Sabe Be!

I thig I'b goig to subbocade. I HATE ALLERGIES!!! Seems as if this year is going to be a doozy allergy-wise. Yesterday was a study in misery, which I couldn't fully appreciate because my eyes were so swollen I couldn't see my ghastliness properly in the mirror. Ugh!

The soonest I can get in to see an allergist is June 19th, so until then I am trying to be 'proactive' and do inellegent things like, um... washing the cats. Yeah, ok, maybe the snot in my brain has left me a tad impaired. Allerpet has a spray you can mist your cat with for a once-a-week wipe down that's supposed to help. I'll try that just as soon as I have the butterfly bandages and home stitching kit in hand. In the mean time just keeping the cats out of the bedroom is a daunting task. Even more daunting is the job of keeping my damned fingers out of my eyeballs. Akkk! Does anyone make a topical anesthetic that you can put on the rims of your eyelids?

Got to do more research on HEPA filters so I can decide which outrageously expensive unit is the best, and then choose which room to put it in. A friend suggested putting filter material on the back of a regular box fan and running it on low near where the birds hang out. Since they're out all day when I am home, this may really help the early morning fluffies, after they've quietly dusted the kitchen as they sleep overnight.

Over the years Allegra, Zyrtec and Clariton have all let me down such that I am now completely without relief. The idea of desensitizing shots is not a happy one, so wish me luck that there will be some viable alternative... stearoid shots maybe?

Russ keeps telling me fish are nice. We have 18 fish and they don't bite, screech, shed, hurk up gophers on the carpet or make my eyes swell shut. I think he has something there... Not much help for the 1000 acres of blooming grasses and mustard surrounding my house though. Sigh.

Ain't life grand?

What's It All About?

"So why is it I want a Blog?" I ask myself. Sharing anecdotes and pictures of my adorable pets and my spectacular surrounds? Ok, yeah, that's nicer than posting same in three different formats to three different venues: chats, e-mail and greeting cards. Still and all, that can't be the whole thing. I have this bitchin' new career, but I can't talk about the bulk of my work in any detail because it's confidential. Writers boards are more apporpirate for the short stories to which I'm prone, and I can't gripe about my crazy relatives if I invite them to my blog... so I ask you, what's left? And who the hell are YOU I'm asking, anyway?

I'm trying to get a hook on this new culture of instantaneous interconnectedness. As the partner of a bonafide computer geek and a fairly high geekette rating myself, I used to pride myself on being way ahead in the cyberspace game. My mate was bouncing from one server to the next on strung together BBS sites before the Internet was a thang, and I surfed vicariously through the Gulf War, hearing amazing inside info direct from Bagdad and so forth (fascinating how it differed from the mainstream news!). I had my very own website before most of my friends and family were even getting around the digital cosmos, had my own chat and was a Webmistress, designing webpages professionally. I even had an ICQ number (took a whole college course on ICQ as a matter of fact!) and had free conversations on a webphone with my international friends... too sci fi for words!

Next thing I knew I was knocked ass over teacup by a stampeding mass of adolescents as they burst free from their AOL IMming nest boxes and emerged as full fledged, cellphone and ipod wielding cyberfolks. Damn! How did that happen? So here I am floundering in the backwaters of netdom, having resisted blogging simply because everyone was doing it and I didn't want to be so mainstream. But what's it all about, really? Are we looking for kindrid spirits, a grandstand, a mirror... what?

Well I'll cruise around and try it and see what happens. Who can say?

And She's Off!

Ok, so I finally decided to move into the new millennium and get myself a Blog. It’s not quite MySpace; I can’t bring myself to go that far, and I could have done this on my own server, but that’s not as cool somehow, so I’ll just link there from time to time 'cause it gives me some freedom.

Having ascended to the required heights of narcissism, I can now bore all my friends and family with my daily ruminations, as if they don't get enough of that as it is. Jeeoy!

So for those who are new to ME, I am a psychology student nearing the end of my masters program in Marriage and family Therapy and about to begin on the next leg of this long and neurotic journey I've undertaken... the DOCTORAL!!! Yes, I am going to be my father. Well no, not really, he's an MD and a PsyD is a horse of a different color, but I will have his last name, which is cool, since the only other Dr. in the family goes under another name.

It's funny how one can grow up hating a name and swear for all she's worth that she'll change it one day, and then just seems to let opportunities to do so slide on by. Once I graduated from college would have been good; new life, new name... but no, I wanted to use all those profs for references and thought they wouldn't know who the hell I was if I did a switcheroo then. Then I got married, but my husband's name is not a large advantage over my own, either in the spelling or social stigma arenas, and the idea of hyphenating the two brings big hearty belly laughs to all who consider it; not exactly the effect I have been looking for. I suppose once I graduate with my doctoral I'll have yet another chance, but the thought of playing the junior to my father is just so damned fun I can't even consider anything else! Who'da thunk? See Ma, it wasn't so bad to have all girls after all! Besides, if I'd been born a boy I'd have been Edson and I am SO not an Ed.

Anyway, I'm just Mamabeek on the Net, so all this is so much fluff. The etymology there involves a Cockatiel named Beeker and another chatter on the Upatsix Cockatiel Chat (more commonly known as TielTown, and my entry port to the World Wide Web many years ago) named Lynn. She arrived at TT before me and the moment we met she was assertive enough to flip me over and hold her teeth to my throat until I peed all over myself and changed my name. We've been great friends ever since!

My cast of characters will be listed here in due time. I'm an animal lover, exploiter, rights activist, and allergic reactor. I like to think I'm complex, like a many layered, fine wine; fruit forward but smoky aftertones with a bit of oak thrown in for fiber. (hm... the visuals I can create from that are pretty rich) The recent shift from agricultural biology to psychology represents my efforts to escape potential cork rot.

Well there we have it, a virgin post on my own B-L-O-G. Oooo.... was it good for you too? Can't wait to see what I write next.

TTFN...