TGIF - Found Diesel Hanging with Brad & George

I found this picture on people.com and I had to stare - not at the two hot guys front and center (although they certainly are both pleasing to the eye) BUT instead to the guy to the right in profile. I know that Diesel of The Mattress Police Fame is known for inserting his mug into many celebrity shots and movie stills but how did he manage this one? Was he in Venice socializing with the A-Listers? Does anyone else see the resemblance?
Bravo Diesel! Bravo! (And if you are so inclined feel free to click here and give me a smile!)

Thursday Thirteen - Random things

1. My husband's boss is making a case to fire him. This sucks royally. This means I have to hurry up and help him get his resume out there so he can quit pre-emptively.
   
   
2. My own review is only 1.5 months away. I feel that I've been somewhat of a slacker of late. I need to turn this around pronto so I can count on a good review and hopefully a hefty raise.
   
   
3. I am in the process of setting up friends on a date. This makes me think I might be crazy. One is a former co-worker and forever friend. One is a current co-worker and casual friend. If things go south I will be on her side (the forever friend) no matter what but will still have to see him daily. Not going to worry about that as they would make a good couple.
   
   
4. I got another good friend an interview here. It was today. I think she rocked it and expect she will get an offer early next week. I hope I'm not overconfident for her.
   
   
5. Hubby and I are going to the state fair on Sunday. I have gone to the NYS Fair for at least one day every year for the past 25 years. It's a tradition! Even when I lived in Ohio - we drove back for the NYS Fair and stayed for 2-3 nights.
   
   
6. I'm honored this week to have a post of mine featured on the Carnival of MS Bloggers and even more honored to be featured the same week as Linda of Brain Cheese!
   
   
7. Hubby's birthday is Sept 21st and I am trying to figure a good gift for him. I was going to take him to a NASCAR race in Dover - bus trip and all. But he thought it was too much for a race and I thought it was too long a day (bus leaves at 2am and drops you back off at 1am the next day). So I'm seeking ideas - 1-2 night weekend trips that would be 2-4 hours driving time from Albany, NY. Any ideas?
   
   
8. "Just remember, if you hang in there long enough, good things can happen in this world. I mean, look at me." I am obsessing over Office Space lately.
   
   
9. I still have that website work to finish. My client emailed me saying how it all needs to be done by this date 2 weeks in the future and how IMPORTANT this is. But the thing is, it's not important to me. I'll meet his deadline, bill him and then remind him that he is supposed to be finding someone else to do this for him. We'll see maybe he'll finally get it!
   
   
10. I adore my dog. I heart him more than you should heart a dog. I treat him like he's a child and not a pet. I know people with real live human children think I'm crazy. I don't care!
    
    
11. A former co-worker's (not a friend) husband was involved in a very big cocaine ring drug bust a few months ago as in arrested and charged and trial is pending, etc. I have been sworn to secrecy by the one who told me and wasn't supposed to. I work with 3 other people who know her too and it's such a super juicy bit of gossip it's KILLING me to keep quiet. But for my friend I will not say a word to them. None of you count cause you don't know her! ;-)
    
    
12. Lately my audio book choices have been more romance than chick lit. Not sure why but I'm on a Nora Roberts kick - wow some of her "scenes" make me want to squirm in my seat a little and blush if anyone knew what I was listening to.
    
    
13. Holiday weekend coming up. I am so looking forward to Monday off. Thinking about last minute trip to Zoom Flume with my nephew if the weather cooperates.
    

A first for me Wordless Wicked Wednesday!

Funny Searches - Redux

To the searcher who found by asking this question:
why is my middle aged husband such a jerk? I can only say it seems that many of them are indeed jerks at least for a time. Tonight on my way home from work a middle-aged man in a corvette convertible came through weaving in and out of traffic in an effort to get 5 seconds in front of me, and my car pooler said to me "watch out! midlife crisis coming through" and we both had a good laugh.

To all the searchers from Brazil - why on earth are all of you searching on the term agemania or age mania? Is this something Brazilians worry about regularly? I did a search on Google and came up with a list of results that I can't read because I don't read Portugese unfortunately.

And to the searcher who found me by searching for "muscle hairy men" I am sorry to disappoint you but EWWW is all I can say.

Awwww - shucks - I got a crazy award!

Thank you to WhereisMommysProzac for bestowing me with this crazy award! She doesn't know just how true it is! In fact when I first met my husband (online - where else) my screen name was CrazyChick. :)

So in the spirit of sharing the craziness I am bestowing this award on the following crazy chicks I know:

VeryBadCat - http://verybadcat.wordpress.com/
Shieldmaiden - http://northernoutpostpa.blogspot.com/
Meghan - http://piratemeghan.blogspot.com/
Linda - http://brain-cheese.blogspot.com/
Pessimistic Redhead - http://pessimisticredhead.wordpress.com/
Maxie - http://www.ihatesomuch.com/

I could keep awarding but it's 5pm and my carpooler is soon to be hovering. And I want to end this hellish day. Will probably not even get this guy posted in the margins before he shows up! If I didn't name you it doesn't mean I don't think you're crazy! ;-)

Cat Shaving and Other Fun Weekend Exploits...

I have a cat named Felix who is very fat, very, very fat. We have put him on a diet, taken all dry food away from him (carb addict) and still he is very, very, very fat. He is a cat that should weigh about 13-14lbs and he currently weighs 20. He has become so fat that the poor kitty can no longer groom his nether regions as well as he should. Baby wipes work well when I notice a problem. ANYHOW - his lack of grooming soon led to hair mats forming on top if his back near his tail that required attention.

Poor Felix is also skittish - VERY skittish. He has bitten me more than once when I attempt to force him to do things he'd rather not do. He also bit me so badly once that I required 10 days of 1000mg Amoxy 2X a day and a tetnus shot - but I don't blame him for that one. I stood on his tail - yes STOOD - wearing wooden soled shoes while he had his head burried in the food bowl. He whipped around so fast and sank all 4 fangs into my calf - it was over before I knew what happened and he was gone but the infection started up fast.

So in order to facilitate removing (cutting) large matts off Felix's back it was best to sedate him so as not to get bit. 1 benadryl does the trick nicely. I risk life and limb to force a pill down his little throat and then leave him alone for an hour, when I come back he's awake but barely and kinda floppy - so relaxed. Good! I have scissors, undercoat rake, brush, and electric clippers if needed for the job. He just flops there on the floor next to me and I managed to cut out the mats without having to turn on the clippers that would have sent him into terror mode I fear. And I brushed and raked and brushed some more. Finally he looks like he got a hair cut from a toddler but he has no mats and should be feeling a bit better.

Funny though, he was still a bit floppy at dinner and fell asleep with his head in the bowl! LOL

So other weekend fun? - Friend over Friday night was a gas! She stayed until 1am and I had plenty to drink and eat and we sang karaoke for hours. And the gossip - such juicy stuff but I can't share yet - she made me promise. Then Saturday - nothing exciting but my parents for dinner and games. Sunday mowed the lawn and took the pup out for ice cream. That's about it. Cat shaving was the highlight of my weekend. (Not really Friday night was the highlight-but cat shaving is funnier!)

TGIF - Friday Fun!

Here's my answers to the Friday Fill-In. Feel free to steal this meme for your own blog (I stole it from Jen at Where's Mommy's Prozac so go ahead!)

1. Dancing to the commercials on TV while doing the dishes makes me a nerd.

2. The last time I was really drunk I nearly humiliated myself singing karoke (no nearly about it).

3. When I drive I talk to myself - hey I'm a good listener!

4. I saw a frightened fawn (baby deer) standing in the middle of the road the other day.

5. Give me chocolate, give me an extra day off this week, give me tasty adult beverages.

6. Next week I am looking forward to absolutely nothing!

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to chillin with my friend E drinking adult beverages and catching up, tomorrow my plans include taking hubby to a hobby store that happens to be right next to Kohls (score) and Sunday, I want to mow the lawn - AGAIN!

Married to the MonSter...

Lisa of Brass & Ivory asked me to talk about being the spouse of someone with MS and what it means for my life.

When I met my husband in December of 1997 he was already diagnosed with MS - had been on Avonex for 7 months and had recovered from his first diagnosed MS attack which was a doozy that hospitalized him for about a week. He was handsome, had a runners body still, muscular thighs and six pack abs. I was intimidated by how "in shape" he seemed.

I knew about MS - a close friend of the family had a severe fast progressing case and she went from being fine to being in a wheelchair and then finally to being unable to breathe on her own within a decade. It was pretty scary stuff. I also knew a friend's mom who sometimes walked with a limp when over tired but was fine most of the time. This was the extent of my knowledge about MS when I met him.

There were those who warned me about getting involved with someone with MS. My family was concerned. Friends worried that I was setting myself up for heartbreak and maybe I was but I fell in love and I took the risk.

My husband has R/R(relapsing remitting) MS - he has had a lot of relapses in the last decade but many times his symptoms would reverse themselves after a course of steroids. So the day he woke up unable to control his left leg at all and had to use a walker just to get around? Well 3 weeks later he was walking like nothing ever happened. For us MS was a day to day reality in his energy level but the real serious stuff was usually a passing inconvenience.

The MS was sometimes at the forefront and a very real reason why he could not do something or go somewhere, but many times it was an excuse too. I don't want to go I have a headache. No way to prove or disprove that, I take him at his word. Sometimes he would go out in crazy heat to do things he wanted to do knowing it would drain him and other times he'd beg off due to heat when it really wasn't hot because he just doesn't want to. I find that MS makes a nice tidy excuse to get out of things and yet I never want to accuse him of that because what if this time I'm wrong?

I have never known my marriage without MS as I said above but I did know it before MS was there in our faces daily changing everything. I miss the times when the MS was something that boiled up occasionally and then went back to a slow simmer. About 2 years ago this labor day he had the start of an exacerbation - he had the steroids to halt it but this time they didn't work. He had been on Betaserone for nearly 4 years at this point but it no longer seemed to be helping. He was not seeing a specialist and his general neurologist was way out of his element here. But he didn't admit defeat and send hubby to a specialist, he kept puttering around talking about new possible therapies but not doing anything about it. Finally after almost a year of indecision and inaction on his neurologists part my husband was fed up and asked his primary care physician for a referral back to a specialist. This doctor immediately started the process to get him on Tysabri and took him off Betaserone. He sent him to a physiotherapist to try and regain some of the lost function but it seems that it's gone for good.

My handsome husband with the runner's build has lost about 25lbs of muscle over the last decade. His thighs are thin and much weaker, his abs are no longer rippling. He has a drop foot on the left, no balance at all, and a seriously unbalanced and uneven gait. He can only walk a few minutes at a time before he needs to rest and he staggers as he goes. I admire his resolve to not give up and sit down in a chair and just let it go. I also wonder at times WHY he fights so hard - use a chair sometimes it is just to save your strength. But he is a stubborn Italian man and give up is not in his vocabulary.

He has been on Tysabri for 8 months now. His doctor says he is showing improvement in involuntary reactions. I wish he would show improvements in balance and walking ability. He doesn't feel like he's getting better. I do think his memory loss is better. For awhile he couldn't remember from day to day things that happened or people said. And he wouldn't admit it was him instead accusing the other person of not having told him. This rarely happens these days - if that is the Tysabri I do thank it for that much at least.

I feel like an outsider sometimes. I know more about the disease and treatment than he does because I take the time to educate myself. But no matter how much I know the one thing I can never know is what it feels like, or how it makes him feel. I know how it makes me feel - scared, helpless, alone - and I don't have the disease.

I love my husband and I HATE what this disease has taken from him and by proxy from me. He is still R/R and there is still a chance he could turn around and start getting better but I fear that the best we can hope from the Tysabri is to stop the disease from taking any more. Because it has already taken so much it just doesn't seem like enough. I worry that he will cross over and become secondary progressive, if this happens there is no approved treatment and the insurance would no longer pay for Tysabri. At that point it becomes a wait and see game as in "wait until he dies" basically.

For the overwhelming majority of people with MS it is not a life threatening disease. I worry all the time that the man I married is not in the majority. I keep that worry to myself.

Don't you pick on my sister! (or my husband) That's MY job!

I complain about my husband here sometimes. It's the only place I really do complain about him.

Sometimes he is lazy. But I never talk about how lazy I can be sometimes either. Of the two of us I couldn't say one is more lazy than the other.

Yes he didn't help with the housework AT ALL and that always annoyed me. So I hired a maid. He still thinks that isn't necessary - but two weeks ago when I went out of town for the weekend and I reminded him she was coming on Saturday and he rolled his eyes? I told him straight up that if he was willing to do ALL the things she does each week himself and not expect me to do any of it or help in any way then he could go ahead and fire her. Of course he is not willing to do any of it. I do wish he seemed to notice how much less stressed I am on the weekends when I don't have to include vacuuming, dusting, cleaning bathrooms, mopping, etc. to my list of things to do.

He frustrates me sometimes with wanting to do things on his own timing. Like thinking the hottest day of the year would be a good day to trim the hedges and wanting me to help him. (I put my foot down with that one - it was NOT urgent and those hedges are still not trimmed.) Or after saying let's get ready and go to the fair today - instead going outside to clean out and move things around in the shed. Uh - I'm ready to go and you haven't showered yet? I just shook my head.

I never will understand why he won't let my dad (who is retired, has the time, and is very handy) fix the stupid mower. But it's okay to let my dad put insulation in the attic and install ceiling fans throughout the house. I think hubby feels like fixing the mower is something he should be able to do himself. But at this point I think it requires professional intervention. I think he and my dad bent something in trying to get that mower deck back on after replacing the belt. Anyway - the mower needs to be fixed - OR we need to get rid of it. I don't want it laying around cluttering up things when it is not functional. But his dad bought him that mower - 10 years ago - and his dad is dead. Do we have to keep the mower as some sort of memorial? I sure hope not.

I guess like my little sister when I was a kid - I want to be the only one allowed to say mean things to/about him. I defend him to anyone else. Sometimes he can be downright antisocial and I make up excuses. Sunday I went to the campground where the rest of my family was staying for the weekend to spend the day. I stayed from noon until around 6pm. I told them my hubby wasn't feeling well (it's not a lie, he never really feels great these days) but really he just didn't want to go. Instead of staying for dinner I went home to make dinner for him because I know he wouldn't have eaten much of anything if I didn't. I called him and talked for a few minutes before I left. I'm sure my family saw my departure as hasty but I it was my choice and I wasn't coerced or anything. He told me to stay and enjoy my time. The truth I wanted to spend some time with him too.

So friends - don't think I don't appreciate the support if I turn and defend my husband five minutes after bitching about him. I guess despite all his many flaws I do still love him more than life and figure I'm the only one that is allowed to call his ass lazy! :)

Working here is certainly not helping my weight...

This office is all about food. It's like a baptist church in that every event no matter how tiny must be celebrated with food. Today's event was a co-worker's 50th birthday (now that is not a tiny milestone) and it was celebrated with pizza, wings, salads, veggie trays, fruit trays, cookies, brownies, cake, ice cream. It was enough food for 150 people but only 90 people work here and less than that participated.

I had 2 small squares of mushroom pizza, 2 wings, some salad with lite italian. A chocolate chip cookie, an ice cream bar (much later in the day) and they never did cut the giant birthday cake which is in the fridge to make us all fatter tomorrow.

Since I started working here in October we have and at least 1 food event per month and the people here are good cooks! We have had a chili cookoff, a soup cookoff, a baking contest, a BBQ, chip&dip day, and more. It's insane.

I go to the gym 3 days a week at lunch, I bought a wii fit for use at home (and I'm using it), but the diet? The diet is not there. Exercising has improved my numbers - my cholesteral is down (was always normal but high normal now just normal), blood pressure is down (118/74 last checked), blood sugar is perfect, but my weight? It's not down. It's not up either but all this working out would make it go down if only the calories were kept in check.

I blame it on the office. There is too much food here and too little stress, with more stress I eat less because I don't have time to eat. So yeah it's their fault not mine! Right!