Weblog 236
August 15, 2010~ 12:00 am
If I had to use one word to describe this week, it would be
BACKACHE. (Believe me, if I could bend that way and I thought it would bring relief, I would.) I have a strained (or dysfunctional) SI joint. ("Sacro-Iliac") and it's no fun. It's a gnawing, constant deep pain punctuated every now and then by a streak of white hot. I've been popping ibuprophen like M&M's, applying heat, and wearing a supportive, cinched up, reinforced cotton belt to hold the whole lax business together. It pushes the stomach up over the belt, which is slung low at the hip bones and yanked to a tightness to practically bisect the torso, and it makes me look like a fat samurai. LOL!!! But for the last day or so, it's been working.
I have no idea what caused it. At first I thought it was leaning forward while tensing and straining for long periods of time playing those online games I wrote about last week, so I stopped doing that, but found that I couldn't sit 'PERIOD', for very long. My suspicion now is that I pulled something while having one of my customary smoker's 'coughing fits', propped up in bed reading a book late last week when I first realized I could not get comfortable without repeatedly changing positions (an action which causes more pain, but has to be done to achieve a small measure of momentary relief. ) That makes for many miserable, broken, sleep-deprived nights, so I'm hoping this belt-wearing will eventually allow things to calm down.
I've been so humorless, steeling myself against discomfort, that I might seem deadpan and flat to folks lately. Kind of like this old publicity tobacco card of Marlene Dietrich- the original 'hooded-eye sourpuss'. LOL!!!
She's looking out as if to say, "You wanna start something?" For the past week I've been mostly in bed when I'm not at work, and not really happy anywhere. Helluva thing. (Just like this OTHER vintage publicity shot of Madge Bellamy, a silent film star I'd never heard of, but find utterly charming-
I'm like Madge, who has her HAT: I stand alone facing the world with only a belt, looking worried and forlorn, hoping it's all the protection I need.) Time will tell.
If you're wondering where I found these gorgeous photos, pay a visit to a site I found and got lost in this week....it's called Virtual History: Film. (Did you ever hear of 'tobacco cards' featuring movie stars? I never did, but they're wonderful! Lovely colors and dramatic black and whites.) There's postcards in there, film programs, old fan magazines.....what a treasure trove! I started remembering faces I'd never had names for before... and remembering many, many weekends watching 'The Sunday Double Feature' and 'The Million Dollar Movie' on our black and white
TV. (That light-colored band around the picture tube would glow a radioactive green, which made everyone's face look ghastly while watching with all the lights off...which of course was supposed to be like being in a movie theater.) I was the youngest, and the old set used to have fits when it came to its horizontal hold controlled by a button in the back; it was my job to scoot over there and sit on the floor and use one little hand to slowly rotate the knob to get the 'flipping' of the picture to stop. I'd hold my other hand, palm facing the screen, in front of the tube and would watch until my palm no longer reflected the twitching and flipping. Then I'd scoot back over to the couch and pile on..........(till it happened again, which was OFTEN. LOL!!!)
But nothing could beat those Sunday afternoon double features of good old films, eating sandwiches made with fresh Barsotti's bread and drinking cold milk, my dad telling me the plots to all the same films that thrilled him during his escapes into movie theaters during the Depression-- when films were a couple of pennies a pop.
Those cards and pictures bring it all back to me. All the dead dears. All the fading technology that was so very 'au currant' at one time, slipping into oblivion as new things crowd them out.
(Wish I had a new back.) Barring that, these internet escapades into the past can at least take my mind off hurting for awhile.... hope it eases what ails you too. There's nothing like memory lane. Nothing at all.
August 15, 2010~ 12:30 am
I forgot to mention the MOVIE that Wayne and I watched Saturday night. Laughing is good for the soul, and we sure did do our share of it (despite the humid heat, again- almost decided not to watch a film due to the stifling, crappy weather) -but I'm glad we did! I howled my butt off at
a spoof film of the making of yet another VietNam saga of super adventurous, brave jungle soldiers, starring Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr., Jack Black, Tom Cruise, Nick Nolte and Matthew McConaughey. (How often do you get to see a white man play a black man, and convincingly? LOL!! That was Downey Jr., and he was brilliant. His role is a serious method actor who will not step out of character 'till the extras are filmed for the DVD, man'.) Tom Cruise made me laugh so hard I wept, and the same with Jack Black who plays a drug-addicted star of a series of 'Fatties who fart' movies, attempting a break-out role. This movie is brilliantly funny. If you are a tight-ass who is easily offended by racial jokes or jokes about the mentally challenged, don't bother to watch this. (It's a FRICKIN' MOVIE, for crump's sake.... and in broad comedy, there ARE NO sacred cows, so do yourself a favor and watch yet again, Dr. Doolittle ...something sweet and inoffensive.) All those who love to laugh and who give themselves plenty of wiggle room to do so... run, don't walk to rent this film. It's one of a kind.
August 16, 2010~ 5:00 am
I visted mum yesterday for our customary Sunday dinner together at Table 6 with the girls- and the place was stifling. The air-conditioning could have been cranked up a bit more, believe me.....(though I was the only one at the table sweating. LOL!) My sister Kathy was there when I walked in to show me how to operate the washing machine on mum's floor. (Kathy is going on an extended vacation to the northwest, to drive through the National Parks and get a good, long dose of beauty.) Since she won't be around to do the weekly laundry, I will be doing it on Sundays.
Twice while I was there, mum nearly toppled over (yes.....thoughtless, quick moves not using her walker.) Good Lord, I thought, she's gonna fall again. Her balance is terrible when making sudden moves
yet those are the very times she chooses NOT to hold onto her walker! Once, while bending over to get a stick of gum out of the end table drawer (when I thought she'd continue on down on her head) and the worst was after we came back from dinner. I'd crossed the room to her bed to get my purse, ready to say my goodbyes, and wouldn't you know it.....there she was doing a strange tip-toeing, too fast rush from her door to her Lazy Boy chair, turning on a dime and completely miscalculating where the chair was in reference to her own ass -and began to PLOP herself down, but more on the ARM of the chair, which began to tumble sideways.
"MUM!" I said, "be CAREFUL," reaching out and stubbing my pinkie on the edge of the Lazy Boy, hand smarting. Grumbling and cross: "I know! I know!" she groused. "I should use my damn walker!" Good GRIEF! (It's gonna be a LONG couple of weeks in early September when Kathy's gone, let me tell you. I just KNOW it. LOL!!)
The tables turn. The parent becomes child. The child.. the worried parent. Life has a way of putting us all off-balance with these role reversals. It's tough to get used to.
***
(Return To Weekly Archives)
If I had to use one word to describe this week, it would be
BACKACHE. (Believe me, if I could bend that way and I thought it would bring relief, I would.) I have a strained (or dysfunctional) SI joint. ("Sacro-Iliac") and it's no fun. It's a gnawing, constant deep pain punctuated every now and then by a streak of white hot. I've been popping ibuprophen like M&M's, applying heat, and wearing a supportive, cinched up, reinforced cotton belt to hold the whole lax business together. It pushes the stomach up over the belt, which is slung low at the hip bones and yanked to a tightness to practically bisect the torso, and it makes me look like a fat samurai. LOL!!! But for the last day or so, it's been working.
I have no idea what caused it. At first I thought it was leaning forward while tensing and straining for long periods of time playing those online games I wrote about last week, so I stopped doing that, but found that I couldn't sit 'PERIOD', for very long. My suspicion now is that I pulled something while having one of my customary smoker's 'coughing fits', propped up in bed reading a book late last week when I first realized I could not get comfortable without repeatedly changing positions (an action which causes more pain, but has to be done to achieve a small measure of momentary relief. ) That makes for many miserable, broken, sleep-deprived nights, so I'm hoping this belt-wearing will eventually allow things to calm down.
I've been so humorless, steeling myself against discomfort, that I might seem deadpan and flat to folks lately. Kind of like this old publicity tobacco card of Marlene Dietrich- the original 'hooded-eye sourpuss'. LOL!!!
She's looking out as if to say, "You wanna start something?" For the past week I've been mostly in bed when I'm not at work, and not really happy anywhere. Helluva thing. (Just like this OTHER vintage publicity shot of Madge Bellamy, a silent film star I'd never heard of, but find utterly charming-
I'm like Madge, who has her HAT: I stand alone facing the world with only a belt, looking worried and forlorn, hoping it's all the protection I need.) Time will tell.
If you're wondering where I found these gorgeous photos, pay a visit to a site I found and got lost in this week....it's called Virtual History: Film. (Did you ever hear of 'tobacco cards' featuring movie stars? I never did, but they're wonderful! Lovely colors and dramatic black and whites.) There's postcards in there, film programs, old fan magazines.....what a treasure trove! I started remembering faces I'd never had names for before... and remembering many, many weekends watching 'The Sunday Double Feature' and 'The Million Dollar Movie' on our black and white
TV. (That light-colored band around the picture tube would glow a radioactive green, which made everyone's face look ghastly while watching with all the lights off...which of course was supposed to be like being in a movie theater.) I was the youngest, and the old set used to have fits when it came to its horizontal hold controlled by a button in the back; it was my job to scoot over there and sit on the floor and use one little hand to slowly rotate the knob to get the 'flipping' of the picture to stop. I'd hold my other hand, palm facing the screen, in front of the tube and would watch until my palm no longer reflected the twitching and flipping. Then I'd scoot back over to the couch and pile on..........(till it happened again, which was OFTEN. LOL!!!)
But nothing could beat those Sunday afternoon double features of good old films, eating sandwiches made with fresh Barsotti's bread and drinking cold milk, my dad telling me the plots to all the same films that thrilled him during his escapes into movie theaters during the Depression-- when films were a couple of pennies a pop.
Those cards and pictures bring it all back to me. All the dead dears. All the fading technology that was so very 'au currant' at one time, slipping into oblivion as new things crowd them out.
(Wish I had a new back.) Barring that, these internet escapades into the past can at least take my mind off hurting for awhile.... hope it eases what ails you too. There's nothing like memory lane. Nothing at all.
August 15, 2010~ 12:30 am
I forgot to mention the MOVIE that Wayne and I watched Saturday night. Laughing is good for the soul, and we sure did do our share of it (despite the humid heat, again- almost decided not to watch a film due to the stifling, crappy weather) -but I'm glad we did! I howled my butt off at
a spoof film of the making of yet another VietNam saga of super adventurous, brave jungle soldiers, starring Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr., Jack Black, Tom Cruise, Nick Nolte and Matthew McConaughey. (How often do you get to see a white man play a black man, and convincingly? LOL!! That was Downey Jr., and he was brilliant. His role is a serious method actor who will not step out of character 'till the extras are filmed for the DVD, man'.) Tom Cruise made me laugh so hard I wept, and the same with Jack Black who plays a drug-addicted star of a series of 'Fatties who fart' movies, attempting a break-out role. This movie is brilliantly funny. If you are a tight-ass who is easily offended by racial jokes or jokes about the mentally challenged, don't bother to watch this. (It's a FRICKIN' MOVIE, for crump's sake.... and in broad comedy, there ARE NO sacred cows, so do yourself a favor and watch yet again, Dr. Doolittle ...something sweet and inoffensive.) All those who love to laugh and who give themselves plenty of wiggle room to do so... run, don't walk to rent this film. It's one of a kind.
August 16, 2010~ 5:00 am
I visted mum yesterday for our customary Sunday dinner together at Table 6 with the girls- and the place was stifling. The air-conditioning could have been cranked up a bit more, believe me.....(though I was the only one at the table sweating. LOL!) My sister Kathy was there when I walked in to show me how to operate the washing machine on mum's floor. (Kathy is going on an extended vacation to the northwest, to drive through the National Parks and get a good, long dose of beauty.) Since she won't be around to do the weekly laundry, I will be doing it on Sundays.
Twice while I was there, mum nearly toppled over (yes.....thoughtless, quick moves not using her walker.) Good Lord, I thought, she's gonna fall again. Her balance is terrible when making sudden moves
yet those are the very times she chooses NOT to hold onto her walker! Once, while bending over to get a stick of gum out of the end table drawer (when I thought she'd continue on down on her head) and the worst was after we came back from dinner. I'd crossed the room to her bed to get my purse, ready to say my goodbyes, and wouldn't you know it.....there she was doing a strange tip-toeing, too fast rush from her door to her Lazy Boy chair, turning on a dime and completely miscalculating where the chair was in reference to her own ass -and began to PLOP herself down, but more on the ARM of the chair, which began to tumble sideways.
"MUM!" I said, "be CAREFUL," reaching out and stubbing my pinkie on the edge of the Lazy Boy, hand smarting. Grumbling and cross: "I know! I know!" she groused. "I should use my damn walker!" Good GRIEF! (It's gonna be a LONG couple of weeks in early September when Kathy's gone, let me tell you. I just KNOW it. LOL!!)
The tables turn. The parent becomes child. The child.. the worried parent. Life has a way of putting us all off-balance with these role reversals. It's tough to get used to.
(Return To Weekly Archives)
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