Love Is In The Air ♥

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Chapter 11: Clean Up On Aisle 3...

This entry (I almost said episode… lol) is going to be one long rant. Shut up and deal, or leave now.


One of the most annoying things I have to endure on a weekly basis is grocery shopping. I literally cannot stand it. I like to make my list of what we need, go to the store when there are no people there, and be in and out as quickly as possible. However, it never seems like I can do this in a timely manner. Why? (And this is in no specific order…)

1) The people. Yes, that’s right, you, the consumer. You annoy the hell out of me.


a) Don’t know what you want for the week? That’s fine, it happens to everyone. Stand there and look and choose what you want. But! Do not stand there, in the middle of the aisle so no one can pass you, and look at the shelves and debate about food. This is extremely rude. And don’t get irritated when someone comes up behind you and politely says “excuse me” so they can get around you. Hello! You are the one blocking the aisle, not me. Oh, I’m sorry I broke your concentration and now you have to start all over again on comparing the Ho-Hos to Twinkies. My bad! Give me a break!


b) If your kids can’t behave in the store, leave them home! Now, I realize not everyone can do this, so here’s my solution to that problem: teach them how to behave better in the store! It’s not that hard, really. As a child, I was always well behaved in the store. If I wanted something and asked my mom if we could get it and I was told no, then I didn’t scream and cry and throw a temper tantrum. Now, if you bring the kids to the store, and they begin throwing a tantrum, don’t grab their face and scream at them and tell them they’re being a brat. This does not help the situation. Also, you probably shouldn’t slap their face in front of 20 people. It just looks bad. I’m not saying that punishing your child for being bad is wrong (but I’m not advocating child abuse, either), but slapping them across the face when they’re crying because they wanted the package of cookies and you told them no… well, that’s just mean. Here’s another solution! If they start to act up and you have given them a warning or two, take them out of the store! It’s less embarrassing for you and less annoying for the other shoppers!


c) If you are an employee of the store, it’s in your best interest to actually do your job and be friendly towards the customers. First off, it helps you keep your job, which helps you get money, which helps you live your life. Secondly, it helps the store look good, which can help you get a promotion, which will help you get more money… well, you see where this is going. If someone comes up to you to ask you where to find a certain product or just has a general question, don’t get all pissy. It’s part of your job description to help the customer. If you don’t want to interact with people, you should get another job, preferably one where you are stuck in a cave all day. And if you’re a bagger or cashier, be helpful. Don’t put a carton of eggs on top of a loaf of bread. Pay attention when you’re bagging the groceries… don’t yell across the store to one of the other baggers and talk about your date last night. There’s a place and time to talk about those things, and being at the end of a conveyor belt with fresh produce in your hands is not the place for it.


d) (I debated whether or not to go into the parking lot in the “people” section of this entry, but I think I will, because technically the people cause the parking lot drama.) If you’re waiting for someone who has gone into the store, don’t park right in front of the store in the FIRE LANE. Go find a spot in which you can clearly see the door, and wait for the person there. When you see the person coming out, then you can drive up to them. But, don’t block the entrance with your car, and make people walk around you. How fricken lazy can you be?? Also, if you have parked 2 spaces away from a “Cart Corral”, don’t put your shopping cart in front of another car and leave it there. Walk that extra 10 feet and put the cart in the designated spot. It’s not that hard. Yes, I make exceptions for handicapped people. Sometimes it’s hard for them to walk that far, and I understand that. This is the only exception, though.


2) My boyfriend. (Please understand that I love hm dearly!!!) He seems to like to take his time. It’s like, “Oh, I’ll mosey over here for a minute and look at this shelf. Then I’ll take a couple of things off the shelf and stand there and read the ingredients and compare everything in each package. Then, I’ll put all but one of the things back. 10 minutes later, I’ll realize I wanted one of the other things, so I’ll trek back there and exchange the packages”. And then it comes time to pick out his snacks for the week. And we stand there in the aisle for 10 minutes while he debates how his tastes will be for the next week or so, but then he decides that he doesn’t really know what he’s going to want for that week… so he picks the same thing that he had last week… almost every time. I love him, but I abhor grocery shopping with him.

I think that’s about it for ranting. I’m sure I left stuff out, but I’m being rushed by time (I have to get ready for work) and I’m in a major brain-fart today.


Do you have any gripes about grocery shopping, or shopping in general? Let’s hear them!

-Grizzly Girl

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Chapter 10: A Spoonful of Sugar Helps The Medicine Go Down

Ugh. I am so sick!

It started Friday night. My throat started to get scratchy, my ears clogged, my nose became runny, and I was coughing. I woke up on Saturday morning to find that all of my symptom had gotten worse by tenfold. And, I had to work Saturday morning. I was not a happy camper.

Today, my throat isn't as sore (it wasn't sore at all until about 2 hours ago), but everything else is just as bad.

I tried having hot tea yeterday, and that helped with the sore throat, but the pain would come back 5 minutes after I was done drinking it. I've also been pounding Dayquil like there's no tomorrow.


Thankfully, I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow. It's for a check-up on the heart issue, but I figure I'll bring all of this up while I'm there. Why not, right?

I've been in this "I need to watch Sweeney Todd" mood lately. I'm craving the blood, gore, violence, and music. Why? I have no idea, just like everything else I crave. Why do I crave pickles and green olives when I'm nauseous? Who knows.



My presentation with the Info Board at work went well. Or, as well as it could have gone. Most of the people I work with are... well, I'll just say it... slackers. So, they could have cared less about it one way or the other. But the doctors seemed to enjoy it.

I guess that's it for now. My life is pretty boring, as always. Haha!

-Grizzly Girl

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Chapter 9: We Interrupt Your Broadcast For A Special Bulletin

Hey all! Not much is going on in our neck of the woods, so this isn’t going to be an entry that’s really in-depth. Good news, though! I finished the information bulletin board for work! Here are the pictures, with captions of what each part says underneath!

A shot of the whole board. "Spring is coming! Spring is tick season!"


"Warm weather is near, which means ticks will be out in full force! Here are some facts you should know about Lyme Disease!"

"What are the SYMPTOMS?
  • fever
  • lameness
  • swelling/painful joints
  • lethargy
  • loss of appetite
Unlike humans, dogs very rarely get the typical bullseye rash!"


I added pictures of the deer tick, the most common tick around here that transmits Lyme.


"How is Lyme Disease diagnosed? We begin by taking a thorough history of your pet. If we believe your pet might have Lyme, we can run a simple 10 minute in-house test. This test tells us if your pet has been exposed to the bacteria that causes Lyme. If so, we can send a blood sample to a larger laboratory for a specific test. This test will tell us the quantity of the Lyme bacteria in your pet's blood."


"TREATMENT: When your pet is first diagnosed, they will be put on a strong course of antibiotics. Some pets also require pain medicine. Unfortunately, there is NO cure for Lyme. Supportive care is one of the best treatment options."


The map shows the incidence of Lyme positive pets in each state.

"PREVENTION!
  • A yearly vaccine;
  • Checking for ticks after coming inside; and
  • Flea and tick preventatives"
"We recommend Advantage and K9 Advantix! :) "

"Don't wait! Vaccinate!" ---- corny, I know...


"Oh no! Spike has a tick on him... what should I do?!

A guide to properly removing a tick from your dog..."

"Step 1:

Get all of the supplies you will need.
  • tweezers
  • cotton balls
  • rubbing alcohol
  • a jar with a lid"

"Step 2: Wash your hands with soap and water.

Now, dab rubbing alcohol around the area where the tick is with a cotton ball."

"Step 3: Sterilize the tweezers with rubbing alcohol.

Part your dog's hair so you can see the tick."


"Step 4:

Firmly grasp the tick with the tweezers as close to the head of the tick as possible.

Slowly pull the tick up and away from your dog's skin. You want to make sure the tick's head is removed, too."

"Step 5:

Place the tick in the jar and pour rubbing alcohol on it, just enough to cover the bottom of the jar and drown the tick. Seal the jar closed."


"Step 6:

Use a clean cotton ball and more rubbing alcohol to sterilize the bite location on your dog's skin.

Now wash your hands.

You're all done!"

So, what does everyone think? Is it educational enough? Neat enough? Give me some input! :)

-Grizzly Girl

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Chapter 8: You Can See My Heart Beating, Oh You Can See It Through My Chest

So, what happens when you don’t update as often as you should, and a violent windstorm comes through knocking power out for 3 days? Well, I think you see where this is going…

The windstorm. Ugh. Thursday night, we had extremely violent winds come through. It was so loud and scary that B said, “It sounds like the Smoke Monster from LOST…” And it did.


We lost power around 10:30 PM, and didn’t get it back until Sunday evening. We had about 3 weeks of food in our fridge and freezer, and 90% of it went bad. We had no heat, no hot water, and couldn’t cook. (Everything in our apartment is electric…) Our landlord, however, has all of the above. Why, you ask? Because he has a generator that he hooks up to his house. Did he ask us if we wanted to chip in on gas and use the generator to help keep our food fresh? Of course not. Why? Because he’s an asshole. (Our apartment is actually connected to their house. They just built a not-so-thick wall between each section of the houses.) GR. I am so angry at everything right now. B keeps saying that I have hated him since I started coming over here, which I have, but I have had reason to hate him. I won’t go in to it, though… he’s always telling me I am too angry and hold grudges. Going in to it won’t help my mood, either. Heh.

But can I just say this? I want to move so badly!

Not much else is going on.

I’m designing our “Information Board” we have at work. It’s just a corkboard that we post animal health information on. But, I like to scrapbook and am creative, so I’ve taken it under my wing. I might just take a picture of it when I’m finished and post it here for you! :)

We went to see The Crazies on Sunday. It was really good! I thoroughly enjoyed myself. And Timothy Olyphant is pretty nice to look at, as well. *giggle*



We also got Love Actually from NetFlix last week. I hadn’t seen it, so we watched it last night. I was yelling at the TV because I was so in to it. lol It was a lot better than I thought it would be. Very romantic!





Our betta fish died. I was happy to see him go, only because, for the last couple of weeks, he had been laying on the bottom of the tank. It looked like he was having a hard time breathing, and barely moved. A few days before he died, he started to lose his coloring. I got hom the other night, and he was laying on the bottom of the tank, upsidedown, with 90% of his color drained. He was literally white with red streaks. RIP General Tso. You were a great, yet very angry, little fish.


So, I have to wear a heart monitor for a full month. Thankfully, I don’t have to wear it when I sleep, since I’m not having any symptoms when I’m sleeping. I have 2 electrodes hooked up to me. On is on my left side, towards the bottom of my ribs. The other is on the right side of my chest. If I feel any of the symptoms I have been feeling (explained in Chapter 3), I have to push a button that will; record my heart’s activity for 15 seconds. It will also go back and fully record what my heart had been doing for 45 seconds before that. (I guess it has a small memory, so it can be all nifty like that and back-track.) It’s such an annoyance, though. It’s constantly falling off of my pants (it’s help on like a beeper would be), getting in the way, and I’m always afraid I’m going to accidentally push the button that will erase everything it’s recorded. When I have up to five recordings, I need to call the hospital and tell them I need to send a transmission, then place the phone on the monitor, push the send button, and stand there for a minute while it makes that dreaded “dial-up internet” sound. It’s such a hassle, but hopefully it will tell us what’s going on so we can get everything to stop and I can go back to normal and my heart can stop being "broken"…

 

-Grizzly Girl