Possibly the most awesome coffee mug I have ever seen.

Have I mentioned that I collect coffee mugs? Yup, I do. Currently own just over 30 of them, not counting the ones that technically belong to Geoffrey or one of my demonspawn.

The hospital I work for has a lot of doctors with a tremendous variety of talents. And some of those talents are musical.

If you’re looking for something fun to do the night before Valentine’s Day, I heartily recommend you go see the band Members Only at the Ash Street Saloon. Where else can you find a neurosurgeon and three other fine doctors rocking out to hits of the eighties? (One of the band members is leaving for a medical fellowship, so this will be their very last show.)

Just about the only thing that saved me from bawling at work because of my migraine on Friday was getting an email from a coworker that said, in part (and I quote), “OMG!!!!!! OMG!!!!!!!!!!!! OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO -MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM -GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!” I laughed my damn ass off (which is far from a painless experience with a migraine – but worth it).

Saturday, Geoffrey and I went to the Rose City Gun and Knife show. It strongly reminded me of the open-air swap meets my mom used to take me to in Hawaii, except it was indoors and there were fewer Samoans (sad to say — *grin*). Lyse was thinking of going along, but working graveyard shift makes daytime excursions a little disruptive to one’s schedule, and also she wasn’t feeling so great. It probably would have bored the demonspawn silly, and she’d had a late night, so she stayed home too. But it all worked out okay…I got this awesome new shirt (too bad I can’t wear it to work, but it would break the dress code in at least a couple ways I can think of!), and got Anxiety this shirt (in pale blue — and she can’t wear it to school, either…which still vaguely astonishes me, considering that I had my handgun targets hung inside my locker door for all to see when I was in 10th grade!!!). Geoffrey got himself a Mosin-Nagant M/44 rifle (well-used but came with some accessories), and I was soooo drooling over a rifle very similar to this (but more purple); I almost got it.

Why didn’t I? Because I decided it would be just a smidgen excessive to buy two guns at my first gun show. And I had my heart set on this darling little shiny (got it new, but didn’t pay nearly as much as that link shows, either!). Why that one, instead of something bigger? Because I’m super-picky about how a weapon feels in my hand (which is why I don’t care for semi-autos), and that was the only revolver that sat really *nicely*, like it belonged there. Okay, there were a couple of larger-caliber ones that I liked, too, but I do not need Dirty Harry’s gun! (I’ve fired a .44 without smacking myself in the forehead, but I’d rather not mess with that much recoil often. Not unless I take up weight training.)

I was terribly amused at how many vendors at the show kept pointing me toward the smaller-caliber guns with itty-bitty grips. Sure, I’m a girl — but not a small one. I’m 5′9″ and built like a Norse warbitch. I wear a size 9 ring, people; I do not have small hands! Crocheting for twenty years means I also have fairly strong and limber hands. Besides, derringers are for experts or posers; I actually want to hit what I’m aiming at, and if it’s not a paper target, it needs to go down and stay down. (BTW, I have never actually shot anything but a paper target…although one of these days I have got to try skeet-shooting.)

I wasn’t surprised that the men in attendance out-numbered the women at least 30 to 1 (in any other setting, I’d have been extremely creeped out by being in a crowd surrounded by that many guys, but everyone was so intrinsically polite that I wasn’t bothered a bit), but I was pleasantly surprised that the ratio was closer to 5 to 1 at the actual gun purchasing points. Poor Geoffrey may have been the only long-haired guy there; he was constantly referred to as “Miss.” One thing that did surprise me about the gun show was how few books there were — but we did manage to find a couple nifty titles: In the Gravest Extreme: The Role of the Firearm in Personal Protection and The Encyclopedia of Country Living. Both really excellent books, that I would recommend. Also I must say that the Expo Center concession stand makes a damned good grilled chicken sandwich.

Sunday I went grocery shopping (wearing my Infidel shirt, a few people stared but no dirty looks — which surprised me, in hippie-dippie stupidly-PC Portland), did a metric butt-ton of laundry, actually cooked a real dinner (used the oven and the rangetop, even!) and watched a horrible documentary from Netflix. I don’t know why I don’t shut horrible docs off within the first 20 minutes, they never improve…but somehow I always think they might. Le sigh. Out of every 5 flicks I get from Netflix, they tend to run thusly: 1 terrific, 3 decent (or at least not worthless), and 1 atrocious. Oh well, at least I’m learning things…like how to conclusively spot utter dreck within the first 5 minutes of a DVD. Speaking of which, I just added Repo! The Genetic Opera to my queue; my eldest loved it, and I’m a sucker for any footage in which Anthony Stewart Head is singing. I hate musicals as a rule (White Christmas being the ultimate exception), but how bad can it be? I’m going to find out.

To those who support intelligent design, I say: you’re freaking crackpots!!! Clearly the human body is quite badly designed; pain is supposedly the body’s way of alerting the brain to danger or damage, but ailments such as migraine cause pain (not to mention nausea) for absolutely no good reason.

My (most recent) 36-hour migraine just ended. A high-dose Imitrex yesterday morning only knocked it down to “almost tolerable,” but by lunchtime today it was twice as bad as before. Two Vicodin this afternoon kept me from bawling; but the problem with Vicodin (and all other non-migraine-targeted analgesics) is that it doesn’t get rid of a migraine, it just blunts a bit of the pain and helps me not care about how much it hurts. The [insert Very Bad Words here] health insurance that I have won’t pay for more than 9 Imitrex tablets a month, giving me a choice of paying the retail price of $230 per package (instead of the $58 I pay with insurance) or suffering until the next eligible refill date — which, in this case, was tomorrow.

Thanks to Lyse, who brought me some from her stash, I’m finally out of the woods. This time.

And to those who think a migraine is “just” a headache, or that I must have a very low pain tolerance to allow it to rule my life when I have one, let me say this: I did natural childbirth twice. I’ve had my head smashed four inches deep into a car windshield. I’ve torn ligaments in my knee, and also torn my rotator cuff. NONE of those painful experiences made me cry… but a migraine can, and has.

Now I just have to survive the Imitrex hangover: feeling shaky, slightly out of step with the universe, and exhausted. Ain’t life grand? (Yeah, yeah, I know — it’s better than the alternative.)

Old time religion? Not so much.

Generally I’m of this mind when it comes to religion:

I actually have that bumper sticker on my car. I’m big on freedom of (and, should you so choose, from) religion, since I’ve been practicing a non-traditional one for over 20 years. I don’t proselytize (it’s against my religion!), so don’t bother continuing to read if you’re not interested.

And now for something completely TMI…

Someone on my Twitter list commented (sarcastically, I hope!) about the inauguration being the “event of the millennium.” History, blah blah blah. I love the History Channel because it’s not current events, thanks! I really hope the “All Obama all the time” news coverage winds down at some point, because it’s just tiresome.

Come to think of it, most current event news coverage — of anything — is just tiresome. And often depressing. That would be why I stopped watching the news. (Does anyone really care about our Portland mayor’s sex life? *roll eyes*)

On to more fun stuff: this weekend, we’re going to the gun show! Payday is Friday…oh dear. Hopefully I can restrain myself. *grin* I just hope I don’t fall too much in love with one of these.

I’m really looking forward to the next movie in my Netflix queue…it’s called The World Without US (not to be confused with the excellent documentary called Life After People, or the similar-named book The World Without Us, which I had never heard of before today but will browse the next time I’m at Powell’s). This is a documentary about “what would happen if the United States were to suddenly remove itself from the world stage, giving up its self-appointed role as a global policeman and withdrawing into its own borders.” I’m very intrigued.

After my weekend — which featured moving a couple of couches for Lyse, doing tons of laundry & dishes, and hellacious migraines that Would. Not. Stop. — I didn’t expect to have a very pleasant Monday.

Surprise, surprise. It was a pleasant Monday, strangely enough. *knock wood*

I have a hovering suspicion that part of the reason why is that I refused to let aggravations get to me. Yesterday I announced to myself that this was going to be a really good week, because: 1) I’m not working up at Exile Island, 2) I have a 3-day weekend at the end of it, 3) I’m going to see my Number One Internet Fanboy on Friday night, come hell or high water, and 4) Battlestar Galactica comes back in only 4 more days! YAY!

So starting off my Monday with the mindset that it’s going to be a good week may have, just possibly, inclined me to ignore that which normally riles my temper up something terrible. Not that I’m going to start a gratitude journal or anything like that. Besides, I’m too busy procrastinating writing my life story for my descendants. (BTW, did you know that you can type an ISBN into most booksellers’ sites search engines, and the book you want will pop right up? Neat, huh?)

Now Lyse is demanding I go spend time with her. But she’s making homemade meatloaf & mac-n-cheese from scratch (I don’t have to cook!!!), so I shall. *grin*

I have no clue if this actually happened (I have a hovering suspicion it’s horsefeathers). But damn, it sure did make me smile to read it!

Jennifer Aniston Catches Burgler

LOS ANGELES, CA. (January 3, 2009) A burglar in Los Angeles chose the wrong celebrity to mess with — quite literally.

Actress Jennifer Aniston and her personal assistant Debi Burke returned to Aniston’s Hollywood Hills home yesterday after a week away to find that thieves had emptied almost everything in the house.

“Tears just rolled down my face as I walked in and saw everything gone and piles of trash all over my home,” Aniston reportedly said.

Aniston sent her assistant to the local police precinct to file a report while she inspected the piles left behind. As she walked back into the sunroom, a man walked through the back door straight into her, Aniston said.

“Jenifer caught the thief red-handed in her home,” Burke said. “And what is even crazier, the man even had Jennifer’s hat sitting right on his head.”

Aniston reportedly held the suspect, 33-year-old Tadd Bruce, at gunpoint and told him to sit on the floor until she decided what to do.

“She made this man clean up all the mess he made, piles of stuff, he had thrown out of the drawers and cabinets onto the floor,” Burke said.

When Burke and the police arrived, Bruce complained about being forced to clean the home at gunpoint.

“This man had the nerve to raise sand about us making him clean up the mess he made in my house,” Aniston said incredulously. “The police officer laughed at him when he complained and said anybody else would have shot him dead.”

Police arrested Bruce 2 p.m. Friday on burglary and theft charges. He was being held in the Los Angeles County Detention Facility on a $30,000 bond.

So hey, it’s been 2009 for a week already! How the hell did that happen?!

My year has thus far featured migraines, miserable weather, menstruation, and missing 2 days of work (due to migraines, complicated by back-ordered meds at the pharmacy). Not a great start, and I certainly hope it doesn’t set a precedent.

I looked for one of those silly questionnaires to sum up my year in 2008, but found only ones suitable for junior-high ditzes. I suppose I could just copy and paste the text of my 2008 newsletter that we mailed out with our (NRA – *grin*) holiday greeting cards, but I figure the vast majority of people who read this blog already got one mailed to them. (If you didn’t but would like to, email me your snail-mail addy and I’ll cheerfully put you on the holiday card list. Judging by the length of the 2008 newsletter, I may have to send them out every solstice instead of just for Yule.)

And now for something completely TMI…