Meniere's is not my friend

I haven't posted in a long time. Mainly I have been wallowing in self pity. Try it sometime. It won't get you anywhere, but, hey, everyone needs to wallow. I actually like that word. Wallow. It sounds like something birds say when they are congregating in a park. Wallowallowallowallow. C'mon. You know you want to say it.

Anyhoo...Meniere's disease is changing my life. Not because I am allowing it to. It just is. It's unavoidable. In the past 30 years, scientists have not advanced the treatment at all. Nobody knows what causes it. Each person reacts differently. Some people have it severely or mildly. Some people experience it in one ear. Some in both. Some people stay dizzy, throw up, lose their hearing, and suffer from depression. Some experience mildly annoying symptoms. Predictions are impossible.

My doctor - the third one I consulted - told me that patients who have an attack or episode experience the same level of depression as terminal cancer patients with less than one month to live. Fabulous.

I am in a funk. Every day I discover things Meniere's is taking from me. I don't want to be this person, though, who wallows in self-pity. I don't want to let the disease change who I am. I just don't know what to do.

For now, I will wallow. With a Klondike bar and a bowl of popcorn. And Squeaks in my lap.

My friend Flea's writing contest

My good friend Flea started this wonderful writing contest. She plans to continue it once a month. It started from a great idea I read here. Basically, go to your favorite thrift store, find the cheesiest, tackiest knick-knack and write its story. Write about the history of the thing or write from its perspective or write about its owner and why he/she purchased it. Use the object as a symbol in a WIP (work in progress). You are only bound by your own limitations.

The first object Flea used for her first contest was a ceramic dog statue. I decided to write something for the contest...it gave me a break from working on my novel and grad school and paying bills. Please visit her site and vote for FLEA'S story...NOT mine. Only four people have voted. The voting tab is in the top right corner of her blog. Then join in the fun next month. I plan to write a story for each object. I figure if I have twelve stories, that's better than nothing.

So visit The Good Flea, read through her wonderful posts, and vote...for HER story.

To Learn is to Live

1. Making eggrolls is relatively easy. I cooked some ground chicken with a bag of cole slaw. I seasoned it with soy sauce, pepper, and garlic. I set that off to the side and then laid the eggroll wrappers on a cutting board. I loaded the wrappers with a spoonful of the chicken and cabbage mixture, and then rolled them according to the diagram on the packaging. Alan got the canola oil to about 350 to 375 then dropped in the eggrolls until they were a beautiful golden brown. Alan made an AMAZING dipping sauce with pineapple and soy sauce that pretty much rocked my socks. Life was good last night in the Jenkins household.

2. The United States produces more tobacco than it does wheat. I don't even know what to say about this other than grrrr....

Sure it's a pretty plant, but once it's dried and mixed with nasty carcinogens, it does ugly things to lungs and the atmosphere...not to mention clothing, skin, and hair. Just sayin'.

3. Each year, approximately 250,000 American husbands are physically attacked and beaten by their wives. I wonder if these attacks happen after the husband answers the question, "Does this outfit make me look fat?"

Learning a la mode

Since I have spent the past couple of days in a classroom filled with graduate students and PhDs, I have encountered just a few pieces of new information. A lot of it is quite, um, boring and nothing I would reiterate in this forum. I would like for my readers to return. I will narrow down my focus to a few interesting facts.

1. I found an interesting quote today by Ernest Hemingway. He said, "Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know." It made me think of Ecclesiastes 1:18: "He who increases knowledge increases sorrow." The more we know, the harder it is to for us to be happy with the state of things... Maybe that's why there are so many ignorant people in the world; they are afraid to learn because it might make them think and thinking might make them sad.

2. I love milk. Mostly with cereal, but I also love a glass with a freshly-baked chocolate chip pecan cookie (or three...). I had no idea that if you were to pop in Mozart's Greatest Hits or even "Mmm Bop" while milking a cow, it would give more milk. It's true.

3. When I was in high school, I wore a lot of black. Ok...I still wear a lot of black. What? It's slimming. I am also short. The combination of my clothes and height landed me the nickname "Penguin". I didn't mind because I like the tux-wearing, life-mate loving creatures. I love to watch them, too. One thing I didn't know until today is that penguins can jump as high as 6 feet in the air. Who knew? (Apparently the elephant is the only animal that can't jump.)

Lessons learned

Today has been a LONG day. I was up at 7:30 for an Ink Slingers meeting. After the meeting, I ran home, packed, cleaned the bedroom, picked up a prescription, and drove four hours to Denton, TX. I have to meet for three days for one of my grad school classes. I am exhausted and have to be up at the butt crack of dawn tomorrow morning (this morning) for my first class.

Here's what I learned today:

1. Comfort Inn and Comfort Suites are not the same thing, but the information operator can't differentiate. Imagine my surprise when I called the operator, she connected me to my hotel, I got directions, parked, grabbed a couple of bags, waited for ten minutes in the lobby with three screaming kids running rampant (not my kids...), handed the receptionist my rewards card, and then she handed it back to me (shaking her head) and told me I did not have a reservation. She told me I was staying at the Comfort Suites. When I asked where it was she said, "You will have to call them and ask them as I am very busy." There was nobody else behind me in line. Thirty minutes later I found my hotel. Grr...

2. Even though a hotel claims it is "non-smoking", if some of the rooms have been smoked in within the last 20 years, then they still reek. My room smells like the bottom of an ashtray. But it's non-smoking, so I guess that makes it all better.

3. Hotel rooms are either bordering on Arctic temperatures or are reminiscent of the fiery pits of Dante's Inferno. There is no in-between, Spring-like temperature. It's winter in Russia in my room right now. I prefer that to a summer in Phoenix. Just sayin'.

What I Learned

Today was a roller coaster for me...

1. I learned that loving people is hard. Sometimes you have to step back and look at things from the outside because being on the inside puts you too close to things. Take a picture, for instance, if you hold it right next to your face, the picture has no dimension, all the lines are blurred together in a soup of randomness that has no meaning. As you start to pull the picture away from your face, lines start to form, creating distinct images that allow you to see the whole picture. Relationships need this "hold the picture away from your face" period sometimes...just to help you see your image in it more clearly.

2. I was reading about the human body and some of the strange things about saliva and our bones. I probably read for over an hour, digesting total randomness, and I walked away with something completely fascinating and purely useless: The human tongue is as unique as a fingerprint in identifying a person. Seriously? Are police stations going to start tongue-printing people, too, on the off chance someone leaves a tongue imprint at the crime scene? Perhaps the criminal decided to lick a stamp or an envelope on his way out the door. Yes, that makes sense. Oh, by the way, (this one's a freebie) a stamp has 1 1/2 calories. Just in case you like to watch your waistline, that tidbit of info might come in handy.

3. My friend Flea and I went to lunch today at one of my favorite bakeries in the whole world. I know what you are thinking. We feasted on appetizers of donuts, moved on to a lunch of cream puffs and turnovers, and had a dessert of cupcakes. Nope. This bakery serves sandwiches. And their sandwiches ROCK! If you are ever in the Tulsa area, head on over to Merritt's Bakery. Go on. I double dog dare you. We had an amazing sandwich with roast beef, provolone cheese, and horseradish. All of this yuminess was on homemade focaccia bread. Flea and her hubby have an amazing garden and she was talking about planting some horseradish, only the stuff grows like a weed and likes to take over, so it needs to sit in time out all by itself. While eating the sandwich, my sinuses opened up like the heavens and I didn't cough for the next two hours. Oddly enough, I discovered that horseradish has been known to help with bronchitis, coughing, and sinus infections. Go figure. I didn't need the Tussionex after all.

Three things I learned today...

1. Excessive amounts of coughing leads to losing one's voice and sounding like a seductive femme fatale from a noir flick.

2. If one doesn't set the brakes on a pup (a mobile storage unit) that is full of product, then the pup will roll in the parking lot and hit a parked car. Yes, this happened today. Thank goodness we are not liable for the damage to the vehicle. Thank goodness nobody was in the vehicle.

3. In my lifetime, I will shed over 40 pounds of skin. Seriously...that's just gross. Why can't I shed it all now and then I would be at my goal weight? Just sayin'. That might be a big mess, though.