We finally bought a Wii last night, including the Wii Fit. So far it's pretty cool.

As part of the setup, it gathers some basic info, weighs you and has you perform some balance and agility tests. One thing it can't take into consideration is a health condition -- like pregnancy, for example.

It asks my age/height/etc.
I get on the scale.
Wii Fit says, in a disappointed voice: Ooooh, that's overweight!

Gee, thanks.

I've had a headache for over 24 hours, and I also seem to have pulled a muscle in my upper back. Luckily, tomorrow is massage day at work. I need it.

Ladies:

Has anyone heard of, or even tried, this? I'm a little bit intrigued.

* poked and prodded at the doctor's office (annual physical)
* tetanus shot in right arm (I don't ever remember being this sore afterward before, I can't lift my arm above my shoulder) and blood draw in left
* drove car onto snowbank and couldn't get it off without the help of a crusty but kind old gentleman
* rough evening at work with system-wide ACS outages
* non-functional right windshield wiper

Tomorrow will be better.

So the drumming I've been experiencing in my left ear for the past week seems to be an ear infection. I saw the Dr. today, who said he could see some kind of bubbles when looking inside, which were indicative of the infection in some way I didn't fully grasp. I'm thankful, at least, that this is (so far, anyway) not painful. It's only that the irregular drumming noises are driving me nuts. At least it's not voices, right?

I wish I lived in a land of beautiful snails and slugs. Here in MN even the biggest are pretty tiny, and you just don't see them that often. This group on Flickr makes me so envious. *sigh* I loves me some slugs.

It's that time again: time for a wellness assessment provided free at work! Today I got tests for blood pressure, cholesterol, bone density, glucose and BMI. Two Novembers ago I did the same thing, and kept my results, so now I can compare the 2-year difference. In some areas I improved, and in others I worsened (eek!).

( All the gory details )

I got my first ever flu shot today. Jonas managed to convince me, for the greater good or something.

I've never had the flu in my life, and up until now I've felt, perhaps foolishly, like not wanting to mess with a good thing, like I had some kind of improbable immunity. However, it's more likely that I've just been lucky, especially since I work in a public building and encounter people of all ages in various states of healthiness.

So I allowed myself to be punctured and have dead viruses inserted into my arm, and now I'm sore and being a big baby about it.

*sulk*

[Plural of virus]

Today we'll talk about bizarre bodily functions.

First, a homework assignment: Grab a flashlight and go into the bathroom. Shine the light into the back of your mouth and notice the little openings above each of your tonsils, one on the right and one on the left. Squeezing your throat closed while doing this will open the little holes up so you can see them better. OK, you know what I'm talking about? Read on.

Some years ago I noticed that every few months or so I'd find some crud in these little holes -- little compacted, irregularly-shaped bits of unknown origin. Sometimes I noticed them because I could feel something foreign while swallowing, other times they were dislodged while sneezing. Poking my tonsil with my finger would make them pop out too. 90% of the time they are on the left side.

When I once mentioned this disgusting phenomenon to Jonas, he had no idea what I was talking about. I figured I wasn't the only human to ever have experienced it, but I never got around to looking it up -- UNTIL TODAY! It turns out these bits are tonsilloliths.

Now you've learned something new.

Long, long ago, when I first forayed into a personal online identity, I lamented the fact that I had no internal photos of myself to share. I promised that I would post if I ever acquired some in the future, because that's the kind of girl I am.

Today I am here to deliver!

Last month at my quasi-annual eye exam, the optometrist offered to take some retinal photos. Hells, yeah! The retina is on the inside of the eye, so after being momentarily blinded by a flash directly into my pupil, I was presented with these lovely images (which they also emailed to me). My doctor went over what they look for in these photos, and said that everything currently looks healthy.


Left eye


Right eye
What can you see? The optic nerve is the bright circle where all of the blood vessels are leading, and the macula is the dark smudge to the right (in the left) or left (in the right) of the optic nerve.

Eek! I just got home and noticed I had a big chocolate smear just below my lip! And I went to the grocery store after eating my power bar! Yes, I'm mortified by the little things.

Everyone cheer for Jonas, who ran his first 5k tonight in the Torchlight 5k!

I opted out since I hadn't been preparing at all. However, I did just begin a 12-week Team Fitness class at Lifetime, which meets for 60 minutes three days per week. On Mondays the focus is 30 minutes cardio and 30 minutes strength (weights), Wednesdays are all cardio (that was today, whew!), and Fridays are all strength. There are four girls in my class, and our trainer has given us an unofficial goal to all run a 5k together when we're done in October. Think we can do it?

I've been feeling sick and miserable the past few days, so I decided to do what anyone sitting home would do in that situation: create a cooking blog! I've filled in some cooking adventures and experiments from the past few years, but I'm not quite caught up yet. I've meant to do this for some time but never got organized, although I've been taking pictures of it for ages.

So if you like cooking/food and don't already have too many blogs in your feed, consider friending victualventures. And holler if you're interested in a particular recipe -- I'd be happy to share.

Don't forget my books blog, rynerbooks, for reading ideas and reviews.

Because documenting my life for no reason is what I do best.

Last night I had the Worst Headache Ever. It started in the evening at work (Mondays I work until 9pm), and by the time I got home I was completely nauseous. I get headaches rarely, so I'm probably a big wimp, but it was downright incapacitating.

It was gone by morning, but now I'm starting to feel like I'm getting a sore throat. So far it's just a niggling wrongness, but with luck it won't develop into anything worse.

Watched Munich tonight.

Who remembers reading the original Sweet Valley High paperback series?



In the first chapter of every book there was a quick recap/rundown on Elizabeth and Jessica and their family, including physical descriptions of them, many reprinted nearly verbatim from previous books in the series. The twins are described as golden-haired, blue-eyed and being "perfect" size 6s (note that last). As we all know, youth are highly impressionable, and these past 20 years I've been carrying size 6 in my subconscious as an ideal -- only recently have I actually become conscious of its origin.

What's interesting is that I now wear a size 6, but I don't feel "perfect." I feel mostly healthy, perhaps with a few unwanted bits of pudge I try vainly to conceal, but not remotely perfect. Ignoring the arguments against defining perfection in women's body shapes and sizes, which is a whole other debate, here's what I'm wondering now:

Were those bits intentionally thrown into the books to provide teenage girls with a healthier standard? Clever.

Or were teenagers actually pleased as punch to be a size 6 in the mid-1980s? If that's the case, comparing them with today's fashion-conscious teenagers and, indeed, most young actresses (both of whom make me feel slightly ill), things have changed.

[I disliked having to use arbitrary terms like perfect, standard and ideal in this post, but I couldn't find a way to avoid it.]

Remember when I mentioned my worryingly bumpy face? The only variable that I could think of that had changed recently was having purchased some new sheets. The old ones were plain cotton and the new ones were sateen, but sateen is still just fancy cotton. Googling sateen allergies only returned information suggesting one should try sateen if one had allergies to something else. Allergies to sateen itself don't seem to exist. I still had a hunch, though, so I swapped my new pillowcase for my old, and 3-4 days later my face was back to normal.

Now, either I had a reaction to the sateen, or I had a reaction to something on the new pillowcase. It had been washed before initial use, but perhaps not well enough. The next test will be to wash it again thoroughly, then switch it back and see what happens. Fascinating, I know. I'm usually not allergic or sensitive to much of anything, so this has been an odd experience.

Oh, and I ran 2.5 miles tonight! Thank you for your kind applause.

My face has broken out into strange tiny bumps. I've never had anything like it before. Luckily, there is no discoloration so you wouldn't notice unless you were super close or touching it, but it's all along my jawline and even up to and including my tragus. (What's a tragus, you ask? I had to look it up to find the correct anatomical term. It's the little flap of your ear that points backwards.) When I touch the affected skin with my fingertips it feels unusually rough, but it doesn't hurt or itch or anything.

I don't know what caused it, and I sure hope it clears itself up soon. This must be what it's like to get old and have strange new ailments appearing out of nowhere. :(

I've been light-headed and dizzy most of the afternoon and evening. It comes and goes in waves from every few minutes or so up to an hour. At first I thought, "This is different and sort of interesting." Now that has worn off and I'm getting really annoyed. I need it to stop before work tomorrow.

I have a lot to write about.

( First, do you want to see Jonas' stitches? )

I did some free health screenings at Southdale this morning. I did tests for cholesterol, glucose, blood pressure, bone density and BMI. It was fun and I'm pleased to say results are positive. Want to know all the details? ( Well, if you insist. )

Yesterday, while in the waiting room at urgent care, I happened to pick up the obituary section of the Star Tribune and saw a name I recognized. When I was a kid and we went to Grandma's house in Excelsior, mommyrocks and I used to play with two of the kids next door who were around our ages. The boy, who was one year younger than I, was the one in the obituary. My mom's family still has ties to that old neighborhood, and my aunt told her he committed suicide. I'm sure it's been close to 20 years since I saw him, but still. Freaky.

Sometimes mortality just sneaks up and slaps you in the face. A couple of people I know have been killed in car accidents in the past few years. Every time, I ask, "How can this person that I know/knew simply not be alive anymore?" Regardless of when I'd last seen or spoke to that person, it seems impossible.

I spent most of the morning lounging around, first reading then at the computer working on my webpage redesign. Jonas called in the early afternoon and said he'd swing by home and take me to the dentist so we wouldn't have to meet with two cars afterward. He was on his way to Dad's work so Dad could give his car a once-over. Incidentally, Dad thought the car looked great and couldn't find anything wrong with it at all. Yay!

My dentist appointment was for 3:30pm but I got dropped off about ten after. I was sitting in the waiting room for no more than one minute before I was called in. They seemed really slow -- there was no one else in the waiting room besides me. Without going into the cleaning, poking and scraping details of my visit, I'll just say it went great. No cavities, no concerns. Yay, again! Unfortunately, when I was done and called Jonas, he was back at work as some crisis came up. It was only about a mile away, so he ran over quick to pick me up, but then we had to both go back to his work. I sure am glad I had a book in my bag to read, since it took about two and a half hours! I was slightly annoyed, since I had been initially going to drive myself to the dentist anyway and could have avoided all this, but I did get some reading done and it was relatively quiet and peaceful in their conference room. I'm now less than 200 pages away from finishing ...And Ladies of the Club. Go me.

Finally, around 7:00pm Jonas came to retrieve me from the conference room. He warned me that he still had some things to do tonight, but could do the rest from his computer at home. We picked up some Culver's. I need to stop eating those delicious chili cheese fries, or else I'm going to get sick of them and then be pissed about it.

I spent the rest of the evening working on my webpages. It's kind of slow, but I wanted to redo each page individually. Overall, they look cleaner and simpler. I guess this will be v3.0 -- v2.0 was unveiled in 1998, and v1.0 back in 1995. I wish I'd kept a copy of that first one, it kind of sucked. :)

I'm not really a shoe girl, but last week I bought a pair of shoes/boots (shoots?) that I am in LOVE with! They are the type of half-boots that, if you are wearing pants that cover their tops, look like boots, although they really only come up to a few inches above the ankle. They are black and zip down the inside. Having not been a shoe girl, I haven't really been a heel girl either, but the heels on these are about an inch and a half -- not really that big, except all my other shoes are basically flat-heeled, so I've had to get used to wearing them all day at work with that little bit of extra weight being carried by the front of the foot instead of the back. But they are great! I love prancing around in them, much to Jonas' bemusement. :)

Currently reading at work: Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain

For the first time in a while I was super busy at work. I even had to set some things aside to take care of Saturday instead. It was nice.

Now I'm just bouncing along to They Might Be Giants, waiting for Jonas to get home. After working late into the night yesterday he was home all day today, until late afternoon when there was some kind of security emergency and he had to go in anyhow. We met quickly for dinner at Biaggi's. Well, not exactly "quickly," since it's a nice, sit-down, Italian restaurant, but it still felt somewhat rushed. I had some yummy tortellini and some very naughty chocolate cake for dessert.

I've got a dentist appointment tomorrow afternoon. I'm not too worried, except I haven't been flossing all my teeth regularly. Heh, just my front teeth, which I run floss through every morning since that's what people see when you smile! My old dentist used to have a poster hanging in the room that read, "You don't have to floss all your teeth -- just the ones you want to keep." I think the electric toothbrushes have helped overall, at least in stimulating my gums so they're not so sensitive.

Woo, I just ran into Kevin, an old talker friend whom I hadn't run into in several years. He didn't have much time to chat, but we exchanged current emails.

Ooo. Jonas just called and is already halfway home. Turns out the guy they suspected of snooping in files he wasn't supposed to may have just made an honest mistake. They went through all the logs and didn't find anything else suspicious, so it was probably just an isolated incident. I guess they will keep an eye on him anyway, though.

I had my annual physical yesterday, so I got to leave work for a few hours in the afternoon to do that. It went OK -- that is, nothing appears abnormal. She did decide to do a blood test for anemia on the spot because she felt I was kind of pale, so they stuck a needle in my arm to take some blood. I also had somewhat low blood pressure when she checked that -- 91/60 -- and she said, "Boy, you must be really relaxed!" I think on some level I was hoping that the blood test would turn up something that might explain why I'm so cold all the time, but everything was normal -- it turns out that I'm just a calm, pale, cold person. :)

I had some concerns about the pill I've been using for several years, and she decided to change my prescription to something different. I'll be interested to see what sort of effects the new one has. She also gave me a pamphlet about Patello-Femoral Syndrome, which appears to be what's wrong with my knees. It contains some exercises intended to strengthen some muscles and eventually ease the pain. I also got some samples of Advil gel-pills that she recommended for quick relief when they are especially sore.

After work I had to stop at the gas station to clean my windshield. My wiper fluid leak is now so bad that just a few hours after refilling it it's out again. My windshield was so filthy I could hardly see. And it was so cold out! I decided to get gas at the same time, and by the time I was done filling the tank and doing the windshield, my fingers were numb, even inside my gloves. At home I made myself some bean burritos with just a sprinkle of Asiago cheese inside to give them a little kick, and we watched that stupid, stupid show, Average Joe. The episode was one and a half hours long, so it was midnight before we finished and went to bed.

Now I've got a splitting headache and I think I'm going to go to bed early. If it eases up a bit I might be able to read. The book I'm reading at home now, ...And Ladies of the Club by Helen Hooven Santmyer, has been unbearably slow in the beginning. It's taken me nearly two months to get past the first hundred pages (out of 1000+)! However, reviews that I've read indicate that it does pick up speed at some point and turns out to be a fantastic read, so I'm going to try to hang in there.