noo-ROT-ik

Neu-rot-ic
Informal A person prone to excessive anxiety and emotional upset
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

It has perhaps been most simply defined as a "poor ability to adapt to one's environment, an inability to change one's life patterns, and the inability to develop a richer, more complex, more satisfying personality." Neurosis should not be mistaken for psychosis, which refers to loss of touch with reality.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurotic

I admit it, no shame, I deny responsibility.  After all,  it's clearly either genetic or a result of that early toilet-training, oh the psychological repurcusions. No evidence of neurosis evolving into psychosis.

So easy to think of things to write when I should be studying...

Confirm Your Suspicions

Ever wonder if that little personality quirk is more than just a quirk? Confirm your suspicions (accusations) about yourself, family, friends, etc.   
AQ   Click on the link to see where you fall on the Autism Spectrum.

Ye olde Wikipedia mentions a trial of the AQ at Cambridge showed Mathematics, Engineering and Physical Science students scored significantly higher than average on the AQ. Wiki Ref

What conclusions might we leap to based on that bit of info?

Nuts

Darn car.

On occasion (twice) as I've been driving on the freeway, the hood of the car has noticeably bounced up and down and I've had to pull over and close it tightly. (Ironically, it was the same friend riding with me both times who alerted me to the situation.)  Both times it happened after getting my oil changed--like the guy didn't latch it completely.

See how the hood's just a little open?

So after this most recent oil change, I thought I'd be proactive and make sure the hood was closed tightly before driving away. It would not latch.

This dumb little thing, whatever it's called--

No tension. Broken.

I curse it.

Had to tie knots in the bungee cords because they're too long.

The hood still goes up and down when I'm driving around Point of the Mountain but hopefully the bungee cords will prevent a Tommy Boy-type scenario.

"Don't you remember you told me you loved me baby...Aaaah!!!!"

Violator?!

I was in a terrible rush the other morning...

$90, can you believe that?? I guess I'm glad he only cited me for 5 mph above the posted limit. Sheesh!

I decided I needed to obscure identifying information, but perhaps I shouldn't have used actual words. कर्सेस Should have written in हिंदी! Haha, I crack myself up! I also just realized I made a note to myself and wrote the wrong date. Too much work to re-edit.

The Unfortunate Advantages of Eating vs Running

To deal with anxiety don't we all need a little flood of endorphins to soothe our stressed out brains? While there are various ways to induce that surge --recreational drugs, alcohol, connubial (yes, that's a word) relations, food and exercise--moral, not to mention legal, obligations preclude 3 of the 5 leaving me with food and exercise.

While I must confess I invariably feel better after running, food has so many advantages.

1. Thirty seconds vs 30 minutes -- an immediate sense of well-being with that first mouthful of luscious food--can you deny it?

2. No need to leave the house

3. No need to change clothes

4. No need to shower afterward

5. Easy on the knees (until subsequent obesity kills them...apparently the knees lose either way)

6. Requires no effort

7. Never too out of shape to eat

8.Available 24/7 without fear of getting killed on a dark street

Sorry, not clever enough to come up with Ten.

Alas, I'm fully aware of all the disadvantages of medicating myself with food. If only it didn't work so well! And yes, I know, there are other ways to achieve endorphin release (laughter, sunshine, etc.), but then I couldn't have said they were verboten and the blog just wouldn't have worked. Besides, food would still win in the end by virtue of convenience. Curses!

Camera in the restroom.

I was the only person in the restroom at Costco and there was this funny little rubber-duck! How could I resist? Of course, just as I snapped the picture an employee walked in.

Hasty exit, no eye-contact.

Self-diganosis

Posed in order of preference.

Two summers ago my eyes started having problems focusing. Things like glancing into the rearview mirror and then back to the road were problematic--like it would take several seconds for my eyes to re-focus whilst hurtling down the road at 65mph. Yes, I know, alarming and a bit dangerous.

Concerned, I went to see the opthamologist who did LASIK on me (7 yrs ago), maybe there was a surgical complication. He checked out my eyes and then said something about me getting older. I flipped out. "I'm only 40!" Trying to lower my voice, I hastened to add that I didn't experience this focus-problem while reading, in fact I could read fine print with ease, thank you very much. "Isn't it possible I have a tumor, or MS?" Family history, you know...

He agreed to see me again in three months. At the follow-up appointment we had pretty much the same conversation.

"It comes and goes!" was my new argument. "It couldn't be age-related if it doesn't happen all the time, could it?" His explanation was my eyes get fatigued after reading for an extended period of time and then they're not able to focus while driving. He encouraged me to purchase 1+ reading glasses at All a Dollar. I was miffed. He'd be sorry when I lost my eye to the tumor!

Nevertheless, I purchased reading glasses, several actually.

I am both dismayed and delighted to report that the problem persists despite diligently using the reading glasses for over two years. As before, it comes and goes--trouble focusing for weeks at a time, unbothered for another few. Squinting helps alot with getting things back into focus when driving, so I don't feel quite so hazardous on the road. Alas, it only worsens my mad-look.

I've come to the conclusion (almost) that it's actual fatigue, i.e. lack of sleep, that causes the problem. I just need a couple nights of 8.5hrs sleep in order to test my hypothesis. Easier said than done. Caffeine does not fix this problem.

Meanwhile, I still wear the reading glasses, just in case.

"Am I getting old?"

"Oh no, not you."

--from Gigi

Vinegar II

I have a new theory, purely anecdotal.

I think deniers of vinegar would actually really like and use it more if they had not already satisfied their need for something acidic with other things such as fruit, soda, juice, gatorade, crystal light etc.

Teaching the 7-8 yr olds

I substituted in primary on Sunday with the 7 and 8 yr olds. They were so funny! I asked what stories they knew about Jesus and one girl said, "Jesus cleansing the lepers." They asked what leprosy was and I said it was a disease you can get where your fingers and toes sometimes fall off.

At the end of class I asked what we'd talked about and they said, "The sacrament, and Jesus!" I was so proud. Then I asked, "What are you going to think about during the sacrament next week?" and one of the boys yells out, "Fingers and toes falling off!" Totally hilarious.

Excavating the flower bed

Can you seen the hole? Not in the pot...

My front flower beds are filled with clay and I've struggled for years trying to get things to grow in them. I finally decided I'd had it and started digging out the blasted stuff and uncovered this tunnel.

A few years ago I had a gopher problem, it kind of felt like Caddyshack. No matter how much bait/poison I put out, new mounds kept appearing and my plants kept disappearing. How much poison can one rodent ingest? Apparently quite a lot, like two packages of rat poison--those little green brick things.

I looked at traps but they are vicious, and then there's the small problem of emptying the trap.

I tried gopher bait which required poking around with a long stick until I found a tunnel, digging down to the tunnel, depositing a spoonful of stuff that smelled like carrion, and then carefully covering up the hole so as not to bury the bait. I was just sure the gopher, or worse yet a bunch of rats, would appear at any moment and crawl all over me as I crouched on the ground.

I don't know which method worked but eventually new mounds quit appearing.

What are the odds of me finding a gopher carcass? Sick.

Grreat!

Tony should be shaking his fist.

Grr is for Grray, Grrandma, & Grrief! Apparently even Seattle isn't natural enough to appreciate that people under 60 years of age might have gray hair.


Grrief, this is what people are giving me. I paid a visit to the northwest to see my sister Maria who just had her first baby. On two out of three days I was accused of being the baby's grandmother! Grrandmother??


The first incident was a random lady in a parking lot. She looked at the baby, then at me and said, "That's a tiny one, grandma." I was thinking what a weirdo she was for talking to herself in the third person when I realized she was referring to me. I was so perplexed, distraught etc. I had to eat $15 worth of salad.


The second was a carpool mom whom Maria had just told, "I'm taking my sister to the airport." Next thing I know, this person is asking if Hugo's my first grandchild. Uh no, I'm Maria's sister.

I admit that yes, I am old enought to be Hugo's grandmother. But Maria's mother? She is six years younger than I! Grr is for curses on all of them! Both my accusers, I might add, had gray hair themselves-one abundantly so.


Maybe instead of SoJ I should be called SoGray. I will not color my hair.

The Yard's never looked better.

Whoops, I meant for theses to be at the end.

This is girls' camp, fabulous piece of property that.

Nice warning.

Princess bandaids.

Mmm, fabulous food in my yard.

Ah, here's the yard.

So fun to run barefoot in the grass.

The most recent bird's buried under that tree.


The yard now looks like a herd of cattle passed through, I'm done with it. Bring on the snow.

Yard Trauma--The continuing story.

I love this stuff. Need I say more?

Had more bird trauma but refrained from taking pictures because it was gruesome. I was watering my flowers and noticed a bunch of bird feathers. I looked around the corner and there was a mangled, decapitated bird with a big old puncture wound through its chest. That bird had not been there 30 minutes before.

In the time it took me to jog around the neighborhood someone's pet--going out on a limb here and saying "dog" due to the size of the wound and the freshly deposited poop in my yard--trashed the bird, desecrated my back yard, and left. Grr!

Moth Terror

Does this picture not make you shudder?

The other night I started drifting off to sleep before I'd turned out the light. I opened my eyes after however many minutes of those weird half-awake dreams and saw a black thing on the ceiling. At first I thought it was a cockroach and sat bolt upright in bed. Then I realized it was a moth!

Mind you this was during all that rain we had just a week or two ago so all my doors and windows had been closed for days. Where had it been hiding that it suddenly appeared full grown in my bedroom? Germinating in my closet?? Sick!!

I trapped it in my very small bathroom and I had to go in there to try and dispose of it. Horrifying. It took a good fifteen minutes of shrieking and swatting before I was finally successful. Totally overwrought.

The next day I was out working in the yard and I felt a tickle on my leg, I looked down all annoyed and there was a moth crawling on me! I totally screamed and did a freakish little dance trying to get the thing off me. I know the guy who lives behind me totally witnessed everything.

I hate moths.

Vitamin Fortified

A few years ago I saw these E meal things in Walmart and I thought they'd be great for food storage or backpacking. I noticed the expiration date was nearing so I thought I'd open one up and see how it tasted.

I tried the Cheese Spread first, I do like Cheese Whiz after all.

It was good but it had a really vitamin-y aftertaste. Have you ever smelled the vitamin drops for babies? It tasted like that, kind of metallic and yucky.

I looked at the package and noticed it supplied 70% of the RDA of Vit C. Since when does cheese have vitamin C?? And then I noticed Vit A, B etc.

Holy Cow, Fortified Cheese Spread.


What are Osmotic Raisins?


Hard to see them but they were super "moist" (yes, my skin crawls at having to use that word) and shiny.
I'll take the sundried variety, thank you very much.

By the way, I've discovered the key to inspiration for my blog--Avoidance. Yes, anytime I have something else I should be doing ie-working on my paper, cleaning, practicing--I suddenly have a head full of ideas . Classic.

Love the rain, but...

Dead bird in the flower pot!!

It has been raining quite a lot and apparently the storms are causing the death of birds in the vicinity of my house. Could the bird have fallen anywhere besides right into one of the newly planted pots intended for Crystelle's reception?

I had a shriek hovering in the back of my throat before, during and after removal of the bird! The geranium stem was caught in its wing so I couldn't just quickly tip the thing out, I had to extract it. I was completely traumatized.

This is the second dead bird in as many weeks, maybe there's an electric forcefield hovering over my property. I'm sure that's it, or West Nile Virus.

Side note: Apparently my little sojourn in Jordan killed all my opinions, neuroses, hang-ups etc. The proverbial well seems to have run dry! Consternated? Yes. Constipated? Possibly. I'm going to have cut back to weekly posts until I've acquired enough stress to inspire outbursts, it seems. Just a theory.

Jordan Pics part II

This figure represents Palestine--shackled.

I, not realizing how sensitive an issue it is, made a lovely faux pas my first day. Trying to find some common ground I mentioned that I'd visited Jordan once before following a trip to Israel. The lady I was speaking to stopped me and said, "Because we are Muslim and because we are Arabs we say, 'Palestine.'" Oh. Yikes.

They really do always refer to Israel as Palestine. Many of the Jordanians are displaced Palestinians, in fact I'd say the majority of people I talked to were originally from Palestine.

We totally climbed into the diorama thing and posed with the manequin!

Posing in front of the Jordan University Library.



Jordanian student nurses and their clinical instructor, Tagreedh--her name means the sound of birds. Isn't that cool? The meaning of names is really important in Jordan and they'd always ask us what our names meant. Um, nothing?



University hospital.

Tiny nurse.

Ok, everyone posed.

Heads!

Cute Jordanian student nurses.

Our BYU students were like celebrities, random girls would come up and want to have their picture taken with the Americans.

Model pose.

First day of church--black skirt, green top, no surprise.

The church isn't officially recognized so there isn't a real chapel and it can't be called a church, hence, Center for Cultural and Educational Affairs.

Shiny happy people.

Listening very intently during orientation.

Our little undergrads and the PhD students.

Posing with the Ambassador to Jordan, Stephen Beecroft, BYU Alumnus.

Chowing down on yummy food at the Ambassador's.

Posing with Princess Muna, aka "Toni". She's the King's mother but was never queen, although she was married to the former King. They met on the set of Lawrence of Arabia, isn't that funny?

I'm clearly anxious to be part of the picture.

Linger longer.

Feeling chatty on the patio.

Happy at the Ambassador's digs.
Why on earth did we pose around that hideous table?