Hating life on the sidelines

Yesterday, Momma Pug went to the doctor to see about her left foot/ankle, which has been bothering her for a couple of weeks now. The visit became a lot more involved, and more serious, than that in a hurry.

While she was visiting with the doc, Momma Pug fainted. This is the second time in as many weeks she has had such an episode, but in this case there was someone right there to do something about it. It appears that her blood pressure had skyrocketed to the point where she was at a serious risk of having a stroke. Thankfully, the immediate application of medication knocked her BP to acceptable levels.

On the other hand, this is a continuation of a number of serious issues regarding her health. She's had several falling fits of late, she feels horrible nearly all the time and a lot of normal tasks have become difficult for her. In order to isolate a possible cause, she'll be having an MRI on her brain tomorrow. It could be that the problem is the pituitary gland, which would probably solve a lot of problems.

If it's not the problem, then we're looking at surgery. Of course, this is a surgery which is very FING NECESSARY, but her employer and insurance company disagree. If she doesn't have it, the alternative is one I cannot fathom. It will be done, whether I have to pay for it or not.

On the other hand, if I do pay for it, I will humiliate her employer and insurance company in the media and in court. I'm not going to put up with this bullshit anymore. And, honestly, I feel like I have to do something -- anything -- to help.

My wife is in the fight of her life and I really can't do much of anything except try to be some kind of moral support. I feel useless and miserable.

The pleasure/pain of the Cheesecake Factory

Ok, now that it's been a few days and the swelling has gone down, I don't mind sharing this little story.

For those of you who haven't been to the Cheesecake Factory, you've missed out. It's good eats, and I'm not even talking about the cheesecake. The food is damn good and the portions are ridiculous.

On the handful of occasions we get to go, since the nearest one to us is in the Galleria and I'd rather cut off my fingers than go there, I make it worth the while. In other words, I get chicken and biscuits.

Yeah, you read that right, chicken and MF'in biscuits. It's not your average diner type fare--the sauce is awesome, the biscuits perfect, chicken most and tender and lots of good veggies. So I got it two Saturdays ago and ate half. The rest I'd save for the the week.

Last Wednesday, I took it in to work. Heated it up--hotter than usual, b/c it had been left in the car for several hours on Saturday by mistake and I wanted to make sure any bad stuff was gone. Put it on a plate, walked back to my office.

As I get to my office, plate collapses. Lunch lost? Hell to the no, Bobby Brown, this is the CHEESECAKE FACTORY!

So I grab it with my bare hands and scoop it back up on the plate.

And promptly burn the shit out of myself. Bad. Like blisters forming on my fingers, excruciating pain bad.

So I dealt with it with gauze, medical salve and aspirin--after I ate.

That's some damned good eats right there. Gonna have to do worse to keep me from my chicken and biscuits.

A week later, the blisters are gone and there's only one semi-open wound left. I don't regret my decision.

I've made it to the big time (sort of)

A long time ago, back when I first met Momma Pug, one of my driving ambitions was to be a writer for The Houston Chronicle. Then I came to hate the media and the very concept of writing for a newspaper and got out of the business.

And now I'm writing for The Chronic anyway.

A few weeks back, The Chronicle had a little competition among their readers to see who would have the best sports-related fan blog for all the major colleges in Texas. I put a little somethin-somethin' together, just to see if I'd make it through the first round.

Yeah,well, I won. I am the "official" fan blogger of the Texas Aggies on the Chronicle's Web site, www.chron.com. And I'm getting somewhat of a following, too--no thanks to any of you guys. But you can change that; go look and see if you can find a posting from Ag01editor (that's me) on the front page of their sports Web page. My blog is called The Aggieland Blogger, in honor of the first blog I ever created.

Go. Read. Mock. It's all good.

Click here to be directed to my new blog!

Well, I'm convinced

Another well-known individual has come out and said the twin towers of the World Trade Center were imploded by the government on 9/11, not destroyed by al Qaida terrorists using hijacked airplanes as weapons.

The individual? Willie Nelson.

That last blunt a little funky there, Willie?

Olbermann Award time

This one turned out to be pretty easy: State Reps. W.T. Mayhall, John Read and Bobby Shows of Mississippi. Two Republicans + one Democrat = three total dumbasses.

The reason they win? They want to pass legislation banning restaurants from serving fat people.

What?

How many problems can you find with this? Here's a few I have: Who defines who's obese? What if the person isn't fat because they're lazy and need a diet, but because they have a medical condition? Or maybe, they just had a kid? And the state is going to oversee the daily activities of a private industry?

It's just patently unconstitutional. It's also completely moronic.

Enjoy your award, boys. I'll send it to you with a box of chocolates.