Negative Nelly

I'm going to totally be a jerk and use this opportunity to vent. We've had the amazon.com gift certificate for a week but it was mailed to Adam and he chose this week to decide that opening mail addressed to him was not important. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

On the bright side, I ordered my HRM. It will probably be shipped when we are in San Diego next weekend and I'll have to pick it up from UPS. See, I am so cranky right now! I can't even be happy that it's ordered.

I also wasted $50 on signing us up for a 5K that we didn't run this morning. To be fair, I could have gone alone but I chose to sleep in and Adam is not-so-recovering from bronchitis so there was no reason to push him into running. But I'm mad at myself for registering and wasting money on it.

So in short, I am having a not so good Saturday. But it's all stupid in the grand scheme of things and nothing that a good sesh at the gym can't fix.

A RANT

I realize that Ben Franklin was absolutely correct when he said that there are only two certainties in life, death and taxes. I've been paying taxes for over 20 years if you consider using my parents money to buy candy and what-nots as a child and I know I have a lot more dollars to put toward taxes for the rest of my life. But right now, I get so beyond annoyed with my current state and city because I swear they may just tax us all to death and then still claim that the damn state is still broke as a joke!

I also understand that I am massively biased toward that because I was blessed to grow up in the best state ever and never had to pay state income tax until I was 24. (I know, I know, I am extremely ethnocentric but seriously, go to Texas, check out some real estate prices and cost-of-living stuff, coupled with awesome winters and then you'll understand. I feel like I have been enough places to know that it's something special down there.)

So yeah, I have a real problem with state income tax. I have an extreme problem with the fact that HR Block charges me about $10 to e-file my federal taxes and a WHOPPING $36 to file my stupid Illinois taxes. Last year the refund I got from the state was less than that! But what I have a bigger problem with is all the stupid state taxes (and don't even get me started about the city taxes) on EVERY DAMN THING. They are nickle and diming us to death around here and the state is still so "broke" that they are firing a bajillion teachers, already cut all the train and bus service in Chicago and every day the news is full of new things that have to be cut or start being charged for. If they are charging me out the wazoo for everything, where exactly is that money going? (Amen to the fact that neither of us smokes, I think the going rate per pack is around $10 these days after all the taxes.)

Case in point: our moron replacement-for-the-corrupt-idiot-Blago governor wants to start charging 6.5% tax on iTunes. As if the new $1.29 price tag wasn't enough. I like my music and I don't want to have to pay any more anything to Illinois than I already do! I am so irritated and obviously, this is such a small thing to rant about but COME ON! Enough is seriously enough! Get me out of here!

Like I mentioned before

I got wicked sick over the weekend. On Sunday morning, we had an early morning flight back to Chicago from San Antonio. The night before, we went to dinner with friends (and ironically one of them got sick during dinner- hope you fared better than I, Kev) and out to a bar to have one last hurrah with a bunch of old friends, which was really fun. I was mega-excited at the time because there was no smoking in the bar we were at, which is a hard commodity to come by in SA. We had to have last minute breakfast tacos at midnight because at some point during the week I kind of said suck it to my WW goals for the rest of the trip.

At some point in the middle of the night, Adam woke up and wasn't feeling all that well and he was pretty yucky when we left. I was also pretty nauseous but figured it was just due to staying up late, eating super late, and getting up so early. I don't do too well on no sleep and I wasn't sleeping much for our entire visit, really. But by the time we landed in Chicago, I was definitely the worst between the two of us. I seriously considered taking a cab all the way from O'Hare to home and if you know how insanely cheap I am about taking cabs, that should tell you right there that I was not feeling well at all. When we got to the condo, I made Lipton Noodle Soup and we both got a second wind and managed to unpack and wait for my mom to land from her delayed flight. Her birthday was Sunday and we'd planned to go to Maggianos but kind of nixed the idea because it was freezing and they had no reservations left. We watched a movie when she came in but I fell asleep during it and woke up feeling something foul. I remember saying at one point that I felt exactly the same way that I did when I had what we suspect was H1N1 in May.

Adam's mom and brother came in to the city for awhile and we ended up ordering in Chinese because I was in no position to go anywhere. I ate some rice and green beans because I really couldn't stomach any of the meats. Took Nyquil at about 8 p.m. and went right to sleep. I woke up at some point in the night and I was feeling absolutely terrible. I woke Adam and we called the nurse hotline which is the best way to get a last minute drs appointment with my HMO. I should also mention that on Christmas Eve my eye was incredibly itchy before we went to sleep but I took out my contacts and didn't give it much more thought until Sunday night when I woke up and it was all crusted over. Pink Eye! But that was nothing compared to my fever and body aches. I felt about 15 times worse than my flu in May. I couldn't even get comfortable and back to sleep. We made my drs appointment for the next morning and I continued to toss and turn for another hour or so before we woke my mom. At some point, I finally decided to bundle myself up like the kids in a Christmas Story and go to the Emergency Room. I think I've adopted a policy that if I am too sick to even sleep it's time to seek immediate help. I also was having some pretty bad nausea issues.

I have to say that our experience at the ER was pretty seamless. We got right in (into a nice little Negative Pressure Quarantine room) where I was diagnosed with Pink Eye and the flu. They hooked me up to an IV and gave me some super strong ibuprofen and I was feeling better after about 30-45 minutes.

*note, at the present time I want to kill our crappy internet provider because I was done with this post but our internet went out and this was all it had saved but it will probably end up being less long winded so that may or may not be a good thing, you decide*

Anyway, they made me feel better at the ER, which lasted for about 5 hours after I got home. Yesterday almost every bad symptom was back, only worse. I was also unable to keep any sort of liquids down. Sometime during the third quarter of the A&M bowl game, we decided to head back to the ER. Another day, another prick in the arm for an IV. At least I have matching arms now and so far, the bruising has been shockingly benign. They gave me fluids and more strong Motrin and decided to do bloodwork instead of chest xrays like the night before. All the stuff came back indicating I had the flu instead of meningitis or something more serious, phew. I was not excited hearing words like "spinal tap" being floated about. After that, they gave me the choice to go home or be admitted as observation. Obviously, I chose to go home because I have major issues getting comfortable and sleeping in hospitals. Who doesn't, right? I also have mega IV issues, both night I was feeling like they were leaking and made multiple people check them because I could have sworn I felt it dripping, on both arms.

I also managed to give myself pink eye in the other eye. I'm telling you, I was a complete (and still am a partial) disaster. Today, I'm at a normal sick person level and can function enough to type all this so I feel a vast improvement. However, I have to throw out all my eye make-up, which is SUPER annoying because I just bought some expensive mascara from Sephora 2 weeks ago. Luckily, I had already earmarked a significant bit of Christmas money towards new eyeshadow at the MAC counter, as I was completely out of my favorite color. Que sera, sera.

I am also missing the Addams Family musical tonight with Adam and Mom and a nice dinner. Plus, this also means no New Year's Eve party for me so it's looking like we'll be watching the VT bowl game and Dick Clark from home, which is probably better so I don't infect the world with my diseases. That's been basically my post-Christmas ER extravaganza of experiences. Hopefully your post-Christmas has been better!

Sick Day(s)

I have pink eye (got it in one eye and managed to pass it to my other eye myself.... lovely) and the flu. And apparently they are stingy with the TamiFlu in Chicago unless you are dying (and my two emergency room visits must not qualify as dying).

So here I sit, pretty miserable, but at least it's a major improvement from yesterday and the day before when my entire body ached so bad that I couldn't get comfortable enough to sleep.

And I think I'll be investing in the flu shot next year!

I'm a homesick Texan...

To be honest, I don't get homesick all that often but I am really feeling the loss of my homeland this month. I got up to pouring rain this morning and turned on the Weather Channel. It rained a total of 23 days in the month of October. And I can tell you, most of that was not just idle showers here and there. When it rains in Chicago, it rains steadily for most of the day and it's just downright dreary.

Winter is on its way and I am so anti-happy about that! We never even had a summer. In mid-July we were wearing long-sleeves at the beach! UG!! The next six months are so hard because every time I talk to someone from home, it will probably be about 70 degrees warmer there and perfect weather. I can remember when I used to love cold fronts, now, HA!

So I'm baking more Chex Mix and drowning my sorrows in some of the best beer in the world, the Linie's late fall seasonal, Fireside Nut Brown. Delicious!

Sad Day... RIP to the Vue.

This is a picture of my old Saturn VUE that my mom now drives in San Antonio. Shockingly enough, this picture was actually taken by me in SA a couple of years ago during a freak ice storm (one would have expected this to be in the frozen hell that I now live in, no?).

Sadly, the deal to buy Saturn from GM fell apart yesterday and they are getting rid of the brand. TRAGIC, I tell you. We have been a Saturn family for a long-ass time. My mom got her first one way back in the day when the brand was only a couple of years old. It was her first ever "non-used" car and when my dad bought it, he told me that it would be mine when I turned 16 (lies, I tell you because my mom loved it so much that she wouldn't give it to me). That car went through hell and back because my mom very near totalled it a couple of times. It was like a cat with nine lives.

When I was in college, my mom got an upgraded and bigger Saturn that ironically was maroon HAHAHA! My college is her college's rival and maroon was our color so I liked to make fun of this fact. She stuck a big fat silver longhorn on the back of it to spite me, I swear. And one on my old VUE, which reminds me that I need to flip that bad boy over or figure out how to "saw the horns off" next time I'm home.

When my brother started driving he got a little red 2 door Saturn coupe stick shift. I was without a car one Christmas break and he'd gotten into a little trouble that involved him not being able to drive so I learned how to drive a stick on that bad boy. I think he called it Red Rover if I remember correctly. Learning how to drive that thing was such a project that involved lots of my dad and brother yelling at me because I sucked royally at it at first.

When the VUE (SUV) came out, my mom and I practically drooled over the thing in the showroom. It was a lovely little car for driving challenged people like us because it's an SUV that sits on a car chassis so it's not a land yacht to struggle to park. After this evil man totalled my jalopy one year (STAY IN YOUR OWN LANE, IDIOT SAN ANTONIO DRIVERS!), I made my first ever car purchase of a used Saturn VUE (the one pictured above). Last year when I moved to Chicago and decided I didn't need a car anymore, my mom took over the loan for me and she gets to drive it now. It makes me a little sad and forlorn when I visit home sometimes because I dearly adored my little dream car.

Needless to say, I'm slightly crushed by today's sad news. What the heck is GM thinking? Saturn is one of the most unique and cool brands of American made cars. They run like little champions too! I'm disappointed and frankly shocked that they aren't going to try to save Saturn because I assume it's a decent seller. Those cute (and powerful) Sky convertibles supposedly have a couple year waiting list. Oh well, I'll have to find a new car brand to be loyal to and I guess it works out seeing as how my fiance despises American made cars.


*on a completely unrelated note, tomorrow is a mega-huge day here in Chi-city. The International Olympic Committee makes their 2016 Olympics decision sometime in the morning. Check out my ethnocentric mini-rant about the other bid cities for reasons why Chicago should totally win. And seriously, if Oprah can't convince them, I don't know what else the city could have done.