December: Colonoscopy, Collectibles, Cinema, & Christmas

Picture from jupiterimages.com

December 5th, 6th, & 7th - Prep for a colonoscopy, a colonoscopy, and a day of recovery. Sigh. It makes me sad to know I have had a colonoscopy. It's even sadder that I need to have one every three years. (I cheated, though. Last one I had was 6 years ago.) For those who have never had a colonoscopy, (lucky) let me give you a few hints.

Take three days off from work. Never go to work on the day you do your prep and never go to work on the day of the colonoscopy. And take another day off because you're going to want to, believe me.

Also, schedule your procedure for the early morning, because then you won't have to fast as long. Plus, you'll get to sleep a lot after the procedure. It'll be nice.

If you have the cash, do an endoscopy at the same time if you need it. That way you can get it all done at once and not have to go back for more procedures. (They still charge you, though.)

On the day of your prep, DO NOT GO OUT. You're going to be uncomfortable most of the evening so you might as well do it in the most familiar surroundings. Plus, keep a clear pathway between you and the bathroom AT ALL TIMES.

Get someone to bring you home and put you to bed. I was knocked out completely for my procedure. I almost didn't realize a procedure had been done. But it was an hour later so I got the hospital to call Daryl and he picked me up and put me to bed. It was nice to have him there.

December 8th, Saturday - The Collectibles Warehouse! Daryl and Christian and I went to a warehouse filled to the brim with collectibles of all kinds. I was drawn to the comic books, of course. And Christian was there scoping out possible gifts for soon-to-be Japanese relatives and getting lots of foreign DVDs. There was a stall that was completely devoted to memoribilia from The Nightmare Before Christmas. If you're into Disney pins, a memento that I had no idea existed, this is the place to get them. I cannot even count how many pins there were for Disney. I'm actually surprised that there are so many of them. But I guess if you've been around for 50 plus years, things will tend to build up. Daryl and I were very good and didn't buy anything. (We're trying to save money!) But now we know where to go if we want a Nightmare Before Christmas lamp and old Buffy comics.

Picture from skyandtelescope.com
December 13th, Thursday - The Geminid Meteor shower! I wasn't sure we'd pick up any meteors in our neighborhood. The streetlights throw off so much light pollution it's a wonder we see any stars, let alone meteors. But we did! And I made at least two wishes.

December 15th, Saturday - We saw THE GOLDEN COMPASS and ENCHANTED. I liked ENCHANTED better because it had a sense of humor about itself. The overwrought musical numbers were pitch perfect and who knew Amy Adams and James Marsden could sing? Marsden has a lovely voice, I had no idea. Cyclops can sing! And so can Junebug! Anyhoo, if you like Disney movies, you'll like this one. It very kindly makes fun of them and there's a very funny scene of waterbugs scrubbing out a tub. Why McDreamy's lawyer cannot afford a maid is beyond me, but maybe it's because he spends hours in Central Park with a complete stranger who gets the entire population of NYC to dance and sing with her. I don't think he can bill hourly for that.

I'm disappointed with THE GOLDEN COMPASS, though. For some reason the book seemed more exciting than the movie. The CGI animals were pretty good, though. And is there anything Freddie Highmore can't do? And they cut off the end of the book because they wanted a happy ending. Well, [SPOILER ALERT!] the whole series is not really a happy ending so if that's the reason why they made the films, they're in for a big surprise. Nicole Kidman as the villain was pretty good, but she did seem like she was made of plastic and I have no idea what is up with her and her daemon. She is one messed up character. The one kid who has a daemon lobotomy, though. That was horrible. You felt for him and you admired him for seeing through the BS and then they mess him up so bad...I'm giving too much away. And what's with all of the violence here? It's a kid's movie, right? Why so many grusome deaths? All in all, it left me cold. Didn't help that it was mostly set in a frozen wasteland.

December 16-19, Sunday-Wednesday - Sick. Boo.

December 25-31, Tuesday-Monday - Daryl is out of town. And I am alone. Boo. Not a way to spend the holiday.

November: Mexican Wrestlers and Thanksgiving

November 1st, Thursday - We went to go see Lucha VaVoom! I love this show so much. It's all about Mexican wrestlers and burlesque dancers. So entertaining. Click on the link and see if it's something you think you'll like.

November 22nd, Thursday - I love Thanksgiving! It was just Daryl and me making a huge amount of food. We didn't do a turkey this year and it was nice. I just heated up a roast (From US Wellness meats! Grass-fed beef only. It's really good. Honest.) and it was delicious. Mo also stopped by before she left town, which was nice. And then we watched a bunch of movies. It was a lot less stressful for me this year, I have to say. I even got a good night's sleep the day before. But, it wasn't to last. I got a phone call at 9p to go into work the next day! I'll spare you the details, but I was grumpy and Daryl was lonely. Boo.

October: Pests, Plants, Birthdays and Halloween, complete with Pumpkins

Okay, I have had it with aphids. Those little suckers have to die. I'm instituting a scorched earth policy and getting totally new plants. Including a bunch of succulents, which they seem to ignore. I've found that the local ant population have decided that my flowerbeds are the ideal place to build a satellite colony, complete with eggs and infested with aphids. I've tried the organic way and along with the thousands of dead ladybugs, I'm done with it. We're going with pesticides, people. I've tried being good, but it just doesn't get any results. I've also decided not to grow any more edible herbs until I've killed every last aphid. I hope our chemical pesticide companies know what they're doing.

October 13th, Saturday - On a good note, we met some lovely people at Amy's housewarming. I look forward to getting some good avocados and tangerines when they start dropping from the trees she has in the backyard. I got them some star jasmine, which smells so wonderful, it just makes you feel good. If Daryl and I ever get a house here in LA, (Ha!) I want some star jasmine all around my house.
Can you tell who's going to win this one?

October 18-22, Thursday - Monday - Daryl and I took off for SF for pumpkins. I didn't get to eat at any of the restaurants I wanted to go to, but it was nice to hang out with old friends. We played games and caught up with people and generally had a good time. This time we flew up instead of drove and we played video games all the way on Virgin America. It was fun. I almost didn't want to get off the plane. It was certainly less stressful than driving, although since we spent all the money on the flight we didn't rent a car. I was so ready for a vacation. Although, next time we're eating where I want to eat.

October 27th, Saturday - Mo's Birthday! We had a lovely dinner with Mo and Lucy at the Cheesecake factory in Pasadena. I hadn't seen Lucy for a long time. She regaled us with stories of her past history as a restaurant hostess in super fancy places and having a crying fit in the closet on her first day. Yowza! I look forward to seeing that incident in her next screenplay. Mo's the last of the 1970 crowd to have her birthday and she will forever hold it over me that I am older than her by 5 months. Respect your elders, isn't that what they say, Mo? :)

Since it's also really close to Halloween, Daryl and I went to a Halloween party with our friends from TWoP! The theme of the party was "Anything British..." so we went as Fish and Chips. Daryl created these outfits from mattress foam, housepaint, and old towels and bedsheets. Mo was kind enough to lend us her overhead projector so we could make transparencies of the London Times and trace them onto our outfits. We ran out of grey metallic paint so we used the rust and purple to fill out the colors. We won a prize, which I shall treasure, for the Most Humorous Costume. I loved our costumes so much I had Daryl mount them to our bedroom walls. I am not kidding.
Here we are as Fish and Chips.

Can you see the DW references in the headlines?




Rose and The Doctor, of course.

No party is complete without Mary Poppins.


October 31st, Wednesday - Halloween - In the annual pumpkin decorating contest at work, I actually won a prize! I made my pumpkin, Sully, from Monsters, Inc. because we had tons of blue colored copies that came out wrong and I wanted to reuse them, instead of just dumping them. Honestly, I just love decorating pumpkins.
I think this one won the best prize.

I got most colorful.

Of course Jack Skellington won, too!

September, the month that wasn't

I'm sure all sorts of exciting things happened this month, full of dentist visits and chiropractor adjustments, but it was a bad one for me, so I'm skipping it.

August, a month for the moon and stars. And a killer.

Well, I've figured out the uploading problem. So let's continue with the belated blogs. The month of August! Hot weather, working two jobs and renting a car to keep up with it all. Okay, let's begin.

August 4th, Saturday - THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM. Everyone was talking about how great this one was. Well, from what I could manage to watch, it seemed ok. But it didn't help that the roving camera kept making me sick. I'm sure I missed out on the cool action since I was out in the lobby trying hard not to throw up. I hate the stupid verite camera effect. I'm sure Paul Greengrass is a fabulous director, but seriously he is not making movies for people like me, who have gotten nauseated on elevators. Stop moving the camera! Please.

Perseid fireball taken by Jimmy Westlake on 8 Aug 2007
August 12th, Sunday - Saw a fantabulous meteor shower and made many wishes. Daryl, Mo and I went out to the beach to see the Perseid Meteor Shower. I cannot even tell you how fantastic is was to catch a glimpse of the meteors streaking across the sky. I gasped at the first one and we weren't the only ones. There were families all camped out on the beach with us and many "ooohs" and "aaahs" were heard. Too bad I had to go to work the next day because the later it got into the evening the better it was supposed to be. I'm definitely taking a day off next year to watch and stay up late.

August 18th, Saturday - STARDUST. A good month for this movie, what with all the skywatching I was doing. It was a lovely fairy tale and a family movie. Michelle Pfeiffer is really enjoying being the main baddie in this one. Even under tons of make-up. It's a little corny, but it's a fairy tale. And a good one. The special effects are very good. I especially liked the ghosts of the dead princes commenting on the action. And Robert DeNiro, in one of the oddest characters I think he's played, is a cross-dressing pirate. He's a nice guy though. You really see why his crew love him. The ending actually made sense and there's a little "awww" in there too. I couldn't help myself. But there's still plenty of action and people are threatened with all sorts of sharp pointy things and some people actually die. So it's not all sentimental.

Here's a nice picture of the eclipse. From mr-mcgeek.blogspot.com

August 27th, Monday - August was a good month for skywatchers. This year had a lunar eclipse that made the moon red. It was magical. I love it when you don't need to bring out the telescopes.

August 31st, Friday - Then we saw the Aurigid meteor showers. These meteors weren't as bright or as varied as the Perseids, but it was still fantastic that I got to see them from my absurdly lit street. I woke Daryl up at 2am and there we were outside hanging out on the driveway searching for meteors in the sky in our jammies. I wasn't sure if we'd get to see any but we did and it exceeded all my expectations. At least this time it was on a weekend. I don't have a good photo here, so here's a website that has some good ones.