LOVED THAT BOOK. RT @naramilee .@dailycoyote thanks for recommending We, the Drowned. I'm eating it up! Great read )—
Shreve Stockton (@dailycoyote) January 23, 2012

I haven’t even made a big dent on it because it’s kind of massive, but I’m already in love with it.  It’s witty, and beautifully worded and for such a big book, where you expect the author to linger around things, it’s surprisingly and refreshingly straightforward which I love even more.

"My eyes tell me that you've not been wounded, but my ears tell me that you've lost your mind."- Little Clausen, #WeTheDrowned—
Lee (@naramilee) January 23, 2012

So, if you are looking for a substantial read, I highly recommend this one.

Onward!

I always like to remind  that to everyone whenever I can;   so on the night that my friend sent me a picture of a little dog that got into his property and was sleeping on the sand of his construction site and  he asked me “what do I do?”  I had an answer ready:  you name the dog first (I did this for him, that’s what good friends do), then you feed it, give it water and then you find it a place to sleep in.

He reluctantly did all this that night saying he already had too much going on and he couldn’t take care of a dog.  It just so happens that this dog has the cutest eyes and the funniest ears and she is a female so she fell in love with him and to show him her love she bit his shoes and his jeans whenever she could and then his heart melted.

Meet Fita.  Well, that’s her nickname.  This little one spent a very warm Christmas with delicious food and lots of coddles in new year thanks to the family that welcomed her and her bit of craziness.  I am delighted.  Specially because I get to see her often and she recognizes my car and aims for my knees whenever she runs to jump on me.

It’s like I rescued her, in someone else’s home.  :)

I fell at work and this is pretty much how it went:

Me: *slips and falls face flat on wet floor*
Partner: OMG! ARE YOU OK! OMG! CAN YOU WALK! OMG! OMG!
Me: Ouchouchouch, I need to sit down, ouch.
Partner: OMG! OMG! OMG! DOES IT HURT! *freaks out*
Me: My knee hurts. *10 mins later* I need a knee brace. Or something that helps me walk.
Supervisor: You need an ambulance.
Me: Um. I need a knee brace.
Paramedic: Elevate the leg. You need ice, something for the swelling and maybe x-rays.
Me: W.T.F.
Nurse: It’s swollen! Ice! Pills! Elevate the leg!
Me: I just need a knee brace!
Nurse: Don’t move, I’ll bring a blanket!
Me: I DON’T NEED A BLANKET, I NEED A KNEE BRACE SO I CAN KEEP WORKING CRAZY PEOPLE!
Next day I had one purple mark on each knee and my dignity completely broken. Into little tiny pieces.

Onward!

I was cruising with some classical music on, because I’m super cool like that, I looked up to the rear view mirror* and WHOA.  Someone was not invited!   We call this “esperaza” in Spanish, which translates directly to “hope”.

I know it’s a grasshopper in plain English, but it’s the beginning of the year.  There’s a lot of things we’ll be working for and looking forward to and just for one day, I don’t care about technical translations:  I gave a ride to a little “hope” and it was wonderfully symbolic.

*(the rear view mirror inside my car, this picture was taken after I negotiated with the friend.  The negotiation included some coaxing using a sun protector and a lot of soothing words.)

Everyone agrees I should see the doctor in case there’s something nasty trying to eat my lungs and I would, if doctors were not vacationing like any other normal person does on holiday time.

My friend recommended me ginger tea and a couple of weeks ago I mentioned it to my mother in case she could get some ginger at the supermarket.  I worked through the holidays and had no time to shop for anything.  I hand-made all my holiday cards and people though I did it because I’m thoughtful and crafty when actually I had no time to make a line in a store.

So my mom goes and buys the ginger.  Except when I see this ginger, it’s really weird ginger.  It doesn’t smell like ginger, it’s awfully hard to cut and it’s huge.  When I tell mom that the ginger is weird she apologizes because the quality of all the ginger in the store was bad.  I tell her I don’t want to offend anyone but this ginger has no ginger qualities.  After about an hour of discussion and an additional witness we conclude that my mother, who grew up in a farm, daughter of a great farmer, bought the wrong tuber.  We call it apio, and I swear apio is NOT celery so I don’t know how to translate it and google is failing me.

The real piece of ginger reached my hands last night and I got down with it.

I crushed a good piece, about two inches long and boiled it in 2 cups of water for 30 to 40 minutes.  I strained it and added about half of that (undiluted tea) to two cups of hot milk.  I finished with three tablespoons of organic honey from the Dominican Republic because I like my teas on the sweet side.

It was HEAVENLY.

The undiluted tea can be stored in the fridge so it can be made ahead and added to very hot milk on any night when you want to feel embraced by the warmth of something sweet and spicy.

I have about three post waiting to be written, there’s a dog and a horse and things that need to be recorded somewhere… in fact, I’ve been thinking if I should re-start my pen & paper diary this year.

Anyway, ONWARD!

I also had a dry cough that particularly attacked at nighttime, although it liked to keep me company all day long. It was hard to sleep.  Or just have a conversation.   I really don’t want to drink any more medicine in my life.

I worked thirteen hours on the 26th and had one of the worst shifts I’ve had on this (relatively new) job.  It really sucked.

I have to work today and tomorrow.

And still?  It’s been a beautiful Christmas.

Hope you are having an excellent end of the year too.  May all our wishes thrive in the coming year, may it be full of joy and happiness and most of all, may it be blessed!

Cheers!

May the birth of baby Jesus bring joy and happiness to your heart today and always! It’s Christmas! Celebrate!

God bless us everyone!

Que el nacimiento del niñito Jesús traiga alegría y felicidad a sus corazones hoy y siempre! Celebren en esta hermosa Navidad!

Bendiciones!

Consider me FREAKED OUT FOREVER.

Because yesterday, days after I first thought “huh, locking myself up somewhere would suck dick” I go and lock myself in a sealed room at work.   I’m a laboratory technician:  the room was a sealed hallway about thirteen by four feet where air was barely coming in from BENEATH THE DOORS.   And it was situated in the one side of the building that IS NOT IN USE.   People.  I COULD HAVE DIED IN THERE.   Well, not die, but ALMOST DIE.

I had to do something up there so I grabbed what I needed from my work area, not including our portable radio that we are suppose to use at all times because, who needs that anyway (my unresponsible side, here I show you it), I told my shift partner  where I was going (my responsible side, I’m showing you it) and left.

I did what I had to do and used a shortcut that had always been in use, until last night.  I opened the door from the room I was in, entered the Hall of Entrapment and when I went to open the door that lead outside, the one that had a huge, red-lighted EXIT sign on top of it, it didn’t budge.  The handle turned, but it was sealed, that’s the way it’s supposed to work for contamination purposes.  Except this area is not in use, so WTF engineers, there’s nothing to contaminate!  I turned back to go out the way I came in but, haha, the door has only one handle ON THE OTHER SIDE.  And there is one other door to the side, same story!  Three doors and all of them where sealed on my side.

When I realized that I was locked in my first thought was “I’m gonna be here until tomorrow” and then my blood pressure almost broke my arteries.  I tried to force the door, funny because I can barely open normal doors but it seemed like a good idea at the moment.  I took a moment to calm myself so I wouldn’t die of a heart attack before I died of dehydration because that would’ve been embarrassing and then I perused what I had on me and decided to take off my jacket and hang it on the door (because it had a window that could be seen from outside) with my ID pinned on it so if anyone walked through they would know something was off because we wear uniforms and jackets can only be underneath them.  Then I went all Bond and tried to pick the door’s lock with a pen pin.  I wish I had footage of that part.  For a fleeting moment I thought I had a chance to make it work and I know I must have had the shadow of smugness hanging over my head.

I wish I could write about how I reflected on important things and then I could insert a life lesson at the end and tie everything with a big, pretty red bow but honestly, I was thinking about getting thirsty, wanting to go pee and my blood sugar levels.  All I had on me was a sugar-free Halls piece and head phones for my cell phone that was in my locker, two stories bellow and all that I reflected was how no one would be able to tell I was missing until a good couple of hours had pass.  I feared no one would bother to go check on me and that no one from outside would have a way to communicate that something was wrong.  I feared someone would walk by and not notice me.  Most of all, I feared I would break down in there and make everything worst with unnecessary tears and snot.

I sat on the floor.  I walked around.  I began to sing to myself.  Tangent: It took me most my adult life to accept my own voice as a soothing sound even though I sang all my childhood and was encouraged by outsiders.  Let me tell you something, the Hall of Entrapment is a pathetic place to spend more than thirty seconds in, but it had perfect acoustic.

After a bit more than an hour my shift partner appeared on the window, and no, I’ve never been so happy to see a shift partner in my life.  I signaled him to get me out of there and then I had to coach him through the process because he didn’t even know how to get inside the main room.  He got a bit nervous too because he thought he couldn’t open two doors outside and I heard him trying to break in, bless his heart.

I went back to the Hall of Entrapment today with an engineer to check on the door and put back a grill I took off from a vent (not a good idea) and he told me that he would show me how he could open the doors from inside.  I locked him in and fifteen seconds later he determined there was no way out.

He says I was really lucky last night.  Duh, dude, DUH.