Epica - Cry For The Moon

Awesome

Time sure flies!

It seems like the week goes by so fast and like the movie Groundhog Day, it's the weekend, then the weekend, then the weekend....time is going by so fast!

Only four more weeks till Jeff and Whitney's wedding! I just can't believe how fast that came up. Seems like we were just saying it was a year away, then six months away, and now it's only one month away! All plans seem to be going well, except for a couple of minor aggravating changes that had to be made. Now is just getting people to RSVP so they know how many are coming to the reception and what they want to eat. Why do people procrastinate? We heard from the people we expected to hear back from, but there are still so many that haven't even said if they are coming or not.

I have my dress, I need to find comfortable shoes now. The gout finally seems to be easing up. I am staying with a vegetarian diet now, probably forever because I don't ever want another attack like that again...EVER. I am still limping some, and still annoying but feels great compared to what it was for awhile.

Now off to do something else and get my butt off this computer. Hubby is home. My weekends are my crazy time as it is quite hectic since he is sort of "hyper" and then has tv on CONSTANTLY when he is home. And if my foot wasn't bad he would want me to go here, there and everywhere with him. He would like me to go to LOWES and Menards with him. I find those places unbearably BORING. It's as boring for me as it is clothes shopping for him. I hate home improvement places , except for the garden centers...I like to buy flowers. That will be pretty soon! Yay!

Exasperated!

This is day 19 of gout attack. I have been keeping to a very strict minimum food diet, only a few kinds of foods that I know don't bother me and are very low purine or none. I have been drinking gallons and gallons of water and cherry juice, taking cherry pills, and stopped taking the vitamins or anything high in niacin that might perpetuate the gout attack. Nothing works except super high doses of Prednisone, but that was giving me terrible heart irregularities and had to stop.

Despite my ulcers and asthma, and not supposed to be taking Ibuprofen, I decided to try it anyway yesterday, alternating Ibuprofen, then Acetaminophen. Now, I have a terrible burning stomach on top of foot pain. It seemed to lessen the inflammation (or maybe it was just wishful thinking) in the toe and foot, but can't irritate the ulcers or I will have double trouble. SO, now I wait, and wait for my damn doctor appointment on May 6th. I have decided to go to a new rheumatologist since my original RA doctor just up and left without a word, and the doctor who took over her patients is just too darn busy and several weeks behind (and so what does he do? He goes on vacation and his office says if there is an urgent problem to see my family doctor who knows NOTHING about gout or Lupus). This is all quite frustrating, and especially considering the fact that there is the wedding in just four weeks!

Then I am not supposed to get stressed out because stress makes these conditions worse...so what is going on? My son's car is still in a million pieces in the garage while hubby takes his time fixing it while our son still has our nice new car in the city and who knows what is happening to it. Then to top it off, I can't get ahold of him at the moment because his phone is DISCONNECTED...and his internet is disconnected, as well. I don't know how young people can be so nonchalant about bill paying. It disturbs me greatly when we once in a blue moon forget to send out a bill on time. But the young people purposely ignore them and think "whatever" about late fees and reconnection charges. I don't get it.

My results of the "What Your City Walk Means" test

What Your City Walk Means

You are optimistic and hopeful. Sometimes you do get disappointed by expecting too much. You are generally confident and friendly with strangers. You are well mannered and sociable. Money is important to you in as far as you'd like to have enough to survive. You are curious about ideas. If you had the means, you'd like to explore the whole world.

The City Walk Personality Test

What a day!

Well, today was a torturous day of grueling discomfort, but I can't wait much longer to find a dress for our son's wedding which is next month. But I managed to find one, and it is alot like the one pictured here only mine is navy and the jacket is sapphire and various shades of sparkly blues and a little bit of silver interwoven into the jacket. I just love it.

I had gone online to Nordstrom's site and found a dress with jacket that I absolutely loved, called their yesterday and someone said yes, they have a decent selection of the type I am looking for. So, I painfully squeeze my gouty foot into my shoe, and we drive to Oakbrook Mall to Nordstrom's. It's a very inconvenient mall. Everything is outdoors and entrances every which way. Hubby dropped me off at the entrance to Nordstrom's and he went to park the van while I waited for him. Just me and a mean goose were there on the sidewalk, and it was hissing at me! NO WAY could I frickin' run away from this thing, so I would have had to resort to defending myself with my purse or something. But fortunately it only hissed and nothing more.

Went all the way into Nordstrom's....limping painfully. I was thinking the whole time "I MUST BE CRAZY!" But hoped to get what I had seen online and go home. No such luck. Make my way all the way to the third floor, having to stop along the way, only to be told when I get to that department "Oh, we don't carry stuff that is online in the store". I was LIVID. I told the young, snooty woman that I wouldn't have come in with my bad foot if someone wouldn't have told me that yes, they have similar stuff there in the store. All she could say was "I'm sorry" and sigh.

I checked around a bit and found an aqua long skirt and floral jacket set that was gorgeous but the jacket was nearly $600 and the skirt was $400! No way would I pay that for one day even if I did have the money. So, we decided to take a chance on Macy's. I had gone to the Macy's near home and they had this dark navy dress with metallic jacket in shades of blue and sapphire that I loved but they didn't have my size at that store. BUT they had one here in a size 10 and I thought I needed at least a 12 but I tried the 10 on and it FIT! I couldn't believe it... a 10! (Something good is coming from all this suffering this past year!)

So, got my dress and hobbled out. Jon went to retrieve the van and picked me up and I immediately took off the damn shoe.

We decided to stop for a fish sandwich at Wendy's on the way home. I can eat certain things at certain places and I wanted him to go through the drive-thru but he said "can you make it inside and we can sit and eat". I said, ok...very hesitant to put my damn shoe back on, but I did. On the way in, he made a joke that they probably wouldn't have fish since I walked on my painful foot to get in there, and sure enough. NO FISH SANDWICH. Geesh!

So, we left there and went to Denny's. I got dropped by the door and he went and parked the van and walked back (it was very crowded). While we were waiting for our name to be called, I was sitting on this little mini couch at the front hoping these little kids wouldn't run over and step on my foot. I was ready to kick them if they came anywhere near me. But soon our name was called and we got a nice, big booth. Nice thing about having a big husband, the waitresses all see that we need a big booth. :D I got the fish, vegetable and a small root beer. He got the Grand Slam breakfast with the pancakes and the whole shebang. I don't know how he can eat all that and he ate it before I had even finished my first piece of fish.

So, though I will have to suffer to get the swelling to come back down again, I am glad I got that done and over with. Now I can just relax and keep this doggone foot up for several days and see if I can get this gout attack to completely go away. This is the longest attack I have ever had. Today is day 7 of this crap. I read it can sometimes go on for week. I sure hope not! I want to be able to dance at our son's wedding!

Remember that "clown car" that hubby test drove?

Saw this comic today and apparently I am not the only one with this opinion:

I hope you never get this

The last attack I had of gout was back in October, and since I am Allopurinol and had been doing well on that, I let myself slack with my diet and started eating things I wasn't supposed to anymore. I am sorry that I grew weak in self-control and had chop suey and pizza in the same week...and a taco salad with beans, which are a big no-no during a gout attack.

The image here is no exaggeration. My toe is as red as this illustration and the joint as large as shown. And the way it depicts the throbbing isn't anywhere near the real thing. It's one of the most horrible kinds of pain you can get. Right up there with having your teeth removed with pliers with no anesthesia.

This pain went on for three days and three nights. Finally, after another sleepless night and excruciating throbbing around 4 a.m. despite taking two Vicodin at once (which usually knocks me out but didn't phase me or the pain one bit today) I phoned the doctor who told me to come in. So, since I wasn't in any condition to even walk by myself, much less drive a car, I called hubby home from work. We were both a little nervous that this would affect my RA and Lupus since last time I had a gout attack and the gall bladder attack at the same time I ended up with fluid on the lungs from a Lupus flare!

He was home in less than an hour (it's over an hour drive, usually). I got to the doctor and yes, severe gout attack. No duh! I wanted to tell the doc he had a keen eye for the obvious, but contained my sarcasm. I was in a bit of a bad mood after squeezing my foot angonizingly into a shoe, and hobbling all the way to the car, through the medical building, and to his office, and then having to wait for half an hour sitting in an uncomfortable chair in the examining room. But he was sympathetic. He prescribed Prednisone for two weeks, and said to use the Vicodin as needed, and then said to come back in a week and he would have the blood test for uric acid levels done right there at the clinic. Then it will tell if I need to increase the Allopuriinol. I hope I don't. I am on enough crap. But I will take it if I have to in order to prevent this from happening again. And you can bet that I will not be eating anything I know is bad and can bring this on. Good-bye to Chinese food and pizza forever. It's just not worth this agony ever again.

(Oh, and I am working on a project, or trying to, for that work-at-home scoring company. I finally get a decent project with them and this happens!)

A family of packrats

Jeff and Whitney came by yesterday to start helping to clear out the basement. We have been asking the kids to come go through their crap for ages. Finally, Jeff has decided to do it. I think he has about as much crap he never wanted to get rid of than our daughter, Mary. Our oldest son, Jason isn't so much of a packrat. He only hordes things that have some kind of use to him. But to the rest of us, it is "sentimental packratting". For me, I want to keep every little thing that belonged to the kids through the years, and Jon is a crazy packrat who doesn't even want to part with old paint and motor oil. So, because of our never wanting to part with anything, the house is full of "stuff" (as George Carlin so nicely put it).

Over the years we have accumulated an enormous amount of "stuff". Boxes and boxes of stuff. Going through boxes yesterday we ran across little "doggie biscuit" awards that schools give kids to get them to do things they should want to do for the sheer enjoyment of it. Like Reading. They got rewards for reading. Do any of you remember "Book-It'? It was a campaign sponsored by Pizza Hut to get kids to read. If they read so many books, they got a free personal pan cheese pizza. All they had to do was have parents sign off that they read such and such number of books. They were trusting parents to be honest. I always was. But then again, our kids loved to read and so they got a lot of free pizzas, and a pin every time they got a free pizza and all the pins were packratted away in boxes to save, for what...who knows.

We found medals, buttons, pins, tags, patches, trophies with no names on them, certificates for everything but going to the bathroom. Broken toys, dried up pens, rotted pencils and all sorts of crap. Some crap has very sentimental value like pouches of baby teeth, soccer pictures made into baseball cards, drawings, notes, letters from friends, all sorts of stuff. Even a picture of an annoying friend of Jeff's who we always joke about to this day...the infamous Joe Petry.

J & W were here for more than two hours and filled three big black garbage bags full and emptied several boxes of crap and look around down there and it looks worse than it did before they started because now there are boxes out of place, stacks of "treasures" to be re-boxed to packrat away for the next ten to twenty years.

We are doing this now because we need to get the basement finished. We are finishing the bathroom down there, want to put in a kitchenette and finish tiling the floor, finish putting up walls, etc. But in order to be able to do that, the crap has to go.

We would get done faster if we didn't have to go through this separation anxiety with each and every item we take out of a box.

More car crap

Well, it never seems to end. If I didn't know better, I could let myself fall into the victim mentality that we are cursed somehow because it's one thing after another. But I keep telling myself it's only car crap and it could be worse.

While hubby isn't even half-way done fixing out son's car, and our son has been borrowing our new Impala for the past two months, he phoned Jon today at work to inform him that the power steering went out. This is the first time we have ever had the power steering go out on a new or newer car so it was kind of a surprise and not a very convenient time for this to happen (what time is, though?)

Our son took the train and a bus to work today...and had to do a lot of walking besides, but to go home in his area of Chicago at night on foot is not a good idea. So Jon just left to drive nearly two hours to go up to the northern suburbs where our son works to pick him up, take him back to his apartment where the car is and look at the car...all in the dark. Then if he can see what is wrong with it, tomorrow order the part in the morning and go back later in the day or on Sunday to repair it.

I feel sorry for him. He never gets a minute to relax.

Reality shows

I must admit that I have gotten sucked into watching reality shows for awhile, but must also admit that they are some of the most stupid programs on television. And basically, they are all alike. Either bimbos competing to be the arm candy for some really ugly or aging rock star, or vice versa, a bunch of guys competing to be "the one" chosen by some really ugly bitchy woman (New York from Flavor of Love, for instance). Top Model was interesting to me in the beginning, however as it progressed it was the same thing. A bunch of immature young women behaving like schoolgirls, squealing, crying, whining, fighting, and generally being bitchy with one another. Celebrity fit club is basically the same thing. They make a drama out of a regular Weight Watcher's thing. Imagine people in real life acting that way when going to their local Curve's center. The only "competition" show I really can say I like, and where fighting and crap doesn't happen is America's Best Dance Crew. It's a lot of fun, and people are very good sports and even encouraging to other teams. But for the most part, reality shows are lame...here is Mad TV's and Will Sasso's take on reality tv. It's hilarious so put your drink down first:

Kenny Rogers Reality Show

Humans are so funny

Why is it that we are so big and afraid of things that are so small? I mean, we can easily crush the poor little things under the heel of our shoe, but instead we jump up onto chairs and scream, or we do like this dude did and run like the wind . . .

LINK: Man flees home half naked to evade a mouse

BERLIN (Reuters) - A man in Germany fled his home half naked for cold, snow-swept streets to escape a mouse in his living room, authorities said on Thursday.

"He said there was nothing he was more afraid of," police in Goettingen said in a statement.

After an emergency call in the early hours, officers in the central town found the 23-year-old wearing only his boxer shorts and slippers at a phone booth near his home.

The man told police he had seen the mouse scurry across the floor while he was watching a film, and had fled immediately.

Police failed to track down the animal, but told the man it was safe to go home. He went to relatives instead.

(Reporting by Dave Graham)

Hot tub update

Well, we got through the winter with relatively few problems with the hot tub and it worked great. I love it. It helps relieve tension, relax muscles and loosens stiff joints. It also helps my gout toes and ankle.

We have only had to deal with the steady trickle of a leak that is in one of the pipes probably coming from one of the foot jets. So he will have to lift it up one more time to fix that. We thought that was going to be all that we had to do to it, but recently the dang thing has had a mind of its own and when we set it at 100 it goes up to 107 and beyond. The heater doesn't shut off when it gets to the programmed temperature. It keeps going up and up and up. One evening we tried to get in it anyway for a few minutes and no way Jose, it was scorching!

So, now we have to turn the heat on manually around 4 p.m. and wait for it to get to where we want it and then turn it off. Such a hassle. He thinks now he is going to have to replace the control panel which will probably be a couple hundred bucks. I swear we could have just bought a new one, and probably should have. He could have saved himself a lot of aggravation and work. But he seems to like aggravation. He calls them "challenges." Like our son's car that broke down on the expressway on February 12th. Jon went out to rescue him and let him take our new Impala to work and to use till his car got fixed. Well, it's a month and a half now and our son still has our new car, in the city no less. But he says he is taking good care of it, and just hope that his neighbors are good to it too since he lives in an apartment complex.

Jon has our son's car apart in a million pieces. It was in the shop for awhile for a distributor and after nearly a month of waiting for the distributor to come in, Jon finally ordered the part himself online and it came in in three days, and I delivered it and it still took them two more days to get it installed. Then they said the car engine was crap. Well, they were right about that. So Jon took the heads out and had them redone. The people at the CarQuest place says it seemed that the car must not have had any oil in it so damaged the heads and probably other things inside the engine. So, hubby decided to take the engine apart and replace it piece by piece instead of just pulling the whole thing out, taking it somewhere to be rebuilt and put it back in. So he finds out today that he has to do that anyway. I asked him if I should tell our son that he is the proud owner of a 2006 Chevy Impala. He got very pissed at me when I was only trying to be funny. But I have to admit that it was also meant to be sarcastic. I can't help myself sometimes. But this is getting ridiculous.

Kid's Rrrrrrrrock! Too funny!

Kid songs all done in a brand new way!

Willie's Weenie Wagon

I normally try to stick to my strict diet I must be on because of my salt-sensitivity problem, but this evening I cheated for dinner and got a Chicago-style hot dog and an order of fries along with a large frosty mug of Berghoff’s root beer at Willie’s Weenie Wagon. This Retro diner offers burgers, hot dogs, tamales, beef sandwiches and French Fries, potato chips and soft-serve ice cream. But the novelty at this place is the variety of old name-brand bottled sodas. All flash-backs from the past: Green River, Dad’s Old Fashioned Root Beer, Cheerwine, Pepsi and Coke in the old bottles, Blue Cream Soda, Orange Crush, and many other different kinds.

The interior of the place is like a step back in time, even though it’s new construction. The booths are all chrome and stainless steel. Old tin signs hang on the walls advertising soda pop and foods from the 50s and 60s. Old time music also plays over the sound system. It was a nice little nostalgic meal.

What’s on a Chicago-style hot dog? Start out with a poppy-seed bun. Then add a Vienna all-beef frank, mustard (never ketchup), chopped onion, sweet relish, tomato, a dill pickle slice and celery salt. (hot peppers optional)

Why is a place that is located in a strip mall called Willie's Weenie Wagon? Because back in the 50s the business started as a little trailer that sold only steamed hot dogs on the sidewalks of the city.

Today was a sock, slipper, pajama and Olive Garden day

Lately, especially since the RA has flared up in my feet again, I have been obsessed with warm socks and comfy footwear. Hubby is on vacation this week so we have been doing some shopping and out to eat sometimes. Today we did a bit of both.

We went to Filene's Basement which has become my favorite store. Last time I was there about a month ago I found these awesome wool socks that are so cuddly and warm. They are very thick so can't really wear shoes with them. They are more like slippers. I wanted to get a couple more pairs of those because I hadn't been wanting to part with the pair I had, even to wash them and they were getting to be a bit smelly. So, today I bought a few more pairs of those, and a pair for my daughter and also a pair for my soon-to-be daughter-in-law. They both have really cold feet so I am sure they are going to appreciate them. In addition to the socks, I found these really nice fake down booty slippers! They are like wrapping each foot in it's own little comforter. The ones I have are styled like in the photo, but are entirely light blue on the outside, and tan on the inside. I had them on while laying on my bed and watching America's Top Model and my feet were nice and toasty.

Yes, I like America's Top Model, as silly as it is. I also got sucked into watching an episode of The Pussycat Dolls. I like that America's Best Dance Crew. It's amazing how those young kids can move! I am hoping Kaba Modern wins, but I have a hunch that the judges like Jabberwockeez the best and it will probably win. I also am ashamed to say that I am addicted to Flavor of Love even though he is the ugliest little man, but seems to have a great sense of humor and likes to have fun. I don't get all these shows though where there are all these young women acting like sluts trying to get a man that isn't even that good looking. Like Rock of Love's Bret Michaels. He's an aging rock star and some of the women going after him have resembled Peg Bundy from Married With Children and they are all older but act like 18-year-olds and quite bizarre to watch. It can't be for real. I think these reality shows are a lot like the fake championship wrestling hubby watches. I make fun of that, but must admit that these reality shows aren't any better.

I think I got off track here a little bit. Back to telling you about my shopping spree at Filene's Basement. I got several pairs of socks, those booty slippers, and I found a pair of $60 designer knit soft pink pajamas for only $14.

We went to Olive Garden for lunch and got the all-you-can-eat soup, salad and breadsticks. I can only eat one bowl of soup and a bowl of salad and two breadsticks. Jon had two bowls of soup and all the rest of the salad I didn't eat and a few breadsticks. My favorite soup there is the Zuppa Toscana. I found a recipe for it online here.

After eating lunch, we went to pick up the heads for our son's car that Jon is working on while on vacation. Then we went pricing garage doors. Ours is disintegrating right off the hinges. Needs to be replaced before it totally falls off. We should have put on a steel garage door when we built the house 20 years ago instead of accepting the heavy, heavy wooden door that came with. It swells in moist weather, it broke the Genie door opener a few times, and finally he said screw it and just left the Genie disconnected so it has to be opened manually. I can't even lift it and wouldn't even try. Lucky we leave the cars parked outside since the hot tub is in there now. I know...odd place for a hot tub but if we sell and move, we don't want to leave it, and we don't want the thing outside because I don't want to sit in a nice warm hot tub with my head sticking out in the cold wind. If we decide to just stay living where we are, we may just build a little hot tub house out back, but that would require us to have a stronger deck. One thing always leads to another.

So, that was my day today. I will see how everything feels tomorrow. This has to have been my longest and busiest day out since being diagnosed with Lupus. I think my medication is finally starting to work. (And it's warmer out than it has been.) Hurry spring!

And now for something completely different

Potato

Dyin' the River Green - Chicago

Happy St. Paddy's Day!

la lectura en español

El pasado pocos días, he estado repasando mi español de modo que pueda leer una novela que compré hace varios meses eso se escribe en español. Es como montar una bicicleta y todo comienza a volverse a usted otra vez una vez que usted comience a hacerlo. Estudié español en universidad, y no lo he utilizado mucho puesto que, así que se está un rato. Pero estoy consiguiendo la caída de ella y debo poder leer este libro que tengo en un par de semanas o tan. La lengua siguiente que deseo abordar es sueco así que puedo comunicarme con mi buen amigo Susanne que viva en Suecia. Ella puede escribir en inglés perfecto, pero sería agradable sorprenderla con una letra escrita en su propia lengua.

Translation:
The past few days, I have been reviewing my Spanish so that I can read a novel I bought several months ago that is written in Spanish. It's like riding a bicycle and all starts coming back to you again once you start doing it. I studied Spanish in college, and haven't used it much since, so it's been awhile. But I am getting the hang of it and should be able to read this book I have in a couple of weeks or so. The next language I want to tackle is Swedish so I can communicate with my good friend Susanne who lives in Sweden. She can write in perfect English, but it would be nice to surprise her with a letter written in her own language.

Online used car shysters

Our son's car bit the dust, and since he has to work, I was online at Craigslist Chicago looking at used cars for him. I found several that seemed affordable, and one 2003 Honda Civic that was extremely under-priced. It was only $3,500 and I thought it was too good to be true, but sent an email anyway.

Well, the next day I received a reply from an Allan C and he said he was in a big hurry to sell the car because his son was in the hospital and he needed the money. He then said that the car is in Utah of all places. He over-explained that the car was like new. low miles, never been in an accident, treated like his "baby" yadda, yadda, yadda. Then he said that if I wanted the car I had to send a payment via a pay pal account and then the car would be shipped here to Chicagoland by his brother who works for the shipping company and is allowed one free shipment a year. All of this sounded quite fishy.

I sent an email response back asking why he just didn't sell the car where it was in Utah, why he was advertising it all the way in Chicago, and I said we didn't want to buy a car sight-unseen and we would have to see and test-drive it first before agreeing to buy it. So, he sent me another email saying to send him all of my personal information and a pre-agreement to buy the car if he shipped it here and the car ran well for us. I said no, I could not make any such agreement, that the car would have to be in area, and we would come look at it, then decide.

I didn't hear back again. I then clicked on the bookmark to the craigslist page and saw a message that craigslist had flagged the ad for removal for some kind of violation. They were probably crooks. Whenever something seems too good to be true, it usually is. SO...beware of online advertising on craigslist. If something sounds fishy, report it

It was bound to happen sooner or later

Can't avoid cold germs forever especially when everyone around me is sick. Jon is still hacking up a lung after a week of being sick. It starts out with this really yucky scratchy, burning throat thing, then moves upwards to sinus congestion then drops down into the chest. Not fun. I ache all over, feverish and can't take anything for it. Fortunately, I see my Rheumatologist today and maybe he can give me a script for an antibiotic to keep on hand in case I need it. I dunno.

This is the new doctor I am seeing since my regular RA doctor mysteriously disappeared. I intend to at least try to get some answers about that today. I can understand if she is suddenly ill, or if she was fired for whatever reason. I can't imagine that she would just take off like that without letting any of her patients know. Weird.

Daylight savings time started. Now it's dark as night at 7 a.m. But at least it is now light out till around 7 p.m. I would rather have it darker in the morning and lighter later in the evening. I wake up and check my email and stuff early anyway so am not looking outside right away anyway.

Car troubles...our son still has our Impala. His car is really a piece of &*(^#! Hubby drove it to work today and says it has an oil pump problem in addition to needing new heads and a new muffler system. Since our son doesn't have finances at the moment to buy a new car, we have to think of something till he can get a better paying job to afford a newer car. We don't want to leave him hanging without a car or he won't be able to get to work. Lucky we have these extra cars we pass around the family for these type of emergencies. We have a 1990 Audi that our middle son owns now, but was ours for years. Now we are borrowing that back till this whole car ordeal gets settled somehow. In my opinion it would be better to chuck our son's car (which is still in our name) and get a newer one that at least isn't blowing smoke and sounding like a low-flying propeller plane as you drive it down the street.

Cars are a necessary evil. We have even bought new ones in the past that have given us problems. The worst new car we ever bought was a 1990 Plymouth Acclaim LX...piece of crap. The transmission was automatic, but was like a bucking bronco when coming to a stop. Took it into the dealer and they said "there is nothing wrong with it, it's designed that way." What a bunch of baloney! They just didn't know how to fix their design flaw.

Anyway, cars and sickness right now, and this long, long winter is really bumming me out.