Post this in your time machine. You never know when you’ll need it. Srsly. Kthxbai.

I’m not much into shopping. At least, not in the past 15 years.  My idea of shopping is heading to ThinkGeek or BN.com or somesuch.  But I do have to have groceries and such.  I never thought much about that kind of shopping until I got my knee torn up.  

Now I think about shopping. Sometimes I laugh. Sometimes I cry. It’s almost never easy, either way.

The other day I hobbled into Kmart with my buddy and chauffeur Milt.  I limped along to the pharmacy with my cane. The nice but flaky pharmacist said it would be a half hour or so to get my prednisone.  You can get cheap or fast, but not both. Oh well.  We decided to look around.

I don’t much like to clobber my knee, so I nabbed the electric cart at the end of a nearby aisle and put my cane in the basket.  My cane fell out. Through a hole at the end of the basket part where someone had crashed the cart and broken the basket.

Milt retrieved me my cane from its snare in the basket. We noticed that the other side was all mangled too.  He commented that the people who had been driving that electric cart must have gotten their licenses at Kmart.

Now, with these carts it’s an adventure in itself to figure out how to make them run. Sometimes you have to turn a key. Sometimes you have to remember to unplug them from the wall. You press the black button until you see green or the green button til you see green. Or you just push things at random until the red light stops blinking. You twist things forward or backward. Or switch between forward and backward twists to reverse. It’s like a Chinese puzzle of some sort. If you figure it out, you get to shop. If not, you get to sit and curse in a not terribly comfy stationary electric cart.

I finally figured out how to make the thing move and ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.  I smashed into a pole. Oops. Yep, I’d gotten it moving.  Phew, glad it was a pole and not a display of cold tablets. At least I didn’t have to pick up the pole. 

Ok, I must have done something wrong, they never ever move that fast.  I try again. ZOOOOOOOOOOOOM.  I missed the pole that time.  Milt had to run to keep up with me.

It took me a good 15 minutes to figure out how to make it move in a somewhat orderly fashion.  Even then I nearly got whiplash because the silly thing had two speeds: insane and dead stop. No wonder the basket part was beaten half to death.

I ran into a pole, knocked over a display of tshirts, scraped several cooking implements into the aisle, and scared a couple of old ladies half to death.  I got the hook end of my cane hooked on a pair of jeans which I flew like a flag temporarily.

I also made one little kid in a blue sweatshirt laugh and point, causing his mother to lecture him on how bad it is to laugh and point at cripples.  He couldn’t help it. I looked like a mad Michelin man. Why did I look like the michelin man as I whizzed around?  That cart went so fast I got chilly from the breeze! I had to put my huge down coat on so I wouldn’t catch my death in the wind.

Oh  hell lady, it’s got to be funny to see this crazy woman in a down coat that makes her look like the michelin man whizzing about Kmart knocking things over and scaring geriatrics.  But don’t point at the funky fast michelin lady, eh?

Eventually, though, the ride ended, and I had to leave.  Nobody ended up bleeding. Nothing got broken. I got my prednisone.  Massive win! Woo!

How can you not laugh at a post called “Naked Mohawk-Baby Carrot Jockeys“???

I think I have to laugh at today too.  I’ll just ignore for the moment that I’m depressed. I can at least pretend long enough to write a bit.  Laughter is the best medicine, after all. And as far as I know, it doesn’t cause blurred vision or ataxia or any such annoying thing.

The visit with the pdoc today was kind of comical. Man oh man she was pushing the Geodon. Man oh man was I resisting. I just do. not. want. totakestuff that’s likely to react with my breathing meds, or the only antibiotics I’m not allergic to, and react in a not pretty way.  Like torsades de pointes not pretty.  It is not worth being more balanced just to end up gasping for breath or dying of a weirdo arrhythmia.  Her idea was to have an EKG before taking it.  Are they passing out free EKGs at a hospital nearby?  Whoa! I’ll go get one right now.  Two if they’re small. Pffffffft. Since I can’t afford to buy Lamictal, I’m fairly sure an EKG is beyond my means unless I’m sick enough to be willing to pay it off over a couple of years. Between my crying and making low grade smart ass remarks, it was a comedy for sure.  I do so love bipolar disorder. Just for the comedic factor, you understand.

Perhaps it worried the pdoc to see a grown, fat woman sitting there with tears dripping off her chin while clinging to a cane. She took pity on my first time ever fear of medication, and decided to stop pushing the Geodon. She finally settled on olanzapine (Zyprexa) and that I agreed to. I’ve taken olanzapine before and not had a problem with it except for gaining 60 lbs and after 2 years getting so somnolent I eventually had to stop it.  Let’s see… sleep through being depressed or possibly whack heart out?  Sounds a lot like “Pins in the eyes or chocolate cake?” to me. Oh that’s a tough choice. Pins in the eyes of course. (insert eye rolling here)

The idea is to use the olanzapine in small dose to keep the getting-off-the-lamictal depression from sending me scooting to the looney bin. Small dose, short time = no hugely fat. We hope. And it’s to use temporarily after that, maybe, to prop my butt up to switch off the Trileptal to who knows what. Oh, the olanzapine is supposed to make me stop seeing small dogs running around in front of me too.  I might not have mentioned that part before. It’s a bonus of going off the lamictal and/or the ensuing depression or maybe I just won some mental health lottery. But neither my cats nor my friends can see these particular dogs, so they must go.  

Olanzapine is approved for use in psychiatric disorders such as well as in large cat kennels since it removes small dogs too. Some assembly required. Olanzapine may cause drowsiness or falling asleep face first into your wheaties. Do not operate large dogs or other dangerous mammals until you know how olanzapine affects you. Do not take small dogs or olanzapine if you are allergic to any of the ingredients or small dogs. Read directions, including north, south, east and west, before taking.  Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred dollars. Void where prohibited.

Susan of If You’re Going Through Hell Keep Going has offered to hire me as her Official Cat Fix person. I’m hoping she pays in cookies or chocolate. Time will tell. I’ll toss up this a funny cat pic, and see if cookies or chocolate come my way. Vote for Jeter Harris in the World’s Coolest Cat contest

Today felt fairly rotten overall, but wasn’t really rotten. I did find things to laugh about in spite of how depressed I felt in general.  My vision is improving a bit too. Not too bad, all things considered.

more cat pictures

I went on a tour of the old part of town with a friend today. He’s a history buff so it was fun Of course, it was terribly ironic how the old Town Nursing Home was situated.  On one side was the old Jewish Confederate Soldiers Cemetary. The Christian Confederate Soldiers Cemetary was on the other side. Like a snarky message of “Just wait, you’ll get here soon enough.” hehe This place always was weird. I think they must have left anyone not Jewish on Christian on the street though Gallows humor, perhaps?

more cat pictures