Monthly Archives: January 2017

January 27, 2017

Nothing Is Forever

By Robin

I was listening to this song this morning, and couldn’t help but relate to some of the lyrics.  Never mind the fact that this particular song in one of my all time favorites. It has a good sway but when you listen to the lyrics, it’s so much more than just “a song”.

This morning the words, “nothing is forever” struck a chord with me.  I’m going to start today and hopefully the rest of my days with this mind set and mentality.  I might even scratch off a bucket list item by inking those words into my skin.  If you think long and hard about it, you can almost say these three words about probably everything in life.  Think about it:

-Your health, being pain free or the opposite

-Your marriage, for better or worse

-The status of your job, today…

-Your small or large bank account

-Your friends and relationships

-Our country and its leaders

I could get into intricacies, but I think you get the drift.  Pretty much everything in your life will come and it will go.  We aren’t made to last forever.  To live forever.   For instance my hands are super swollen today, and really for no reason other than this mother effing menopause bullshit.  It’s irritating but later on today/tonight or tomorrow I’ll bet they won’t be.  It’ll most definitely be something else, but what I’m feeling now is not forever.

We all think that when we say those two life changing words, “I do”, that we “will” for our entire lives.  That may be true, but there’s a chance that it will change, even if just the dynamic of that marriage.

I joke but seriously believe that these days NO JOB is secure.  As much as we try to do good work, our career status may not be up to us.  We’ve got to just go through our day and do our best and be hopeful.

If you read the lyrics to this song, it’s appears to be about a girl who took her own life, and the struggles of the deeply saddened friend she left behind.  Don’t we all get caught up in the daily stresses of life and instead of allowing ourselves to live in the moment, good or bad, we worry and struggle and lose sleep and our good health just believing that it’ll never get any better? Or it will never be different?   I’m unhappy with my size right now, but good or bad, tomorrow is another day and I could feel thinner or fatter.  Maybe I’ll have a good hair day.  Maybe Donald Trump will stop tweeting. There is a sort of power in positive thinking.  I’m not going to tell anyone that what they’re thinking or feeling is wrong, Lord knows I’ve been in some pretty bad places mentally.  But if you can just remind yourself that nothing is forever.  Say it out loud everyday in your car if you have to.  For good or bad, nothing is forever.

 

 

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January 25, 2017

La La Love

By Robin

Over the weekend I went to see the widely talked about and award nominated movie, La La Land.  The movie stars Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling.  Two well-known actors and most of the reason why this movie has received so much hype.  It’s a different kind of movie/musical.  I’m not a huge fan of musicals, but those parts of this movie don’t really interfere too much in the story line, which is kind of weak really.  You do feel the connection between Emma Stone, (Mia) and Ryan Gosling (Sebastian). It’s easy to feel a sort of compassion for Ryan, with his puppy dog eyes and innocent smile.  Emma is funny and real and easy to want to be friends with.

I won’t give anything away in case you plan to see it, but I connected with the movie on an entirely different basis.  I felt a lot of my relationship with my husband related to the character’s stories in this film.  When you watch Emma on the big screen, you actually feel her falling in love.  You see it in her eyes, her facial gestures.  I can’t imagine being on a movie set, finishing lunch and then doing a scene where you have to look as if you have fallen in love with a man who is playing the piano.  Maybe that’s why I’m not an actress, and having watched it take place on the screen makes me appreciate what actors and actresses do every day.

There is a song that’s played and sung throughout the movie that resonates so deeply with me.  As you know music can change my attitude and mindset almost instantly, and this song is no exception.  I found this video of two different people singing my favorite song from the movie, and I’ve watched them about five times already.  They sing it so beautifully.  And it gives me hope.

 

 

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January 24, 2017

Yoga Bitch

By Robin

Last year I was on my way to yoga, taking my time just cruising down the road.  A car appears out of nowhere and is now riding my ass.  I couldn’t see who was in the driver seat, I assumed it was some kid with a new license, driving their parent’s car with a lead foot.  I’m not gonna lie, that makes me wanna just put on the breaks and crawl to my destination.  And that’s what I did.

I was in a residential area, kids everywhere, and this person was STILL riding my butt.  I actually said out loud, “this person REALLY needs Yoga”!  Now if you are trying to get to your house because you need to tell your relative goodbye before they board the bus to heaven, I understand.  I really do, but seriously how often does that happen?  You aren’t rushing to have a baby in your neighborhood, you’re on your way to the hospital.

So where’s the fire?

I’m still draggin my ass through the quiet area and finally make my turn onto the private road where Yoga was being held.  I glance up in my rear view mirror expecting to see the car speed rapidly down the road away from me, and it didn’t.  It stayed glued to my bumper.  I started to freak a little bit.  Was this a bad case of retaliation road rage?  I decided to peruse the parking lot, driving through the upper lot with lots of empty parking spots and then turning down into the lower level lot with just a few spaces left.

THE CAR WAS STILL BEHIND ME.

I pull into a space and they pull in to the left side of me.  I’m thinking something is going to go down here, so I reach over to grab my cell phone, and I’ve got the 9 and 1 pressed.  Out of the corner of my eye I see a person busily grabbing things on their passenger seat, so I brave it up and look over.  It’s a woman grabbing her Yoga mat and exiting the car with that and a gun  water bottle.

Had ya going there didn’t I?

I grabbed my mat and bottle and rushed to get out of my car, taking a quick second to check out something large in the back seat of her car.  She had Vacation Bible School signs!  What the WHAT?

She practically ran ahead of me to get into the building.  I later found out that she was an administrative assistant at a local church.

YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME.

Why on earth would she want to ride me so closely going to Yoga? We weren’t even late.  I tried to find an area far away from that crazy bitch which I did, but still couldn’t recover from the scare of impending doom, aka being pushed off the road by a maniac in a ratty old Toyota corolla.  I did Yoga for 75 minutes and my breathing never got to Pranayama. That’s yoga code for controlled breathing.  Never got there.  I couldn’t take my eyes off of the tiny woman who put the fear of God in me just minutes from my house.  My life flew past my eyes as I white knuckled the steering wheel.  She exited the class without any sort of acknowledgement to me and she was gone as fast as she arrived.

I can remember it like it was yesterday but it was almost a year ago.  Until a few weeks ago when she arrived at my Zumba class.  Seriously?  Like she needs more aggression?  Try as I might to move away from her position on the dance floor, she was right beside me.  As I inspected this woman head to toe, she seemed harmless.  Short lifeless hair and a pair of glasses circa the early 2000’s.  She was all of 5′ tall and was wearing sensible, boring clothing.  She obviously didn’t recognize the woman who she scared the shit out of a few months earlier.

We proceeded to warm up and there were quite a few people in class.  Zumba is no different from a gym in January.  High hopes and goals to be more fit for the coming year.  It eventually dies down to about half capacity, but today it was packed.  And speedy gonzales was erratic.  It turns out that Yoga is perfect for this woman, because SHE HAS NO RHYTHM. Absolutely none.  She couldn’t tap to Old McDonald if her life depended on it.  So as I was counting steps, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, she was all over the place.  At one point she was SO close to me that she was about an inch and a half from my bad foot.  I had to stop and take two steps back, while she was still absorbed with her flailing arms and legs.  She wasn’t stopping for nothing.  I had to give it to her, even though she didn’t have a single ounce of rhythm, she kept going.  Apparently you can work up a sweat doing random movements.  Skill-less, beat deaf movements.

Who knew?

Please enjoy this favorite that actually works in Yoga as well….but please don’t jump in your car with a rage-filled foot and run someone off the road.

 

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January 24, 2017

How Do You Like Your Anal?

By Robin

I’m thinking this title might catch a few of my readers off guard, but it’s meant to.  If you are stopping by my blog because you are inquisitive about the title, you can stop right here.  It’s not what you think it is.

The other day I had to repair one of my acrylic nails, and looking at the shape of the nail I had just finished reminded me of a woman who I used to work with at Thrift Drug Store.  For the life of me I can’t remember her name, but she had short, very fake red hair and was a perfectionist with her appearance AND her job.  You see she was responsible for putting out new stock in the store.  She would take a delivery, which was a bunch of different items thrown into a “tote” (plastic bin with a lid) and walk around placing the items on shelves.  She had to do a lot of “facing”, which is straightening the shelves and making sure that every item was flush with the front with the end of the shelf.  Facing is annoying and takes a lot of time, but it makes the store look great.  She was perfect for her job because she liked precision.  Her nails were perfect, her pants were perfectly pressed, she had newscaster hair.  Not one out-of-place.  Not one.  Her lipstick never bled into the tiny lines around her mouth.  Her glasses didn’t have a smudge on the glass.

And it annoyed the SHIT out of me.

I used to try to be more like her, like perfection.  Try as I might, I just couldn’t do it.  I would try to bake an impeccable looking cookie.  One that was symmetric in size, decoration, consistency.  I couldn’t do it.  I would end up with a delicious cookie, but not perfect.

I would attempt to put an outfit together, pressed shirt and skirt with hosiery, clean shined shoes and impeccable hair and makeup.  In just a few short hours, my hair would be disheveled, my face oily and my clothing wrinkled from sitting.  And that irked the hell out of me.

Working for an insurance company, I put a lot of effort into all of my duties being on time and complete.  Crossing the t’s and dotting my i’s.  But I would make mistakes…

As the years would pass, I figured out that I was never going to be one of those superb, anal people who prided themselves on the ridiculous.  On perfection. It was so incredibly tiring for me to try to achieve what it appeared others had been able achieve to so easily.  Would I ever, even with lots and lots of trial and error?  Nope, I wasn’t going to be that person with seemingly effortless precision.  I would never be able to keep my panty hose from running, nor my lipstick from sticking to my teeth.

Some of us can.  Some of us will be able to achieve this crazy  way of life.  And guess what?  I’m fine with that.  Because having my life be perfect doesn’t appeal to me anymore.  How mundane would it be, but more importantly how stressful would it be.  I know that there are people who feel better about themselves when they have a clean house or matching shoes and handbag.  It’s not vanity, it’s just who they are.

And it’s not who I am.  Hi my name is Robin, and I’m far from anal.  I have a cluttered life and a house with odds and ends strewn about, and a job where I make mistakes and that’s okay.  Today my sweater is old and has some pilling, it should be longer to cover my dimpled ass, and you can see my bra when I lift up my arm.  It’s what makes me “ME”.  I’m not changing.

So how do you like YOUR anal?

And because I miss him and I can’t believe he’s gone so soon, take a listen to one of favorite vocalists.  His voice=perfection…

 

 

 

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January 18, 2017

The Unlikeliest Friends

By Robin

Being young has its advantages and disadvantages.  I think one of the biggest issues being young is taking certain things for granted.  We are all guilty of that for sure, but one of the biggest detriments to maturity is friendship.  It may just because we’re growing up and figuring things out.  We accumulate relationships with like-minded people.  Temporary and long standing Friendships.  Many times it’s not effortless.  We may even start out not really caring for another person, but growing to really like them over time.  For me, this is the BEST kind of friendship.  Maybe for some reason or another, you both were completely fine on your own and didn’t want or need another friend.  Maybe you didn’t necessarily care for the other person, first impressions and all, but over time you realized that person was kind of cool.  You may have been thrown together out of no fault of your own and eventually realized that you couldn’t live without one another.

This would be the case with my dogs, Jaxon and Harles, aka Harley, Carl, Bubble.  The poor dog will almost answer to anything.

Jaxon came first and like most “only children”, he received all of our attention.  His brother from another mother came a few years later.  Now Bubble can be a beast, very alpha and domineering.  Jax is the opposite, which I’ve written about in a previous post.  Bubble came into the family feeling the need to prove he was King.  Jax was not happy stepping down from his throne and so the relationship went, until recently.  They’ve both had a surgery in the past 2 years and I’m not sure if that’s what brought them together, or if it’s just a mutual fond regard, but I truly believe that they are now inseparable.

They both sleep in bed with me, and Bubble tends to sleep a lil longer than Jax.  In the morning I go to the kitchen and make my coffee, Jax by my side.  Bubble continues to snooze in bed.  I’ve actually seen Jax go into my bedroom and pretty much make noises in order to wake up Bubble.  In the same respect, I’ll be napping in bed with Jax, and he’ll leave the room only to return with Bubble.  A year or so ago that wouldn’t have happened.  I can remember Jaxon letting Harles stay outside all day once, when I forgot to bring him in before leaving for work.  Now you might ask how Jaxon “let” Bubble stay outside.  Jax is like Houdini in many respects, and is actually able to slide open my patio door.  He’ll never do it while I watch, but he’s done it many times when I’m visiting my neighbor, and I find him waiting for me at the gate when I return home.

https://ucs.psu.edu/service/home/~/?auth=co&loc=en_US&id=79508&part=2

I may not know the real reason why these two unlikely friends have become so close, but I’m so happy that they’ve finally accepted each other and have more than what seems to be a casual, convenient friendship.

Always one of my favorites….

 

 

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January 13, 2017

This Place About to Blow

By Robin

Video

For the past approximately three years I’ve had a lot of stomach issues.  I’ve been diagnosed with a variety of illnesses, but one thing still holds true, NOTHING HAS CHANGED!

Fast forward to this week.  My daughter introduced me to a new breakfast invention.  You see, for the past few years I’ve eaten yogurt with granola.  Literally every day.  I would crave it.  I’d go to bed dreaming about it and wake up thinking about it.  My delicious dessert like breakfast.  Over the holiday break (I was off work for about a week and a half), I stopped eating my daily feast.  And guess what?  Yep, I STOPPED having stomach issues!  All the while I thought I was doing something good for my body.  Keeping the overgrowth of yeast away with my greek strawberry delectables.  Cranberries and almonds dancing around the oats was good for me, right?  Who cares that I was probably consuming about 800 calories for breakfast?  I was so bloated and gassy by about 2pm that I couldn’t eat dinner.  And so the cycle began.  Snacking on horrible chips at night because I couldn’t “stomach” a full dinner.  Waking in the morning famished and ready to eat the heaven on earth bowl of goodness I desired so much.

But I’m not going to talk about my lack of good caloric choices. Nooooo, I’m going to talk about my newly found breakfast.  Vanilla yogurt, oatmeal, blueberries and chia seeds with a lil milk.  Mix that sucker together and you’ve got yourself a great morning meal with a lot less sugar and a lot more protein and fiber.

Did you hear what I said?  A LOT MORE FIBER!

Do you know what a bunch of fiber added to your diet all of a sudden does?  You don’t?  Did you click on the video link at the beginning of this blog?  Well go do it now, I’ll wait…..

tap, tap, tap….

You back yet?  Good.  Now watch this:

THIS IS ME

I am counting down the minutes until I can haul this puckered ass to the car and let loose.  I mean my stomach is gurgling and my ass cheeks are getting the workout of their lives trying to close over this old, apparently less tight than it used to be (a LOT less) ass.  I’ve prayed to God that I don’t have to sneeze.  I will pee my pants and probably let out the loudest, longest fart in history.  I’ll have to quit my job, move to a fart friendly country and live out the rest of my years attempting to be the first person who develops an anal exercise.  You’ve heard of kegels for your vagina?  Why not something for your asshole?

Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve walked to the kitchen and started putting dishes away because I had to let out a quick fart, and I’ve even impressed myself in the morning with some of the longest farts I’ve ever heard.  (My youngest son would be so surprised).  I remember years ago when I had walked into his room to put some clothes away and accidentally let one escape.  He asked if I farted….and I did my best impression of “mad mom-how dare you” face, told him absolutely not and exited the room.  He never asked again.

I’ve waited til my husband went to the kitchen for a drink and silently let out some air while I moved around on the couch, pushing my toes against the leather ottoman so that if he snuck back in it would appear that the noise coming from me was from something other than my anatomy.

I know that it’s more acceptable for men to fart than women, but I think that that’s only because we don’t want to draw attention to our body’s natural reaction to having something it deems undesirable in our body.

And who knew that my body decided mother fucking chia seeds was undesirable?  How do I know it was those dreaded tiny teeny bastards?  I googled it, of course.  Seems a lot of people struggle with Chia Farts.  I even googled how to get rid of gas fast.  I contemplated ramming a hose (no, not up my ass) into my mouth and turning it on to re-invade my gut with a flushing type of remedy.  Unfortunately, or FORTUNATELY as the case may be, no such hose is available here at work.  So I drink water out of a bottle.  You see water is the ticket to getting those minute, agony causing pricks moving through the internal pluming.

Do you know what the water is doing to these cute lil guys?  You guessed again…..it’s making them swell up in my stomach and now I look like a big ole red Christmas bulb, round as can be.

I have to laugh, because working where I do, I work with about 5 people all in the same room, and it’s very very quiet.  Except for my stomach which has decided to start gurgling and making very weird, almost sounding like human words-sounds.  All of a sudden.  No warning, I can’t open a drawer or try to dial my desk phone on speaker to cover it up.  I’m violently typing and that’s not even working.  It keeps saying, “ohhhhhhhh, or ewwwwww”. Long too, as the air is making its way through my intestines.  Can you believe I ate these little fuckers at 8:30 and the air is only half way through my gut?  I think the water might be making it worse.  They’re growing fins and starting to swim against the current.

I’ve often thought of writing about my airy issues, but felt that it wasn’t the best topic to talk about, being a prissy girl and all.   You all know I’m only doing this (typing) to try and cover up SOME of the noise, right?  Where does all the gas go if you NEVER let it out?  It’s probably absorbed somehow into the body.

I’m not editing this, because I have to leave work now.  I shouldn’t have to stop for gas on the way home, I’m guessing I’ve got enough to drive to the state of California right now.

Click to laugh!

 

 

 

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January 12, 2017

The Price You Pay

By Robin

I’ve voiced my opinion once or twice before regarding healthcare in the United States, specifically Highmark in Pennsylvania.

I feel like I’m turning into my grandparents when I say, I remember when….(insert memory here).  But I seriously remember when healthcare was affordable.  I don’t know specifics as to why premiums have skyrocketed from lets say 25 years ago.  Seeing a primary doctor (general practitioner) and paying $20 for my entire visit, start to finish.  I would have blood work AT the office, get lots samples of a drug prescribed to see if it worked prior to purchasing it from the pharmacy.  It worked pretty smoothly.

There were things that didn’t work smoothly, such as people with pre-existing conditions being turned down for insurance. Your children had to attend college full-time to STAY on your insurance, otherwise they were kicked to the curb as soon as they turned age 18.  I’m sure there were plenty more, hence the reason for the Affordable Care Act.

Looking back now, I believe it should have been named the Accessible Care Act.  I don’t honestly know if the reason we are paying such staggering amounts of money is due to the fact that no one could be turned down for insurance, no matter how sick they were?  I don’t know the reason.  ACA is not working.  Period.

If I remember correctly, the original ACA had been revised several times so that the Republicans would allow it to pass.  What did the original look like?  I’ve heard it was 1400 pages, so maybe nobody knows what it stated.  The Republican party is very quick, as well as President-Elect Trump, to point out that it needs to be repealed.  And certainly there are quite a few changes that I see myself that need to be done.   I wonder how much of the suggested repeals were in the original document?

At any rate, my complaint has an agenda.  My current “out-of-pocket” (OOP) is 2600 per person per year.  After that is reached, I pay 10% of the charge.  Last year I reached my deductible by July 1.  The difference in fees that I paid prior to July is an exorbitant amount of money.  I just recently  called a script refill in to my pharmacy on December 31, 2016.  That date is important because I intentionally had the rx request in to the pharmacy BEFORE 2017 because I knew the new deductible would kick in and once again I would be paying out the ass for my medications.  Unfortunately for me, the pharmacy didn’t have my medication, it had to be ordered and wouldn’t arrive until Jan 3, 3 days too late.  Prior to January I paid about $8.00 for these meds.  Jan. 3 I was asked to pay $1000.  Yep, a grand.  I was told that it was much better than if I didn’t have insurance, without it I would pay $3000.  And the pharmacy tech was being serious.

What do you think that I did?  Ofcourse I didn’t get it.  Now here’s the kicker….the rx is for a medication called Duexis.  This is a pill which contains 800mg of ibuprofen with famotidine added.  Famotidine is Pepcid, which helps heartburn that you may get from taking the NSAID (non-steroidal anti-inflamatory drugs)  So there you have it.  What on earth could possibly make this medicine price in at $3000? I read this recently, which  explains it a little bit.  Apparently taking twelve 200mg motrin and four generic pepcid pills will do exactly the same thing for me, at about $0.51 cents compared to about $51.00!  So basically you are paying for the convenience of taking one pill instead of 4 every 6 hours.

I’ve been taking Duexis off and on for about three years.  I had no idea that my insurance company was being billed about $1500 each time I had this prescription filled.

This is just one example.  Just one medication of the thousands of medications that are out there.  One drug company of the THOUSANDS of drug companies that could possibly be gauging the consumer, the provider and anyone else in its way.

Do you still wonder NOW why we pay such high premiums for health insurance?  Can you imagine the mark up on medical supplies?  MRI machines? The list is endless.  When you allow a company to charge what EVER the hell they want to, especially something medical related,  where the consumption of such medicine could mean life or death for someone, then you allow someone other than God to make the decision about the quality of life.  The life that we live is being negotiated and predetermined by people and corporations whose bottom line is the almighty dollar.

How many spaghetti dinners and chinese auction raffle tickets are we going to continue to attend and sell in order to make up for the financial devastation that potentially terminal and debilitating illnesses carry with them?  Trial medications that HAVE saved lives not covered under your insurance plan?

But hey, at least they won’t cancel you, right?  You will get a second mortgage on the already too small home that you live in, replace the transmission in your 12-year-old car instead of buying a newer, more reliable model. Vacations will consist of a Sunday at the local park, if everyone is feeling well enough.  Do all the things you need to do to get by while you are paying the mountainous pile of astronomical medical bills that will NEVER be paid off in your lifetime, no matter how long or short that is.  And all the while the makers of  medicine and testing and supplies are vacationing in Dubai every couple of months, living in multi-million dollar summer and winter homes and taking a stink-less shit on a 22k toilet.

To be clear. I don’t have a problem with people making money, just not at the expense of the health and welfare of the people they profit from.

I believe we’ve been priced right out of our comfort zones, and there’s not one damn thing we can do about it aside from bending over and taking it up the tailpipe.  I don’t particularly like the personality and morals of Donald Trump, our new President.  I have no idea what kind of business man he is, but I do know that if he does a complete 180 and suddenly cares about the medically financially strapped Americans who face financial ruin rather just saying he does, I hope that he uses every ounce of his bullshit, bullying tactics to make the situation better, more affordable and legitimately fair for all people of the United States.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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