Tag Archive: about me


Pain, Crabs, and Assorted Crap (from my Live Journal)

Filed Under: Critters by Racu — Leave a comment
August 16, 2010

lj-music: Shuuush of the dryer

My hands have been killing me lately…sometimes making me yelp in the middle of conversations…just deep aching, in the big thumb muscle, the joints and the bones between the joints.  And the left hand is numb on top of it all.  I have so much to do and no one else to do it. And before you ask, no it’s not carpal tunnel. It’s arthritis and the numbness is due to thoracic outlet syndrome. I’ve had arthroscopy on both shoulders and I don’t get the numbness in the right side nearly as bad as in the left. But the pain…in the hands and shoulders, and the grip weakness…oh.my.goddess.  Anyway…not sure there’s much I can do about it.  My take home pay is going down because UT’s not giving raises* but our insurance premiums are going up. At the same time the deductibles and out of pocket cap are going up…so I’m paying out the fucking wazoo for insurance I can’t use.  Nice.  Goddamned Republicans.  GOP=Grand Obstructionist Party.

Several years ago, one of the NCOs at work had gotten her son a pair of hermit crabs.

He wouldn’t take care of them, so she gave them to me.  The poor things were in the little clear plastic Kritter Keeper they came in, with an inch of *growls* aquarium gravel, and she was giving them TAP water.  GAH!  So I did a bunch of research and spent about a 100 bucks getting a crabitat set up. Little guys were most appreciative and showed me by almost immediately moulting. The bigger one moulted several times and then went down and didn’t come up.  Spikey had “disrobed” over the tank heater and dried out.  So he’s buried with Caldwell, the Betta Fish, under the Texas Mountain Laurel in the front yard.  So…that left Tiny, who is now way bigger than the larger one was when we got them (he was itty bitty at first, hence the name).

I’ve been keeping Tiny in a Kritter Keeper, with the proper bedding, water, and a sheet of cling wrap to hold in the humidity, so he’s doing okay. But hermies are social critters.  He needs friends.  So I’m going to get one or two more crabs and set the terrarium back up. Scorpionis (Thank you!!) gave me another 10-gallon tank. I have this little wooden typing table—so very, very ubiquitous at UT. I think the furniture shop must’ve made a kabillion of them over the years. I took it and peeled the fake wood Formica off the top and painted it. It’s kind of a pale yellowish now, but I think some nice dark green or blue will be a better color for a crabitat. One tank on top and one underneath, then get some of this…

…which is 4” in diameter (it’ll take the crabbies a long time to get too big to get through it)

and connect them…like this

And see if hermies like crabitrails…hee hee hee

I started this post on Friday and now can’t remember what the “associated crap” was.  *facepalm*

*We are getting a one-time 2% payment, not a raise.  It’ll be in time for Yule and for me, after taxes, etc. will be about $450…better than a sharp stick in the eye, and just in time for presents, but geeze…really?

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The Daily Bull 8/15/10

Filed Under: Daily Bull by Racu — Leave a comment
August 15, 2010

Was supposed to Had told bossman I would go in and finish the library this weekend. Just don’t have the energy, thank you very much. My house, never in the best shape to begin with, has REALLY been suffering from my lack of energy and being in such pain when I get home (damned move). Now that things are settling down a bit a work, I might be able to muster up enough steam to get my kitchen back in order. It’s amazing how quickly R & W can mess it up.  You know…if they paid for that talent…

In other news, R has been commenting a lot on some website about smart phones or something. First he won a mouse, then a keyboard, then a $100 GC from Amazon, then another one… Then this past week, they emailed him and invited him to take part in some conference or other in Bellvue, WA. All expense-paid weekend AND he comes home with a prototype Win 7 phone. How fleeping cool is that? Finally, his writing starts to pay off! *gigglesnort* ETA: and then he won another $100 GC after all that!

Figured out how much money I had left. If I don’t pay one bill (a certain credit card that’s now really past due) I can get us by with cheap bread, bologna, beans, tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches…with the odd potato something thrown in. Going in to start a pot of beans in a minute and will make some kind of bread to supplement.

It’s just so bloody hot out. The A/C struggles to keep up and if you go outside, your core heats up and it takes forever to cool off. I hate the heat; why am I in Texas? Why?

Half an hour..then I can go turn on the sprinkler in my front yard.

Classic scene this AM…letting Abby out…she dashes in her run, bounding six feet in the air, chasing the birds out of her territory. LMAO. They love the seeds in the overgrown wild sunflower jungle out there. I cut one down…with a tree saw! it was easily ten feet or more (I couldn’t tell because it had fallen over) and the stalk was almost as big around as my chubby wrist. I think I will pull them up next year and plant more sedate hybrids in a controlled area. Geesh.

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To self or not to self

Filed Under: Self by Racu — Leave a comment
August 10, 2010

I must admit I was a bit self-indulgent tonight. After I went up and registered W for his new middle school (and talked to a counselor there–wow, what a novel concept, a counselor who was actually interested in helping a student, in talking to him! The ones at his old middle school didn’t even return your calls or your emails, let alone give a hooey about a student), I went up to World Market and browsed for about 45 minutes. Got some licorice and a bottle of wine (pinot grigio), strictly for the beautiful cobalt blue bottle it’s in–I hope it’s at least decent, a stocking stuffer for #1 child, a table runner on sale, some orange marmalade, and a pair of wine stoppers in colors I just couldn’t resist. Me-time & money I couldn’t really afford. Dammit.

But you know, lately I keep thinking about the fact that I’m tired in mind, body, and soul…I’ve been working for nigh onto 40 years and quite frankly, there is no retirement in sight. Not unless the BOMITS fairy strikes.* Just knowing I spent almost 50 bucks on things I didn’t really need should be a large enough clue that I don’t handle money well, so it’s no stretch that I have credit up the wazoo that needs paying off. If I didn’t I’d be rolling in extra cash each month. What the hell is wrong with me, anyway?

I’m in too much pain in feet, hands, shoulders, hips, knees, wrists to even think about a second job. I’m dead when I get home from the first one as it is. No energy to do anything but eat some totally unhealthy crap, check email, play a few minutes of some mindless game, write a bit, read a bit (all of which can be done either sitting in a chair or in bed), and then die until 6:30 the next day. I know, I know, better diet, more activity=more energy, etc. I can’t even get to that point. I’m just bloody tired.

Said friend Laura (see below) goes home and knits a wildebeest after work. Now..I admit, I’ve got 23 years on her and carry more weight for my height, but it’s just agravating. There’s so much I want to do. A lot of it is just that my spirit is dead. I’ve been schlepping papers for someone else for so long, I have lost any sort of self identity. All I can do is be a cranky know-it-all. Is that all there is, Alfie?

*BOMITS: Bag of Money in the Street, credited to my gorgeous friend, Laura.

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Grand Fubar

Filed Under: Daily Bull by Racu — Leave a comment
August 10, 2010

A friend of mine posted on Live Journal the other day about some huge conflagration of heavenly bodies in some astrological hooha known as the Grand Cross. Planets are at right angles, stars and constellations are trined and plaited and goddess only knows what up there to cause some sort of weirdness with the Universe.  You know, if you go in for all that.

Makes me wonder, though. Another friend of mine has been having a rash of klutziness…breaking things, cutting herself, putting things on wrong, etc. and today I’m about to go postal on the next poor slob who asks me anything.

Part of it is the move. I’ve just HAD it…up to here *indicates a foot over head*. Everyone seems to think I’m this grand, walking font of knowledge and that I can solve all sorts of problems and have limitless strength and patience, and worse, that I give a flying foo about those problems in the first place.

None of that is true. Yes, I know some things, yes, I put up with a HELLUVA lot before I break, but it’s not limitless. I spent 15 minutes in the loo crying, throwing things, and talking to myself like Gollum this afternoon…I’m hoping once the push to get everything put away, organized, and neatened, and the beginning of the semester will ameliorate some of my hypersensitivity to bullshit. Probably not. Maybe the Grand Fubar will shift enough and I’ll start spouting poetry and painting things pink.

Aaahhh…better I should go postal on your ass.

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Are we there yet?

Filed Under: Daily Bull by Racu — Leave a comment
August 9, 2010

Theoretically, we’re all moved in at work. My area is one of the last to be organized. Of course….hey, it’s me!  We have way less room than before, but it’s very nice and way beats the tiny hole in the wall I had in the English department years ago. You’d never have believed I had the financial desk; you’d have thought I was a third-rate office assistant or something. (I still relish the story the person who came two after me told, when she told the chair how much that desk actually handled and if she were going to take it over how many assistants she needed…and how wide-eyed the chair got when he said, Really?!?! Wow, I never knew…  Never did get an apology from him, but at least I got the satisfaction of knowing someone had set him straight on it.)

At any rate, these offices used to belong to women’s athletics, now they’re all ensconced in the fancy-schmancy new north end of DKR-Memorial Stadium, called the N-Zone. *rolls eyes* Over the years, the office areas of Bellmont have become rabbit’s warrens of added walls, etc. We ended up taking several walls out to make the suites more functional.  I don’t have my camera here today, but I’ll try to get pics up sometime.

Obama is on campus today, so the boss is there and I’m taking my lunch at my desk to write….I left Saraswati (that’s my tiny Dell Inspiron) at home, or I’d be writing on it.

The boychile had first day of band camp today. Haven’t texted him yet to find out how it was…but he’s not texting me saying it was hell, either, so I’m assuming it was okay. We had to drop him off early so we could get to work. There was another boy there and they were all ready to wait, but the band director stuck his nose out the door and had them come in.  W had let his hair grow pretty long and I’d already pretty much convinced him to get it cut, but after he went and ran around with his friends last week, shooting Airsoft rifles, we picked him up and he begged to get his hair cut…August in Texas, ya gotta love it. Personally, I could care less how long he grows it, but since he’s starting off at a new middle school and repeating the 7th grade, I really don’t want him labeled one of “those” kids, and you know they will.

Well, I’m off to the loo (I think that’s what that song is really about, skip, skip…skip to my loo, skip to my loo, my darling–yep rapid bathroom trip, for sure), and then working on the supply room that holds about a third of what my old one did. Creative organization (and a large recycling bin)!

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