Pain in the Back

I am a chronic back pain sufferer and I have been for years. At least four and a half years of moving dead bodies and now nearly six months of moving live bodies definitely doesn't help the situation.

So, I've been in physical therapy for nearly two months and I've had minimal relief from this back pain and specifically right shoulder pain. I went back to the gp today and I hoped I'd get a referral for some acupuncture. Instead, my gp wants me to head to the orthopedist.

Perhaps a boob reduction is in my future...?

Cross your fingers.

Son of a Bitch

Some son of a bitch threw some shit (rocks, maybe?) off an overpass that I was driving under. My windshield is chipped (although thankfully not cracked) and the paint on my hood is chipped in a dozen or so places. This happened last night, less than a week after I finished the repairs on my poor Subaru. The repairs totaled $4500.

Poor, poor Subaru and poor me. That jerk scared me.

Bribe

J bribed me to go to the laundromat with him on Sunday night. With what, you ask?

Joey's Italian Ice. I had a peach/black cherry combo and it was awesome. I wonder what else he could get me to do for Italian ice.....

I'm not ashamed to take a bribe.

SURPRISE!

Things have been pretty busy lately around the J and L house, partly because we've been working with my sibs and Eric's girlfriend, Tiffany, to plan and carry out a SURPRISE 30th Anniversary Party for our parents. It happened last Sunday, July 26th, and it was a great hit. Mom and Dad were both very surprised by the party itself, the wide assortment of secret guests and the arrival of an extra-special guest, musician Scott B. Adams who made the trip from Cohoes, New York which is about 180 miles north.

We held the party at beautiful Southview, which belongs to Tiffany's grandparents who were so generous to share with us for the occasion. Southview is complete with a 2-acre pond, a sauna and many acres of lush green grass and evergreen trees that they harvest and sell during the holidays.

It was a really fun and special day for all of us. Many thanks to everyone who made this day possible for us; it was a real gift.

Check out many more photos on flickr. If you're waiting for me, do not despair. I should be mostly back to normal shortly.

Required Viewing: JK Wedding Entrance Dance

This is awesome. It makes "The Pink Panther" seem soo lame. Watch it. You will thank me.

I'm Siiiiiiick

Feel bad for me.

Do it.

Joey's Italian Ice

Joey's makes me very excited. It is delicious and cheap. It comes in all sorts of flavors and soothes my sore, puffy lip. Awesome!

Come for a visit; we'll eat some Italian ice.

Monroe

I did it. I've wanted it for a while and I think its cute. I think I can still get away with it for at least a few years.

Also, see all the peeps reflected in my sunglasses? They're all the other drinking fools at the Finger Lakes Wine Festival, where we spent the day with our friends, Philip and Emily. Its summer time and the livin's easy especially when it involves lots of wine.

'Til Death Do Us Part. No; Not Even Then.

Its probably no surprise to you that I kind of like this.

Slog:

The concept of treating one's spouse with love, honor, and respect has taken a beating of late, so it's truly a thrill to read of the deaths of Sir Edward Downes, 85, and his wife, Joan, 74. The much-honored British orchestra conductor put his eternal mark on "til death do us part" by flying to Switzerland last week to take his own life at the side of his cancer-ravaged wife.

Unlike newly enlightened Washington State, Britain's archaic no-assisted-suicide laws have resulted in a bizarre travel industry as 120 or so dying citizens have left the country in search of dignified deaths. This case has raised the tension level over that misbegotten system (particularly since Sir Downes wasn't terminally ill), but let's leave that debate for another day. The loveliness of this story is the best encapsulated in this first-hand report of their deaths:

On Friday, the children said, they watched, weeping, as their parents drank "a small quantity of clear liquid" before lying down on adjacent beds, holding hands.
"Within a couple of minutes they were asleep, and died within 10 minutes," Caractacus Downes, the couple's 41-year-old son, said in the interview after his return to Britain. "They wanted to be next to each other when they died." He added, "It is a very civilized way to end your life, and I don't understand why the legal position in this country doesn’t allow it."

The couple had been married 54 years.

Yeah, This Is Pretty Much Exactly Me

Unfortunately, I'm out of windows. And it makes me sad.


via A Way to Garden

Opposite Midge

Opposite Midge is my new name for my dear friend, Rachel@Canada. She is a sweet and wonderful friend and I would be a nearly-complete woman if she would move back to NY. I just wanted you to know how great and absolutely beautiful she is.

Also, you should absolutely be reading her blog, Rachel in Canada. Start with this one featuring me (the original Midge); also check out lettuce-eating Hazel and a funny miscommunication that sounds like it should have happened in the J and L House.

Today in Relation to Other Days

Today is:

• six days until the Finger Lakes Wine Festival in Watkins Glen
• thirty-three days (only eighteen more shifts) until I'll be done with this awful job
• thirty-six days until we leave for Rehoboth Beach (Rachel@Philadelphia, the ocean, sun, sand, kayaking, Dogfish Head Brewery, Canalside Inn, Fifer Orchards)
  
• forty-three days until I'm back at the bagel shop
• forty-four days until I start school

I've got time! Tell me which day you want to be yours!

What He Said: "Pat Robertson Can Suck It" Edition

Dan Savage:

Pat Robertson doesn't understand why gay issues "dominate the news," since gay and lesbians represent "a tiny, tiny fraction of our population." Here's the reason why gay issues dominate the news, Pat: because gay people are unhappy about being discriminated against, thrown out of the military, denied the right to marry, etc. Stop fucking with us—stop discriminating against us—and you'll hear a lot less about us and a lot less from us. Give us what we want—full civil equality—and the struggle for gay rights ends and gay issues no longer dominates the news. It's that simple. You can go right on hating us, Pat, and we can get on with our lives. But until that day comes...

Massachusetts' attorney general filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against the U.S. government that seeks federal marriage benefits for about 16,000 gay and lesbian couples who have legally wed in Massachusetts. The state is challenging the constitutionality of the federal 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, saying the law denies "essential rights and protections" to same-sex couples who have married since Massachusetts became the first state in the nation to legalize gay weddings in 2004.

The federal law interferes with the state's "sovereign authority to define and regulate marriage," according to the suit filed in federal court in Boston. It calls the law "overreaching and discriminatory."

The suit is the latest skirmish over gay marriage in the U.S. federal court system after handful of political filmmakers led by a Democratic consultant crafted a gay rights challenge in May that they hope will reach the U.S. Supreme Court.... Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, who filed the suit, cited several benefits denied gay couples, including federal income tax credits, employment and retirement benefits, health insurance coverage, and Social Security payments.

"We view all married persons equally," Coakley told a news conference.

Read this slowly, Pat: DOMA discriminates against same-sex couples, same-sex couples or our allies sue, reporters write up the lawsuit, gay issues continue to dominate the news. No DOMA, no discrimination, no lawsuit, no news stories, no domination.

That Doesn't Sound Good

Today, my physical therapist's assistant told me that I already have arthritic changes in my back. Yikes.

She also told me that its time for me to get a new job. That does sound good.

image via Surviving Grady

Help End the HIV Travel Ban

Go here, fill out the form, click "sign the comment."

Good job.

Do It, Andrew Sullivan

Andrew Sullivan on Palin:

Can we all be grown up for a minute and concede something very simple? There are three explanations for the latest circus act: either Sarah Palin is so crazy she actually believes that what she just did is good for her political career; she has decided that her future is as a celebreality star and she's pursuing the lucrative Coulter-style, long legs and fascist farrago strategy; or, a scandal of monumental proportions is about to hit.

That's the stuff.

Overheard in the J and L House

Lisa: You know how I've been obsessed with that Natalie Portman rap and how I've been listening to it over and over again?

Jesse: Yeah.

Lisa: Well, now I'm over it but I can't get it out of my head.

Jesse: That's your punishment.




slightly NSFM video via Hulu

Community Art Project Goes Global

Lee Tracy is doing something awesome and she calls it World Rivers.

World Rivers is a global collaboration uniting people through the element of water. Individuals from around the world dip white fabric in selected rivers. The fabric pieces are embroidered with the name of the river, location and date and then sewn together into a magnificent curtain. International participants, like rivers flowing to the ocean, join together to form a larger whole. World Rivers reveals a story of water, through the personal experience of many. World Rivers reveals civilization's connection to water while documenting our time in history.

The World Rivers curtain is now 120 feet in length; Lee Tracy's current goal is 200 feet.


via The Lulu Bird
image via Lee Tracy

Dump, Sweet Dump: I'm Composting!

Hooray!

Dump, Sweet Dump: My Raised Bed Garden

Last Sunday, my Uncle Richard came down to help me put together a raised bed garden. Here is the frame.

And now I'm in the frame. The door on the right is one of the doors leading to the upstairs apartment.

The building behind me is really big and houses tons of people who play loud music and argue at all times of the day and night. The cops are there frequently.

Here, I'm putting in some Early Girl Tomatoes and some Red Cherry Hot Peppers. I have a variety of pepper seedlings that are looking pretty sad and probably won't produce anything so I put in these Red Cherry plants. I'm not sure why the seedlings haven't done much; perhaps all this damn rain!

The teeny plants towards the back of the garden are the pepper seedlings.

Also in the garden: Minicor Carrots, Beauty Radishes (already coming up!), Chicago Red Beets (coming in), Ford Hook Lettuce (also coming in!), Harmony Spinach and two rows of Sugar Sprint Peas.