A Pain In The...

When I went down to the valley for my birthday weekend I did not get a chance to see a couple of my friends. So last Sunday I drove down to see them on my days off, Monday and Tuesday. Though sadly that did not go as planned...

Early Monday afternoon my back spasmed and it felt like my lower back was being squeezed like one of those stress balls. I had to hold onto the door jam to prevent myself from falling when my knees started to buckle. I made my way to the ground when I feared that I would very possibly go down against my will. After laying in the middle of the doorway for a while Mom helped me get onto my hands and knees. I couldn't even push myself up off the ground. I totally felt like a beached whale. That is, I related to the beached part, not so much the whale part. Once I was "up", I crawled to the living room so that I could lay on my back with my feet up on the couch. While I was in a lot of pain, I was luckily still able to find humor in the situation. If I was not able to laugh about the situation and the pain, and even laughing hurt, my three days living on the living room floor would have been miserable. Not that I would ever want to repeat that experience.

Thursday I was still hurting so Mom drove me to Urgent Care--I had a death grip on the door handle the whole way, especially on the bumps. The doctor said that I strained my muscle and now I am taking lots of ibuprofen and muscle relaxants. They definitely make my back feel better but I am ready to be all better without taking five pills a day.

I had to miss four days of work as a result of my strain, three of those days because I was still in the valley and not yet able to travel and the fourth because it was a very physically intensive shift. Today I went to work for a three hour shift which was challenging and I was just working register. Because of this and the fact that we have got a lot of big inventory projects going on I will not be going back to work until I have a doctor's note clearing me for work. I like that I will be able to relax my back more and move around only as much as is comfortable. But at the same time I am not thrilled about having these days off without being able to do anything too physical or strenuous. I want to keep moving but I don't want to put too much stress on my back so I am thinking that the pool would be a good place to walk.

Since it's hard to sit at the computer for very long I won't be posting until I feel better but just wanted to let you know what's up.
Loves.

They're Called Cowseyes and Meatloafballs, Look It Up

I went home to the valley this last weekend for my birthday. I just wanted to have a nice and relaxing vacation after a work heavy June. As much fun as it would have been to be running around doing many fabulous things, I would have ended up needing a second vacation from work. One thing that I really wanted to do was go to an Angel game, I have not been to one for a couple seasons now and love going. They were hosting a three game series against the Yankees before they broke for the All Star game. So Friday night Dad and I were online hunting for some tickets to Saturday's afternoon game. Which was quite the task considering all the misguided Yankee fans were buying tickets. Hopefully they realize the error of their ways following the Yankees being swept by the Angels. Go Angels!

One afternoon Dad and I hung out watching one of the Angels games in the garage while playing darts. After losing the first two games--I have come to the conclusion that I cannot aim when throwing darts, it's my kryptonite--I started out the third game in a big way.

That's right, a bullseye and cowseye! (We were each using both green and yellow darts) Ok, so I don't know what the 25 point ring is called but thought that'd make sense. I was already excited about getting that close to the center of the board but was so ecstatic when I actually got the bullseye! The only bullseye I've gotten before has been achieved in my Young Frankenstein method of hand placing the darts on the board (yes with sound effects). I ended up barely winning that game--Dad caught up quickly but I doubled out first--and immediately pronounced that as the final game. I'm no dummy, I know when to go out with a bang.

For my birthday dinner I wanted to go to my favorite Italian restaurant, La Botte. Everything is great there, very real Italian cooking, and they have the best spaghetti and meatballs in the world. Well, "meatballs" is an inaccurate description, meatloafballs is more accurate. They are huge and amazing and I do not share. Seriously, go there.


Loves.

Happy 223rd Year of Independence!

Hope everyone had a good 4th of July. I wasn't able to get down to the valley for our traditional BBQ but Jas was able to come up. We had a lot of fun over the weekend, just being goofy (as usual) and managing to stay out of any real trouble. I had to work a few short shifts on the 3rd and 4th but we didn't let that hamper our festivities. We were planning on going to dinner at the Moo Creamery (an amazing modern day soda shop style restaurant) since they were planning a very "all American" menu in celebration but found out that they closed at three. Would have been handy for them to have mentioned that fact when promoting the special menu for the day. So we decided to head over to the Marketplace to find something open. Yes, we were those annoying people who expected others to feed us on a national holiday.

We saw that the little 50s style diner had some lights on (good first sign) so we were on the lookout for a sign letting us know if we were again out of luck. I quickly spotted a sign tapped up right above the normal hours sign reading 'We will be open normal hours July 4th'. Excellent! We open the door and one of the employees says to us that they are closed. But the sign...? "Seriously?" Jas asked. And the employee smiles (doesn't he know we're starving, how rude to smile at a starving person!) and says that they've been slow all day so they're now closed. Right after we're turned away another couple of people are turned away too. No wonder you've been dead, you aren't letting people in! So we went on to plan C. Walk to Applebee's, we saw cars in the parking lot and people inside, odds were good.

While we were walking to my car after dinner a nearby firework caught our attention and we ended up jogging to the far end of the lot to try to see what we could. If we stood at just the right spot we could see some of the large fireworks from the show at one of the country clubs between the trees. After standing for about five minutes we decided that one firework every minute was not worth standing in the parking lot for so we decided to go on a hunt for more. I knew where a nice neighborhood was where the houses were huge and I would expect lots of people would have purchased their own fireworks. Fireworks are legal here which is so odd to me since I'm used to them being a big no-no in the valley. I guess they aren't concerned with burning Bakersfield down. We ended up finding a road that was filled with the ground sparklers so we pulled over to watch their little show. Which was actually really impressive considering they are all bought from a stand. Not too long later we heard a huge BOOM and up and to our right a large firework went off. Turns out there was another professional show just to the west of where we were sitting and we had a great vantage point. Heck, I'm going to be so bold as to state that we got a better show sitting in some neighborhood by a park than we'd have gotten at the show done at SYVHS. Lots of the really cool (smilies, super giant, multi-pop) sky fireworks along with a good ground show. And we got to control our own music instead of listening to the same recycled patriotic music that goes with the same old recycled show.


Loves.

Pretty Sure I'm Safe

I few weeks ago I stumbled across a blog written by a woman with a large following. She'd written about how another less popular blogger was plagiarizing her blog entries. One of her friends noticed that year old entries from popular blogger (let's call her Miss Types-A-Lot) were showing up word for word on less popular blogger's page (let's call her Miss CopyCat). The only things that Miss CopyCat were changing were the names of her "husband" and "close friends". Miss CopyCat was then called out on her lame-ness and lack of originality by many people that were obviously fans of Miss Types-A-Lot. Then Miss CopyCat tries to claim that her posts were originals and she'd never even heard of Miss Types-A-Lot's blog. Right...

I just found it crazy that people would be so uninspired or dull that they had to steal other people's entire blog entries as their own. Really, that's what Plinky is for! Seeing as my readership isn't too great, I shouldn't be worried about my words showing up elsewhere. But if they do show up, I just ask of the "borrower" to credit me. I sit on a cheap uncomfortable chair typing these and I think that my butt deserves some recognition for its sacrifice.
Loves.

The Fridge

Hmm, may not take as much as I thought to take over the fridge seeing as the freezer is nearly done.
Loves.

I Did It Again!

I hope this post makes up for the fact that I've been MIA for the last few weeks. But hey, it's summer break and my brain is finally reforming after last quarter and my first year at a four year university. My brain decided it needed a little vacation, but I'm cracking the whip now and it'll be back to work for it.

Now I am sure you are wondering what it is that I did again. And if you're not, then you should really read the titles of my posts. Sometimes they're fun and I like to think that I'm being somewhat creative when I come up with them. Anywho, I received an email today from school informing me that with my spring quarter GPA of 3.5 I made the dean's list!! So now I have two nearly identical letters to post on my fridge! I'll start a collection, side by side in chronological order. I could cover a good chunk of the fridge if I keep it up, but need to extend my learning if I want to completely cover it. And since I want to graduate in a somewhat timely fashion, I'll just save the rest of my fridge for the other silly items that are currently on it.
Loves.