Tag Archive: Work


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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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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Holy Fuster Cluck, Batman!

Filed Under: Self by Racu — Comments Off
August 2, 2010

Ow.  I could end right there and have said it all. We’re moving. At work, we’re moving. The ROTC units at UT have been in the same building for 53 years, but the College of Liberal Arts decided it was time to tear that building down and build a big, shiny, new CLA building it its place.

At first they were trying to put all three units in the Geography building, which is older and smaller than ours. The commanders collectively kind of said..um…no…not unless you make some renovations. And to be quite honest, the GRG was just not usable the way it was. So the Navy guys were trying to solicit donations. Turns out CoLA didn’t have enough money to finish tearing down our building and build the new one….an anonymous donor plunked down what they needed, with the proviso ROTC mus be in the new building. Long and short…we’ve all been moved to the spaces all the departments in GRG were going to be temporarily housed in while waiting for their new homes in CLA.

Army and Navy are in one building and we’re in another. We’re in a building that’s basically slapped on the west side of DKR-Memorial Stadium.  Nice digs, but much, much smaller than what we had. Holy flaky crust…our move evidently was more organized, and smaller than the other two.  Good grief, I’d hate to have been in on those moves! I was at work until 10:15 Friday night packing, and got to work today at 0735, bucket o’bagels and gallon of coffee in hand, and didn’t stop until after 1700 (that’s 5 PM, y’all). My pains have pains.  Sweet marinated Jesus on the barbie…ow.  Just ow.

And while all the “stuff” has been moved, it’s far from being all arranged, let alone all the shit put away.  And Colonel Bossman will be driving me nuts to get things put away, pictures hung, bladeboop.

I’m too fucking old for this shit.

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