Rx - a health update

I had my annual check up yesterday. Weight is down- YAY! I am exactly 5'5". I took deep breaths, got felt up, the lubed up speculum, prodded and poked...and then I got to go to work after.

Anyhow, things checked out OK except for one thing; my blood pressure was around the edges of pre-/hypertension >:( Mom and dad have it I know, but dammit, I'm the healthiest person in this household and possibly in my family! So I have to keep track of it, go back in a couple months and she changed me to a different contraceptive that is a Progestin only pill. Last year when I went in I was on a tri-cyclical combo pill (each weeks pills had a different dose and then the placebo/"reminder"). Like that pill as I did, the problem was that there was no generic for them, so I asked to be switched to something cheaper. She switched me to a combo pill that has a constant dose throughout the three weeks. I'm really hoping it is the new pill and the recent stress I've been under that's causing this and not my getting genetically screwed. So we will see.

I also got my tetanus booster and got blood taken for diabetes testing (since my sister has it and was diagnosed around the age I am currently, I like to keep a watch for it). I'm one of the few people I know that is OK with needles. They rarely hurt, they don't freak me out and I even think it's kinda fun watching my blood spurt out into the little tube. However, day after, my arm does hurt from the shot...assballs.

I Wonder... (I)

While driving the 2 1/2 hours to and from Winona (twice) last week, I noticed my fair share of roadkill. Yes, I notice it. It's there on the side of the road, an odd mass of fur, bones and even innards sometimes and I'm always curious as to what it is. In my drivings I saw raccoon, squirrel, bird, what I think was a possum, deer and skunk. One skunk carcass in particular had so many flies buzzing around it that I actually swerved the car a bit to avoid it even though it was on the side.

The skunk carcasses got me wondering: Do birds, particularly carrion birds, have a sense of smell? I mean you would think that having to find sustenance like seeds, berries, or even bodies, they would require the schnoz sense. Also, do skunk smell worse than the standard rotting corpse on the road side? I mean, sure as a human driver I can certainly tell when a skunk or skunk body is around and has recently expelled it's scent. But do the birds notice/ mind?

Yep, driving through bumblefuknowhere Minnesota leaves lots of time to think and wonder.

On a plus side, in the midst of the many farms we passed, each with either cows or horses, totally spotted a llama farm! I squeed like a little girl :)

Victory!

JoAnna told me that she couldn't make a comment on here. I fiddled with the settings and bit and changed the layout and I believe I have solved the problem! Given my lacking in computer skills, this is a gold star moment for Kris :)

Let the commenting commence!

Really?

I don't understand vanity plates. I mean, I understand what they are, the name pretty much sums it up. What I don't get are the things people put on them. I mean, the concept of vanity would be that you want to get noticed and, one would think, preferably for something cool, nice, sparkly, whatever...something positive. But I would have to say that the majority of the vanity plates I have seen in my life time usually fall under 2 categories;

A) unintelligible= some odd combination of letters and numbers - the occasional O with the diagonal strike through it - that even after driving behind and staring at it for several minutes only results in you looking confusedly at your passenger and asking, "Do you think it's in Hungarian?"
B) lame/cliche proclamation = "hot stuff", "cougar", "sexxxy"...you know the kind of crap that when you look at it makes you think, 'Well somebody's trying to compensate for something'.

I just don't get it! If the plate falls under column A, it's probably some inside joke that few people get which means that the rest of the world just thinks the driver is a moron with major spelling problems. And if it falls under column B, the person has some ego issues and is generally unimaginative. Also with a vanity plate on there, if you do something stupid one the road or with your car in general, you just made it THAT much more recognizable.

But now, to the picture. I took that this past Sunday afternoon. I had pulled over in the Eagan Regal cinema parking lot to contemplate with my friend George if we wanted to see a movie - we'd just come from a wedding in Apple Valley - when I looked up and saw that. No one was in the vehicle, so I took the liberty of taking the photo. I like taking photos of weird stuff as I'm sure most of you readers know very well.

Just so we are all on the same page, to me, that translates as, "extra large for god 7". Now given that within the same parking lot of the cinema there is a Taco Bell, my first thought was 'I think God would want you to put down the Gordita sir...no need to go that large unless you think God wants you to have a coronary or something.' But then I thought about it a second; I can read it so it doesn't go under category A (the unintelligible) it goes under B (the lame proclamation). I am not saying that I think proclamations of one's religious faith are lame, that is a person's right and their own thing and I can respect that. I will say that, being a more spiritual than religious person personally, I usually find such proclamations -especially those made via t-shirt, bumper sticker and other such things- to be a bit unnecessary and excessive since I don't think any one but the proclaimers really cares all that much. As it turns out I found this vanity plate to be extremely excessive. Why? Because I looked up the cost of getting personalized plates in MN;
Fees
Initial $100
Duplicate Replacement $14.00 double plate/ $10.00 single plate
A $8.50 filing fee is due with each application

So this guy (and yes it was a guy, about middle-aged, Caucasian, balding but with a mustache, got into the driver seat and what I presume was his teenage son got in to the passenger) spent at least $108.50 just so he can let everyone know that he digs god? The hell?! I mean, I'll go out on a limb here and assume he was some variety of Christian; polo-shirt wearing Caucasian guy with his athletic/preppy looking son, driving a newer SUV in the upper middle-class suburbs of Mpls/St. Paul with a plate about God...the evidence seems to point that way. So this guy, to prove and proclaim his faith, smacks down a nice chunk of cold hard cash not to a charity, not to his church, not to aid starving children in Africa, India or even here in the US, but instead to the DMV so he can have personalized plates on his shiny, gas-guzzling SUV. Yep, that is lame folks.

In the end, we decided not to catch a flick and just go home and rest from our weekend adventure in weddings. And I'm pretty sure there will be a blog about those once I'm done with the one this weekend. :)


And now that I have brought this topic up in a public forum, I am seeing these things EVERYWHERE! Here a just a few...

Hmmm...

So...yeah, first blog on here. Honestly, my mind is so full of crap about all the goings on around me at the moment, that I'm going to spare the lot of you that business and simply share a favorite quote of mine, from a pretty cool actor, that pretty much sums things up...

"Every time I make a plan, God laughs at me" - Jason Isaacs


WOOT! First blog down, who knows how many more to go! :)