2005-12-06 - 10:54 a.m.

Friday, December 2, 2005

I wrote this last Friday and never posted it. I'm trying to figure out the backdate thing.

Boring health fretting ahead.

Well. All day Wednesday, I felt terrible. I was unable to eat for feeling stuffed, and I was SO HUNGRY. When I am nervous about my health, not being able to eat is disastrous, since it makes me feel ten times worse due to low blood sugar (dizzy, weak, shaky) and makes me freak out even worse. So Thursday morning it was time to go to the doctor. I was a nervous wreck, with my blood pressure up, heart pounding, clammy hands, the whole bit. He listened to my story, asked a few questions, listened to my belly, pushed all over my abdomen (which is ANNOYING but did not hurt), and said he believed it was "gastritis". So he gave me a month's supply of samples of a once-a-day drug that reduces acid production in the stomach (think Zantac), and said if that didn't work, to come back in a couple of weeks and we'd do some tests. I took the pill as soon as I got home, and by 2pm I was eating normally. Just like that. I ate a normal late lunch and dinner, and have been eating normally today. I still have a bit of a "full" feeling sometimes, but since I'm eating normally and it's only 36 hours later, I am not panicking, and will be OK for another couple weeks while we see how this goes. Meanwhile I am trying not to be too horrified that I need an acid-reducer. I am OLD! Those people in the Zantac commercials are OLD! And I am OLD TOO! Although the doctor thinks it may be related to the stomach flu I had. Which is good, because I can give up fat, dairy, caffeine, and alcohol (all two glasses a year) if need be, but if I have to give up spicy food I don't know what the hell I'll eat. :(

Nevertheless, I'm really happy to be eating like a normal person (well, normal for me!), and gaining the weight back that I lost when I was sick the weekend before last. Mostly I am happy not to be freaked out all the time. This morning on the way to work Poindexter and I started bickering in the car like we do. He said something deliberately annoying, I shrieked, he patted me on the knee with a cold leather-gloved hand, and I complained,

Evelynne: Stop touching me with your witchy gloved fingers.
Poindexter: HAHAHAHA! [pats my knee some more]
Evelynne: [pushes his gloved hand off knee]
Poindexter: [puts gloved hand back]
Evelynne: ARGH! I hate you.
Poindexter: Boy, you must be better if you hate me.
Evelynne: You know I'm healthy if I'm shrieking, huh?
Poindexter: [smiles happily] You're feisty.

In other news, earlier this week when I was feeling too crappy to go shopping, I looked into grocery delivery and found that Genuardi's delivers to the entire Philadelphia region despite their being no Genuardi stores in the city. And delivery is only $10! I'm baffled -- I have no idea how they can be making money on $10 per delivery. Poindexter and I have been scratching our heads over it for days. Anyway, Genuardi's carries a lot of Safeway Select brands that I grew to love when I lived in Virginia. So I loaded up an online cart with that stuff, plus four boxes of a favorite cereal (Post Great Grains Crunchy Pecan) and favorite microwave dinner (Lean Cuisine Thai-Style Chicken) that the local supermarkets mysteriously stopped carrying, and picked a delivery window. Last night at 6:45 a wonderful man showed up at the door with all our groceries. It was like CHRISTMAS! I was SO EXCITED! We've decided to use delivery for any big grocery stock-ups that would otherwise require a trip in the car, which I usually do about once a month or so, and my shopping trips will now be exclusively to the smaller supermarkets within a mile of the house. Or better yet, the Italian Market. YAY!

Tuesday, December 6, 2005

I am still eating normally (yay!) but still having that weird feeling that there's not enough room in my belly. I'm gonna give it another day or two and then I'm probably gonna have to go back to the doctor, but I'm not fretting too much, so it's OK.

Over the weekend Poindexter moved our desks into the maydia room. It's about three degrees warmer in here than it was in the old office, and I get a ton of sunlight all afternoon, so I'm quite pleased.

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I've been going out walking every day for 45-60 minutes, despite the GODDAMN FRIGID COLD WEATHER. Ugh. If there were some way to magically move the City of Philadelphia about 800 miles to the south, I would be so much happier from December through February. Here is an excerpt of my e-mail to Poindexter. I'm so boring:

Today it was horrible for the first 20 minutes, windy and cold. But somehow after 20 minutes my face (esp my nose) gets warmer or something and it's not so awful. I felt like could've kept walking for quite a while after I got warmed up. While I was out, I saw:

- A goth chick wearing black pants, black shoes, had dyed black hair, very cooooooool, with a BRIGHT ORANGE AND GREEN PLAID 70s-looking coat. I loved it.

- A police officer in a parked police van waving in a very bored manner. I looked around and saw a little boy waving excitedly from the crosswalk.

I got us five cans of Pringles and some salt for the snow at CVS.

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Over in Dan the Serene's journal, Kit said, "For some reason it never occurred to me that a person would have more than one watch."

I remember the day when I realized I could use different watches to accessorize different outfits. !!! It was last fall. I now have seven watches in different colors and I have a wish list in my head for more.

It helps that I am a clock freak -- there is something about (analog) clocks that really appeals to me. But I don't think Poindexter would go for a house full of clocks (he hates the ticking), so I stick with the watches. He will allow me to get a big (24-30" diameter) clock for the living room, though, but I haven't found one yet that I like enough to pay that much money for. I'll keep looking.

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On Sunday we finally watched the Hitchhiker movie. I was very excited to hear the "So Long and Thanks for All the Fish" song. It was awesome!! I love how they use a chorus with the men's and women's voices singing different lines. I had a hard time making out the melody with the opening titles version, but did better with the slower version at the end with just the one guy singing. Still not completely sure I've got it right, so I wouldn't try to sing it. Which is probably a big relief to Poindexter.

Evelynne: That song is stuck in my head.
Poindexter: Of course it is. You WANTED it to get stuck in your head.
Evelynne: Yeah...
Poindexter: If the freaks hadn't mentioned it, you would have just fast forwarded through the song and never known it was there.
Evelynne: Probably... You're right. I wanted to be like the cool kids. I'm such a copycat dork.

Still, it's stuck. And I like it.

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