Because I'm kinda tired of posting when I'm feeling all melancholy, but for some reason, the PMS is not fading. I'm sitting here feeling misty reading perfectly wonderful posts from friends. Grrr. If only there were some REASON for feeling blue!!!

It was a great weekend, too. We puttered around a little on Saturday, got some stuff at Costco, roamed around Tuesday Morning a little (didn't find what I went looking for), then had a fun movie night in with framefolly and sillymagpie; the former had never before seen Throw Mama From The Train, which is really a necessity for any writer, and it'd been years since I'd seen it, so we dug out the ol' VHS and had a laugh fest. Sunday we drove out to a closeout store in Mesa, where I found out that Denny's will still cook eggs sunny-side-up (although their breakfast menu has REALLY shrunk, despite their new spate of commercials), and the store itself was not too bad, although since it's new, there wasn't a vast selection yet. I did buy a couple of shirts... now realizing I should NOT have spent any money, because now I HAVE NONE, and it's still five days until payday, and I'm trying to figure out where I'm going to get the $12 to go see Dale Watson tomorrow night at the Rhythm Room. Yes, 12 measly dollars, which would be no problem had I not spent $20 on clothes I didn't need.

ARGH. (It's the little things.)

I do have a jar full of change on my bureau, though.

Not that I'll have anything on Friday, either - I have doctor's bills still from the surgery AND I need new glasses. (I'm not even going to go into what the truck needs done. Hopefully she'll hang on for a while longer.)

Last week while working, a very familiar name crossed my desk, and I learned that the son of some old friends (I guess former friends is the correct term) had been run over and rather seriously hurt. Now, I haven't seen this kid since he WAS a kid, around 6 - he's 22, now, and he was riding a bicycle when he was hit. It gave me a weird feeling. I know these people, yet haven't spoken to them in more than a decade, so what does one do besides feel sorry in the same way one does for any stranger in similar circumstances? It was weird.

I'm tired, I didn't go to the gym today (I hurt my hip stretching yesterday; not really sure how, but it really freakin' hurts), the scale says I put BACK on three pounds (I was not careful this weekend), and I have not so much P-MS as plain MS, since there's no longer anything pre about it (finally - in the realm of TMI, it took FOUR DAYS for the damned thing to actually start). Gad. Grumptastic.

All of a sudden, everything came due.

I was trying to reconcile the possibility of coming up with whatever extra money we needed in order to pay for Sam's surgery (see rahirah's journal for all the details), when I opened today's mail.

Property tax AND Homeowner's insurance, all due in October. Grrrrrrr!!! Not to mention car insurance this month, my own doctor bills (which are mostly paid, but have left me without much extra), and of course the usual everyday bills... and then there's Christmas!!!

I'm afraid most folks are going to be getting only cookies this year, and that provided we get the kitchen done in time...

ANYWAY, I'm doing the juggling and such so I can at least give folks a little something, because I just LOVE giving Christmas presents and can't stand the thought of not doing so - what I won't be able to do any more is buy so much silly stuff for ME, which I've been very badly doing for a while (mostly clothes and shoes, which I have enough of now, so STOP! S'rsly). I do fortunately have a few little items already, because I usually start shopping, oh, whenever I see something that presents itself for someone on my list.

I hope we can manage to save a little on materials with the contractors to come out without spending the full amount of the loan on the kitchen. I mean, I don't want to go CHEAP, but we must be able to come up with something that can cut a corner here or there. The plumber already suggested a way to cut a few hundred bucks, because apparently now there's a synthetic tubing that's better than copper (especially for Arizona's hard water), and somewhat cheaper (what with the price of copper being through the roof right now). So you never know. (knock wood)

On a cheerier note, the stitches are out, and while it's sore, I'm feeling very energetic, so I've been bouncing all over the place this evening - once again probably overdoing, but I hate to let my hard-won muscles atrophy. *g* Two more weeks and I can be back in real shoes - just in time to really start the clean out on the house, I'm thinking, since we haven't broken ground yet (permits, permits) - they did make an appointment with us to go shopping for kitchen stuff next week, though. Whoo hoo!

I spent all day yesterday watching Doctor Four, from State of Decay through Logopolis, and today I watched Castrovalva to round out the regeneration from Four to Five. I have determined that Adric is kinda like Wesley Crusher, only without all the charisma. That's not counting the weekly NetFlix arrival, which was earlier Doctor Five, with the rather excellent "Talons of Weng Chiang." I've finally seen Leela in action!

We did do a little grocery shopping today, and as always, one should never go grocery shopping BEFORE lunch. We spent a lot more than we should have, especially since we didn't need that much to begin with. Still, it's hard to pass up New York Strip that's less than $5 a pound.

I got all activist and sent a little money to the No On Proposition 107 fund - this so-called "protection of marriage" act for Arizona not only further illegalizes gay marriage (which is already not legal in Arizona), but also takes away the benefits to same-sex partners already granted to the employees of dozens of companies. (These are the bigotted imbeciles; here's the other side.) Like in some states which have already passed "protection of marriage" acts like these, it would also take away the benefits from non-married heterosexual partners, as well. It's such a divisive issue it was on the front page of the Arizona Republic today. While my company still doesn't offer benefits to same-sex partners, there are a LOT of companies in Arizona which do, and even if I were straight I wouldn't cotton to taking away ANYONE'S benefits for any reason. (Deep inside of me, I cannot understand people who simply can't live and let live. It's not like we're making THEM marry same-sex partners.) Unfortunately, this is friggin' Arizona and it will probably pass... ::cry::

I feel like I might be coming down with a cold, but it's not done anything really except tease me, making me think maybe it's just sinus/allergies rather than the leading edge of a cold.

My arm still hurts, so I'll probably call the doc tomorrow and see if I can get an LMT referral so insurance will cover a massage. I'm fairly certain it's muscular (for one thing, it's not near any internal organs, right, sillymagpie?), and it did feel better after rahirah worked on it a little, so I think a real massage would probably help.

I also have to call the IRS, since they haven't taken my monthly payment out yet, and usually they are like clockwork, first thing the banks open on the 15th, that payment was gone. However, the money is still in my account, and according to my calculations, I still had three more payments to go. Now, considering my math skills are no where NEAR good enough to win me a "badge for mathematical excellence," I could be wrong, in which case I may be finished. This would be a time for "woo hoo!" but I want to make sure before I celebrate, since they haven't sent me a receipt, confirmation, or anything, and I don't want to get hit with penalties for missing a payment if it's not my fault. But I rightly fear the IRS.

Today's "DUH!" moment:

WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 — A stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks.

The classified National Intelligence Estimate attributes a more direct role to the Iraq war in fueling radicalism than that presented either in recent White House documents or in a report released Wednesday by the House Intelligence Committee, according to several officials in Washington involved in preparing the assessment or who have read the final document.

The intelligence estimate, completed in April, is the first formal appraisal of global terrorism by United States intelligence agencies since the Iraq war began, and represents a consensus view of the 16 disparate spy services inside government. Titled “Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States,’’ it asserts that Islamic radicalism, rather than being in retreat, has metastasized and spread across the globe.

An opening section of the report, “Indicators of the Spread of the Global Jihadist Movement,” cites the Iraq war as a reason for the diffusion of jihad ideology.

The report “says that the Iraq war has made the overall terrorism problem worse,” said one American intelligence official. - NY Times, Sunday, September 24, 2006