Resistance is Futile!

Wooo hoooo!

That's what I call a season finale! What a cliff hanger!

"I am Locutus of Borg. Resistance is futile. Your life as you know it is over. From now on you will service the Borg."

Whaaaaat?? Picard? A borg? Whaaa's happnin?

Ooooh... that red light is blinding me. It's so freeeeeeeeky!

Riker: "Liutenant Worf, FIRE!"

Cut to black.

Daaaa da da daaaa da DA daaa.....the music rolls.

There I was jumping up and down on the couch, yelling,

"That's what I'm talkin about baby! That's a cliff hanger for you! Wooooo hoooooo! Fire! Fire! Riker made the big decision! Woooo hoooo!"

Run, run to the computer. Check out season four from the library.

Star Trek Next Generation is a classic. It was great the first time. But it's super fun the second time too.

Bay Cup, Baby!

How did you spend your Sunday, Sue?

Why, I spent my entire day at the Bay Cup Fencing Tournament at Stanford.

What was it like?

Imagine a room about half the size of a gym, covered with ten huge silver strips, filled with approximately sixty fencers, many more parents and family members all of whom may only walk, stand or sit in about two feet between the strips and the wall. Unless they are fencing, of course. Then they are allowed onto the strips. I got to sit in an actual chair about 1/20th of the time I was there. Most of the time I was on my feet.

The sounds of blades clashing, electronic fencing beepers beeping, young men shouting "Yeah!" when they get a point, and general clamour fill the room.

Why were you at a fencing tournament?

I have a new job, don't you know? I am "Water Girl" to my son. During his bouts I run out during breaks to offer water or gatorade. In between bouts I ply him with trail mix, oatmeal cookies or ibuprofin. I also offer all kinds of encouragement and advice - for free!

How did you son do?

How nice of you to ask! Out of all 31 fencers ages 12 or younger from all over Northern and Central CA, my son won......

THE GOLD MEDAL!

(and the fans go wild!)

Yes, after 10 or 11 challenging bouts, my guy proceeded to decimate his last opponent to win first place. My main feeling at the moment? PHEW!......

Did he stop there?

Nope. Richard fenced "up" today, in the Y14 group. It was his first time fencing up (he is 11) and he did pretty well. Won about half of his bouts during the pools. Won his first Direct Elimination bout. But unfortunately, he was then matched with the #1 nationally ranked fencer in Y14.

I bet he just gave up then, right?

NO! He showed up for that last bout. He gave it his all! I was so proud of him. At one point, he even had more points than Mr. #1 in the nation. But he went on to lose, which was not unexpected. But he did NOT get squashed - which is really great!

Proud Mama?

You bet.

Raider Podcast

If you look really hard, you can see ME in the background of this video. I have a Raider hat on and a black jacket.

I am behind the gentleman explaining why the Chargers are not as excellent as the Raiders. He is the cage fighting friend we met at the game.

The chic doing shots is my sister-in-law.

Warning: contains lots of profanity (son, that means you can't watch it!)

http://www.raidernationvideocast.com/video/rnv/Entries/2008/1/15_Chargers_at_Raiders_-_2007_Season_Finale.html

Fun!

We're thinking about going to the Charger / Raider game in the Oakland Coliseum South (ie. Qualcomm Stadium, San Diego) next season. What do you think?

Power of the Press (to be lame)

Following politics this year has been an education for me about the power of the press.

I am truly amazed at the way the media has excluded Ron Paul. It is yet another example of what? censorhsip?...not exactly. They just don't report all the info. Check it out:

- the New York Times excludes RP from their election guide:
http://politics.nytimes.com/election-guide/2008/results/votes/index.html#1

- Fox excluded RP from the New Hampshire debate, then deleted his best answer from the South Carolina debate: http://people.ronpaul2008.com/campaign-updates/2008/01/17/unbelievable-when-fox-cant-exclude-dr-paul-they-cut-him/

- Today the Wall Street Journal has an editorial looking at the tax policies proposed by the Republican presidential contenders. Suspiciously missing is Dr. Paul’s proposal to completely eliminate the income tax and the dreaded IRS. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120053079762196023.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries

I'm not even getting in to how many minutes they (don't) give him during debates, or the grumpy picture they put next to his name , while all the other candidates are handsomely smiling.

I'm not saying he's going to win. But the guy beat Guiliani and Thompson in the first three primaries. They're not being excluded and edited. What would people say if Guiliani was left out of a debate? It would be a scandal! Ron Paul? Well.....he's a crank (translation: his beliefs and principals are far from mainstream, and threatening to the status quo), so it doesn't matter. No one says a thing. (except us Paulians)

I learned this when I tried to gather info. about the Iraq invasion - you can't trust the media. They totally twist things. It is hard to find a trustworthy place to get news. So disheartening!

Star Trek

We are watching season three of Star Trek the Next Generation. I picked that season on purpose. so, that when we get to the end of the season my kids will finally get my "resistance is futile" references.

Yes, the last show of that season introduces the detested Borg. The machine-hive- consciousness-thingee that destroys, or rather subsumes, all life that it contacts. It is a supreme cliff hanger....Locutus.....oh no! not Jean Luc!

I remember back in the day.... when Joe and I would make a honkin' big meal in our tiny apartment at SCU and plop down infront of the TV for The Next Generation. Oh what fun. Though Deanna Troi always annoyed me. She seemed so unnecessary, strictly eye candy. At least the other chics were doctors and soldiers and stuff.

The only problem is that the San Mateo County Library system has only one set of the last few episodes and doesn't allow me (or anyone I suppose) to place a hold on them via computer. You have to actually GO to the Menlo Park library and check them out MANUALLY. Yuck. Who does that anymore?

But I suppose it is worth it.

One thing I am realizing about Star Trek is that is sure makes all religion look ridiculous. An athiest bias is certainly a big part of the show. It bugs me more now than it used to. Oh well. Another thing is that is scares my eight year old daughter a bit. I have to debrief her after each show so she can go to bed happy.

I'll post when we watch the season finale.

Hashimoto and me

I've never had any exciting health problems in my life. Sinus issues, allergies....pretty boring stuff.

But now I'm pretty sure I qualify as someone who has an exotic (sounding) disease. It is called Hashimoto's Disease. It is also called Chronic Thyroitis.

It all started one day when my friendly dental hygeinist found a lump on my throat http://eyesheartmind.blogspot.com/2007/05/one-cavity.html

A year and two biopsies, two ultrasounds and three bloodworks later, I have been diagnosed. Chronic Thyroitis happens when for some unknown reason (possibly lack of iodine) your body decides that your thyroid is a foreign body. Your system's defenses jump into action by getting your adrenal glands to send something to your pituitary gland which sends antibodies to attack the thyroid.



Whilst under attack the thyroid becomes inflamed and its function eventually fails. I'm not sure if this is a certainty - need to research that. I've got the inflamed part. This is so embarrassing. I've got a (whispered behind my hand) goiter. DON'T TELL ANYONE !

I thought dead kings had goiters. Old men and stuff.

As I've been reading through the literature my spirits have been lifted by the fact that this condition usually affects MIDDLE AGED women. Man! I'm 39 and holding but I guess now I'm officially middle aged. Sniff.

Thankfully, my thyroid funtion is still good. My numbers are all within the "normal" range, though on the low side. I don't have to take meds as long as my thyroid can still do it's thing. I wish I could figure out a way to communicate with my pituitary gland.

"Hey lady! What you doing? Knock it off. We're all on the same team here!"

Check out the symptoms of my condition: fatigue, depression, sensitivity to cold, weight gain, forgetfulness, muscle weakness, puffy face, dry skin and hair, constipation, muscle cramps, and increased menstrual flow. Some patients have major swelling of the thyroid gland in the front of the neck, called goiter.

Lovely. I'll really be knockin' them dead in a few years, what with my puffy face, dry skin and hair, weight gane and heavy sweaters.

Don't those symptoms sound a lot like just getting old?

But hey, it's not the "C" word, so things could be worse.

Sneezes

Have you ever noticed that everyone else's sneezes (most especially the people you live or work with) are exceedingly annoying?

I have been thinking about this for some time. Am I the only one who feels irked, bothered, annoyed, irritated, nettled and generally antagonised every time someone in my family sneezes? It drives me nuts!

Which is so unreasonable. I mean, who can help sneezing? Especially if you carry my allergic-o-rama genes and are at the mercy of histamine. But somehow, it is the WAY they sneeze that bugs me.

For example:

Son sneezes: "aaaCHKKKRRRWWWAaaaa!" it sounds like there is some blockage in the back of his nose with which the sneeze must do battle before it can get out. He always says,

"Ow! That hurts" after sneezing. Then proceeds to use 347 kleenexes/kleenexs (what is the plural of kleenex?) to wipe up the projectile spay that has covered (usually my) keyboard and desk..

Daughter sneeze: "achOOOOOOOO!" The last syllable is basically screaming pitch. "achOOOOOOOO!""achOOOOOOOO!""achOOOOOOOO!""achOOOOOOOO!"

"Honey, get a kleenex and blow your nose" I say.

"No, I don't achOOOOOOOO! need one."

Husband sneeze: "CENSORED BY THE MARITAL PEACEKEEPING DIVISION OF THE ARE YOU CRAZY HE'S GOING TO READ THIS SOCIETY"

The only one who sneezes cutely is little Marie. Just give her time and she'll be annoying the heck out of me too.

I, on the other hand, sneeze NATURALLY. I don't force it. I don't try to stop it. I don't yell with it. I just let it come at it's own pace, neatly into a tissue if possible.

That's they way everyone should sneeze.

Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiders Part 2 (the PG version)

Oh sure, you'll read my blog as long as I don't talk about HIM. I know the comments on my blog are meager, but I can always hear the crickets chirping whenenver I write about my main man. Hmph.

So, here is the long awaited (this is me trying to be funny, honey) conclusion to my previous Raider post http://eyesheartmind.blogspot.com/2008/01/raaaaaaaaaaaaaaiders-part-1.html

The tailgate bar:

Here I am (middle) with bro and sister in law at my first Raider tailgate party.

Post Tailgate Party:

Once Joe and I were in the proper frame of mind, and we could hear the roar of the crowd and the banging of what sounded like drums in the stadium, we decided it was time to enter the belly of the beast.

My bro. had given us special, expensive tickets. Tickets for the "Club" section. Only people who paid $153 per ticket could get onto this level. Waiting in line? Nope. Mere mortals wait in line. We swished our way in with only a perfunctory body pat down by security.

Joe was getting pretty excited, as the Charger are his life-long team. He really wanted to see the game. I, on the other hand, really wanted to see the people. The game was fine, mind you. And you could see a lot from where we sat. But frankly, I didn't catch most of it because it all happens so fast in realtime. Somehow I understand football better on TV.

In terms of seeing a pro football game, the two most exciting things for me were:

1.) Getting to see a guy whose name is actually LaDanian in person. (his wife's name is La Torsha!) Most Sundays I go around the house chanting La Daaaanian. I just love that name. I told Richard he should name his first born La Daaaanian. It's a fun name to say, plus it really annoys Richard now.

2.) Feeling the energy of the masses. I felt the passion, delirium, ecstasy of the more than 60,000 Raider fanatics, all focused on the same thing. The place was pulsating. It reminded me of Grateful Dead concerts, except instead of focusing on music and love and stuff, we were focusing on the Raaaaaaiders. Being in the midst of that, I couldn't help but yell and scream when everyone else did. It was wild. I felt like I had been transported back in time and was in a Roman coliseum witnessing gladiator fights. (that thought made me a bit sad)

All the other tall blonde ladies forgot to come to the game that day. When I walked around and checked out all the people, I was the ONLY one. There were a few nice looking ladies, but not many. Therefore, my ego got a big boost because 99% of the men ogled me. I don't say this to brag. Seriously, I NEVER get attention from men anymore. I don't want it and I don't expect it. But when it happened at the game, it was kind of funny.

One time I was waiting outside the bathroom for Joe. The bar was close by. Some obviously drunk guy came up to me, grabbed my arm saying,

"You want to be in our picture?" as he dragged me over to his group of friends.

My pithy comeback was,

"Huh? What? Uh......I....uh...."

Cheese! Flash! I am in the picture.

Next I'm being introduced to all his friends. Then (like it was in a movie) a big black guy turns to me and puts his fists of be-ringed fingers in my face. Everyone around grew hushed. Somethng was clearly expected of me.

"Oh! You have rings! Superbowl rings? Oh.....so...tell me about your rings!" I'm pretty sure was what I said. But it is hard to remember because throughout the whole conversation I was laughing hysterically on the inside at this feeble attempt by an aging pro football player to wow me . Obviously, I missed the class in Americana 101 that teaches girls about being impressed and attracted to guys with superbowl rings on their fingers.

I don't remember much of the conversation. Only that about some unknowable amount of minutes later Joe was at my elbow with a tight grin on his face.

"Oh! This is my husband Joe." Predictably, things peetered off after this and we went back to our seats.

"I hope your ego is enjoying this," Joe said to me as we walked back. Ego? My whole self was enjoying it.

At half time we walked out of the club area trying to find my bro. As we walked into the masses of people on our way to find the stairs, we noticed that everyone was smoking. Soon we noticed that no one was smoking tobacco. The place was lit up! The smell was pungent and strong. Ahaaaa....so THAT's how it is......

We never did make it down to visit the "commoners". We just called them on our cell phone and then regally waved down to them.

Being at a Raider game was like visiting an exotic foreign country. Observing the customs, the language, the behavior of the people was fascinating. It is one huge rager of a party.I highly recommend it to any anthropologist. So does one super friendly man who appeared in my face (seemingly out of nowhere) during the tailgate party and said,

"You could get a PhD watching people here."

"What? In Anthropology? or Sociology?" I asked, hoping against hope I said the right thing.

"No, a PhD in people watching!"

He was right.

This is so me

Joe sent this special to me today. It perfectly describes me:

http://xkcd.com/367/

I have boxes of Star Wars cards, design art, magazines, action figures, even soap! My son was impressed. It was OK with me that he trashed all that stuff.

I have the feeling that I will be missing my main man Ron Paul soon. (though he still did / is doing better than I ever thought he would). When I check email, I love to hop over to the DailyPaul and check out what innovative, out of the box things are going on in the unofficial campaign, for example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=as3AYVzWmOI

Did you know that Faux TV excluded him from the last Republican "forum" in NH before the primary? Their reason? Not enough space in the trailer where they were filming it. Uh huh. But they had enough space for Fred Thompson. Hmmmm......

At least Leno had him on last night http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pxdmNzKNfU

Anyway, I thought the comic was funny.

Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaiders! Part 1

Joe and I were lucky enough to receive tickets to the Raider/Charger game last Sunday. I've only ever been to one (Charger) pro football game. Mostly I remember drinking beer and laughing a lot. Joe has been to a few more, and has actually been to a Raider game. He has learned the art of going as a Charger fan incognito as a Raider fan. It is a survival skill at a Raider game.

We BARTed over to Oaktown Sunday morning in order to hang out at my bros tailgate party. My brother and sister in law have five (!) season tickets for every home Raider game. They are serious fans. They even pay extra to park in a part of the lot that leaves more space for tailgate parties. All the rest of the parking lot is a bunch of smooshed tailgate parties.

I don't know if I can fully do justice to our experience that day. My brother and sister in law (K&N) had a barbecue going, and a table with a full bar. I mean 15 -20 bottles of good booze with mixers. She makes drinks for all her friends (and you can bet there are a LOT of friends that come by) and charges strangers $5 for a drink. She keeps the money in her more than ample cleavage.

So we started out drinking. I think it was about 10:30am. My bro introduced us to a bunch of his friends. One guy had a Raider Nation - Represent t-shirt on and a black skullcap with a silver FU symbol on it. He was black and solid. When we admired the tatoo on his arms he told us it was his fighting name. "Oh," I thought, "maybe he flew in the airforce and that was the name of his jet." WRONG! It was his cage fighting name. Cage fighting? What is that? Well, we got a lengthy dissertation on the subject while he shared his "special" brownies with us and others. Turns out he has a cage fighting school. He's huge in Japan. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/03/10/sports/s232306S95.DTL

OK..........

We met many interesting and, well, wild people at the party. Most of their friends were black and from OakTOWN. For me, it was like being dropped into a foreign culture. I kept hearing Wierd Al's "White and Nerdy" http://revver.com/video/65860/white-nerdy/ in my head. That was me. I was sooooo white. I was sooooo straight. I was soooooo nerdy! I kept thinking, "Just don't make a fool of yourself" but I don't think I could help it. I was not hip to the jive! I couldn't keep up.

Imagine hundreds of people in Raider gear strolling around with drinks and smokes and partying and harrassing anyone in Charger gear. I think Joe, me and K&N were the only white people in the vicinity. One woman even came up and felt my hair. She said it was "f&^%*cking perfect!" I liked her.

Another lady told me about her secret boyfriend and how she had "other men". A few minutes later when I stupidly said,

"So, you have other men???" she hissed,

"Shut up! Shut up! Man what you doin telling everyone..."

Oops.

Another lady jumped on my brother and made indecent motions. She also commented on my sister in laws beautiful........bosoms. Nasty, indecent things were said. It was just plain WILD! The men mostly bragged about how great and experienced or rich or whatever they were. I just tried to pretend that I didn't have a neon sign over my head flashing "White and Nerdy". Joe tried to not get beat up by my bros' friends who knew he was really a Charger fan. As we were leaving to go into the game, my bro said to Joe,

"If the Chargers win on the last play of the game, you probably won't want to come back here." And he meant it nicely.

This will give you a small and not near as rowdy taste of the scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iNF1iOp4Lw

Part 2: Inside the stadium......coming soon

Sick

Aaahhhh...

A blessed few hours at home alone. As many moms can understand, being in your home, without the kids is extremely rare. It happens maybe a handful of times each year.

Joe's got the two girls at Jack in Beanstalk children's theatre in SF (lucky him!) Richard is playing at a friend's house.

Any why, you might ask, am I not shepharding my darling girls to the threatre today? Why am I lounging about, alone, at home?

BECAUSE I AM SICK!

Sick as a dog. Well, at least I was yesterday. I guess too many Raider Games (that's another post when I have more energy) and New Years Eve un-parties left my immune system a little under the weather.

On the same day (Jan 1) I 1.) caught a nasty cold and 2.) pulled or strained my psiatic nerve in my back.

So, in addition to having zero energy, a sore throat, a cough that keeps me up at night, aching muscles and snot galore coming out of my nose, I also have zinging pain in my lower back. At least it was zinging the first day. Now, four days out, my whole body is tweaked. I've got pain shooting down my left leg. The muscles all over my lower back are practically spasming constantly. Even my abs hurt, probably because I'm compensating so my for the back pain.

Nice.

So, I finally saw my chiro today and feel a teeny bit better. You know it's bad when the chiro says,

"This looks like one of those two or three visit issues."

And I trust my chiro and know she wouldn't tell me to come back if I didn't need it. And frankly, I'm pretty sure I need it.

If I weren't sick I'd be drinking rum and wine and other stuff to help my muscles relax. But I just don't think I should go there with a bad cold.

So, the only thing that helps right now is sitting in boiling water and cranking up the jacuzzi jets right on my butt. For hours. I guess it relaxes the muscles. The water is pouring as I type.

Here I go.....