A Curious Statistical Anomaly

I’ve been kidding myself and I suppose you all knew that, right?  It’s definitely flu and since I got a flu shot months ago and I’ve got all the symptoms except fever — I’m guessing swine flu.  I have asthma and allergies and the past three days I’ve been forced to use my rescue inhaler.

That doesn’t sound too bad unless you know that normally, I use the rescue inhaler one a month when I go to a meeting that’s at a house with two dogs, two cats, and a bunny (all indoors).  On that evening I usually have to use the inhaler once maybe twice depending on how long I’m there.  Yesterday, I used the rescue inhaler four times.  Today, I searched the house and found my nebulizer, which I haven’t used in about two years.  I’ve managed to keep myself breathing (and I’m saving you from some TMI too).

Tomorrow I hope to get in touch with my allergy doc and see if I’m doing all I can or if I should be doing something else — something to keep me from getting so shaky — I hate the nebulizer, it always leaves me shaky and dizzy but breathing better so useful but not pleasant.

Anyway, if you’re looking forward to the zines going live tomorrow night — they will but with content coming in over the first few days as the staff recovers from illness, computer crashes, and other incidents of severe life experiences.  But believe me we’ve got a lot of stuff lined up to help you with finding new things to read over the holidays and maybe to buy for gifts.

I think I’m going to sit and breathe deeply while I can and enjoy the experience before my chest tightens up again.

It was time. I’d upgraded my old phone a couple of years ago when it went through the washer. Hyperion still had the original cell phone which no longer really worked that well since when he called me it sounded like he was clear across the room from the phone rather than next to his mouth. So, the time had come.

It was also time to move off the family and friends plan to our own plan consolidating with our Sprint Air Card (data card). So, we changed our plan to include a data plan since it will come in handy for Hyperion with work and just might be handy for me occasionally.

Hyperion got an Android HTC Hero. So, far he’s loving it. New toy with features. He’s configuring and playing with all the features. Me. I got the LG Lotus in red. I liked the square shape and the fact that when you look at the screen I can pretty much read it without my glasses on. When I open the case I can definitely read it without glass but with them on it’s even clearer.

Haven’t called on it yet but I got all my contact in and had someone already call me and the sound was good. Need to see if my headset works with it. Set up so I can use voice commands. You know stuff. Meanwhile I’m feeling a bit adventurous with a red cell phone. So, I get excited over the little things at least I’m happy.

About the only thing that would make me happier is to have the exact cell plan I want with all the bells and whistles that I want at a price I like. So, when they make the Gayle Plan — I’m so there. Meanwhile, this one is close.

Now step 2 — eliminate land line.

If you celebrate Thanksgiving, I hope you have a great holiday weekend. If you don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, then have a great Thursday.

We’re having Turkey and the trimmings — the picture is not our little bitty smoked turkey but one from Amazon — looks great doesn’t it?  Ours doesn’t look that polished and pretty but it sure will taste just as good. Hyperion and I are having a very low key Thanksgiving this year. My son couldn’t make it for Thanksgiving but will be here for Christmas instead (normally he does Thanksgiving with the parental units and Christmas with his friends).

Traditionally, we put up the Christmas tree after Thanksgiving Day dinner. This year with us both suffering the after affects of a cold/flu thingy — we’ll get it done this weekend. I’ll post a photo when it’s up. Christmas is my favorite holiday but for the spirit of it, not the gift giving/getting of it. In fact we do very little in the gift giving area except for our mothers and my son. And we keep telling the mothers to forget the gifts for us and get something for themselves that they normally wouldn’t get and tell us about it — that would be gift enough for us, but so far no agreement on that front.

For Thanksgiving, though, it’s traditional to give thanks for the blessings and joy in your life so here’s some thanks in bullet points:

For being able to work at home. With my health problems, sitting in an office eight hours a day is not an option … but putting in that time at home is — wish more employers would twig to that fact of health problems.

For life. I’m a cancer survivor and every major holiday is a joy that can’t be measured. Each day is a special event and no matter how much I complain or whine, at my core I’m well aware that every day is a gift. Now if I could manage to stop squandering that gift I’d be ecstatic.

For my husband. I’m one of the luckiest women in the world to have someone who supports me and is such a match for me — I don’t know many other men who’d sing the grammar rock songs with me or laugh hysterically at the funny bits in Hogfather, or just quietly hand me a tissue during Pride and Prejudice. He’s a gem and I’m totally thankful.

My family. I love them all. Granted sometimes they drive me crazy but that doesn’t mean that I love them any less.

My friends near and far. I have local friends I see often and I have made some amazing friends through various activities and groups on the Internet who I’ve never met in person. My friends have given me hope, advice, shared a shoulder when I needed it, and been the means of keeping myself centered and moving forward. Thanks to all of you for your wisdom, advice, and caring.

Lord knows I could go on and on but I’ll spare all of you the wee minutia of my thankfulness. So, enjoy the holiday and make your own lists of thankfulness.  Maybe I should have included the fiber thankfulness…hmmm.

Some days it hardly seems worth getting up Today for instance, it’s wet, rainy, foggy, and cold.  I haven’t checked the outside temp so maybe it’s just me that’s cold.  So anyway, I’m sitting here at my desk shivering even in all my layers and trying to catch up on some work when I get this link to a YouTube video.

What can I say? Sometimes the video says it all.  If the Muppets doing Bohemian Rapsody don’t cheer you up on a dreary Wednesday before a major holiday with a drop-dead deadline looming on the horizon well, check your pulse.  So for everyone else having a downer of a Wednesday.  Enjoy!

It just doesn’t get any better than the Muppets — not a bad rendition either.

Just sleeping and napping mostly over the last couple of days. How is it that the flu/cold can just knock you out on one day and the next your fine and the day after you can barely move again.

I’ve got to get over this eventually, right?

It has rained all day today.  It seems like it’s rained more than not lately.  Matches my mood though since I’ve been headachy and out of sorts — maybe flu maybe not.  Hyperion though definitely has the flu but is back to work (out of sick time).  Luckily the Thanksgiving holiday is coming up so he’ll get a long weekend — hopefully that will help.  Telecommuting would help but contractors are not allowed to telecommute (not that the govies are allowed to either).

Anyway, I ran into this article the other day on “Ten things mobiles have made, or will make obsolete” on recombu.com. The ten things listed are: phone booths, wristwatches, bedside alarm clocks, mp3 players, landline home phones, compact digital cameras, netbooks, handheld game consoles, paper, and brains. The author gives a reason for each choice.

I found the list and the reason interesting. However, computers were supposed to get rid of the need for paper. Remember the paperless office? Well, we still have paper — lots and lots of paper. Can’t see that it’s reduced in amount just because a copy of each document is electronic.

It’s the phones screen size that doesn’t work. I’m older and even though you can increase the font size somewhat on the smartphones it’s not a pleasant experience for long term use. Though for emergencies and for keeping in touch or just giving you something to do while stuck somewhere the phone is taking the place of many gadgets.

One that was not on the list was books. Many phones now have software so you can read books on your phone. Of course I’ve got my Kindle but I know many people who read on their mobiles.

I don’t carry a watch anymore. My cell has the time in a small window on the front. I don’t listen to music on it because my mobile phone is older. I may upgrade to a blackberry or android-type soon but I’m happy with what I’ve got for now because I have an iPod, a Kindle, a digital camera that fits in my purse along with my netbook.

The problem with a mobile taking on the jobs of all those items is that when you lose one — the phone — you’ve lost them all. If I lose my phone, well I’ve lost the phone but I still have the music, camera, computer, and books. So, while having one item instead of five is seductive — the thought of losing everything because one item died is just too scary for me right now.

Thought I’d give a run at this meme:

1. Get a pilots license and fly a plane — just a small one, fixed wing.  Took lessons once and have 9 hours of flight time.

2. Speak a foreign language.  I took three years of high school French.  Two years of college German. One year of college Latin. I also know a handful of words in Russian, another handful of Swahili, four or five in Japanese, and one in Klingon.  I’d just think it would be really neat to be able to communicate with someone else in their native non-english tongue.

3. Be able to fix things.  I can add oil, brake fluid, and water in the appropriate places in the car.  I can, if I have to, change a tire. But I’d love to be able to actual fix an engine if something happened to it.  I learned most of what I know about engines from the guys my brother hung out with when I was a teen and from flight school.  But what about the washer’s motor or the dryer or the dishwasher.  These shouldn’t be such mysteries.

4.  I’d love to be able to play the piano.  I’ve got one in the living room.  We bought it when we got the house.  The owners gave us a deal because they didn’t want to move it.  I got books on how to play.  I can even read music since I was in a band, in glee club, in an A Cappella choir, and played clarinet for years in Jr. High and High School band.  But finding the time to practice and learn two-handed playing rather than plincking out single notes is not yet something I can do.

5. Be able to plan a garden, take care of it for a whole summer, and gather the bounty.  Note there are parts to that list.  I usual get things planted and then life gets very, very insane and busy and the rest of it goes kabluey.   We usually get some stuff but not as much as we should if I really paid attention.

6. Finish what I start.  My name is Gayle and I’m a starter.  I start all kinds of projects.  I sometimes even finish them but mostly I get into a project a fair distance and just get bored or put it aside and out of sight out of mind.  I’ve been working on finishing unfinished projects and have completed three over the last six months.  Of course, I started three other projects too.

7. Clean the house without the threat of house guests dropping in.  With limited time I just don’t see the sense in it.  The house won’t be condemned by the board of Health but it won’t pass the good housekeeping seal of approval either.  Someday I hope to be able to afford to have someone else clean it for me.  Meanwhile, it’s good enough but every now and then I dig in and do a complete yearly top-to-bottom but it’s not yearly.

8. Visit Antarctica — read books and it sounds like the closest I’ll get to an alien landscape unless I visit the Arctic but  with all the melting going on that might not there long enough for me to get there.

9. Finish at least one of my started novels.  Again with the startitist.

10. Greet each day and each minute as a special bit of time that will never come again and not waste it.  Yeah, right.  I’m learning to appreciate so much more than I used to but living in the “now” is difficult.  Even when we try very hard we’re always think about the future (tomorrow) or the past (yesterday).

What 10 things do you wish you could do?

My flu/cold/thingy is really getting annoying.  I go from moderately okay to barely able to move and huffing and puffing like I just ran a marathon when I barely walked across the room.  Yesterday, I got a lot of stuff done because I could just sit and work but I needed a few lay-downs on the couch to do it.  Today isn’t as bad but I’m definitely not okay.

Hyperion is back to work and he’s got the cough and congestion so I feel really wimpy complaining about my wee symptoms.  But then I’m on a lot of meds for my allergies and asthma so that might be giving me a edge up on the worse effects.  I don’t think it’s the big baddie that’s going around — my belief is we’re just overtired and stressed and the convention just put us over the top.  I’m reading that a lot of people at the convention came home with cold/flu and even a few cases of H1N1.

It seems all gatherings are a chance to share germs.  When you think about it, it makes sense that everytime you go to a convention, kids come home from college on holiday, you visit a new city or town — you’ll come home with a case of some type of illness (especially if you fly with a bunch of strangers on a plane with recycled air).

Basically, we get used to our own or usual germs and stuff.  But when you travel you find new and excitingly different germs and viruses to bring home.  I’m beginning to think it’s inevitable:  travel =  sick for a few days after return.

Meanwhile, I’m getting some reading done but only the light stuff I don’t have to concentrate on too much.  I’ve also started to enjoy my collection of Christmas films.   It’s my favorite holiday because of the spirit and love that seems to abound at this time of year.  Hyperion says I’m starting early this year but my son will be here for Christmas (he usually only makes it for Thanksgiving but will miss it this year).  So, there may be some reviews of Christmas movies coming up over the next few weeks.  Most of them will be older movies but it’s nice to visit the old standbys every now and then and see how they stand up to the passage of time.

I don’t care for the commercialization of  Christmas — we don’t even do the gift thing in our family or at least not more than one gift for just the immediate family (the grandmothers, Hyperion & me, and my son).  That’s it.  But I love the lights, the music, the friendliness, and the IDEA of Christmas.  For the entire month of December I try to do nice things for people hoping it will help me form new habits that will last throughout the year.  It does sort of at least it keeps me trying to be a nice person because those of you who don’t know me — I’m a bit snarky and I really don’t have a lot of patience with foolishness — like paperwork for the sake of paperwork, and make work just to say your doing something, and nit-picking just because you can when no one gives a hoot anyway.

So, how many of you are up for pledging to be a better, kinder, more friendly person during the holidays no matter how bad traffic gets or how long the queues are at the stores.  Anyone?