This is my story

( Yet one more ''Star Trek'' observation )

Hey - two silver linings!

1) I already have 5 sympathetic responses from my friends. I have great friends, and hugs. What's not to love?

2) The owner of the garage is going to fix the Buick now, and let me pay whenever I can get the money. God, do I love small town life.

*sigh* What a week.

* It rained again. More days of trudging through the mud and taking painkillers that don't really help much.

* I saw the doctor yesterday because I still have pain in the foot I sprained back in late Sept/early Oct. It turns out I have posterior tibial tendonitis. The cure, according to my doc (who really is good, despite my bitching here) is anti-inflammatories (already proven ineffective), very expensive orthotic insoles, physical therapy (also expensive), and/or surgery if nothing else works. Guess I'll just learn to live with that pain, too.

* The Buick broke down again. This time, it seems, something fell off the power steering box. Cost will be at least $300, and it'll take 3 days to fix. Since my roomie had to be picked up and I couldn't afford to miss any more days of work (due to work volume, not lack of vacation days), I figured we'd better trot out the Honda. It went wonky a couple of months ago - the locks kept locking and unlocking - and the battery was drained, so I tried to get a jump. Ha. Not so simple. It needed a new distributor. $275. We couldn't fix both, but the Honda could be done in one day, so I'm driving the Honda now, and the Buick will have to wait until my tax refund.

I'm trying to find something good in all this. I'm a silver lining sort of person. But you know, I just can't today.

Happy birthday to tianning! World's best hare-mommy, Hun-woman extraordinaire, and one of my best friends for many years. I hope you had a good day, Hareball, and that this year treats you better than the last one did.

LJ!Twitter today...

I wonder sometimes if I watch too much football. In a game I have, the music includes sorta ancient-Egyptian chanting, and it's distracting because I keep think I'm hearing "pump fake".

I just gleefully started the new Stephen King novel, Under the Dome. I've seen reader's reviews that say it's vintage King, and it sure is so far. The first chapter introduces us to a woman learning to fly and her teacher. We see how happy she is, and how the teacher enjoys her enthusiasm and reflects that her husband will end up having to buy her a Cessna. Then you get, "They had 40 seconds of life left" (or something like that). Wheeeeee!

Audible.com gave its members a Christmas present - a free short story, Dickens' "A Christmas Carol". I've never actually read the story, so that was cool, but the best thing was the narrator - Tim Curry!

I'm still girly. My fingernails are coral this week.

Just finished watching Star Trek (the recent movie) on DVD, this weekend. Terrific movie, even for a canon-worshipper like myself. Besides, Karl Urban as Bones is to die for.

I realized today that, in February of this year, my roomie and I had been friends for 40 years. My roomie said it made her feel like scrunching up, she felt so old. hee!

I'm reading the first book of a series, and loving it. It's "The Lightning Thief", in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. It's a children's book, but that never stopped me!

Happy birthday! to trellia_chan!! Trel... the person on my flist who can always surprise me, even now. In a good way!

A productive day, if not for my Nano novel. Among many other trivial things, I finally did the re-write on Prelude chapter 26, and I just posted it. As always, my thanks to tianning, my Ruthless Editor, and to coastal_spirit, my Kindly Editor and Expert on Most Things Japanese.

More things I'm thankful for:

* The soldiers who have suffered and died to keep us free. Yes, I know this seems trite, but I'm not talking about now, alone. I am also talking about past wars. My dad was one of those soldiers. Maybe the wars are wrong - war is always wrong - but the wars are not started by soldiers. Our armed forces are the wall between us, every one of us, and those in the rest of the world who want to wage war on us.

* (From the profound to the trivial) Chocolate. And beer. But not together.

( One more observation on The Lord of the Rings: )

In the tradition of the holiday, if just a few days late, here are some things that I'm thankful for. In no particular order:

I am thankful for:

* My friends. Randi, of course, who is more like a sister, and Zora, Dana, Gale, and Sher, as well as Dark Star, Trellia, Laura, JessKat, Steph, and all my other wonderful online friends. I had to learn the lesson late in life that you've got to have friends (as the song says). Life is dull without them - and infinitely more difficult to get through.

* My parents. My dad and mom are, quite simply, the very best parents a person could ever hope for.

* My writing. In November, especially, I recall the pure joy, the soaring pleasure, of writing.

* The fact that I still have a decent job, and that it has once more become a place where I like to work.

* My knees being OK and that it will be possible, if not easy, to be pain-free by Christmas 2010.

and, on a lesser scale ~

* Disney doing traditional animation, the new Star Trek movie being out on DVD, the Lord of the Rings extended DVDs on my bookshelf, Fullmetal Alchemist getting a new anime life, and all the other wonderful things brought to life by creative people which are mine to enjoy.

Happy Birthday to theteaqueen! May your day be as bright and cheerful and beautiful as you are.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends. I hope you have a lovely day and get to eat great food.

I don't normally celebrate Thanksgiving, because my roomie works and I'm doing Nano. So today will be just like the rest of this week, except that I get some football. *g*


The meme below was stolen from trellia_chan, and it was a fun way to start my day! I have several different playlists, but I used my rock one. Because it's so large, I made one exception to the randomness - I wouldn't repeat an artist. Here's what I got - and I think it's pretty much pure nonsense:

The Grave That They Dug Him Had Flowers

The phone don't ring
It don't come easy
Now that I've lost everything to you
If we still have time, we might still get by
You know you're a cute little heartbreaker

I feel the earth move under my feet
I remember when rock was young
Like the pine trees lining the winding road
Is this the real life?
There is a house in New Orleans

Well, she got her daddy's car
I'm going home
Shot through the heart
Here I stand, head in hand
I see the bad moon rising

Seven lonely days
Girl, you got this need to know what I'm all about
You can climb a mountain
Get your motor running
I'm gonna pack up all the pain


( If anyone's interested in what songs I used (since I doubt very many of you will recognize any of them!) I'll put the list under this cut: )

Rocket is gone.

I don't know if I've ever mentioned Rocket here. We had three strays, long ago - Tsarina, Divette, and Rocket. We had them for 10 years or more, I think. Of the three, Rocket was the sweetest and most affectionate. The neighbors called her Velcro, because if you picked her up, she'd cling to you, but she'd cuddle, too. Every day, she'd sit at the edge of the driveway when we came home, and when the car stopped, she'd be up on the hood, getting warm and waiting to be loved. She's the only stray I've ever known who was as affectionate, sweet, and loving as any of our indoor cats.

But she was very old, and she was never in good health. I don't know what killed her, but my roomie found her today and buried her with all honors.

And our hearts are broken.

I am so tired of the word "Twilight" that I'm actually sorry that I use the term "Twilight Dragon" in my Nano story.

I am so bad. *slaps self*

Another belated birthday wish....

Happy Birthday to coastal_spirit, one of my bestest friends, the one who can meet my mind in ways that no one else can. To my fellow WOW, I hope you had a great day. I am now going to read your LJ to see if you did!

It's amazing how many things seem appealing to you when you're trying to procrastinate. Instead of writing, which is what I should be doing, I've done all my regular chores, plus swapped out my summer clothes for my winter ones. I've managed to put off what, honest-to-God, I want to do for 3 hours now. *sigh* Just for the record, writing really is hard work. It's more fun than what I've been doing, so the only conclusion is that I am insane.

An observation on friendship: folks, if you want to have a friend, you have to BE a friend. It's reciprocal. Any friendship which is not is doomed to wither. (No, by this I do not refer to my flist, my coworkers, or anyone else who will be reading this. This was inspired by someone outside this ring of folks.) Now, I'm not saying that the exchange must be equivalent (G, are you giggling?). Seriously, it is NOT tit for tat. My roomie says it's like building a bridge - each of you starts from one side of the gap and builds your part, and each of you builds at least 60%. The deeper the overlap, the stronger the friendship. It doesn't have to be an exchange in kind, either - in fact, if you exchange some different things as well as some similar, it's even better. (For example, my roomie and I share a love of animals, but I love movies and she loves crafts, two things we only share out of courtesy and mild mutual interest.) What's shared doesn't matter, and how much doesn't matter. But there must be mutual exchange. I was recently greeted by a "friend" (why is there no word for "an acquaintance of long standing who is almost but not quite a friend"?) who shares a love of writing with me, and I pretty much ignored her. Why? Because although I have listened, often and at length, to her accounts of her stories, never has she asked about or listened to mine. So... shrug. I like her. We get along great. But I don't call her a friend.

And as a codicile, a huge *HUG* to my friends who are reading this. I love you guys.

A (late) happy birthday wish to phizzbin! He's definitely one of the most interesting people to join my flist, a challenge to my mind and sometimes my tolerance in the best of ways.

I went to the orthopedic surgeon today, Dr. Bucholz. I love the guy! He "got" my sense of humor, but was also blunt and honest, and answered all my questions. I got some very good news. No, not that I don't need the hip replacement. I do, and I'll probably go ahead with that next year. But I thought that years of limping had trashed my knees, since both hurt - the right one particularly hurts much worse than the hip. And I've been having all this back pain, so I thought I'd screwed that up. Well, no! My knees are great! Not a thing wrong with them! In fact, he said they're particularly healthy for someone my age. The pain in the knees is actually displaced pain, which is to say, it's really in my hip but is only felt in the knee.

He proved this to me in three ways. First, he said, "The pain is here and here. Right?" Me: "Yup!" Then he showed me the X-rays, which showed two beautifully unmarred knees. Then he manipulated my legs: "Does this hurt?" Me: "Nope." Dr. B: "That's working your knee. Now, lets add the hip." Me: "OUCH".

The back pain and leg cramps are all the same cause, too. There is a sheath of nerves that runs alongside that area, and they're connected to my back and both legs. My poor ol' hip really does look bad - the cartilage is almost all gone, and the head is distorted from being worn away.

When I get the hip replacement, it'll be the titanium head, which should last the rest of my life. Recovery time is surprisingly short, too. So now I only have to get over the anesthesia phobia.