Pickles & Dimes

I think Swistle touched on this awhile back: how some people tell you you’re a whiner if you complain about anything, pointing out other people’s situations like it’s a damn competition where the grand champion (a one-legged, blind, orphaned child from a war-torn country) gets a golden statuette engraved with “World’s Saddest Story.” Sometimes all I want when I complain about my (minor in the grand scheme of things, I realize) problem is some simple sympathy. Is that too much to ask? It’s like someone telling you, “Oh, I shot you four times! Well, at least there’s only two bullets left – what are you complaining about? Joe over here was shot 13 times.” I mean, COME ON. At least acknowledge that my situation sucks in a minor way, OK?

My hips and back have felt out of whack for about a month. I am not helping matters whatsoever, sleeping in a cramped “S” shape to accommodate the cats (who stray to my side of the bed for some unknown, sleep-interrupting reason) and sitting practically every night on the couch with Shorty in my lap with my legs crossed Indian-style for 2-3 hours. Who needs a straight spine, anyway?

My post-apocalyptic book fascination continues unabated (I’m currently reading Wolf & Iron). I find myself daydreaming about scouring a desolate landscape for tools and food, and plan on which items I’d hoard for the future, probably-never-going-to-happen event (hand tools, rope, salt, water, Spam, all the Mountain Dew I can carry). It all seems very nice in my hermit, simple-things-make-me-happy kind of way, but then I realize there are certain things I cannot make/fix/do, and I’d end up like that guy on The Twilight Zone, who is the last guy left on Earth and finally has time to read all the books he wants at his leisure but then suddenly stumbles and breaks his glasses, rendering him practically blind. (Coincidentally, I need to update my glasses prescription and I’m almost out of contacts. I suppose it would seem slightly insane if I asked for a 30-year supply, right?)

ANYway, are any of you into archery? Is it easy to learn? We have it on one of our Wii games and of course I realize it’s nowhere as easy as it is on Wii (and I’m not that great, anyway), but it is one of the items on my Things to Do Before I Die list that I wish to learn. Can I rent a bow somewhere while I’m learning or do I have to pony up good money for one? I think it would be a blast to take lessons. That way, I can hunt my own food when the world collapses and buffalo chicken wings cease to exist in their current form.

This month’s masthead is a direct result from the guessing game for July’s masthead. Both nowheymama and Tink had guessed Mario Bros., and even though that month’s theme was Pacman, they totally gave me the idea for this month.

Completely unrelated, guess which video game music is now stuck in my head? GUESS.

Beep boop be bebe ba boop, da da dada da dada da da. Beep boop be bebe be boop…

HELP.

Things I like:

• Walking upstairs expecting to see the dog harassing the cats and instead finding him lying innocently in his crate.

• The totally unexpected generosity of a friend who gave us a belated wedding gift. Of a Wii. A WII, OH MY GOD. We have the best friends ever, seriously.

• Fulfilling my yearly obligation to Jason and watching horror movies on Halloween. (I watched them through the teeny, scary-image-hiding spaces from between my fingers.)

• Watching Sassy’s dog chase a laser pointer on a freshly mopped hardwood floor.

• My car. It will probably need new tires soon, but I’m happy to have owned it for 12 1/2 years.

• That it’s light outside when I get up in the morning now. No more getting to work while the streetlights are still on, which made me very, very hostile.

• Cold-weather food: chili, homemade chicken dumpling soup, uh…more chili…

• Uninterrupted free time.

• Being allowed to have a space heater at work.

• Cheese.

Things I don’t like:

• Barely getting two steps in the door at work before being accosted with more work.

• Not being able to use my car as a battering ram on my commute when everyone else is doing 48 mph for no reason in a 60 mph zone.

• How this October was the fourth-coldest since the 1880s and the trees didn’t really get a chance to change color. The leaves just fell off and weren’t even crunchy.

• Chapped lips impervious to chapstick.

• Being in public next to someone on their phone who says, “I know! We have the H1N1 bug in our house, too!” Get away from me, germ-laden microbe!

• Having too many windows open on my computer. Not only does my computer take the opportunity to be a technological jerk, but I start to get twitchy.

• When right as we’re sitting down to eat dinner, Abby pukes all over the recliner.

• My fantasy football team this past week. I’m talking especially about you, Mr. Steve Slaton, Fumblehands Benchsitter, and you, Mr. David Garrard, Thrower of Zero Touchdowns. (I told Jason I was done being bitter. Apparently I’m not.)

• How my hips are still not in their proper joint position and it’s starting to affect my sleep.

• How frost makes the wooden landscaping beams in our backyard so slippery you jerk your back out of alignment to avoid falling and injuring yourself, not that I would know.

Your turn!