I'M CAVING IN

I can't believe it.... after 7 years of DYING for a piece of KFC, tomorrow night I'm finally doing it. I'm giving in. Why the long wait?? Uh.. easy. IT'S POISON. Why the caving?? Easy. I'M HAVING COMPANY. Again.

Actually, it's my second round up of entertaining in three days. My kid was in town this past weekend and in honor of his visit, I had about a dozen people here yesterday to join us for a pretty nifty brunch. Oh yeah... I decided the set up and prep takes about three hours. And then, the clean up another three hours. Two and a half hours of entertaining and boom. I've got a full time job on my hands. I better get used to it, though, because tomorrow night, I'm having like 14 OTHER guests for dinner.

ENTER: KFC. Or, as I like to call it... the poisonous, lazy route. I was about half way through the prepping of the brunch yesterday morning, when I decided oh my God. I have to do all this work all over AGAIN? At which point I said... UH... I DON'T THINK SO. Instead, after years of craaaaaving the poisonous chicken, I'M FINALLY DOING IT! I'm letting the Colonel do my work!!! YIPPEE!! Of course, I hope my guests don't shoot me for serving possibly the most nutrition-less entree ever, but... I'm banking on their getting over it. I just couldn't BEAR the thought of whipping up yet another big meal all by myself.

Well, the Colonel is only helping, actually. He'll supply the chicken and coleslaw. I'll supply the mashed potatoes and baked beans and fresh fruit salad and excellent dessert. Oops... and the wine, too. I shudder to think what the caloric intake is going to be, but trust me. At this point, I could give a s^#t. After all, at least I AM serving food. And, as if that's not enough... I'm not even using real china!! DISPOSABLE ALL THE WAY, BABY. Man, I'm giving a whole new meaning to lazy, alright. And, I'm doing it with great pride, I might add.

So basically, with sheer delight, I'm FINALLY going to be able to taste KFC once again. I soooo hope it's still the same greasy, poisonous chicken that I remember with such fondness. I also hope I don't get major sick to my stomach and live in the bathroom all night. Not that it won't STILL be worth it, mind you. If I'm not here to post any longer, you'll uh... know why. The Colonel did me in.

STRESSED OUT

Ya-HOO! I think I'm going to make it, after all. Remember the heart monitor I had to wear for 25 days? The one that I actually only wore for 18 days? Well, today was another heart test... a nuclear stress test. And, THIS test didn't take days, either. It took hours. As in: 3. And, it begins mighty early, if you ask me. As in: be there by 8:30 a.m. Oh yeah... you have to stop eating and/or drinking at midnight the night before. Now THERE'S a possible problem, if ever there was one. Good bye midnight snack. Good bye midnight drink. Additionally, good bye morning snack and morning drink. Have any idea how much I could drink AND eat between 12 and 8? Especially during some of those middle of the night bathroom runs. Anyway, the test is kinda simple. Well, most of it is, anyway. After they inject you with some sort of dye, you then have to have images of your heart before and after stress. And just how might you beCOME stressed?? Uh... by FAST WALKING. Fast walking AT AN INCLINE, no less. And... its gets faster and incline-ier as the test proceeds. Apparently, they like to see your heart REALLY racing. Trust me... mine did. At one point, in fact, I had to sort of tell them... uh, no. That's WAY too fast. Let alone steep. But... the good news is I made it up to my targeted heart rate, whatever that was, and I pulled through with flying colors. I must say... the people in the cardiologist's office were as nice as they could be, too. What WASN'T so nice is the bathroom they want you to use, given you had to also drink 3 cups of water. More water than I've had in 3 months, I might add. Anyway, they point you to the rest room.... except, get this... the rest room has one of those freaky disability toilet tops that rests upon the REAL toilet. EEEKS. So not my style. I ALmost began to sit upon it, but whew. My better judgement kicked in 1-2-3 and I said NO WAY. I'm finding ANOTHER toilet for my sweet little tush, thank you very much. I told the staff it was way too creepy for me, hence, find me another, please. They did, so mission accomplished, and boom. I was happy as a little lark. Actually I was even happier when they brought me juice and peanut butter crackers for a snack. Man, that tasted good. Of course it DOES make one wonder. If the heart is fine, then what's the deal with the tainted peanut butter that was probably recalled? I'm eating poison, but doing so with an excellent heart? When the doctor calls to give me the good news of my results... I may have to tell her... uh... you may want to rethink your snack program there. Afterall, if we're all making such fine progress with her fine medical attention, why do us in with her peanut butter crackers? Geez... I almost smell possible medical malpractice.

DISCOVERY CHANNEL

I made a great discovery today. And it's SO up my alley. Actually, I didn't make the discovery... I stumbled upon it... basically because I often love to check out channels 350 and 351 to see what's doing in the U.S. Senate and/or House of Representatives. Which I did today. Except... oops. Today was President's Day, so uh... no one was in session. That's the bad news. The good news is, something even BETTER was on. So much better, in fact, that I directed my DVR to record the entire series.

First of all however, I have to say that just yesterday, I returned from Ft. Lauderdale where I had the most fabulous time ever. It was Elliot's first birthday and/or Valentine's Day without Linda, thus the family and I wanted it to be a really happy day. Which it was... but was certainly no better than the really happy days I had while I was there. My list could go on and on about my wonderful visit, but the item that matters most for now, is that Elliot took me to see FROST/NIXON. Which naturally, delighted me to no end. I loved this movie. Which is funny, because I absolutely hated Nixon.

In the meantime, given I had ex Presidents on my mind, what should I find on CSPAN-2 during today's recess from Congress, but this show called BOOK TV. I am so telling you... I AM IN HEAVEN. Apparently all this afternoon and evening, they are showing book discussions by a whole bunch of authors who wrote books about a whole bunch of Presidents. Is this not for me, or WHAT? I missed the beginning of Franklin and Lucy, damnit, which was too bad since it dealt with all the affairs Franklin had in his lifetime. DEFinitely up my alley. Besides, I already own this book, and loved every minute of reading it. Anyway, after watching the second half, I saw that the NEXT book to be discussed was going to be about LBJ, JFK, RMN and the 1960 election. This is like way too good to be true. I can't WAIT to view ALL the shows. I HIGHly recommend this deal.

And... this discovery of mine couldn't have come at a more opportune time for I am THIS close to kissing off HBO and all the other premium movie channels. Have you any idea how OLD the movies are nowadays? And, how OFTEN they repeat them? Am ready to give those channels the boot for good!

Of course, then I'd be up the creek a bit. As in: EEKS. WHAT?? NO MORE BIG LOVE? NO MORE BILL MAHER? Hmmm... I can see already I'll be heavy into grabbing the DVD series for these guys. Doesn't matter though. I'll be spending WAY more time loving BOOK TV. Yippee.

NUMBERS GAME

I have no clue what made these numbers jump into my mind the other day, but all of a sudden, all my junior high school home room numbers bounced right smack into my head. HUH?? HAVE I NOTHING BETTER TO THINK ABOUT?? Apparently not.

What absolutely struck me about all this, is that I am almost pretty sure that they are all CORRECT! As in... for 7th grade, it was 7-12. For 8th grade it was 8-13. And for 9th grade it was 9-15. Man... talk about useless information. Who else in their right mind even thinks of these things?? What I wouldn't give to remember my high school home rooms too, by the way. Bear in mind, junior high school was like 48 years ago!! EEKS.

So, anyway... in keeping with this crazy ass numbers game, I decided to see if I could remember my home phone numbers as well! Thus, let's say you wanted to invite me to your 12th birthday party. Or, to your Sweet Sixteen, for that matter. And, let's say you were too lazy to send me a real invitation in the mail. BOOM. You could have reached me at 667-1668. WHY THANK YOU. I'LL BE HAPPY TO COME! On the other hand, if I was at college and wanted to call home, I'd have to dial 666-6788. HI YOU GUYS. PLEASE SEND MONEY. Actually, Claudia had to help me remember the first number correctly, but I think I pretty much got the second number down pat.

Further, if you wanted to call me to help carpool your kid, THEN you'd have to dial 661-8406. THAT number I definitely remembered in an instant. Besides, that's the number I had to teach my son when he was but 3 years old.

I just can't tell you how amazing all this is, to me. My brain is fried about what time I'm supposed to be at your house tomorrow...but... 40 years ago?? Bingo. THAT I remember. Of course if you wanted to call me TODAY to see what's doing... uh... sorry. If you don't already have the number, then you can be sure I'm not giving it you HERE. Oh yeah... you'll probably want my cell phone number, also. Sorry Charlie.. that too, I'm not handing out.

What I CAN tell you, is when I had to choose a new phone number for my move to NC 7 years ago, I remember telling the lady... we have to make it an easy one. I need my elderly mother to be able to remember it EASILY. We came up with a really great one, actually. Man, how I wished she were still around so she could call me. Anyway, the only thing that has ticked me off in the past 30 years is that all my numbers always had a zero in it. Thus I could never have one that was like: 123-LINDA. Now THAT would have been a number game straight from heaven.

Lastly... boy am I thrilled that I no longer have to do local 10 digit dialing any longer. THAT was crazy. And why I so love my current small town phone system. OKAY. BYE FOR NOW. I'LL CALL YOU BACK LATER.

HEART FAILURE

In a few minutes I'm headed out to the cardiologist to see if I might die anytime in the near future. As it happens, I don't think so. At least I hope not, anyway. About a month ago, I called the doctor's office to tell them I was having like 24/7 heart palpitations. NO WORRIES... COME ON IN, AND WE'LL HOOK YOU UP WITH A HEART MONITOR. For uh... 25 days, by the way. Don't ask. Oh yeah... I decided to do it for only 19 days, in case you're interested. I figured if they couldn't get the info by then, then I better go find a new doctor and start from square one. In the meantime, today I guess I'll find out the results from the monitoring deal. It's really neat the way they have you do this. You wear the monitor, all day, all night. Then, whenever you feel something amiss with your heartbeat, you call this 800 number and then send them the heart recording via phone. Crazy ass little static sounds come from your phone into theirs and boom. They hear your heart! I guess that if they think you'll kick off any moment, they'll call your doctor and give him/her the good news. Anyway, during one of these uploading sessions, I asked the lady... OH, BY THE WAY. AM I GOING TO DIE? I sorta wanted to know what sort of readings they were getting. Naturally, they're not allowed to give ME the info, but somehow I did find out that I apparently have an EARLY HEARTBEAT. EEEKS. Since I myself am not into finding out disturbing news about my imminent death, I had my son log onto the net so HE could find out. Looks as if it's not all that serious of a problem. Apparently LOTS of people have this deal and they live happily and normally for ever. YIPPPEE. Just the sort of news I like getting. Of course, that's my SON's diagnosis. When I get to my appointment, it may be a whole different story altogether. While ordinarily I like to follow the suggestions from the LINDA SCHOOL OF MEDICINE, I decided cardiology is not my specialty. Saving yourself from a bleeding foot while giving yourself a pedicure is much more my style. Determining the need for quadruple by-pass is not. So... for all I know, this could be the last entry for a long time yet to come. GOD FORBID. Trust me... if the doctor tells me I need heart surgery or something... I won't. Mainly because, I'll simply have a massive heart attack right smack there on the spot. Probably doing me in. Thus, saving me zillions of dollars for the supposed surgery. Which is good... since there is NO WAY I'll be able to handle such news. For SURE I'll begin palpitating like no tomorrow. Uh... if there is one.

THE HARDY BOY

See this man? He's a Hardy Boy and is a pretty damn famous one, at that. And trust me, I'm not talking about one of THOSE Hardy Boys, either. This guy works by himself. As in: poet and author. As in: Thomas Hardy, highly acclaimed in the world of fine literature.

I've gotta give this guy credit, for you can't beLIEVE what a fabulous story he's written. Like back in the 1890's actually. Well, if you want to REALLY get technical he's wrote LOTS of famous stories and poems way back then, and people all over the world apparently study this man as if he invented literature single handedly, all by himself.

Anyway, he wrote a novel entitled Tess of the d’Urbervilles and if you haven't read it, then DEFintely check out PBS Masterpiece Theater and at least WATCH it. You will thank me forever!! It's fabulous.

As it happens, I have my DVR set to record ALL Masterpiece Theaters and finally, today was the perfect time to be absolutely lazy and spend a couple of hours merely lying in bed, prepped to happily watch Tess. Now HERE is an outstanding love story if ever there was one! I was SO in my glory. In fact, the shows were two hours each, so I have only seen the first part. I can hardly WAIT to the see the second. I have no clue where this story is going to lead nor how it's going to end. But, talk about an attention getter!

Another famous novel that Hardy has written is called The Mayor of Casterbridge and I remember being in either the 8th or 9th grade, having been assigned the book on our reading list. Oh, I read it alright, but there is NO way it captured my attention the way Tess did. In fact, I can't even tell you one solid piece of info about it. However, I guess now, I'll have to back track and re-read the Mayor deal, for it's anything like Tess, then count me in.

Anyway, I am so enamoured with this Tess story, it's amazing. The acting is right up my alley, set in England, which also right up my alley. And, it takes place during the Victorian times, which is SURELY up my alley. Basically, I have to highly recommend this book or if you're lazy like me, then catch the Masterpiece adaptation. Besides, I'm always intrigued by women who struggle with drudgery for years and years only to pull themselves up from the ashes to become something like the mistress of a phenomenal manor or the like. SO not like me.

I expect to autoMATcially be the mistress of the manor by simply having it handed to me. On a silver platter, no less. Like, I'm actually entitled to it or something. For believe me... if ever I had to work like a dog in the most horrrible of circumstances, living like a slave pauper, to help feed me and/or my family... uh... sorry. We are DEFINITELY dead meat. Besides, I am not real heavy into ruining my fresh manicures.