mmmm...The Onion...

Your Horoscope
By Lloyd Schumner Sr.
Retired Machinist and A.A.P.B-Certified Astrologer
August 31, 2005 | Issue 41•35

Aries March 21 - April 19
It's bad enough that you earned the undying enmity of a murderous elephant, but this particular bull is a member of the Azuma ninja herd—unusually cunning, stealthy, and skilled in the use of blowguns and exotic poisons.

Taurus April 20 - May 20
You'll be relieved when you're assigned to be a lighthouse keeper 200 miles above the Arctic Circle, especially when you think of how close you came to being named manager of the Detroit Tigers.

Gemini May 21 - June 21
Hopelessly lost on America's backroads, you will stumble upon an isolated, acid-washed, hair-metal-loving small town that doesn't realize the Cold War is over.

Cancer June 22 - July 22
You're suddenly a very hot commodity when Sony announces that the next generation of recordable digital media will be synthesized from your heart's blood.

Leo July 23 - August 22
You've always thought that breast implants were kind of sad, but you'll wind up with nine of them anyway.

Virgo August 23 - September 22
It's important to keep yourself looking and feeling good, but your relentless reapplication of home permanents is beginning to seem disturbing.

Libra September 23 - October 23
It's not that people mind it when you rappel in through skylights, but it does clash strangely with your love of making an entrance by popping out of cakes.

Scorpio October 24 - November 21
Your graffiti tags are as distinctive as they are funky, which is why you shouldn't even bother lying to the people of Jerusalem about what you did to the Wailing Wall.

Sagittarius November 22 - December 21
It doesn't matter if you've done nothing wrong and been charged with no crime. CNN's Nancy Grace is certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that you're guilty and should be "put down like a dog."

Capricorn December 22 - January 19
You'll become a living symbol of what's wrong with paddling in public schools after you repeatedly break into Birmingham, AL's Jordan High and demand to be spanked.

Aquarius January 20 - February 18
There's been a lot of trouble and turmoil on Wall Street lately, which is probably why they keep asking you if they can stay on your couch for October.

Pisces February 19 - March 20
The stars foresee a vast change in your future. Soon, the world shall grow cold, the nights will wax longer, and the world shall become covered with ice for many months.

IT HURTS!!

Okay..I forgot to include our lovely experience shoe shopping...this picture does not do the individual justice.. I tried to do the super secret sleuthy type shot of the front..but this is the best I could do. You are seriously missing the painted on pink eyebrows and rolls of tummy...not to mention the blood red fingernails of giganitc proportions complete with glued on fake diamondy stuff..

WARNING: May cause spontaneous bleeding from the eyes:

Big Thumbs

Right..so I get to work yesterday and feel like a 100 lb truck is sitting on me. I was totally wiped out from the weekend. The liver is starting to wake up again, and cursing green stuff as the spawn of satan (if I beleived in him). I look at my watch trying to figure out what time it is in the UK having said so-long to K and D several hours before at an indecent time in the morning. Not that I was indecent...okay I am an indecent human being..but I was appropriately clothed at that moment and the little saucy swear like a sailor side of my brain was still asleep even though I was upright. And don't even start on the "duh subtract 2 you idiot!"... I am not good with math. Math is evil. Math is an abomination :) I can barely add, so subtraction is asking a great deal from me.

Right, where was I... Oh watch..math..K and D...right.. So I look and my watch says 11:40. Which in my brain (remember no math) is thinking ..okay they should be back in the UK by now. I get my handy-dandy trusty-leave-it-in-a-bar mobile phone and proceed to text K thanking them for the lovely visit. Do I get a response? NO! I have to go to the web and figure out if their flight has landed in London. THEN I look at my blog this morning and I see K has commented on my weekend diatribe. Of course her comment gave me the warm and fuzzies and momentarily forget she didn't text me back. NOW as I am writing this I remember something. K is INCAPABLE of texting 2 words in under 3 minutes. Seriously..that woman is the WORST texter I have seen in a long time. On top of the fact that she doesn't own a Nokia phone, she can't even use predictive text.

One word says it all: SHUTHOG Disclaimer: K I adore you and you know it honey. One day she is on a terrace having a glass of wine enjoying the sun. As I have always called or texted her when I am feeling very relaxed on a terrace in the sun consuming alcohol, thoughts of me and the little Finn pop into her head. So being the great sister/friend that she is, she decides to text me. Predictive text on her phone made Sitting into Shuthog?!?!?! I thought it was her big thumbs because the key sequence for sitting with predictive text on (english) is: 7488464 ...but then I checked the sequence for Shuthog and it is the same... and it isn't even a word!!

Maybe I should be glad she didn't try to text after the plane?

bashed, befuddled, boozed up,

Holy hell my liver is crocked! Thank goodness I don't have to have any frickin blood tests for a while. I have learned something new though. Green stuff is bad. Very very bad. Okay not all green stuff..lettuce is okay, green beans, broccoli, asparagus... Liquid green stuff is deadly however.

K and D arrived on Friday evening after the thunderstorms from hell cleared out complete with a thank you gift of Kraft Mac N Cheese!!! Earlier the rain was coming down in sheets to the point where it was like white out conditions. I seriously think D is a rain magnet. After Cal-ass and Brugggearafdfvaergaerg (whatever the hell that city in Belgium is called) he brought it to Finland. At any rate,we all decided to go have a few cocktails. It is only fitting after they flew from the UK...libations would be required! We walked to Hotel Torni and went upstairs to the tower bar. That is when the boy saw the bottle, the bottle that will be the bane of my existance from now on. Folks, Absinthe is deadly stuff. Flaming green absinthe shots that D said would taste like a Good 'N Plenty but burn a "bit". A bit?!?! Okay he didn't say a "bit"..but I wasn't expecting the firey decent of this stuff (even without the flames) down my esophagus and searing every centimeter of my intestines as it worked is way thru my tummy. 15 minutes later I was right and truly drunk. Fastest drunk I ever got. But we continued on bravely consuming more alcohol for a few hours and discussing Kevin Bacon. Hey..I did say we drank absinthe..what were you expecting a dissertation on EU polotics while weighing the positives and negatives of a socialistic society as it relates to Finland?? As it was only, at that point, 2 AM and the bar staff really wanted to go home, we moved onto another bar called Bakers where we proceeded to continue drinking copious amounts of alcohol and discuss all manner of things which slip my mind right now. It was also a night for the traditional drunken Fusche phone call to my Sug in San Diego :) She puts up with so many drunk calls from me :) We finally dragged our behinds back to the flat at 4:30 :) Just in time to make little munchy tummies happy with ham, cherry tomato goodness, cheese, crackers etc.

Saturday Morning was not a good morning. Okay it was 12 minutes before noon, so it still counts as morning. Everyone was hung over, the firey ball in the sky (which Beth has termed the Day Star) hurt our eyes and we needed new shoes. The weather was okay..but D was in the house recovering from a combination of his cold and the green icky death stuff he made us drink, therefore the rain held off until, funny enough, he started feeling better. We proceeded to go to Saga and D experienced bear and smokey tennis court (Finnish tar shnapps). The weather was just starting to spit a bit of rain when we went into the restaurant. However, when we were eating it proceded to come down sideways and hard. Again..D is a rain magnet. The wine there proved to be total shite. I mean really..who knew a Cote du Rhone could taste like water. We actually sent the bottle back! That thing was horrible. Even though we all vowed we were "not gonna drink and f&%¤ing Merlot!!"... we did. It was the only semi full bodied wine in there that we were pretty certain wouldn't suck eggs. When we left the restaurant we headed to Storyville to listen to a swing band. Just as a note for anyone going there..go early and get a table. That place packs up right and quick..not to mention annoying people not knowing the meaning of personal space and practically sitting in D's lap or humping his leg because they have no concept of HOW to dance let alone what a beat is. The band was called Fat Sam's. Really quite a good band. They had the place jumpin... A nice selection of good swing music and some really nice guys in the band. American Swing in a Finnish bar played by a Scottish band?!!? Yep and it was good.

It finally proved to be waaaaaaaaaay to crowded and annoying to us so we went upstairs to the piano bar (with no piano player), had another drink and then headed back to the house. 3/4 of the way there I realized I forgot my bag at the bar with my cell in it. I hauled butt back there and got it. Run run run, wheeze wheeze wheeze..I make it back to the gang. Tummies decide they are hungry..so K, D and I go to the little all night grill joint around the corner from my flat to get a burger. BIG mistake. The nastiest, sloppiest, goopiest, icky combination of crap you could ever imagine was loaded into this "burger". It was practically soup with a bit of meat! Needless to say..our tummies were not as pleased with this!

Sunday...rain, rain and more rain. We opted to cook breakfast (brunch folks as it was 1:30 in the afternoon) and watch a DVD while Noah built the ark and we all got loaded 2 by 2 into it. Not kidding..I was going to grow webbed feet! DVD was DOGMA...Kevin Smith rocks. We have all seen it before, but let's face it..that is one great flick.

Sunday night - Ravintola Garlic :) Yum Yum Yum. We ended up consumig 2 bottles of wine at dinner - oh and I forgot to mention the 2 we had at the house before we left. The pattern here is becoming clear to me... After dinner we walked to Ahven (a bar close by) and had an after dinner drink - which I proceded to dump some of it onto myself with no idea how I did it. Walked home and put our little bums to bed as K and D had a flight at half past OH MY GOD in the morning back to the UK.

...my liver hurts.... 6 weeks from now..Italy!!!! I think my liver will have recovered by then...

Oh the SHAME!!!

Okay. Yesterday I left the office early to go on a drinking fest with my department. Don't you just love a country that encourages you to "bond" with your workmates by copious amounts of alcohol?!! There wasn't even a need to claim "tummy flu" or "migrane"! The afternoon (which I count as anything after 12pm and before 12AM in this instance) of libation indulgence was sanctioned and also paid for entirely by my company! Finland - the land of opportunity and "networking" thru slurred speach and really hot rooms where you sweat your pahtooty off while somone pours a ladle full of water on rocks which are so hot they could sear the skin off your bones... makes sense to the Finns and who am I to rock the boat when there is free booze and food!

This "team building" event was out in a place called Marskin Maja. I could give you the whole history lesson on who Mannherheim was but that would bore you and you would be drooling and snoring before you finished reading any of it so I won't. It was a lovely location in the middle of nowhere about 1 1/2 hours from Helsinki. Very nice place with saunas and a beautiful lake and 70 of my co-workers.

They had all these activites planned. The invitation stated: "Remember the proper equipment: shoes, clothes ". I was a bit concerned at this reminder. Does this mean that people are going to show naked? Shoes and clothes...what if I was a nudist? But I digress...no shock there.. Right activities.. Okay so there were 5 different things which everyone was "encouraged" (Read: required) to do. One event was a 3 part brain challenge thing which involved crossing an imaginary swamp with 4 pieces of long wood and 5 small wooden blocks with all 5 of your team members standing on the wood at the same time and having to pass forward the last "log" to the front and inch forward a board at a time to the other side while balancing on your makeshift balance beam. Part 2 was a bottle which had 8 strings attached to it -4 at the neck and 4 at the bottom - threaded through this wooden box frame at each corner (2 in each corner for the mathmatically impaired). There were 2 mugs in opposite corners of the box frame. The object: once you lift the bottle from the ground it can not touch again and you must fill BOTH mugs to the top in under 8 minutes. Part 3 was moving a stack of tires (arranged in pyramid form with the biggest on the bottom) from around 1 pole to a second pole. There is a 3rd pole which can help you move them since no 2 tires can be "in motion at the same time" and no larger tire can be on top of a smaller tire...get the idea?..it is much easier to show you how to do it..but this being the web and all..use your imagination.

I actually enjoyed those 3 activities. There was also moutain biking, learning how to use a kick bike - in essence a scooter for adults without the motor -, canoeing and then the last "activity". At this point in the afternoon I am wondering: 1.) where is the booze damn it! 2.) I didn't sign up for things that make me sweat. 3.) Where is the booze?!

"To the SHAME James and step on it!"... I actually had to do something I swore I would never do. Nordic Walking. HOLY HELL is that stuff embarassing. You are probably thinking to your self "nordic walking?..do Scandinavians walk in some odd way that other humans don't?"... Folks..they do it with ski poles! I am not joking. It is entirely shameful and embarassing. Not only because you look like a right twit and only OLD people do it, but because if you have the co-ordination of a cow like I do..you can't even do it PROPERLY!!! OH the opprobrium!!! <-word of the day

Thank goodness for the copious amounts of alcohol after that. Little did I know I had to debase myself before I could drink. Now I have to nurse my hangover. Bright spot: K and D arrive in 11 hours for a weekend sans goose liposcution and free of shitty Californian wine. :)

um..er...yeah

Right..so I have decided to pick a new word every day to use in my blog. Don't even start on my inability to post every day. It just means that on those days I don't post I must add additional words to make up for the lack of posting. Sort of like a complex quantum calculus equation where the coeficient of my stupidity is compounded by the lack of imagination and subsequently divided by the number of pages in a really cool thesaurus (bet you thought I didn't know what one was!) which is directly related to the quantity of wine and/or beer consumed the night before divided by the hours slept and factored to the 10th power. For all you math geeks out there, it is pretty obvious I know NOTHING about calculus. I only took enough math in school to graduate and promptly forgot almost all of it the minute I finished the test. Seriously..I can't even add properly..I require a computer or a calculator to do it all for me and with the use of webbank here in Finland I never even have to balance my cheque (note the Eurotrash spelling) book because they don't use cheques in Finland at all. They look at you like you are a freak if you ask...

Right where was I..oh..words and my use of them..So, in other words, if I am an exceptionally lazy cow (let's face it..I am always a lazy cow) I have to use more neat-o keen words. Not that it is usally a problem. Hell I can never tell a story in under 20 minutes without several tangents leading off to more tangents and then I have to "bring it home" as Michael tells me. I suppose that means my goddess title is appropriate. Although I have always kind of been a bit chagrined by that moniker...I never thought of myself as a wordy bitch (that is K's job with her blog entries..although I could run a close second)..but I guess I can be that way. I also can not speak without using wild (neat-o but not so keen word alert)gesticulations, subsequently knocking over drinks within a 3 foot radius of my windmilling and decidedly clumsy appendages which are not to be confused with the noodly appendages of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM). Seriously clumsy here folks. Wait..was that a tangent?

:)

Score 1 for the kids AND parents!

So I was reading the news today. The California Supreme Court was weighing a case I had been following and finally rendered it's decision. The decision involves kids and parents. It centered on mainly the right of a child to be supported by both parents financially in the event of a split, and more importantly what defines "parent".

In this case, the parents happen to be lesbians. The ruling came packaged around 3 cases. One where a couple separated after having a child. One where one partner donated an ova to the other and they agree to raise them jointly (meaning is the surrogate mother in this case actually a parent?), and one where one woman in the particular relationship cannot invalidate a declaration of parental rights made with her partner after splitting up.

The court ruled in case 1 that when one partner actively assisted in the other becoming pregnant with the understanding that they would raise the children together must provide financial support and ordered her to pay child support after the couple separated. The court held that a biological link is not needed to settle parenthood if a child is conceived by artificial insemination.

In case 2, it was deemed that BOTH women are a parent to the child born of the donated ova. The court ruled that: In such cases, parental rights and responsibilities cannot be waived.

In case 3, the court ruled a woman may not invalidate a declaration of parental rights made with her partner. That would be unfair to their child and ''contravene public policy favoring that a child has two parents rather than one,"

ROCK THE FRICK ON! In an era where gays and lesbians are fighting so hard for equal standing under the law, these rulings are a step in the right direction. Not just in protection of the child and it's welfare, but also in holding people accountable for the decisions and commitments they made in the conception of this new life.

What pisses me off (come on you knew it was coming) is if you are part of the "minority" community and you are fighting for equal standing under the law regarding anti-discrimination on basis of sexual orientation and the right to marry, how can you then say to your now ex-spouse - let's face it a majority of lesbians and gays in a committed long term relationship will tell you that if they had the right to marry they would - "that child is not biologically mine so adios!". How much of a hypocrite can you be?!?!?

Before you get up on your high horse talking about straight couples and father's not being responsible for supporting a child that isn't biologically their's, think about it first. We are talking about lesbians and gays. Right now there is not a biological way for two women, or 2 men for that matter, to have a child which is each genetically half of each of them. Trust me if they could do that, the ones that want kids would be first in line. And I can say with some level of certainty that these couples would be there too.

If you talk the talk, walk the walk. Take care of your child! And be a parent for chrissake!

The rulings not only holds people accountable for their decisions but also legally validates all those gay and lesbian couples who have known for so long the reality that: gender is not a barrier to being a parent in a relationship. Children benefit from 2 parents. I am not saying that single parents aren't fit or the child is bereft of a decent childhood, so don't even go there. I am simply saying that now a step forward has been made in recoginizing that a family doesn't have to be Mommy and Daddy. It can be Mommy and Mommy or Daddy and Daddy too.

Um..just..wow...

TRIE-SUR-BAISE, France - Yohann and Olivier Roussel's performance climaxed in a cacophony of oinks and grunts, unleashing an explosion of applause.

But it was only after lengthy jury deliberations that their hopes were confirmed — the father-and-son team were France's official Pig-Squealing Champions for 2005.

The judges, headed by a former champion, had been impressed by their vocal imitations of pigs in all four of the required categories, reflecting key milestones of porcine existence: from noisy farmyard birth to death under the knife, via suckling and — inevitably — mating.



Um..and people say the wife carrying competition in Finland is odd?!?!?!


Contender Jacques Barrot performs in the French Pig-Squealing Championships in Trie-sur-Baise's annual festival. Contestants suckle, oink, and even imitate mating.

Timewarp

I know I already posted about being out of the music closet. You know..being a fan of 80's music counts too. The decade of Reagan, The Cosby kids and Flock of Seagulls you ask? Why yes. It doesn't help that I spent my highschool years in the 80's. Everyone dressedwith pegged pants (those from MA will get it), Guess jeans,Champion Sweatshirts, Polo or Drakar for the boys - who incidentally wore so much they could sterilize a frog at 400 yards - and high hair (on both the girls AND some of the boys) that would make a Jersey girl or a chick from Revere proud.

This, however, is not about music but about movies! A Finnish friend of mine and I were discussing "Old" movies on IM the other day. She was home sick (she is feeling better now) and said she spent the day with the shades drawn watching old movies. I was all like "aces!!". Turns out it wasn't that she was watching those really elegant black and white movies where all the women wear sleek silk dressing gowns and those slip on slippers with fluffy stuff on them while smoking a filterless cigarette from a cigarett holder and drinking a martini. Their diamond earings, necklace and in some cases tiara, glinting beautifully during the cocktail hour while their gentleman caller is standing there in a tuxedo with a nice congac in his hand saying things like "Really darling we just must attend the party. It is the social event of the year" or some such suave sentiment. She was watching "old" movies from the 80's. How does a movie from the 80's count as "old". If a movie from the 80's counts as old, does that mean that I am? For me, an old movie means black and white (I don't go for colorized versions..icky) with good lighting and actressess like Ingrid Bergman, Lauren Bacall, Marlene Dietrich and leading men like Humphry Bogart, Jimmy Cagney, Peter Lawford etc. Movies like: the ORIGINAL "Oceans 11", "To Have and Have Not", "The Big Sleep", "For Whom the Bell Tolls", "From Here to Eternity", "Angels With Dirty Faces".....

In all fairness, I am a fan of 80's movies. I mean really! Who of similar age to myself doesn't have some comming of age memory from films like "The Breakfast Club", "Say Anything", "Sixteen Candles", "St. Elmo's Fire", "Pretty in Pink", "About Last Night", "The Outsiders"..and many many more. Wow, looking at that list it is all Brat Pack movies. So I am wondering now..can 80's movies be classified as "old"? If they do then maybe I should be espousing how "kids today don't know how good they have it," or yell at them to "get off my lawn!!"..or "turn down that racket! You call THAT music!?!?"...or "pull up your trousers and wear some that FIT young man!!!" I feel like I have been shoved into a timewarp and am suddenly older than I realize!

I think I am going to have a nice relaxing cup of coffee and listen to my 80's channel on accu radio. Something very soothing about Bow Bow Bow, Blondie, Peter Gabriel can calm you down. Come on everyone..Shock The Monkey!!!!!

Fire Breathing Light Switches and a Yankee Swap

Right...so we booked our plane tickets to go to the States for Christmas. After spending the last 2 Christmas' in Finland my folks pleaded with us to come to the States. So we said yes. I also wanted to go as I missed our family Christmas celebrations a great deal. Let's just say that Christmas dinner at my family's house consists of 35 people..ALL IMMEDIATE FAMILY. Mira is an only child. Not a bad thing at all, but she has yet to experience the full on Roche-Gaudreau family christmas/drinking/yankee-swap fest that is our holiday cheer. Tons of food, presents, egg-nog (spiked and whimpy for the underaged ones..although I think they sneak a few from the "grown-up" batch occasionaly - not that I would know ANYTHING about doing that..ahem..) and the ever present Yankee-Swap. A hillarious swapping of presents which I will describe: Each person involved buys a present and wraps it. They then put it under the tree without anyone looking. Say, for example there are 15 people - The numbers 1 thru 15 are written on a piece of paper, folded up and then put in a hat. Each person then picks a number from the hat. The person with the number 1 starts the whole process. The only rule is that you can not pick your own wrapped present from under the tree..although you may get stuck with it later..

...so person Number 1 picks and opens the present. Everyone "ooh"s and "ahh"s or cracks jokes at the gift. Then person number 2 picks and unwraps - repeat of the "ooh"s and "ahh"s ..however, Person number 2 then can look at the present that person number 1 got and decide they like that one better and swap the presents. Person number 1 can not refuse to swap. This continues up to number 15. Each person can pick from the previously opened presents. Wait! I know what you are going to say: But person number 1 gets totally screwed! Not so my friends. At the end, Person number 1 gets to swap their present (which may have changed 15 times in the course of the game) for ANY present in the bunch! Lemme tell you it can get quite stomache splitting funny! - This will be a first time for the little Finn :)

Now to the fire breathing light switches. I promise never to make fun of my step-mom's paranoia with thunderstorms ever again. She is petrified of them to the point where she will hide in the basement family room if one is going on with all the lights out and a candle while chain smoking until it has passed. I always thought her rather daft. Well..their house got hit and fire shot out of a wall switch. Dad was Mr. Speedy with the fire extinguisher and luckily everything was okay. The Electrician had to come and replace the switch and a socket. The cable box got blown apart with melted wires and everything. Luckily they are both fine (including the pup) and there was no serious damage to the house. BUT HOLY HELL BATMAN!!!

Lazy Cow

Okay so I haven't posted in a while. I could sit here and say that work has been nuts (it hasn't), aliens abducted me (they didn't..although some will disagree with me on that one), my computer died (thankfully not), I joined a commune which is anti-technology and spends it's time frolicking in the woods based on various phases of the moon or mushroom growth cycles (not bloody likely thank you very much) - but I won't. I am just a lazy cow. There.

Spent the last weekend at 2 house-warming parties. I am proud to say they have been appropriately warmed. Toasty even. My liver is trying to recover and my bank account is noticing how expensive taxis are from Espoo to Helsinki (35 bleeding euros each way!) Of course, philosophical discussions abounded and I was pleased to be informed by Hank that there is indeed a term for the straight guys that hang around lesbians. Women who hang around gay men are affectionately called "fag hags". During a rather inebriated discussion on the virtues of that moniker Hank asked what guys who hang out with lesbians are called. I must admit, I was at a loss. I was going to say..um..Michael? Let's face it, Michael has a disproportionately high number of lesbian friends, but is gay so he doesn't count...or Duane? ..he does too, but is straight. His wife gets 10 free gay days a year..unfortunately for the lesbian community she is only allowed to be a gay man... Of course Duane is really a lesbian in a man's body at any rate. So I arrive at work on Monday and check my home email from work because I was such a slug on the sofa on Sunday I didn't even turn on my computer at home. Sitting all sparkly in my inbox was an email from Hank. The man is the KING of Google. If you need to know what something is, where it is, how to find it, if it is deadly, and also random Finnish bureaucratic crap, Hank can find it for you.

Ladies and gentlemen:
dyke tyke: a male with extensive platonic friendships with lesbians

I know you were all chomping at the bit to know.

Cottage

Right..spent the weekend relaxing at a friend's mökki and had a blast. Mökki is the Finnish word for a cottage. Totally beautiful. Lots of sauna, food, sausage, sunshine, card playing, wine, beer, sangria...mmmm..sangria... Left the cottage to head back to Helsinki and heard on the radio about the horrible storms in the city. Seriously, flooded streets, downed trees (one landed on an old lady and she had to go to the hospital). The World Championships Track and Field are in Helsinki this year and the poor sods ran in downpours that would make Noah concerned!

So we get back to the city and happily 2 of my 4 ordred DVDs had arrived. We spent the rest of the evening on the sofa with a nice bottle of Portuguese red wine watching "The Celluloid Closet" - a film version of Vito Russo's landmark book which explodes sexual myths and explores how our attitudes (mainly American) about homosexuality and sex roles have evolved through the 20th century in film. Truly an interesting documentary. I went on a kick ordering documentaries...I have 3 more :) Yay good movie nights!

Got back to work today and found that Peter Jennings had passed away over the weekend. He lost his battle with lung cancer. AND then Dana Reeve (Christopher's wife) revealed SHE has lung cancer now! Today a helicopter crashed off the coast of Estonia en route to Helsinki carrying 6 Finns, 4 Estonians,2 US citizens and a crew of 2. They haven't found the bodies or survivors. What a crappy day!!!

To make it a happier thing I am putting up some pics of the view from the cottage :)

This is from the road looking up to the cottage:


This is the front of the cottage which faces the lake:


This is the view from the porch (front) at sunset:

Vampyrella

Okay. So I recently had a health exam. Make sure all the bits and pieces are where they should be and doing their job. So the 1st visit the nurseish person (not really a nurse as such but a "health professional") says I have to do the obligatory peeing in a cup and she needs to take some blood. Okay no problem. I am used to this stuff... So Vampyrella has to stick me 3 times to get any blood from me. This was a first time experience for me. I am not afraid of needles. Being a diabetic I had to have my blood checked at the Jocelyn in Boston frequently. There was never a problem with drawing my blood.

Fast forward to a week later - follow up with an actual Dr to go over my results. Dr. tells me I need more tests (somethin funny in my blood. Instant panic on my part. Partially because I have always been relatively healthy and sickness frightens me (wimp I know) and partially because that means that Vampyrella gets another go at my arms... After the Dr. confirmed it isn't HIV or Hep but I do have "something", she says I need a full CBC and another ESR test - my white cells were 50% higher than necessary in Dec so time to check everything really closely - She sends me right off to the Princess of Darkness for another go at my arms. After the fracking 6th time of her blowing thru a vein, I finally said "Maybe I should come back." (hoping beyond hope she will have a day off and I won't have her mutilating my arms anymore). Let's face it folks, needles aren't fun and having someone dig around in your arm to find a vein doesn't tickle. My arms look like I got in a fight with a far-sighted vampyre who couldn't find my neck!

Back I go this morning to have her poke me again. Left arm - blow out another vein. Right arm - it is like an instant replay.. So what did she finally have to do? The top of my Left Hand. Getting stuck by needles in your hand really frackin hurts!! I can take the arms - uncomfortable but totally handlable...top of my hand?!?!? BURNS LIKE A MO-FO!

So now I have more bruises and have to wait till Wednesday to find out the results..