C'est · la · Vie!

My knee surgery is behind me. I had really dreaded it.

The night after surgery I kept dreaming I hadn't yet HAD the surgery, yuk.

It hurts now, badly, the percocets help some, the advil helps even more.

I am writing to complement my anethesiologist, or my "pilot" as it were.

Little thought is given to these guys. You pick your surgeon but you anethsia guy is either luck of the draw or if you are lucky it's someoe your surgeon knows and likes.

And it can be a rusty bicycle or a Cadillac sedan.

This time I got the Cadillac sedan, pre-medcated to just the perect pitch, a smooth and seamless transition into "sleep" and then awakening as if I'd had a nice nap. No nausea.

Well done and thank you. It really IS all about a personal touch.

I have a lovely new apartment in an upscale urban development, surrounded by pretty people.

I don't live there very much, it's more like a large expensive closet.

But it has an amenity I love. The garbage chute.

I feel all cosmopolitan and urban when I dispose of my cat litter now. ;-)

I've said for years now that we need a good plague to cull the population. Trouble is, it needs to target all the stupid and bigoted and narrow minded people in the world. I doubt the swine flu is that selective.

I hope I am wrong but this may in fact be the real thing. At a minimum, if it really is as contagious as they say due to lack of herd immunity and the possible shortage of antivirals, it surely can't help the economy. Already we are seeing cancellations of group events. It just simply can do nothing but slow down the recovery at this point.

But. Speaking of plagues, the Old Testament God, now he really knew how to throw a plague. Boils, Blood, Death of Firstborn, you name it. Not fun to be an Egyptian THAT week you can bet.

Anyway, in the midst of all this, I found THIS at Wally World. Of course, I thought it was a joke but quickly realized it wasn't, as it was with all of the other Passover paper goods, decorations, etc.

No children under 3!

If you find you are a bit rusty on your plagues, the back of the package expains it all. Fun stuff. Enjoy!

So I am doing these knee exercises, which are like baby things anyway, but my God, they keep referring to the "afflicted" side and the "afflicted" limb.

I've never been among the "afflicted" before, Mon Dieu.

I've been attempting to help M organize his Maison a bit in my non-existent spare time. Some of the stuff he had in the pantry was pretty scary.

So I asked him about it, and he went into this long shpiel about how it should be kept and used even though it 1) looked bad and 2) expired some years ago. I should have known. That famous French frugality, especially of the older generation.

Quickly realizing I had forgotten the cardinal rule, I went about quietly throwing things away. He'll never notice.

Ask Forgiveness not Permission.

Well I am officially 1/2 cybog now, check out the bionic knee! (Goes well with my bluetooth).

Seriously, it cost like $1,200 and works mostly pretty well unless you do stupid things like stand on chairs trying to get free stuff at Gaybingo.

Then it doesn't work at all, your leg collapes with much pain and you are very very sorry.

No chairs.

There are two silver linings to having to navigate with crutches.

1. You get a handicapped placard, that TOTALLY ROCKS.
2. You get to ride around on those motorized carts. You soon learn that they are not all created equal. I've found the fastest to be at Albertsons and the slowest at Kroger....I mean I wanted to get off and drag the thing behind me on crutches.

Walmart and Sams are about middle of the road.

You get to ride the cart out to your car and someone brings it in for you. Sweet.

Well, not really, this is all a HUGE PAIN IN THE ASS, everything takes about 10X as long and you can't wear heels, blah blah blah.

I knew it had been a long time since my last post....but a MONTH, my GOD.

Well, I have HUAS (Head up ass syndrome) at the moment with Maurice. In French one would say "j'ai mon nez dans son anus..."

Not that that is a bad thing at at certain point you know.

Couple that with MAJOR problems at work and the fact that I am on crutches with a skiing injury (severed ACL and torn MCL) and I am not just myself, what can I say.

My upper body rocks though, between all the upper body I am doing at the gym and the crutches.

The 28 yo who did my hair Sat asked me out. I still got it, even on crutches.

Love you all. XXXOOO

Dropped in on the local "con" (anime convention) for a few yesterday to cheer on Jesse and sidekick daughter Kelsy in the competition.

I've never really been this close to a con before....as suspected, it is full of nerds, but I have to say this, they all seemed like happy nerds and enjoying what they were doing. So rock on, ya'll. At least you are out socializing and not sitting in front of your computer or your video game.....

Anyway, here's a nice photo souvenir of the moment.

It's good to be a small part of my daughter's life. Thanks for suggesting this, C. You are a good friend.

When I was, I don't know, 12 or 13, I was an unlovely child.

Somewhere I saw this jacket, it was leather and fringed, maybe I saw it on TV, I don't know. It was the early 70s and it was the coolest thing I had ever seen.

I wanted one so badly, but it was not to be had in the burg where I lived. But that Christmas, my brother in law brought me back one from Mexico.

And when I got it, I put it on. And for the first time in my life I felt COOL. I WASN'T, of course, but I felt that way when I wore the jacket.

I don't know what became of it, lost along the way somewhere. But in Taos New Mexico, I found it again.

And I feel cool. This time I didn't need the jacket to feel that way. But it was a good feeling nevertheless. :-)

Check it out! I bought all the stuff from Eurway. Cheap when compared with regular office furniture....I took matters into my own hands after I figured out that JP wanted me to get some used clubby male looking shizz...

I still have to decorate, will use some of my own photos framed. :-)

Happy Day.

I just recently discovered Facebook and have to admit I'm hooked....if you are there, please friend me, I am Cyndi Wagner (NOT CFOHunny for a change!)

I AM still reading everyone's LJ even tho I haven't posted much (busy, see previous post)but would love to keep up with everyone in that way also....!

Love to all - Cyndi

Warning, gratuitous, hedonistic and generally narcissistic, self serving images to follow.

Maggie kept doing the weirdest thing, well to me.

She follows me into the closet and turns around and stands with her back to me. She follows me to the bathroom and does the same thing.

In my upstairs "apartment", if I am occupied, she sits at the head of the stairs, head pointed toward the ground floor.

So, not being ENTIRELY stupid I finally figured it out, she is GAURDING me.

I find that kind of cool.

haha. Well the pun is still supposed to be the highest form of humor, haha. At least it still is to the French, le jeu de mots, but THAT as they say is another story.

Anyway, an update on Maggie. She is still a pathetic pansy. She sometimes overcomes her runt behavior and eats out of her bowl instead of taking one piece of food away at a time....

She stands around with a hangdog look which I DON'T like....

I went on a dumdum (sucker) craze. THey are everywhere...she has learned to find them and eat them....one day, I saw a dumdum on the floor. I thougt, OK...must have dropped that. Next pass the dumdum was unwrapped. I thought that unusual but not having an answer for same, moved on. Next pass, stick only. And even tho I didn't need the dots drawn closer together, I then actually saw her eat one.

Hmm. So dumdums up higher.

Now we are into cat litter. I read, and it is true, that cats need a LOT more protein than dogs. So while dog food is largely cereal, catfood is pure-d concentrated protein GOODNESS.

So what comes out of the other end looks pretty damn good to a dog. Kind of like a tootsie roll if you get my drift.

Not sure where to put the cat litter. I guess she'll have a few more tootsie rolls while I figure it out...

Suggestions welcome on that regard btw...

So. What else. She is totally devoted to me and that is cool. She still shares a VERY uneasy alliance with the cats.

She was having a doggie "cow" a few days ago, to which C and I usually say "what? is Timmy in the well?" and go on, but she was REALLY insistent that we go to the window and look. The neighborhood cat, Zoe, was a few doors down and she had to be SURE to protect us from same. And when we acknowledged her for it, she was SOOOO proud! Cool stuff.

C still claims to hate her but treats her like a princess. She can often be found lying on his bed. :-)

Fin d'histoire.

Going thru old photos.

Observations.

I looked unhappy a lot. I guess I was and just didn't know it.

I think I knew I wasn't doing what I was destined to do. Still not sure what that IS but more sure of what it ISN'T....if that makes any sense.

Anyway, here are a couple pix of me at 25. You know what? I like how I look, feel and AM more now. Go figure.

Well, it's done. I'm 5 for 5. Definitely going to be watching the Oscars this year...

Milk - good from a standpoint of historical interest. My companion fell asleep and snored. I wasn't nearly as absorbed as I was by some of the others.

The Reader - not as Auschwitz-y as I had feared. The Holocaust was a background, but the real story was the heroism of the Reader, and her own personal phantoms. A tear jerker yes, but not for the reasons I had thought...

So that's it for Best Picture. I still would pick Slumdog Millionaire.

Other - saw Revolutionary Road Saturday. Yes, it has a sucky ending. But I SO RESONATED with the confining oneself with societal norms and how sometimes one must break out, no matter the cost to oneself.

Several others I want to see....I think I want to see The Wrestler now even though I didnt think I would like the subject matter....

Fin.

LMAO.

Rock stars, baby. World Domination - we'll settle for nothing less!!

Ahem. Well let me start by saying I have no idea how to write a movie review and even if I DID I would be ashamed to be seen in the same internet space as my very brilliant LJ friend kdotdammit  Sarcastic humor is more my thing these days or at least that's what I'm TRYING to achieve....

But, I did want to say a few words about the movies I have seen. Surprisingly, by some stroke of fate, I find that I have seen 3 of the 5 best picture nominations. So I've decided to go for a full house, even though I am REALLY not looking forward to The Reader. I've only achieved this feat once before, but typically have forgotten any of the details other than I did it and it was a few years ago. Seriously, I have become SO "50 First Dates" it's not funny....

Slumdog Millionaire - except for the torture scenes I absolutely thought this film was fucking BRILLIANT. And I know the torture scenes are necessary to the story I just can't watch violence, so I hide my eyes. Sometimes I even plug my ears up. Well. I thnk this one SHOULD win, not that it will.

Benjamin Buttons - weird, true. But cool. And LONG, but as a testament I knew a lot of time had passed but it didn't feel like 3 hours. I'm with kdotdammit   on this one for sure.....I think the whole flashback thing was unnecessary as hell and would have saved me some time! Thank you,  Should NOT win but was pretty damn good.

Frost/Nixon - I probably would not have seen this had not a friend (who normally HATES movies) mentioned that he wanted to see it. I took this as an opportunity to convert him into a cinema nut. It was really pretty cool. It really isn't about Nixon so much as it is about this talk show host, David Frost (who I knew jack SHIT about before this) and how he bet his whole life and fortune on the outcome of this interview and how he really was an entertainer but was forced to become a journalist because if he didn't and FAST he was FUCKED. So that was cool. Will it win? Hmmm. That whole thing is so fucking political anyway.....I used to show cats, I know how this shit works, lol!

Yes, kdotdammit  is right yet again, apparently they ALL have the theme of goodness triumphing over evil. But I'm OK with that, because I see so much Evil triumphing over Good that I guess I like that in my movies. Sort of like why I like the 3 Stooges, I have to think about really really hard stuff all the time and it is nice sometimes to just be happy. :-)

So,  hopefully that means that The Reader has a happy ending too. I'll be better able to handle the sadness I know it's going to offer up. Milk I have no qualms over. Hopefully I'll get round to putting down my thoughts on those two as well.

One last plug....go read REAL movie reviews at my brilliant friend's webpage....kdotdammit 

I mean it. Right NOW.

Ciao!

Had an opportunity to look through a recent copy of Playboy, first I have seen in years.

After I flipped through and looked at all the breasts, and compared them to mine, I went back for a closer look and discovered...

NONE OF THE WOMEN HAVE GENITALA. No clitoris, no labia....poor things!

Oh there is a glimpse of fur, or landing srips, but all the details are airbrushed out.

What a rip! Supposedly I hear this was done to make the magazine more acceptable in American homes (or another way to put that is that American WIVES will find it more acceptable).

BIZARE! Sorry, just had to comment on this, couldn't resist.

In direct defiance of winter I decided to have my pedicure in the most bright summery color I could find...:-)

Jetting off to Chicago next weekend deeries....hehe.

Seriously, making a quick quick run up there to see my most wonderful Malti....and return looking 5 years younger :-)

Just checking the weather....12 high on Saturday and 17 high on Sunday. YIKES!!

Holy Refrigerator, Batman!

I think I will be taking a shuttle vs renting a car....

My 7 year strike on cooking is over. I think it was a post cooking divorce stress trauma (PCDST)triggered by my current situation but actually dating back to the end of my first messy marriage.

My first husband insisted I cook every night. It was awful country food, like cornbead and meatloaf and canned peas and canned corn.

So after I ended THAT fiasco I associated cooking with bad times. And although I continued to cook for my next husband and my family I resented it. I grew to hate the whole process of shopping, coupons, dragging food in, preparing it...

But that is finally starting to change. I am experimenting a bit, preparing a few things and not finding it particularly onerous.

Of course, I am not going thru the exercise of buying a week's worth of shit and getting stressed out and all that.

I just look around at what I have and then buy something to go with it maybe.

I don't need a therapist, I just need livejournal.

FINALLY succeeded in creating my LJ book....now to print it out, 876 pages, mon dieu.

Think I am going to start doing this once a month, instead of waiting so long.

ANYWAY, MERCI A DIEU!!!

LMAO!!

I don't begin to have the words to do this film justice.

Horrible
Wonderful
Terrible
Manifique
Incrieble

I was crying at the end.

If you don't see this film you will be poorer for the lack.

Man am I ever behind in blogging. But NOW, now I hear rumors? Facts? That LJ is going away? So am I ever demotivated, my god.

But you know, that's not a very good excuse is it. So here we go.

OK, so I told you about the holiday road trips (ugg) and the fun party I went to (yah!)so just a few more observations and comments (and pix.

I always buy myself a purse each Christmas. This year was notable in that all of the high end models (coach, D&B etc) were ON SALE. If that is not a comment on the economy then I don't know what is. But I did profit from it....I bought myself the Coach and a friend bought me the D&B:

I have lots of talents. Wrapping presents is not one of them. The whole geometry thing escapes me. I remember my sister wrapping presents so beautifully.....but even if I TRY I can't do it. I just fuck it up, every damn time. So it's bags for me. :-(

It was my first Christmas with Coy. I laughingly told him we should get an "our first Christmas together" ornament, lol....

Had a beautiful meal at Chez Robert, check out the decs...

I have a friend who helped me with my Christmas shopping but who unfortunately encouraged me to buy everything I saw for MYSELF, lol.

But I do have to admit that I look pretty good in the Lucky Jeans and Ed Hardy T.

And since a meme is always a good note to end on, thus shall it end. :-)

Well, a week later, but here it is in all of its mind-bending boringness.

Was fortunate enough this year to attend SEVERAL parties, the most interesting of which was with a friend at Dr. X's. Dr. X is a very prominent doctor who lives with his partner in a wonderful home in uptown. Of course with two metro gay guys, as you would expect, the house is unbelievably decorated, both with Christmas decorations and other things, including some VERY interesting art:

Probably the most interesting Christmas decoraton was the Barbie Doll Wreath:

Certainly the most decadent part of the house has to be the master bath, although the pool ran a close second.

The place was full of interesting folk, including this couple (interesting one spoke some French and we had a great visit.

There were also some actual GOOD LOOKING LESBIANS although I failed to capture any shots. :-(

But my favorite person at the party had to be Dr. X's mother, who was full of stories of Greece and very spry and interesting.

The highlight of the evening was Dr X modeling shoes...my red shoe on the right and someone's blue Jimmy Choo on the left.

Well, I take back the boring part. This was actually the most interesting event of the season and I am grateful to my friend for taking me.

Part II will bore you to tears, don't worry, lol.

Maggie and I wish you all that you desire this holiday season. :-)