Why should this year be any different?

It was silly of me to think I could get through a holiday without any sort of ridiculous issue.  For years now, I manage to have some sort of illness that totally screws up the holiday season.

Last year, I had a virus syndrome that lasted two weeks, during which time I was bed ridden, that spanned from two days before the premier of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 1, so I couldn't go to the midnight showing, through Thanksgiving.  I'd had a big fancy menu picked out and went shopping well ahead of time, but when Thanksgiving came around, I couldn't get out of bed without coughing so hard it caused my back to go out. But still, I was going to get up, for my husband's sake.  When I got into the kitchen to start the turkey, my mother had already started cooking the food I bought.

"What did you put on the turkey?" I inquired.  I had planned an orange and sage butter rub.

"Butter spray, salt and pepper."

Butter spray? Didn't they stop selling that in the 80s? Apparently not, but she had not sprayed the turkey with butter or liquidized margarine, she had sprayed it with butter flavored generic Pam, which sent me over the edge into a coughing yelling rage.  Which was, in actuality, because of my stupid jerk allergies that cause me to have to pay more to get food that everyone else can buy for reasonable prices to avoid becoming extremely sick, hence my unreasonable reaction to defiling the poor, very expensive bird with cooking spray. And I can be a total jerk sometimes...plus that sucker was just coated in pepper.  Thankfully, I had no appetite anyway from being sick, so I rubbed the turkey with a stick of butter and squeezed an orange over it, had some can-shaped cranberry sauce, and went back to bed.

This year, I thought it was smooth sailing. I've managed to avoid getting my nephew's cold, I have been diligent about washing my hands to avoid germs from strangers... and then this morning at 6 am, I woke up unable to move my neck without excruciating pain. When I got up, I realized it extended all the way down to my shoulder blades. So I have two options, I can either make our Thanksgiving feast while doing a Quasimodo impersonation, or I can take a muscle relaxer and relive the wedding scene from Sixteen Candles.

OR

(there is a video here, non-page viewers)

You are awarded THREE random facts about me!

Accepting a lovely award from Gweenbrick- the "I dig your blog" award:

Which apparently we are illustrating in a Halloween theme because I can't thing "digging" without grave robbing.... and who puts dead bodies in graves without coffins? Nazi, and me, apparently.

And of course, three random fact about me.

I'm supposed to choose other people but I am not going to.  So there. It's not that I don't dig any blogs... it is that I can't be arsed to figure out who to pick who hasn't already been picked. But hey, go look at my blog roll and see who I read. I like them all or I wouldn't be reading them.

Stick it!

When I went to the doctor's office last Wednesday, the nurse I saw suggested that acupuncture might be the cure to my ridiculous intestinal ailments.  I fail to see how sticking needles into me will make me not allergic to things, but other than the whole, sticking needles into me, what could it hurt? Surely it wouldn't make my food intolerances worse.

After talking to the acupuncturist, my worries were allayed that the cure would surely have something to do with stabbing needles into my eyes, because of course, to me, something is not really valuable and useful unless it is the most unpleasant scenario you can possibly imagine. Yes, so no needles to the eyes, no needles to the pee hole, just a bunch of holding things I am currently allergic to while she stabs needles into my back to teach my body that freaking out at food and medicines is not acceptable and will be punished with repeated stabbing. That should do it, right?

Unfortunately, the treatment would cost over 900 dollars and though she SAYS that I would have no allergies when she was done, and I could eat bread again until it grew out of my ears, I don't think she is willing to guarantee that.  There is also the problem that I do not have 900 dollars nor the prospect of having that much money that I will ever be able to spend on something that may or may not work, that also requires me to be stabbed repeatedly.  If I had that much to spare, I would do it. But I'm an industrious and frugal kind of gal, maybe I could just do it myself.  I'm sure we have a box of straight pins in the sewing room somewhere.

How I learned to attend classes in college.

When I was in college, I was not famous for making it to classes. Especially not classes that were at 8am.  I learned, eventually, not to schedule my classes before noon.. fine, before 3pm... but I had an unfortunate semester where I had scheduled a Non-Western Art History class at 8am and my teacher was boring, and a jerk, and  I was suffering from allergy-induced panic attacks.  It turns out that they were a reaction to a medicine I took every night at 10 pm, though no one realized it was an "allergy" until well after I had failed a bunch of classes. And since I would take the pill at 10 pm, it would kick off a panic attack a few hours later once it got nice and cozy in my blood stream, so I would have a full blown panic attack at 2 am where I would call my sister, crying hysterically, like the one time I called telling her I thought I might actually be dead.

 "Well, how are you calling me if you're dead?" 

       "I don't know how it works! I'm freaking out, I think it is logical that I might be dead!"

 "You're not dead... go take your meds."

But the meds they prescribed at the college health clinic were Xanax (which only made the attacks worse) and Ambien (which knocked me out, hard), so the one time I recall making it to class, I was pretty much a drooling zombie, which ties back into the whole "already dead" thing ( but I assure you I am not a zombie now, so I may have been wrong on that count- although, if I were that would be pretty cool. Imagine that! You would be reading a blarg written by a zombie right now, a very articulate and funny zombie. You'd totally let me eat your brains if that was the case, right?!).

None of this is the point of what I am writing, though.  The point is, I missed A LOT of that Non-Western History class, and that kinda sucked, because it was required for me to graduate. In actuality, I only remember going to class a total of about 6 times. One of those times was for the final.

Now, I had taken A LOT of art history up until then, having gone to art schools for the preceding 6 years, so I thought that MAYBE I could wing it and get enough right to get a C- in the class so I wouldn't have to take it again, but then, I got the final in front of me, and I looked up at the slides that Professor Jerkhole was showing, and while they were certainly beautiful works of art, I didn't know a damned thing about them.  Well no, I recognized the works by Hokusai, who did those beautiful Japanese iconic prints of Tsunami waves in front of Mt. Fuji.

 And I recognized another Japanese wash painting by Ekaku of the Bodhidharma who had cut off his eyelids to meditate without falling asleep,

and the Terracotta soldiers of the Qin Dynasty (the ones that are featured in the latest Mummy movie).

But otherwise it was a bunch of pretty vases and raku cups and if you don't know anything about art history, none of this means anything to you, I know.  And it didn't mean much to me since I needed to know the artist, the title, the date, the historical period, and the materials of each piece of art.

And then this image came up:

And I looked down at the question on the test that went with the slide and the question read, I shit you not:

And I thought, "Well, shit, I imagine I would know that if I had ever gone to class... um... Buddha?" which was not the right answer.  I was wrong on about 85% of the questions, in fact... and I failed the class and had to take it again at which point I managed to actually go to class and pass.

But even taking the class over, I never found out who made that damned bowl.


UPDATED: 12/13/12 1:52 am- I FOUND THE BOWL! OMG! This is it. It was made by Ogata Kenzan, and his brother was the painter Ogata Korin! I cannot tell you how absolutely exciting finding this was! I found it at the following link FINALLY by searching "famous Japanese pottery." The internet is a wonderful place!
http://mcgyakimono.blogspot.com/2010/10/ogata-kenzan.html

Or I could go to Australia...

I hate doing dishes.

And I hate doing dishes mostly because I am incapable of doing them without incurring the wrath of the sink.
By this I mean, dishes, quite clearly, hate me as much as I hate them.
I know this because I cannot get away from a sink of soiled bowls, utensils, plates, pots or pans without somehow spraying the entire kitchen with water, or soaking the front of my shirt and pants in a tell-tale oblong "splash of shame."

Now I have been told that, apparently, it is possible to wash dishes without looking like you've been visiting Sea World, and I've tried to thwart the soggy wrath with a kitchen towel placed on the edge of the sink, but then, I manage to soak the towel and then myself, or at the very least, I manage to place an ice cream scoop under the faucet, which results in spraying my entire shirt, sleeves, face, and feet because of course, I am freaking out that I am being dowsed with tepid sink water, and  I can't figure out to turn down the water pressure instead of quickly moving the concave surface while water ricochets everywhere.
It must be noted as well, that I have the keen ability to fill my sleeves with water, which seems like something only an idiot would do, but... I seem to be an idiot.

And just last night, I realized, apparently, I'm allergic to dish soap, or at least the ridiculously cheap crap that we buy, so getting soaked also means looking like I have leprosy in the places where the soapy water comes in contact with my skin for more than a few seconds.

I was hoping that my histamine reaction to dishes would get me out of having to do them, but no... of course they make hypoallergenic soap... bastards!

And yes, I know they make dishwashers to do dishes, but I have a tiny kitchen and a tiny counter top dishwasher, and all that it fits are plates and bowls, which are, of course, the easiest things to wash by hand.

______________________________________________________________________

Remember, today is the last day to buy May's Limited Edition Llama sticker. They won't be available tomorrow!

And I made another dress-up game (with tutorial on how to do dress-up games all day Saturday) on my art blarg that features  the Nacho Dress.  It is NSFW unless you get the clothes on the underwear clad JRose figure fast. =P   Go there to dress me up!