Maybe this is not the kind of therapy I really need

Yup, I'm back in physical therapy for my bum shoulder. When I finished eight weeks of PT last April, the shoulder felt really good, and I assumed it would stay that way. Clearly, it didn't, so I headed back in for some more work. Except that it isn't--working, that is. So, my wonderful therapist is having me try some new techniques, which are making things a bit more...interesting than usual around here.


the TENS Unit
This odd little machine is supposed to relieve pain by doing, um, something to the receptors in my nerves, I think. I don't really know, and I also don't know if it works or not, since I just started using it yesterday. I do know, however, that the Wikipedia page contains a sarety tip that absolutely fascinates me: it says that one should not place the electrodes for the TENS unit transcerebrally, i.e., one on each temple. But it doesn't say why! WHY?!? What does it do??? I would love to ask my therapist, but I really like her and I respect her a lot, so I don't want her to think I'm an idiot. I'm not saying that I'm going to actually try placing the electrodes on my temples; but, you can't tell me something like that, and then think I'm not going to be way curious about what could happen.

the floor exercise
I've been doing home PT exercises for nine months now, but so far, they have all involved a ball or a stretchy band or pushing against a wall. My most recent exercise requires that I lie on the floor for 15 minutes at a time, with a rolled-up towel under my back, between the shoulder blades. This sounds easy enough, and it would be, except for one thing: in my house, human on the floor = playtime for dogs. The mutts think that having me lie down on the floor is their cue to sit on my head, stick chew bones in my ear, lick and paw at my face, and generally climb all over me like I'm a big ol' doggie jungle gym. Tonight, Sebastian must have decided that he needed to protect me from...something, because he spent the entire 15 minutes standing over my head. I took a photo:

In case you've ever wondered what the world looks like from the underside of a Cocker Spaniel's chin, there you go. I think the photo is kind of ominous-looking, but the only real danger was that Sebastian might drool on my forehead.

In two weeks, I should know if the new treatment plan is working, or if I'm headed back to the orthopedist for "the next step." Talk about ominous! I'm pretty sure I don't want to know what the next step is, unless it involves hot towels (there's another patient at the therapy office who is always lying down, covered in hot towels, when I go in for my session), or Lortab, my painkiller of choice. In the meantime, I guess I'll get used to having a dog sit on my head for a few minutes every night.

The unbearable cuteness of noms

It's Thursday night, and I've been writing a blog post in my head all week, looking forward to writing something funny. But, by the time I got home from work, I was tired and kind of stressed and bummed out, and I didn't think I had any funny in the tank. Still need to blog, though. So, to brighten my spirits a bit, I turned to something that can always make me laugh--my dogs.

We don't feed our pups much people food, with a few exceptions. One of those is spaghetti; I can't explain it, but these dogs go nuts for plain, cooked pasta. A few weeks ago, I used my fancy cell phone (that I'm still trying to learn to operate after fve months) to take a video of the pups eating spaghetti, because it's sooooooo cute. And then it hit me: if a video of Patches, Sebastian, and Abby nom-ing spaghetti can make me laugh, you might like it, too. Hey, a blog post!

Honestly, I can't believe I even figured out how to upload the video to YouTube. (Note: It's pretty bad quality, and I'm a pretty bad videographer.) I promise to have a funny post next week; but, in the meantime, I hope you enjoy:

Raindrops on roses, whiskers on kittens, yada yada yada

Yeah, I'm gonna do one of those "favorite things" posts. I will admit to blatantly stealing this idea from several bloggers, but the first I read was Sarah's post at Rhinestones and Telephones. Honestly, I am completely tapped out of writing ideas. But, I'm also trying to blog more regularly, so here's my little list of some of the things I'm really loving lately.

Naturalizer riding boots

Anyone who knows me is well aware that I love all shoes, but I really love these boots. They're soft and comfy; they look great with skirts, pants, jeans, and leggings; and I get a ton of compliments when I wear them. There aren't many things I like about cold weather, but wearing these boots alllmost makes it worth freezing my hinder off.


Crunchcakes
Mr. Nerd and I made a trip to the Louisville Zoo last weekend. On our way out of L-ville, we stopped by Lynn's Paradise Cafe, which is this incredibly cool, funky little local joint with kitschy decor and the most amazing food. It's almost impossible to decide what to order, but I chose the Crunchcakes, and I was not disappointed. Two plate-sized multigrain pancakes, stuffed with homemade granola and fresh blueberries. I had never dreamed of pancakes and granola together; but, it's been four days, and I'm still thinking about how scrumptious it was. Nom nom nom.


Louis van Amstel
I can't deny it--I am an enormous Dancing with the Stars junkie. I live and die by each week's episode, and eat up my text message allotment voting for my favorite stars. This season, though, I have developed a new obsession...and his name is Louis van Amstel. He's so adorable, I can't decide if I want to dance with him, marry him, or just squeeze him. Squee! Look how cute!

Do you have any new obsessions? What do you love right now? Do you also fantasize about dancing the tango with Louis? Books, music, food, TV,  anything...tell me about it in the comments!

This is your eviction notice...

To all of the millipedes who have taken up residence in my kitchen, I have just one thing to say: GET OUT. There are five creatures who are authorized to live in this house, and you do not count among that number.

I know that it's getting cold at night now, it has rained so much lately that we need a freakin' ark, and it's much nicer in here than it is outside...but I don't care. That probably sounds hardhearted; but, you freak me out, and I'm not likely to get over that anytime soon. I'm tired of turning on the kitchen light each morning and finding five or six of you creeping around on your many horrible little legs. It's equally foul to have to scoop up and dispose of your shriveled remains (with a paper towel, of course), when you are inconsiderate enough to expire on my linoleum. The worst, though, was when I entered the kitchen the other morning without my glasses. I saw what I thought was a brown leaf on the floor, and brushed it to the side with my foot--only to have blood squirt out of it! I nearly fainted dead away. That was the last straw.

So, millipedes, I'm going to have to ask you to remove yourselves from my domicile immediately. I will permit you to remain on the patio, provided you make no attempt to cross the threshold. If you force me to make a second request, it will be accompanied by insecticide spray.

(image courtest of ohiolandlord.com)

The flu didn't get me, but I thought daytime TV might

I spent a few days on the sofa last week, recovering from what may or may not have been the H1N1 virus. It seemed like way too much effort to drag myself out to the doctor, so I just dosed up with a liver-busting amount of ibuprofen for the fever, and called in sick to spare my coworkers, just in case I did have Hamthrax. It took four days to chase the fever away, and I have to admit it--I felt like I might die a couple of times. Oh, not from the (maybe) flu, although that certainly wasn't pleasant. The real danger was the possibility of dying from boredom, given the suckitude of daytime TV.

 Mr. Nerd and I made an uncharacteristically frugal decision last year, and cancelled the "extended" cable TV package. Our plan was to rely heavily on PBS and the Discovery Channel, which were included in the "basic" package. Most of the time, I don't miss the channels that we lost too much. But, spending three solid days on the sofa, too unwell to commit to watching a movie, nearly made me weep for the Food Network or TLC.

Even in my fever-addled state, I knew that the network stations would be a wash during the day--it's all soap operas; various hard-edged judges delivering justice to a series of lunkheads;  and Oprah, Dr. Phil, and Dr. Oz (it would take a lot more than a fever to make me watch Oprah or anything Oprah-related). So, I turned to my old standby, Discovery, expecting to be able to sink back into my semi-coma and enjoy some reruns of Dirty Jobs, Mythbusters, and Time Warp. And, you may ask, what did I find there? Fishing, in many forms. A couple of shows about pimping out cars, some ghost-hunter-type nonsense, and a whole lot of other junk that I didn't care one iota about. By the second afternoon, I had given up. I didn't feel like surfing (which should give you some idea of just how rotten I felt), but I decided to check Netflix, to see what was available via their "watch instantly" feature. Hallelujah! There, I found many seasons' worth of all of my favorite BBC comedies...more than enough to get me through the next couple of days with my sanity intact. (What sanity I had to begin with, that is.) That alone was worth my $14.99 a month. All hail Netflix! And ibuprofen, and Luden's throat drops! Whatever I had, I couldn't have gotten through it without you guys.

(Image courtesy www.santacruzhealth.com)

So what is Eeyore, a werewolf?

Ah, it's that time of year again. Autumn is my favorite season. The leaves are changing color, the weather is getting cooler, the scent of fireplace smoke is in the air...and the Halloween people are decorating with reckless abandon. I don't have anything against Halloween, but I'm not really into it, either. Dressing up is a lot of trouble, and we don't usually hand out candy because it makes the dogs go nutball for a solid two hours. I have a fall-color wreath for the front door, but that's pretty much the extent of my decorating. Some of the people in my neighborhood, though, are REALLY into it.

I was passing by one of those homes yesterday when I saw it. This is far from the most macabre Halloween decoration that I've ever seen, but it was still kind of disturbing:

What this inflatable says to me is that either: a) Winnie the Pooh has a dark side that none of us knew about; or b) Pooh (like pretty much everyone else in the free world) has been sucked into the Twilight phenomenon.

Now, I can't claim to be an expert on ol' Winnie by any means, but I read the books and watched the TV shows when I was a kid. I feel pretty comfortable in my assessment of Pooh as a gentle, slightly goofy kind of guy who likes to hang out with his buds and nosh on honey. So, whether he has truly embraced the bloodsucking lifestyle, or he's just another one of those emo vampire posers, neither of those personas really fit with Pooh's traditional reputation. Pooh's pretty lazy, so I just can't see him putting forth all that effort to chase down victims and do the whole neck-biting thing. His general outlook on life is sunny, and he doesn't really have the sort of depressive, poetry-writing nature that I associate with emo kids. The more I think about it, though, Eeyore kind of fits that image. So many questions! Of course, there's a better-than-average chance than I'm putting WAY too much thought into my neighbor's lawn decoration.

So, what kind of decorations have you seen in your neighborhood? Do you decorate your lawn? Do you find vampire Pooh disturbing, or cute? (By the way, "vampire poo" was one of the auto-complete searches when I was checking Google for that photo. Part of me really wanted to look, but I resisted.)

"Real life" can be really inconvenient sometimes

I can't believe it has been almost two weeks since I posted! No real crises or tragedies or anything; I'm just SO busy right now that I barely have time to string two thoughts together, let alone compose them into a blog post. For those of you who know what a Facebook crack-monkey I am, this should prove how little free time I've had lately: I haven't spent more than three minutes at a time on Facebook in over a week. Seriously. Another writing project, a major housecleaning adventure, sick dogs, and a whole load of church activities have combined into the perfect storm of butt-smoking busy-ness, and I'm ready to get off the merry-go-round now, please. Since I am still short on time to write, here are a few random thoughts I've had lately:

• Why do I keep doing embarrassing things in the copy room at work? I can stand primly by the copier for 20 minutes, and not a soul will come in...but, let me try to copy a move from Dancing with the Stars, or burst into a rousing rendition of "Son of a Preacher Man," and suddenly, someone will be standing right behind me. Then I get to spend the rest of the afternoon doing that whole did-they-see-or-did-they-not-see thing. Why do I never learn?
  

• I am a terrible dog mom. Abby Dog had her yearly checkup and vaccinations last week, and the vet found that one of her ears is horribly infected. (I will spare you the details, but the words "ulcerated lesions" were involved.) The treatment? Antibiotics--and a rolled-up gauze square, soaked in medication and inserted into her ear canal, while I hold her ear closed, once a day for two weeks. Surprisingly enough, dogs don't really like it when you shove things into their ears. Poor Abby deserves some credit, though. After four days of doing the gauze-roll thing, she has stopped struggling when I hold her. Now she just sighs a lot and gives me dirty looks. It's a good thing dogs don't hold grudges, or she might try to smother me while I sleep.

• It seems that the FDA has agreed with my opinion that Latisse, that eyelash-lengthening treatment, is pretty scary. One of the comments on my post mentioned that Latisse can cause hair to grow anywhere that it is dropped on your body, which was even more alarming to me than the side effects I wrote about. Of course, when Mr. Nerd and I saw that story on the news, he immediately asked if he could buy some to apply to his bald spot.

Okay, real life--I give! I know I'm out of writing time for tonight. I will try not to wait so long between posts next time!