Obi's Sister

The promise at the bottom. Ahem. I have a note from my mother. Or my doctor. Or Charlie. Yeah, Charlie. I’ll blame it all on Charlie.

Barring more unforeseen gastric complications, I should be at the Peach Pundit Roadshow.

On that happy bloggiversary day, I had every intent of resuming the regular venting of galatic snark. But first, I had to go to a conference for work in the frozen hinterlands to the North. Wait, the conference was in the frozen hinterlands, my work wasn’t. It’s in Atlanta. Where, at least on the day I left, it was warmer than the aforementioned frozen hinterlands. Anyway…after a rather bumpy landing, arrived at the hotel. Got checked in, registered, hit the Starbucks (thank you JW Marriott, for having a Starbucks in the upstairs lobby adjoining the hamster trail to the convention center. It keep me alive for 3 days.)

The first night was an Irish celebration, since the conference started on St. Patrick’s Day. The food was ok, mostly convention food pretending to be Irish food, but it was free and at least some of it was hot. There were Irish dancers and two stages worth of Irish music. Visited with co-workers and friends that had moved on to other colleges. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Then the fun began. Around 2:30, the vomiting started and continued until I thought the only thing left of my body was my toenails. After a few minutes of fitful sleep, I dragged myself up, attempted to shower, and walked very slowly towards the convention center, which was supposedly serving breakfast. The thought of a chafing dish convention food breakfast just made me heave. I shuffled along, and there, like the sun rising over the ridge, was my old friend Starbucks. After an iced green tea and a toasted plain english muffin, I mustered the courage to shuffle further down the hamster trail to the convention center. The rest of the day consisted of one very expensive Coke and a packaged “gluten-free” lunch that would have made my elementary lunch lady proud. I got maybe two of the noodles from the mystery pasta dish down and a couple of slivers of fruit. Saved the rock-hard sugar cookies for later. During the next break, I snagged a banana from the snack table. The rest was, shall we say, unappealing.

Then horrors of horrors, someone suggested our group go out to dinner. I had hoped to slither back to the room and pray for God to just take me home. But no…. The powers that be settled on the Weber Grill Restaurant. After a invigorating dash through around 20 degrees of wind chill, we arrived. Don’t get me wrong. Under normal circumstances, this is the type of restaurant I really dig. Leave those fruffy-indy-fusion-got-my-own-tv-show restaurants to the foodies, give me a good steakhouse and I’m a happy girl. Except for that night. Every smell tortured my stomach, just daring it to heave the day’s meager fare into my boss’ lap. I ordered grilled chicken with sauteed spinach and garlic mashed potatoes. Working with a normal appetite, my meal would have been delicious. As things stood, I muscled through and managed to eat about half the chicken, two bites of the spinach and about half the potatoes. After another invigorating walk in the frigid air (ice crystals were hitting my face!), the second night of fun began.

No projectile ejections that night, but the gas pains were unbearable. I felt like John Hurt in the cantina on the Nostromo, waiting for his little alien to explode from his gut. After another long and uncomfortable night, I soldiered up the morning and staggered to my old friend. Iced green tea and a toasted bagel this time, since some horrible, selfish and unthinking person had bought the last of the english muffins. Lunch was better, grilled chicken caesar salad and palatable cookie. Okay. Maybe I will survive this after all. More sessions, more stomach grumblings. There was a party the final night, with Indy cars and several bands. The only food I could stomach was the nachos. After about an hour, I excused myself for an early night. Then the fun began again.

Only this time, it was the other end. Dear Lord in Heaven. I really thought it was my last night on Earth.

The next day, when I checked out of the hotel and bought a package of the world’s most expensive Imodium, the desk clerk took pity on me and gave me a Gatorade. I must have looked pretty rough. Starbucks, my old friend. Iced green tea and an attempt at a breakfast sandwich. (Aside: Saw the UGA Women’s Swim & Diving Team in the lobby. Later that week, they won the NCAA Championship. Go Dawgs!) Later, at the airport, the cafe cheeseburger with sauteed green beans wasn’t bad, and seemed to settle in with little trouble. But as I waited on the plane, the old gas pains returned. No explosive excitement, thank heavens, but the pain was intense. While on the plane, when folks would look around (ick! who did it?), I would look askance at the poor fella sitting next to me. He had no idea what was going on.

Plane landed, shuttle to the park and ride, the drive home – don’t remember a bit of it. I fell into my bed, rejoicing that I had survived.

That was last Wednesday. I still don’t feel like eating. It was two days before I could face the laundry, which though rinsed out, were tightly wrapped and still in the suitcase.

And that, my friends, is the story of My Most Excellent Unadventure in Indianapolis.

Tap, tap. Is this thing still on?

Today is this little blog’s birthday. It’s been a tad neglected of late, thanks to other gigs, general malaise and that little black cloud that follows me around every where I go. Why I’m sorry, Mr. Detective Man, to call again, but have you found our stolen truck? Are you even looking? Why thank you, Mr. Dentist Man, I’d love to … Why thank you, Mr. Plumber Man, I’d just love to … Why thank, Mr. Obama Man, go ahead and take that extra $150 out of my check. It didn’t go far enough anyway, so how can I miss even more?

Ahem. Sorry. Like I said little black cloud.

But this little blog has been the bright spot in some people’s days and I have been remiss these last few weeks in not posting my snark to the masses, mostly because things suck right now, but I think I’ve covered that already.

Seven years. Most cars/marriages/fruit cakes don’t last that long. If you’re new to this dark part of the forest, you can check out the one post that started it all, plus all six of the previous anniversary posts – The First, Year One, Two, Three, Four, Five, and Six.

Many, many things have happened this past year, most of them bad, and not all of them to me. Sometimes I wonder if this constant queasy feeling in my gut is how my parents felt during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The black cloud hasn’t enveloped everything yet – I’m grateful we’re still in our home, I still have my job, my children are happily (if not frugally) ensconced in their respective schools, my husband hasn’t left me. Those are good things. As a believer, I know that God uses all things to His good. I just can’t help but ask Him, “How much deeper does this hole go?”

America has gone to hell in a handbasket since last year’s post. Instead of sending letters to our representatives, that aren’t read by them themselves, but by interns, if they are read at all, I’d like to suggest we all send them a little game. A little interactive game. You know, just to let them know we’re thinking of them. And since they like to play games so much, they should really enjoy this one. So would we.

What do you think?

Oh, and check back often. I plan to do better, I promise.

Yesterday was my birthday. Pretty low key for the most part, until I got the happy voicemail that a second card of mine had been compromised.

Back track two weeks. Before GradSchoolGirl returned to school, I took a day off and we happily tripped off on what we like to call a ‘Yarn Safari.’ Our destination was Macon and Creative Yarns, one of the bestest yarn shops in GA. While we were traipsing around Bibb County, American Express called, wanting to know if I’d ordered almost $700 of cell phones from a Verizon website. I said, ‘Noooooo…..Whhhhaaaaa…..” And thus that merry adventure began and harshed my yarn buzz considerably.

Zoom back to yesterday. The call yesterday was more disturbing in that is was my debit card. While I was at work, someone was using my number to fill up their car at a truck stop in Florida. So I spent the better part of the day on the phone with the VISA people and the bank people and then a lovely visit from our local deputy so I could file a police report.

I highly suspect the source of the theft is our local fried chicken joint. That’s pretty much the only spot I’ve used both cards. I won’t stop eating there, I’ll just be paying with cash from now on.

Which brings me to today. After the pall that was cast on my meager birthday celebrations (#thanksAlotObama), today I get to be pummeled with severe weather.

Sheesh. I need a break already.