As some of you know, Brandy’s megaesophagus makes her regurgitate food from now and then, even after being held upright for an hour after a meal. It’s the way it is and there is nothing anybody can do about it but for me to clean up the mess.
And Brandy’s stool never recovered its roll-on-the-floor-rock-hard consistency after that scary episode almost 2 years ago when every morsel of food she ate came back up for more than a month. I guess her digestive system got a shock when it finally got to see some food. So she gets about a cup of yogurt everyday with her meal, but still her stool is frequently loose enough for me to make bald spots on the lawn to pick off all blades of grass (and weeds… well, OK, mostly weeds) with fecal matter on it.
So when the name Poop Freeze caught my eye while I was going through hundreds of “As Seen On TV” products trying to remember the names of the various products for Sucker I Am post yesterday, I was like, could it be? Could this really be??? The description confirmed that it is in fact what I hoped it would be – You spray it on poop, hair balls, or vomit, etc, and it freezes it down to -62°F so you can clean it up with ease. What a brilliant idea! What an excellent way to improve my everyday life! My life WILL be happier! What an exceptional find!
Supposedly, there was or has been or still is an infomercial on TV for Poop Freeze. And let me tell you, if I had seen the infomercial you can bet your bottom dollar that I would have ordered it before the infomercial was over. Then why haven’t I ordered it yet, you might wonder. Well, it lacked the magic of infomercial. I need to see it work on screen. I need to hear people’s testimonies, you understand.
Then why haven’t I clicked on the infomercial link and watch it online? Frankly, I’m afraid to watch it. Cause I KNOW I’m going to HAVE to order it once I did – there is no if’s, and’s or but’s about it, and writing that Sucker I Am post kinda sobered me up to the fact that I’m an infomercialaholic.
What I’m trying to get at, actually, is this – Anybody willing to try it and let me know if it works? Anyone? Anyone?
I haven’t had TV for several years now. I mean I have the physical television set, but it doesn’t get any input. So naturally I don’t get a chance to glimpse at all those wonderful infomercials about breakthrough products that will most certainly make me happier and healthier and prettier and skinnier, while making my life so much easier that I can finally have the so-called “leisure time” for a change. And these products are going to save me money in the end as well, you see. Naturally, if I would happen on an infomercial, I’d get sucked in, full of wonder, my ears pricked and mouth half open. Cause, you know, how can you possibly resist that extremely annoying phrase, “If I can do it, ANYBODY can!”
I admit it. I’m a sucker, so it’s an added blessing that not having TV prevents me from wasting my money on the products like the following, thirteen things I’ve bought from infomercials.
1. 
Proactiv skin care system: I suffer from breakouts all the time. My face is covered with acne scars. So two dermatologists come up with this easy 3 step solution, and you see all these people’s testimonies with before and after photos, wouldn’t you try it? You really wouldn’t? Lucky you.
2. Some other kind of acne product: It came out way before Proactiv, also from a dermatologist, who had a Russian name. It seems it disappeared from the face of the earth, so that tells you much about the product.
3. Some kind of Ab gadget: Typical “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is” product. It’s something you wear around your waist, and there is this box that’s supposed to be pressing against your ab while you sit and watch TV or read a book or watch paint dry if it strikes your fancy. And it will do all the work for you and give you a fab ab in no time. I couldn’t find this one either.
4. Ab Flex: I obviously did not learn my lesson. But in my defense, it requires a little bit of work from you, so it sounded a little truer…
5. Some kind of Cross Country Ski Machine: It came out after NordicTrack’s ski machine. It was like one-third of the price of NordicTrack version, with the added benefit of taking up much less space. This one fit into the category “You get what you pay for,” and it disappeared in a very short time.
6. 
Tony Little Target Training Video: I don’t know why I thought it was a good idea to try doing calisthenics, which, by the way, I already know how to do, while watching this dude who is most definitely not lean or mean by any definition.
7. Tae-bo video: After trying this for a few times, I thought I should stop it before I hurt myself. It’s not for anybody who’s really really out of shape and also, who lives in NYC because your apartment doesn’t have a large enough space to do this without any danger unless you belong to that minority called the rich.
8. Carleton Sheets’ No Money Down Home Buying System: This goes into “Who was I kidding?” category because I don’t even know if the system works. Never even opened it.
9. Some kind of grill machine: It was supposed to come up with a delicious meal in 5 minutes after I dump meat and other ingredients altogether in it, and they promised the cleaning would take just seconds! Bastards!
10. Lori Davis Hair Care System: Hey, Cher was in the infomercial swearing it made such a difference in her life! Resistance was futile!
11. Igia thingmabob: I don’t remember the name, and after going through their products, I still can’t remember the name. It was a hair removing gadget, supposed to be pain free and work like magic in no time at all, with three coils that pull out your hair. During one pass through my leg, it pulled like 2 strands of hair and it hurt like a son of a bitch!
12. Oxy Clean: It’s some kind of natural cleaning solution. You must all heard about it. Being a major slob, and hence not knowing very well how well different cleaning products work, I really couldn’t see any difference, but I was most certainly disappointed that it didn’t work as it did on TV.
13. Some kind of duster: Yeah, I know. What was I doing buying a duster, you ask? Well, I’ve never really understood the concept of dusting. It’s like you intentionally go disturb the dust that’s all settled without stirring, and disperse it all over the place. But this one promised to just catch the dust and suck it inside by just putting it NEAR dust! Now THAT’s something I could deal with. I’m sure those bastards laughed their asses off at people who ordered these dusters.
1. First list item starts here…
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Last Saturday after dinner.
Nick is serving dessert. I’m the first one he serves. I get a slice of tiramisu and 3 scoops of ice cream and I start eating while Nick continues to serve others.
I have a bite of tiramisu with a spoonful of ice cream. I say, This doesn’t taste like tiramisu.
Nick continues serving, I have another bite of tiramisu with another spoonful of ice cream. I say, This tastes weird, man.
Nick continues serving, I have another bite of tiramisu with another spoonful of ice cream.
This really doesn’t taste like tiramisu. It tastes really funny.
Finally, Irene takes a bite of her tiramisu, jumps up and yells while running to the sink to wash out her mouth , Shit! It tastes like mold! It’s fucking moldy!!!
Chris sniffs at tiramisu and says, Oh yeah it’s moldy. It’s bad. It’s really bad…
I look at my plate. Half of tiramisu is gone.
Nick says to me, And you just kept eating – “Oh it tastes funny. It really tastes funny!”
All kinds of jokes and laughter ensue.
Irene says, I know Chris would eat anything, but Yoon would really eat ANYthing!
My staycation is over. I know I should have updated the blog sooner, but I didn’t have any energy or inspiration or something. Not that I get inspired to write a post very often… or never… or I was just lazy… So I guess you are dying to know how my staycation was and how many things I have accomplished out of the thirteen things I had planned to do. Well, I’ll tell you.
I have to say I’m satisfied with what I accomplished. Looking at the list, I managed to satisfactorily complete more than half of the thirteen items; #1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 11 and 12. You guys should be very proud of me, I tell you, even though seven of them are kinda the same thing, namely getting a lot of sleep, but do you think THAT’s easy? Just ask topsurf!
Out of the remaining four items, I completely failed at #9 and 13. It was too hot and humid to be outside pulling the weeds out, and not surprisingly, I really didn’t even try to start cleaning up my place. Item #5, recaulking is halfway done – it took me 4 days to remove the rock-hard old caulk. Now I have to apply some mold removing/preventitive product, clean the area and recaulk it. Item #7 - my car has been looked at by the mechanic, a friend of a friend, and he diagnosed the problem. I’ll see him again some time this week so that he can replace the parts. So I’d say I had a very productive staycation, eh?
But most of all, I had a great time hanging out with cajunvegan, perpstu and topsurf Monday evening. Then I had the most awesome time celebrating topsurf’s birthday Wednesday night with the aforementioned three plus citizenjaney, andreadaigle and justjen. But I have to say, I was utterly shocked when I first met topsurf. If you know her through Twitter or Plurk or StumbleUpon or Flickr or any other social networking site, you’d be shocked, too.
HER EYES DON’T LOOK LIKE FIREFOX LOGO!!!!!! 
Anyways, I’m so glad I finally got to meet them and got to grope a couple of them (let me just say everybody should strive to fondle cajunvegan’s ass and grope citizenjaney’s boob), and I’m very very happy they ALL love the city I love and promised to come back soon.
It was a great staycation.
I finally upgraded the blog software, Wordpress if you haven’t noticed, to the current version. I wanted to put the smileys in some kind of order because I thought it was too hard to find a specific smiley with the way I had it before. But this new version changed the way it displays them, so there is no way I can order them. Drats!
Since I was making changes, I thought I’d change the theme as well cause I really didn’t like the previous theme, but I was too lazy to change it. Well, I finally changed it. I like it fine enough except that I don’t like the fact that the links are not distinguishable from the plain texts in the sidebar, but it is what it is.
Another change I hesitantly made is that I removed Grizzley’s page. I didn’t want to, but leaving his page there is not fair to my other pets I have lost over the years, and I cannot put everybody up here. So there you go. I hope Grizzley understands.
Edited: I changed the CSS to correct the font color of links on the sidebar. Now it does look orangey as Mary told me last night.
Today is the last work day for me before I take nine days off. I don’t go anywhere of course, not having anybody to take care of my four dogs, three of them with very special needs. But my friends, topsurf, perpstu, cajunvegan, citizenjaney, andrealdaigle and justjen, all of whom I’ve never met in real life, but dear friends all the same, are coming to NYC for their vacation from different parts of the country. I plan to go meet and play a few times next week. But that would account for only a few days out of nine. And I thought I’d let you in on what I plan to do during my staycation.
- Sleep. Yes, I’m still sleep deprived during the week and I usually take long naps on the weekends to catch up, but one thing or another led me to miss my precious day time sleep at least one of Saturday or Sunday for the last several weeks. As a consequence, I’m in need of much more sleep.
- Nap. What? That’s how badly I need more sleep.
- Go see my friends I have neglected for the last 5 months after Grizzley’s death.
- Slumber. Cause I’m certain that I’m supPOSed to get enough sleep while on staycation.
- Re-caulk the shower stall in the master bathroom. I fixed the shower drip, but I’m yet to take a shower in that stall because I’ve noticed that about one-fifth of the caulking wasn’t there any more. Of course it didn’t happen overnight but I thought it’s prudent to use the other bathroom until I re-caulk it.
- Catch forty winks. I’m terrible at winking and I’d like to be better at it.
- Get the car fixed. I have spent a couple of thousand dollars in the last three months because of car troubles. But I still have some minor problems like going through a bottle of coolant a week WITHOUT a slightest trace of a leak anywhere, etc. My wallet has been bleeding terribly because of vet bills and aforementioned expense and such, so I’m trying to get to a mechanic, a friend of a friend, so that I can’t trust a little that he doesn’t bleed it to death.
- Rendezvous with the sandman. I’m in love with him.
- Pull out all broad-leaved plantains from the backyard. They seem to multiply faster than rabbits, and I have patches of these odious weeds, which become stiff like celery stalks when fully grown, thus making my dogs avoid the area. I’ve gotten rid of three such patches so far by pulling them out one by one whenever I can for the last two weeks.
- Get some shuteye. Once my mom told me that my eyes are not shut completely when I’m asleep. So I need more practice.
- Upgrade the blog. It’s still on version 2.6.2. Upgrades take a long time for me because of all the customization I made including the smileys, and I don’t like it very much because, well, you know, I feel like I’m back at work or something like that.
- Cop some Z’s. I happen to like Z’s.
- Last and least, optional even, clean up the house. Cleaning up is so very very much needed. But you see, it’s my staycation. I shouldn’t do something I really really loathe and despise, right? RIGHT?
1. First list item starts here…
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I the plumber fixed the dripping shower in my master bathroom last night all by myself. I have replaced shower heads or toilet fixtures, but I hadn’t messed with things of this nature, so I had meant to call a plumber after cleaning up the bathroom and bedroom nice and neat. That was four or five months ago. My place now is messier than ever and the dripping had gotten worse. So much worse it kept me awake at nights, and so a few nights ago I fastened a string on the shower head so that the water drops would catch it and follow it down. It worked a little until I started to hear little splashy kinda noise which bugged me like hell. I had to fix it soon.
I went online and looked at pictures, instructional videos and all kinds of how-to write-ups. They all seemed so complicated and they were all a little different from each other. Even though they all say it’s very easy, I couldn’t get the basic information I needed such as how to find out what kind of valve I have. The instructions start like “If you have a cartridge type valve…” and so forth, but I couldn’t find out what to look for to determine if it’s a cartridge type valve or not. So I was very very nervous.
However, it turned out to be just a piece of cake. I dropped by at Home Depot on my way home from work, went to faucet repair/remodel kits section, and there it was – Delta shower faucet replacement cartridge for model 1300 and 1400 series. I was nervous that something would go wrong like the old cartridge wouldn’t come out fully or the replacement wouldn’t go in or some such cases in which I would have to call the professional, and since I didn’t want to pay the emergency fee, I would call them up next morning and until then I wouldn’t be able to use water. So I prepared myself by going to the bathroom and spending a long time sitting on the toilet if you know what I mean.
Then all I had to do was to shut off the water, uncover and unscrew the shower knob off, take the metal sleeve off, loosen the brass ring (nut) off, and pull the cartridge out, push the replacement cartridge in, turn the water back on, adjust the scald guard setting and finally put the knob back on and screw it in and put the knob cover on. I know. If I had read instructions that went like this I wouldn’t have understood what I had to do. But it was just that easy. The only tool I needed was a screw driver. I spent only like 30 minutes, most of it spent on pulling the cartridge out because it’s kinda tight and on adjusting the scald guard setting to get the temperature right. And all it cost me was 37 dollars and some change for the cartridge as opposed to a couple of hundred dollars if I had called a plumber.
Now I’m contemplating on fixing the downstairs toilet leak…
Serious Stuff. Seriously
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