Scratchin' the Ole Beer Belly

I often use this blog as an outlet to poke fun and the ridiculous things I see going on around my office. Today, I have to call myself out. I deserve it.

I went to the washroom a few minutes ago and as I was walking down the hall I realize that I had lifted up my shirt and was scratching my stomach. That is sooooo not what anyone needs to see and, thankfully, there was no one else in the hall. I chuckled to myself to being so classy and went on my merry way.

There you have it, I'm not immune to doing the very same things that I like to laugh at in other people.

Look-A-Like

I was watching the original version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas with the Littlest Princess the other night. All of a sudden it struck me that the Grinch reminds me of someone. Before you guess, it's not Jim Carey. He reminds me of...........Dr. Gregory House.

You Can't Fool Me with a Bow

I can totally tell that your "shoes" are really slippers. I'm just jealous I didn't think of it myself. Do my pajamas count as business casual? Is bed-head a style? Are showers mandatory? I need to know!

Tidbits

* I got a kitten on Remembrance Day. Her name was Lucy until she went to the vet. Now HIS name is Cooper and he is not well-endowed. He thinks he's a human baby and won't let me out of his sight. He also thinks it is acceptable to sleep in my bed under the covers. He is lucky that I sleep soundly and don't discover him until I wake up in the morning.

* Dairy Queen has made my Iron Grilled Sandwich differently each of the last 3 times I've gotten one. Today, I got bacon AND cheese. SCORE!

* I went to Montreal this past weekend to see a Lady Gaga concert. I didn't end up seeing her and I got locked in a mall late a night. I'm talking chains and padlocks on the outside of the door sort of lock in. What is even funnier is that I was completely oblivious to it. Good times.

* I started my Christmas shopping on Sunday November 21st at 2pm. I was almost completely done by Monday November 22 at noon. I just have to pick up some candy on my last grocery order before X-mas. That makes me a Christmas shopping bad ass.

* Dijon mustard, much like bacon, makes almost anything better.

* I don't understand why a grown adult has to walk down the aisle at Walmart, and turn on every single dancing and singing Santa. What is wrong with you, Jerkass?!

* If the white beard on your Santa Clause decoration has turned brown, it's time to throw it out.

* Since I made the request, I'm going to make each of the recipes posted HERE this month. I say that now but it could change if they are really hard. Because I'm spleeny that way.

Recipes....Post'em Here

Over the past few days, I've seen alot of Facebook statuses, heard alot of conversations, read many emails all with the same question - Does anyone have any good Christmas recipes? So, let's post them here.
Now, I know alot of people read this blog but don't leave comments. There is an option to leave your comment anonymously, so come half out of the closet and leave your recipe if not your name. Participaction makes the job happen....or something like that.

It's Just Not Funny...Not Even a Little Bit

I've complained many times on here about the disgusting state of the washrooms in my office. It's not the cleaning staff. They do a great job and I feel bad for what they put up with in having to clean that bathroom. I just cannot comprehend how grown adult women can be such disgusting pigs.

I went to the washroom a little while ago and this is what I encountered. There are 4 stalls in there. One had fecal matter (poop) on the toilet seat and the bowl was full of toilet paper and waste. Another had urine all over the seat. Normal, socialized adults do not do this shit.

Seriously, you're no better than a bunch of poo flinging monkeys.

You Might be a Germophobe if.....

You know it's a good indication that you might be a germophobe when you look over at the person washing their hands next to you and you smile while thinking "Nice hand-washing technique! She even got under her nails."

I might be a germophobe.

For All Your Holiday Needs!

I look forward to the flyers each Thursday morning. They are always waiting for me at the end of the driveway, rain or shine. The delivery person doesn't really care if it's raining when they throw them from the car late Wednesday night so rain usually means "un-readable". But that's not the point here.

The stack of flyers seem to grow significantly around this time of year. Businesses are trying to hawk their wares under the guise of making things easy for the consumer this holiday season. Now I will be the first to admit that the flyers do help me with me shopping list. What cracks me up, is the businesses who don't put out flyers through out the rest of the year but start at Christmas. Again, all under the guise of meeting all your Holiday needs.

Here are a few examples from the stack this morning.

* Hakim Optical - "Give the Joy of good vision." Yup, I'll explain that one to the Littlest Princess on Christmas morning. I'd better get a punching bag too so she has some place to get out her aggression over the craptacular gift. Or maybe my dad "Merry Christmas Dad! Now that your old, I thought bi-focals would be a great gift!"
* Kia (a car dealership) - No catchy phrase here, just a big red bow on a car and low, low price FROM $20,245. Hmmm...who should I gift this too? My sister. "No, no, don't feel bad that you didn't get me anything. It's just a little something I picked up, no biggie." Nothing says practical like buying cars as X-mas gifts. I'd like to know how well that campaign does during this Holiday Season/Economic Crisis.
* Shur Gain Feeds and Needs - "You can be Shur!" Yeah, I'm SHUR my mother will love a pig ear and scratching post. Her nails have been looking scraggly lately and if she doesn't stop chewing on the new furniture my dad will have a bird!

Who says Christmas is too commercial?!?!?!

Uh....thanks but NO!

My 6 year old daughter has taken an interest in the local SPCA and has decided to donate everything in her piggy bank to the cause. Since she is being so generous, this morning I sent out an email to friends and family explaining what JJ is doing and asking for support - cash or items from the SPCA wish list.

Wish liste here - http://www.frederictonspca.ca/our_wishlist.aspx

I received a few responses including this one from my sister that almost got me in trouble with the IT dept for spitting coffee on my computer:

"I’d like to donate one asshole cat."

She didn't even bother to sign her damn name... but it sure made me laugh. I don't think I'll share that offer of support with JJ.

Here is an Idea....

How about you stop referring to your clients as "swine"?

I'm Beginning to Think I Shouldn't be Allow in Public

Is it just me? Am I too picky? Do I hold the average person to an unrealistic expectation? Do I judge the human race to be smarter than it really is? What is the damn problem?

I'm starting to think I should be confined to my own home. Out in public and even at work I'm both appalled and shocked by the dumbness and inconsideration around me. I just went to the kitchenette on my floor to wash my coffee mug. As per usual, there is a nasty used tea-bag in the sink. WTF? Are you planning to use it again? Perhaps storing it in the bacteria filled sink adds to the flavour? Or maybe you like to play Russian Roulette - "What disease can I get today?" Be an adult. Turn around 180 degrees and put the soggy, nasty tea bag in the garbage can. I think it's gross when people do that in their own house. Leaving it there for your co-workers brings that treat to a whole new level. In addition to that, just who do they think is going to eventually put the soggy mass in the garbage can and clean the sink? You can damn well bet it won't be me. I'm staying away from there. I'd rather risk food-poisoning that have any responsibilty for the clean-up and management of that room.

Upward and Onward

Okay, I've left my public service announcement up long enough.

So, does anyone watch Glee? I love that show! Actually, the story line bores me a bit but I l0ve the musical numbers. Sunday and last night, I re-watched all the musical number on "Rogers on Demand". My favourite numbers are the mash-ups they did last week. The guys did a mix of Bon Jovi "It's My Life" and some other boy band song. Maybe it's called "This is My Confession"? Not sure but I keep rewinding it and watching it again. The girls did a mix of Beyonce's "Halo" and Katrina and the Waves "Walking on Sunshine". The girls were good but I liked the boys better.

I'm thinking I might just wait for the episodes to air "On Demand" so I can fast forward to the musical numbers....and the commercials.

Listen to Me and Listen to Me Good

If you have not had a tetanus shot in the last 10 years, go get one immediately. I'm not even kidding. Take your hand off the mouse and run to get one.

How was my weekend? Well it sucked ass due to a dose of tetanus...otherwise known as lock jaw. Go google tetanus or lockjaw and come back and read the rest of this.

3 weeks ago, I stabbed myself in the hand with a corn on the cob holder. 6 days after that, I started to get a sore jaw. I didn't think much of it. But as time went on over the last 2 weeks it got progressively worse each day. I was unable to open my mouth wide enough to yawn, yet I couldn't close it enough to make my molars touch in the back. My ear started to hurt, my teeth hurt, my face hurt, my head hurt. Then the base of my skull started to hurt, the next day my neck hurt, then my shoulders and finally my back down to the bottom of my shoulder blades. My back hurting started this Wednesday.
I had a doctor's appointment on Thursday for something completely different. Rewind here for a minute - I need to add I've cut myself a few times over the past few months and my brother-in-law, Jon, always tells me to get a tetanus shot or I'll get lock jaw. Back to the present, Wednesday before my appt the next morning, I googled lock jaw just for kicks. Holy shit! I had most of the symptoms. The only ones I didn't have were convulsions, coma, and respiratory arrest.
Thursday morning arrives and I feel like I've been hit by a truck. I even called in sick to work. When I got to my appt, I described my symptoms to the nurse and then added that I'd cut myself and not had a tetanus shot in at least 15 years. She looked at me and said "You have lock jaw." A medical student hears my story and says the same thing. Then my doctor gets a rundown from the med student. He stick his head in the room and says "We think you have tetanus. We need to call an infectious disease specialist in Saint John to get advice on how to treat you." I wait in the waiting room while they call. After awhile they tell me they are calling someone in Halifax.
So I sat there for over an hour thinking they would write me a prescription for pain and some sort of antibiotic. WRONG. The med student eventually comes out and take me into the hallway and says "We spoke to Halifax and you need to go to the hospital immediately. Do not go anywhere else, go straight there. There is an internist (internal medicine doctor) waiting for you in the ER. Go right now. You could go into respiratory arrest any minute and you may be admitted to ICU. You need to be monitored very closely. You could die from this." I say okay and off I go. Needless to say, I'm bawling my face off, I can't get out of the damn parking lot because I'm too worked up to put money in the machine to let me out. I'm a mess and driving myself to the hospital.
I arrived at the ER, walked to the triage area sure enough, they were waiting for me. I could hear a bunch of people saying my name and saying "She's here. That's her." I'm losing my mind at this point. A nice clerk comes over and says "Are you Sarah?" I said yes and she says "Janet is on the phone. She wants to know if you want her to come. " Thanks, Jan. I said I was okay she didn't need to come. Thankfully, she showed up later regardless.

Within 20 minutes (I think) I was registered to talking to the internal medicine specialist resident. One of the first things the Dr. tells me is that only 4 people had this in all of Canada last year. Luckily it seems I only have a mild case. Before the end of a 2 hour span, I saw the resident, her boss doctor and the head of ICU. At this point, I'm realizing this is serious. The told me I was not going home because I needed to be watched closely. From what I understand, because the disease was progressing through my body, it could affect the muscles in my chest and stop me from breath. I would be unable to speak to even call for help. Super f'ing fantastic.

My cousin, showed up just after I was told that part of my treatment would be 12 shots one right after the other. That right, TWELVE SHOT ONE AFTER THE OTHER. Sure makes that one tetanus shot sound like a walk in the park, huh? Get a tetanus shot right now.
I had to stay in the ER for at least an hour after the shots in case I reacted. The doctor said if I reacted they'd be able to do more for me in the ER than on a floor. Doesn't give warm fuzzy feelings, does it?
Jan and I had alot of laughs in the ER. She also kept showing me off to her co-workers. She would say "This is my cousin. She has lock jaw!" No one but my family doctor and my cousin had the opportunity to see tetanus in real life before. It's that rare. Rare because most of the population is smart enough to get a tetanus shot. But not me. Go get one now.

So I spent Thursday to this morning, Saturday in the hospital hooked up to a heart monitor and an IV. FYI - the meds that I got through the IV every 6 hours burned like crazy. Get a damn shot this instant. I was very happy to come home today because the last couple of days have sucked like you cannot imagine.
So all this action was for a mild case of tetanus. Makes me damn thankful it was mild. Apparently, in the serious cases, they have to paralyze the patient because the muscle spasms can be so violent they can break their own bones.

Yesterday, the internal medicine resident asked me if she could write a case report on me because tetanus is so rare and I said yes. My doctor also told me his med student was very excited by my case. I'm just doing my part for the medical cause.

There is no test they can do at the hospital to say whether or not I really have tetanus. They have to send my blood work to Ontario and it takes 2-3 weeks for the results. Because the disease is so serious, if they think you have it they need to treat you right away.

I kept smiling and laughing through all of this but I'll be honest. Every time I felt any twinge in my body I was afraid I was going to stop breathing. I tried to convince myself it was no big deal. But laying in hospital Thursday night, unable to sleep and nothing to do but think. I could not help but see my daughter's face and I think she could have lost her mother because I was too lazy to get a tetanus shot. This is a serious disease and could have been much, much worse. It all could have been avoided if I'd gotten a tetanus shot. Please don't let your tetanus vaccination get out of date. It's an avoidable disease and it's just not worth the risk. I'm also very thankful that Jon likes to tease me. Otherwise I may not have mentioned it to my doctor and it could have been too late by the time I relized how sick I was.

This story might be a bit rambly and disjointed but it's still somewhat surreal to me. Jan please feel free to correct any information that is inaccurate.

Cocooning

Some days I'm just tired of fighting "the good fight". Bad fight, good fight, whatever, I'm tired just tired of it. I'm tired of everything being such a struggle. When I'm tired of the struggle, my instinct is always to cocoon. I hunker down in bed with a blanket around me and all the other blankets on me with just my face sticking out. This is obviously rather uncomfortable in the summer. Today I really, really need to cocoon. However, I will haul myself up to the mall for laser hair removal instead. After that, I'm cocooning and I'll be out when I'm good and ready.

So Funny

Over to the left of the screen there you'll see a link to Dooce.com...I'll wait while you look. She has added a new feature to her blog - at the top right hand side there is a tab called "Hate". She is now regularly posting some of the hate mail she gets. She used to blog semi-regularly about the hate mail and those posts would crack me up. Now I can get a pretty much daily fix. That is some good shit, I tell you. I find it down-right hilarious because these people are so upset with her. Seriously, if you don't like her writing then STOP READING IT! Rocket science, I know.

Just Shut Your Pie Hole Already

I have a defect. It's the fact that I don't seem to have a filter between my brain and my mouth. I have a thought and it immediately comes out my mouth without any pit stops along the way. This exchange took place in the washroom this afternoon.

Me: (walking into the stall) "It smells like horse manure in here!"
Co-worker: "Yes, someone just left."
Me: "OH! I didn't think that was human....(not done talking but she cuts in)"
Co-worker: "It is."
Me: "I mean I thought something was wrong with the air vents or plumbing."
Co-worker: ....silence.....
Me: "Yeah, next time I'll just keep that to myself."
Co-worker: "Yes."

Case in point.

Love Your Pics ;)

I know you think the photos of you dancing at a club that you posted on Facebook are really hot. But, really,the pics of you with the sweat marks on your shirt right under your boobs should be saved for your eyes only. No need to share everything on Facebook. There is a lesson to be learned here - Boob sweat stains are, most certainly, not hot. You can take that one to the bank.

Klassy and Sophisti-ma-cated

The black bra under your thin white blouse is fan-fucking-tastic and professional to boot. Knock'em dead in that meeting you just walked into.

Cute But Stupid

I went to see Inglorious Basterds last night with a friend. Below is an email that was sent to a few of our other friends about the movie.

Picture this - Sitting at the theatre, watching inglorious basterds. Very tense scene. Nazi security psycho has a woman in a room, suspects she is a spy. Days earlier, he found a shoe, he suspects belongs to the woman and has it in his jacket. Woman is sitting, Nazi is sitting as well facing her. Nazi asks for her foot. Woman… shaking, lifts it and puts it only his knee. Nazi asks her to reach in his pocket and pull out what she finds… the shoe is in there. Princess somehow forgot about the shoe part…. Leans over to me and says in a whisper…. “HE’S GOING TO CUT OFF HER TOES”.

Uh, no… he’s going to see if the shoe fits. Oh yeah.

If Tommorow Never Comes

I can hear country music coming from another office down the hall. If music makes you feel good then, by all means, turn it on. However, please close your door. As Mr. Garth Brooks says "If tomorrow never comes....." I will scratch out my own ear drums and lock them in the drawer beside me.