classified as something that needs to be shunned. Well, it shouldn’t be called a weed. If there’s a police that protected plants or a Plant Protective Services out there, they’d have a thick file on my transgressions against plant life. Let’s take a look at some of my case files.

Case File #004 – The Science Project
It was a simple enough task. Grow something out of a bean for science class, in science class. Seems like something you can’t really mess up while in the hands of a trained professional. Thirteen kids in my class grew cute vines to take home. I wound up with a cup of lifeless dirt. It was as if I stole whatever soul a fava bean possesses.

Case File #081 – The Carrot Top
I have no idea where I read this, but apparently you can grow shit off a carrot top. My sister and I proceed to eat all the carrots in the fridge, save for the carrot tops so we could grow them. Lil sis wound up with cute shoots of green that eventually died…cause you know I never figured out WHY you’d do this, but I guess you’re supposed to plant them in dirt…while I wound up with black chunks of…well…something.

Case File #152 – The Science Project Revisited
Ok, I must admit, this was a different project and an older and not much wiser fae. I attempted to grow three seeds from three different diets. Victim one received a normal diet of water and actually thrived till it grew enough to realize who I was before committing a quick suicide. Victim two was fed coke. Initially it grew well before turning into mush. I think it was poisoned. Victim three was fed pure vodka…or maybe it was whiskey. Regardless, it was cheap. Poor thing never had a chance.

Case File #409 – Romancing the Garden
I was actually about 18 when my parents moved into the house they currently live in and the gardens for it were beautiful. So beautiful that the former owners had a gardener or landscaping company that maintained it which is a good thing cause after having had to clean up the kitchen of what must have been several months worth of bitter divorce fighting, the garden would have been filled with spilt/splattered coffee and yanked hair. Since gardens are like…outside, I bet there would have been broken coffee cups too.

Anyhow, yours truly got sent out to take care of weeds and as you know, I’m kinda hazy on the subject. However it was a beautiful setting – beautiful gardens, nice neighbourhood and a gorgeous summer afternoon. Somehow I’d gotten into my head that pulling weeds was graceful, Victorian thing – romantic! So I decked out in a lovely summer dress and shimmering strand of pearls before heading out into front yard with a basket for my pullings. Man…was I ever in for a rude awakening.

After about…fifteen seconds…nature reiterated that NC does, indeed, have hot and humid summers and I HATE being hot and sweaty. I also came to the realization that dirt was doing nothing for my wicked cool French mani (light blue tips against a darker blue – I was soooooooooo before my time, bitches!) and I still didn’t have the whole weed vs. plant thing down so I was just randomly grabbing green anyhow and yanking. And that, my friends, brought me to the monkey that broke the straws back. I don’t know what the hell it was, but I found myself holding some sort of grassy clump with ants pouring out on my hands. Game over. Screw you guys, I’m going home. Screaming my head like a lil bitch while doing so.

Case File #1001 Set It and Forget It
My last attempt at growing something happened here in Germany. E’s boss’s wife gave me a plant to welcome me to hell. It was a very sweet gesture that I worried over because well…as you can see, I have a history about not getting along with plants. However, she assured me that all I needed to do was water it ever once and a while. Easy peasy, right? Heh…I wish! Poor thing sickened on the ledge of my dining room window and one day managed to find itself outside in a snowstorm.

So what’s the point of this rather lengthy post? My black thumbs have been itchy and I’ve decided to try, yet again, to bring forth life from dirt. I’ve been told this is simple enough and there’s nothing more fulfilling than growing your own herbs. I’ve started with two of my favourites, dill and chives and added on parsley cause I’ve heard it’s under-utilized. My seeds are mixed in Miracle Gro…or Grow…whatever it’s called. Cause let’s face it. I need one to get these babies going.