i am a complete sucker for feel-good stories. this is one of the many reasons i’m currently hopelessly in love with miguel tejada and the oakland a’s.
so yesterday i used my new health insurance plan for the first time to get a prescription skin cream for my bumpy arms. it’s a common skin condition called keratosis pilaris; i’ve had it since i was a baby but never done anything about it. i have a bad habit of making it worse, however, so i decided to finally go and get the prescription. and i only had to pay $10! wow! consequently, i am now all enamored with my health insurance. i have a feeling that this is not a good thing to be enamored with.
anyway. that was boring, wasn’t it. either that, or more information than you cared to know about my bumpy arms.
let’s see. i’m having lunch today with…phil! phil is back and starts work on monday. yippy. and ron is in nebraska this weekend with buzz, because she also starts work on monday. i won’t be the newest person in the division anymore…
i’ve been looking for darkroom equipment, and found a guy selling a complete color setup for $600. i’m trying to decide whether that is a good deal (if the stuff is in decent condition, i think it is a good deal), and whether i should go ahead and buy it. i’d rather not spend $600 right this moment, but i’d have to pay more later… the other thing to consider is that i could get a black and white setup for $400. that’s more affordable for me at the moment, but to get color equipment for only $200 more… oy vey, what a dilemma.
and finally, reliant energy is a company of bastards and idiots and i hate them with the fire of a thousand suns.
that is all.
(11:30 a.m.)
becca went on a rant today about how i said she was not an outdoors-y person. now i must defend my sacred honor. ;p this is my take:
becca certainly loves the idea of the outdoors, and i’m pretty sure she actually likes being there as well…but only at certain times. it’s not that she’s not an outdoors kind of girl; she can live as primatively and in as gross conditions, etc, as anyone. it’s just more like this (to take a catch phrase and alter it slightly): her eyes are bigger than her stamina.
for example: we get the idea to go climb half dome/ride bikes around orkney. becca is excited, and flies all the way to california/the united kingdom to do it. we get the necessary supplies, we make arrangements to get to the place and back, we plan our departure time and pack food and water, we’re ready to go. becca’s pumped.
the day arrives, and we wake up at some ungodly hour of the morning. becca complains about having to get up early and has to be coaxed out of bed.
later, she’s awake. we start the hike/bike ride, and it’s fairly challenging because the route is uphill/windy. becca’s pace slows to a crawl. for the next 14/5 hours, all i hear are complaints about how i need to stop asking her to catch up, how her feet/ass hurt, how nice it would be to be that deer/cow over there grazing/lying peacefully in the woods/grass, how she can’t walk/bike much farther, how she just wants to die, etc. by all outward appearances, she is having an absolutely miserable time. i begin to doubt that we will survive the trip without one of us going crazy.
finally we finish the hike/ride. becca either continues to complain (if she has any energy left) or falls silent. later that night or the next morning, she suddenly comes back to life and exclaims something along the lines of “that was awesome, i’m really glad we did that!” at which point i groan in exasperation and think about hitting her with something heavy.
so yes. eyes bigger than stamina pretty much explains my diagnosis of becca’s outdoorsiness.
(p.s. i feel the need to add this disclaimer for those of you who might think that becca and i are engaged in some sort of battle of wills. forget it, cause we’re not. we’re just not the most compatible physical activity partners, and we like to tease about it.)