Dryope

Listen to Dr. Frankenberry

So I've been to see all kinds of doctors to figure out why I'm so tired. One of them helped a lot, but there was still some lingering daily fatigue, and so far they've only proved capable of taking my money. They've suggested all kinds of things--$400 Indian herbs...10 hours of sleep each night (or possibly at work)...a magical video game that takes all my pain away (thanks for nothing, biofeedback)...

And none of it worked--or is possible (sleep 10 hours a night????). And I had resigned myself to sleepiness.

But then, BOOBERRY and FRANKENBERRY season arrived. The best season of the year. (All you Peeps people suck. Yes, Mom--even you.)

And Dr. Frankenberry gave me some useful advice. IRON! he says. Iron is the key to combatting fatigue:

"Pump some IRON! Iron plays a key role in your health, carrying oxygen from the lungs to other parts of the body. Without a enough iron, you can feel worn out. Look for cereals with iron to help you get enough tof this important nutrient."

I also consulted Dr. Booberry for a second opinion, and he completely concurred with Dr. Frankenberry.

Booberry and Frankenberry have 25% of my iron rda. Go Booberry and Frankenberry! Now I just need four bowls a day.

I can do that.

Thank you, sugar cereal. Thank you for giving me a straight, simple, and possibly correct answer.

(Incidentally, I don't believe Count Chocula is a medical doctor, so I've excluded him from my advice pool.)

Jayne Fever

<p>I make a lot of hats, but I don't usually get much feedback other than some thanks (ooh! and occasionally even tips!). I even hear about people wearing them to conventions...and sometimes my friends report back from conventions that they've spotted some Jayne hats wandering about (which may or may not be mine). I'd love to hear more about where the hats have gone and how they're doing. Even if that's a little fruity of me. ;) </p>

<p>Well, I heard back from someone the other day: despite multiple hurricanes in her area, one of my customers sent some pictures of her daughter--possibly the youngest Jayne fanatic--romping in her new hat. Here's her email:</p>

<p>"I wanted to send you an email to let you know we got the Jayne hat today, and I've never seen this child happier. she wont take it off for nothing now either and clutchs onto your Ma Cobb letter for dear life. Thank you so much for the time and effort you put into this, you've made one 5 yr old Jayne addicted child VERY VERY happy!"</p>

<p> <a href="http://dryope.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/picture_004.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href, '_blank', 'width=640,height=480,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0'); return false"><img alt="Picture_004" src="https://dryope.typepad.com/superfly/images/picture_004.jpg" width="100" height="75" border="0" style="float: left; margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" /></a></p>

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<p><a href="http://dryope.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/picture_007.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href, '_blank', 'width=480,height=640,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0'); return false"><img alt="Picture_007" src="https://dryope.typepad.com/superfly/images/picture_007.jpg" width="100" height="133" border="0" style="float: left; margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" /></a></p>

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Life Lesson

Okay, I just spent hours and hours (like 20-30 each week), writing a stupid paper for work. I was totally wiped out, but I did it.

So now I'm going to write a book. I feel like I have all this free time now. :)

Last night, Bill and I went to the AFI (http://www.afi.com/) to promote George Lucas's first movie, which just came out (uh...I'll explain below). He was a storm trooper and I was a girl handing out flyers. There were a bunch of other people there in costume, and in reward, AFI loved us to death and let us in the movie free.

Bill even got a free pastry from a cafe we went in.

We wandered around a bunch of cafes in downtown Silver Spring. A bunch of people had their cell phones and took pictures, and even the waiters of different places looked furtively around before taking some pictures. Everyone likes a storm trooper, I guess. ESPECIALLY TODDLERS.

We drummed up some business for the movie, too.

It's a rerelease of THX-1138, which, despite being a dysutopia movie with bald people having sex, is pretty good. It's sort of Anthem/1984 meets...well...Star Wars. The foreshadowing to Episode 4 is uncanny, though probably incidental.

Also--if you're a friend of mine, call me. Like I said, I have all this free time now. Sorry I've been unreachable lately...!

British and American Reporters Found Unable to Define "Well" and "Terror"

Not to upstage my own high-spirited, laugh-in-the-face-of-adversity entry below (which I put in a half hour ago to "take a break" from "working on my paper"). But I just had to check out what was going on with the Russian school hostage crisis. BBC News had an article, which included this line:

"The gunmen are said to be treating the children reasonably well, but are still refusing to accept any deliveries of food or medicine."

How is leaving 350-100 children without food for three days treating them "well," even "reasonably" so? I went without food for *24* hours recently and threw up everything but rice and Sprite when I tried to eat. The reality is that most of these kids aren't going to make it by this point without really expert medical care. Unfortunately, they're in Russia, and we've seen how well the Russian authorities respond to massive terrorist-inspired medical crises. ("Hmm....should we have some /antidote/ on hand for the /poison/ we're piping in to the several hundred starving hostages to knock their captors out? I wonder. Oh, well.")

Incidentally, this BBC quote is just as moronic as CNN's headline on the Russian plane crashes last week (before authorities found evidence of explosives): "No Terror in Russian Crashes"--what, they just fell blissfully from the sky?

It's bad enough reading about this horrible stuff without clumsy writing making light of it.

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"Many shortcuts are self-defeating; they waste the reader's time instead of conserving it. There are all sorts of rhetorical strategems and devices that attract writers who hope to be pity, but most of them are simply bothersome. The longest way round is usually the shortest way home, and the one truly reliable shortcut in writing is to choose words that are strong and sure-footed to carry the reader on his way." from Strunk and White's _Elements of Style_.

Not that this blog should be judged by these standards...this is recreation I pay for. Turn your opprobrious eyes elsewhere.

Or, to use a self-defeating shortcut: Gaarg.

Good News!

I decided to be a good girl and shell out the money. Hey, my husband's an IP attorney.

but....

Bad News: they MAIL YOU the key. So I have to wait days and days before I get to use this computer for the paper due tomorrow.

and...

More Bad News: There was some sort of error and my order didn't go through....maybe? But I'm not going to pay twice until I'm sure. I send a form to the "help" people. Who have yet to respond (it's been 24 hours, people, come on....).

but...

Good News: I took a floppy and a printout to work on today at work. Sure, I'm not allowed to work on it at my normal office, but I'm stopping by my company's other office this evening anyway, and can work on it there.

but...

Bad News: The meeting I was at "anyway" lasted until 8, since it largely consisted of employee griping, which knows no time limit. This, though satisfying and ultimately useful for my business knowlege (Dryope gets to add a +1 to her ability "Knowledge: Business"), did not get me dinner (take away 2 hit points) and instead made me very very caffinated and agitated (this last must be read as if by Arlo Guthrie as a gnome).

and...

More Bad News: That proprietary thing I was working on? The one on the floppy? Yeah...that somehow got lost on the way to the office. Maybe on the metro...maybe on the street...maybe in my "other" office--you know, the one I wasn't at this evening. Anywhere. (If you see an unmarked black floppy with unspecified contents laying around somewhere it shouldn't be, email me!)

but...

Good News: I totally forgot I had a laptop! It's crummy, but it's good enough for word processing. It's nice when things you've banished from your mind become suddenly useful.

but...

Bad News: I had to spend an hour downloading Chinese software tools, burning them to CD, and installing them on the laptop, since it doesn't have Internet capability for No Good Reason (which is why I bought the desktop in the first place).

but...

Good News: The Chinese software isn't working *perfectly* but it's good enough, and I'm doing my best on the paper. I won't be done tonight, but maybe I can do enough that my boss doesn't hate me, give me a terrible performance review, and get me fired/demoted/hated-by-all.

and in other news...

Good News: I finally got the big $150 rebate from Staples for this computer. Yay! It's redeemable for cash. I can finally pay off some credit card debt I got into for this thing.

but...

Bad Bad Bad News: I got a letter from the doctor for a sleep study I did. Even though I called ahead to check, the insurance DID NOT COVER THE OVERNIGHT STAY, DOCTOR'S VISIT, OR ANYTHING. It's more than $2,000. I'm devastated. I'll talk to them tomorrow (they still owe me for the biofeedback thing, the receipts for which "they never recieved" although I mailed them a month ago--thank goodness I made copies, huh?), and I hope this is just a misunderstanding (maybe the nurse didn't contact insurance?) but it's really difficult to work on a paper late at night with all this good news/bad news business and this bad bad bad news on top of it.

Schadenfreude: it's what's for dinner.

(All right if I'm a little precious in this entry--I've earned it.)

I'm Back and all Quandrified

I was totally wasted by this project I was /required/ to work on at home...for work. The reasoning was 1) I owe a lot of personal time 2) I was contractually obligated to spend 8 hours (the best hours of my day!) on this other project.

Well, it wasn't pretty. I worked 'til my husband thought I was making excuses not to see him. But it's all better now--

--almost. I have just a *tiny* bit more to do. You know, cleaning it up, adding in pieces and whatnot. Which would be fine, as I have two nights to do all that in. But it's not fine, as MY TRIAL VERSION OF MICROSOFT OFFICE HAS EXPIRED.

I don't need powerpoint. I don't /really/ need excel, or, well much of anything except outlook and word. And they're GONE.

This isn't to say bootlegs could not be obtained. But I feel I should be a responsible citizen of the free world and take a stand to *not* just solve this via the beige market. I should pay the many many dollars necessary to get a legitimate copy, even if it /must/ include those elements I do not require.

Anyway, I have to decide this moral question, like, now. Because I have to get to work on this thing, and this maddening MADDENING trial version lets me view everything but not touch it.

I could, like, scream.

You all have several minutes to vote before I decide. What's it to be? Bootleg, hand-over-fist legitimacy, or....door number three?

(I don't know...a mac? I guess it's a bit late in the game. Oh, Nader, where are you?)