Mortaine’s Blog

I have a nasty migraine on the right side of my head today. Ouch. I went to Walmart to get ibuprofen to keep here at work, as well as a few other supplies for home (cat litter, dish soap, etc.) Of course, one must balance the pain relief against the agony of actually inflicting Walmart on my senses– I swear, that place is horrendous. They had the scented type of cat litter only, and I thought about getting it, but decided I would rather buy it from Nob Hill and get what I want than buy it at the anti-union devil.

I updated my LJ bio today. Spiffed it up, added new information, etc. I also submitted my journal to for a review. I think their grading criteria are badly balanced– it’s too easy to get a “D,” which means “Needs mild improvement.” It looks like you can easily get a low score if your userinfo page is sparse. I think there’s too much weight given to the userinfo page, basically.

We found a tenant, who has accepted the apartment. It’s a married couple and their 5 year old daughter. They seem like nice, clean people who will keep the place up. They’re moving in on Feb. 1, which gives me a bit more time to de-green and seal the decks.

The microwave oven broke this weekend. When you plug it in, the touchpad shows a bunch of garbage, which means the computer part is basically broken. So, let’s see….. of the various appliances in my house, three have a built-in computer that you interact with regularly, and all three have broken, in some cases multiple times. Thank goodness for the Sears extended warranty– most of those are a total rip off, but warranty your stove, your treadmill, your refrigerator– anything that’s too heavy to take somewhere to be fixed!

I discovered this weekend that I don’t really know how to cook without a microwave. On Saturday, we had pizza– that’s a no-brainer, because you put it in the oven. But one of our crew had brought a home-made (and gastronomically toxic) bean recipe. And when I said “Is there an easy way for me to reheat these in their container?” she blithely said “Oh, no– just scoop ‘em into a dish and microwave them.” At which point I pointed out that the microwave was broken, something we had discovered all of five minutes earlier. Sigh.

I swear, it took me about 3 minutes to figure out how to reheat them on the stove.

And then yesterday lunch (pizza) was cooked in the oven. Normally, this is microwave pizza. Yesterday, it was oven pizza– and pretty darn good, too.

Last night’s dinner, however, was the piece de resistance. I grilled a swordfish steak on my Foreman grill (plain– I could have seasoned it with a dash of lemon juice, but decided against), long grain rice (a la Rice a Roni), and a hearty serving of peas. I ate way too much rice, but I had filled half my plate with the veggies, so I didn’t feel too bad about it. I did, of course, overdo the food thing just a bit last night, but that’s the problem with being something of a food addict, watching Chocolat by myself, and having both homemade chocolate chip cookies and leftover chocolate chips in the house. When I was alone. Like leaving a coke-head alone to guard the stash, I tell you.

I scanned in some photographs of my pets last night. Some are recent, some are old. I should get a chance tomorrow to resize them all, run the album script on them, and post them to my online photo album. There are a couple of pics of Hammer and John from the roll I took on Saturday with the “new” SLR camera.

I have a large number of female friends who have survived a very specific, traumatic experience, and I’d like to invite them to share that experience here in my comments, either as a comment or a link to a public entry.

If you’re one of my friends who, at some point in her life, found herself with a small child and no partner or spouse, I am asking you to share your experience here. How frightening was it? What did you do? How did you cope? Did you cope?

Someone close to me is close to being in a similar situation right now, and I think she’s facing it with that blind terror that almost anyone would have when faced with something that immense and life-changing. Your shared experiences might help her see more clearly, or at least bolster her spirits a bit.

Feel free to post anonymously if you feel more comfortable.

Note: I have a lot of friends who are survivors in other ways, and I encourage them to discuss that, but in another post. This one’s for a special topic.