lazypadawan's Holocron

It's been raining at Casa De Lazypadawan since Sunday. At first it was a wimpy but annoying and occasionally foggy rain, then it just DUMPED this morning. I know that when you get bad Pacific storms, it just rains and rains and rains. Well, this was bad and this is from someone who had lived on the East Coast for 26 years. I've seen downpours and cloudbursts before that were so heavy, if I were driving I'd have to pull over to the side of the road because I couldn't see.

The difference is that in Florida and in Virginia, those kinds of downpours lessen up after a few minutes. This dump-o-thon went on and on, complete with "gentle breezes" that made me feel like I was driving in a hurricane. There was standing water all over the place and on the freeway, the splashes went over my car. I've had to drive in snow and worse yet, in ice, and this was about as scary as driving in any of those conditions.

At work the roof and windows were leaking. I kept checking the parking lot to make sure it wasn't flooding.

The rain stopped by the time it was ready to go home but one of the major waterways that goes through my area flooded and they had to shut down a bunch of roads, causing much chaos and my getting home 45 minutes later than usual. Thank goodness a lot of people are apparently off from work since it's the week of Christmas, or else I'd really been screwed.

Hey, it's coming your way, Middle America! Enjoy your White Christmas!

Folks, it's been a crappy week. Everybody at work is sick and it's been crazy trying to manage the workload when we're down people. Of course, when we're short is when the DDAs have all kinds of problems. On top of it all, I've been keeping a cold at bay almost all week. I keep popping Cat's Claw (it's a vitamin made from a plant, not literally a cat's claw) and vitamin C and it minimized my symptoms. Today I'm not as sniffly, but my throat feels a little raw. It was cloudy and rainy today too. So I guess it's just as well I'm not going to see Star Wars In Concert :(.

Count me among the disappointed and disgusted at the entertainment nitwits who threw in their support for fugitive child rapist Roman Polanski. Like the old Pop Will Eat Itself song goes, there is no love between us anymore.

And now David Letterman is outed as a lecherous, creepy, sexual harassing bastard. I was never a Letterman fan...when he was the shiz back in the '80s and his show was must-see-t.v. for my peers in high school and in college, I kept thinking, "He's not that funny." I just don't go for that too-zen-for-you, barely-crack-a-smile humor. What can I say, I'm more of a Johnny Carson and Jay Leno kind of gal, and I love Red Eye on FoxNews. But aside from that, I always found Letterman had a weird, creepy air to him and now I know why. It must be a fun place to work, always wondering if he's going to grab your boobs. Anyway, that guy who was trying to extort Letterman for $2 million was an idiot...if he'd just put the book out, he'd easily make more than $2 million and he'd be out of jail.

I got a stomach bug yesterday that was so bad, I couldn't even bear to go online. That's how bad it was! I drifted in and out of watching Heroes last night. I'm feeling lots better today, but I'm staying home from work just to make sure my tummy doesn't act up again.

You might have heard about a military F-18 jet crashing into a residential area of San Diego today. As of writing, three are confirmed dead, one is missing, and the pilot seems to be okay. Two houses were destroyed.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,463725,00.html

The lazypadawan lair is of course not near the crash site, but I once lived on one of the streets where it occurred. We moved in waaay back in 1973 and lived there about three years before moving to the other end of University City in 1976. I remember seeing jets from Miramar Air Base flying over the house all of the time. I used to watch the Blue Angels during the annual air show from my backyard.

It's a real shame about the people on the ground who got killed and the pilot who will have to live with this for the rest of his life. Given that a sizable portion of S.D. is in somebody's flight path, urban crashes are a hazard of living here.

Hell week goes from bad to worse. On Monday, I started feeling pain and discomfort in my neck. I don't know if it was the result of a facial I got on Sunday (they massage your neck and shoulders when you get a facial), but I didn't feel any pain or anything until Monday afternoon. Did I accidentally strain my neck bending forward or something? Possibly. Regardless, I had a hard time sleeping Monday night and last night. Now it's not so much discomfort as it is good old fashioned soreness in my left neck muscles. I'm popping Advil like it's candy and trying not to move my head too much (I'm also going to have to reduce my time online) but I know from experience that a pulled/strained neck muscle takes a while to recover (I had a similar injury in the same set of neck muscles on my left side in 1998). I haven't been to a doctor yet because I know, again from experience, that all they'll do is make you pop a lot of Advil or Tylenol. I'm going to try using a heat pack (no swelling, so I'm not using ice). If worst comes to worst and I don't improve by Sunday I'll have to seek out a doc to see if I can get some muscle relaxers and stronger painkillers. It's not so bad I can't work, so at least that's one improvement over the '98 injury.

I can't think of a worse time for this to happen. Comic Con is this weekend and at the very least I have to show up to pick up my Anakin bust and for the fan club breakfast on Saturday because they're already paid for. I think I will have to keep my activities and walking there to an absolute minimum. Sadly, I'm probably bailing on Midnight Madness and I've already told the SagaJournal staff my August paper isn't going to happen. My brother's wedding is a week after that and I have to be mostly/fully recovered by then.

Update: Around lunchtime today I thought, "Screw it, I'm going to see a doctor today." After talking with my co-workers and my supervisor, I left to go to an urgent care place. They told me to call my assigned HMO doc first. Fortunately, they had a spot for me this afternoon. The doc pretty much confirmed what I thought it was; he noted that the muscles on the left side of the neck/shoulder were tight as a drum. It may or may not have come from that massage. But I got a prescription for 800 mg of ibuprofen and some happy pills/muscle relaxers. I'm going to stay home from work tomorrow and rest. I figure what I'll do is go to Comic Con in the afternoon on Friday and in the morning on Saturday, just sticking with the highlights (licensee booths, some merch booths, artists' alley). The doctor told me that the ibuprofen and time are the only things that will really take care of the problem.