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Post Tgiving Ramblings

Trek Tree 2025

I was going back and forth about writing out all my trials and tribulations since that’s all I do these days, but it’s that or not write at all, and I need to write. So.

Since I last wrote, Halloween came and went and the nastiest Mercury Retrograde I’ve endured in a very long time has finally ended.

We had a Super Moon on top of this Retrograde, and I paid the price for not listening to my instincts. Sigh.

I went out on Thu Nov 6 to make a quick run to Tower Liquor to reup supplies and get a bottle of Veuve Clicquot for my birthday weekend. I was feeling very unsure about going out, but pushed myself to do it anyway. Bad decision.

While driving on Chamblee Tucker Road, I hit a badly patched spot and it pushed me into a bit of curb that was sticking out – at 35-40mph. It was bad. Fortunately there was a neighborhood right there, so I could pull of just a few yards past the road hazard. I knew my tire was busted and I could see my busted windshield. It was a VERY HARD HIT to the right front wheel. There was no fluid leakage, so that was a relief. I was hoping that it was just the wheel and perhaps the suspension. I called Nick to come change the tire and help me assess the damage. I decided I should review the manual instructions about using the spare and good thing I did: my car cannot be driven with the donut on the front (they expect you to put the donut on the back and the back tire on the front. NOPE.). It could damage the differential. Great. So we called AAA to come haul Romeo to the mechanic. I was not going to drive him anyway with that busted windscreen and unknown damages. Good thing I did, he was VERY damaged:

– Bearings
– Hub
– Tie Rod
– Control Arm
– Strut
– Gravel diverter
– Alignment
TOTAL: $2980

New tire: $200 (somehow the wheel itself was not damaged)
Mount/balance $38

New windshield: $355

TOTAL DAMAGES: $3573 posted to our large emergency CC, which is now at about 40%.

Of course, I take to the phone and email to bring Dekalb County to task for this road hazard. Of course, they told me to go fuck myself. You see, Dekalb County is too trifling to have their own insurance, so when something happens, they see if ANY CONTRACTORS have been working in the area, so they can then force THEM to use THEIR insurance for claims. Nifty, eh? Fucking Dekalb bullshit. They don’t give a single solitary SHIT about anything going on, other than getting paid. I can’t WAIT to vote against the CEO (a stupid useless position in the first place) next round of voting. She is just there for the paycheck and sides with ICE and police teargassing citizens. CEO Lorraine Cochran-Johnson, you are a disgrace. I hope to get the office of CEO abolished, but not holding my breath about that one. If there’s one thing Dekalb is great at, it’s layers of bureaucracy and nepotism. The person in charge of pothole issues has FOUR layers of managers over her – all of which are determined to deny any and all claims. NICE.

The fight is not over, but I doubt anything will be reimbursed to me. I tried a bunch of lawyers and they won’t take on the county – and I was also informed that my car was “too old” to bother with. Fucking hell. I fucking hate lawyers and bureaucrats, so lots of annoyance.

This ruined my birthday, which was not a pleasant one to begin with. Big milestone one. BLECH. And on top of all this, some very good friends didn’t even wish me a happy day, so that didn’t help AT ALL. I pretty much spun into a 2-3 wk bout of anxiety and depression.

I finally came out of that crap in time for Thanksgiving. We put up the tree last weekend and the interior lights. Just the big tree this year and only Trek ornaments. There are 41 of them, so it’s not like the tree is bare! LOL We got the Titan and the Star Trek arcade game ornaments this year. I cooked a modest meal and had a good friend over. It was nice.

I am 100% exhausted by this year. There won’t be much going on around here for the foreseeable future. We’re selling some games to offset the Romeo Debacle™ and not doing very much in the way of xmess gifts. FUN. SIGH.

I hope everyone ELSE has a great holiday and New Year.

That’s all I have to say about that.

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It’s That Time Again

It’s almost birthday time and I typically get a bit depressed about it. This year is especially bad if you know the number I’m looking at. If you don’t, well, just know it’s HIGH.

This year has dragged on as we watch our country get closer and closer to fascism. We attended the No Kings protests a couple of weeks ago – my FIRST protest! – and it was heartening to see about a thousand people of all ages peacefully protesting the destruction of our country.

I’ve been reading a lot, I log my reading in my Book List posts, this year’s is pinned to the home page if you’re interested.

I’m just tired. Tired because I’m old, tired because I’m out of shape, tired because of the constant negativity of living in a country run by fascists and morons. I’ve zero motivation, hence the out of shape part. I just cannot gin up enough fucks to bother to exercise. I have GOT to get over it, and I’m working on it. It’s just slow and difficult.

When I was thinking about my future when I was young, I never thought to add worldwide pandemic and fighting off fascism. I guess this is what my grandparents felt when WWII happened. THEIR parents are pretty much where we are now: they endured the flu pandemic and WWI, then WWII on the heels of that. SHITTY, I tell you.

But here we are.

Nick and I still dream of having our own business, but we also know that it is not very likely to happen. We just do not have the resources and never will at this point. Hell, we’d just like to secure our fucking HOME FFS.

It’s been a rough year all round. I’m sure we’re not the only ones.

I am just going to put up the Xmess decor SUPER EARLY (like in the next coupla weeks since we didn’t do Halloween) and try to pretend things are normal.

We did get two new Trek ornaments: USS Titan (Picard) and the Star Trek Arcade game. We can stop any time we want. ;) I am going to post the list in another entry for your entertainment!

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Current State of VSG/GERD

I just saw a post by a woman who is in stage 3 kidney failure due to long term use of PPIs. Which is why I got off those things very soon after my VSG surgery. If you take them, you should start stepping down from them immediately. The product I talk about in this post would be an excellent way to do that. Read on. However, if you’ve not read it, I’d read my other post which includes the links to PPI research before reading this one if you want the full picture. The kidney specific articles are here and here. I also have several posts about getting off PPIs, you’ll see them in the category.

The woman with kidney failure and my current status have prompted me to write an updated post about my VSG and long term GERD issues. I’ve not written anything about it in detail since 2021 when I tried acupuncture – which didn’t do much, sadly. I wrote a passing note within a deck building post last summer, but I have not written anything detailed, which will now be rectified.

Ok, so let’s go back to my last batch of writing from 2021. I did acupuncture, and while I do feel acupuncture is helpful for many issues, I got little results even with the Chinese Death Tea™.

I got into a routine with ONLY famotidine (H2 blocker), 3x a day, totaling 40mg/day and antacids (calcium). This was fine until 2024, when I started throwing up. Often.

I thought I was just overeating, but when the spitting and puking kept happening, I started to pay attention. It was NOT volume related, it was something else. I did some digging and found that throwing up typically begins with VSG patients around the 8-10 yr mark. Why? It is the lower esophageal sphincter (LES) spasming and/or becoming weak. When I mentioned this within my deck building post, I was thinking it was gall bladder, but no.

So I kept on with my famotidine routine and tried to be extremely careful when eating (read: eating TINY amounts at a time) to not miss the signals that I would end up puking. This went on until about a month ago (June 2025) when I was looking at FB and an ad caught my eye. It was an ad proclaiming Kiss My Acid Goodbye!, which of course, has the perfect tone for me. So I clicked it and read about the product and decided to roll the dice on a fucking FB ad.

I interrogated the dude who said he was behind the product – I even ran his emails through AI detection! – and he was, indeed a real guy who was ALSO a VSG patient who had the same puking experience that I am dealing with. I started the KMAG supplement (you can read all about it here: How KMAG works) and after a month, I can say that it definitely does SOMETHING. I’ve cut down famotidine to 10mg Pepcid at bedtime only and I’ve only had 3 pukes in that time, with a few spits w/out puking. I should probably go to 2x/day with it, but I take SO MANY fucking supps. I take: multivitamin, NAC (because I’m a sot), vit D+K sublingual, B12 sublingual, liquid glucosamine/chondroitin (nasty), concentrated liquid biotin/collagen and liquid magnesium (to offset the calcium, which is becoming a non-thing), PLUS the KMAG. It’s a lot.

I do feel that KMAG is healing my ravaged stomach and LES, it’s taking some time, but ALL natural supplements take time.

So that’s where I am with VSG/GERD and supplements. I feel that KMAG is doing its job healing up damage and soothing the LES spasms that are the likely culprit of the puking.

If you want to read ALL my posts relating to VSG, PPIs and managing GERD, here is the category, which is recent first, so you’ll need to go backwards to get to the beginning.

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Wool Gathering

Got kind of a random list of stuff on my mind, so this post will be loosely organized, however not as fanciful as the title implies. HA!

The main thing on my mind is something I’ve been struggling with for a while now. It is my status as The Party Girl™. I’ve always been known for knowing how to have a good time and I’ve certainly leaned into it over the years. I do love me a good party, true, but now that I’m getting old and slowing down, it has been damned hard to move people away from the perception that every interaction with me needs to be a party. This may seem to be a minor thing, and for most people, perhaps it is, but for me, it has become an issue. I can’t have people over for dinner without it becoming an all night affair. Again, I like to party as much as the next girl, but I simply CANNOT do all nighters any more (I don’t even do it at CONS any more FFS!). I am simply too old. It takes me DAYS to get over it – the fatigue, the detox, the angry tummy, all of it. Late night parties are just not worth the price any more! BUT I can’t seem to get anyone to understand this. Every person to the one is deeply embedded with the belief that if you’re at MY house, then baby it’s gonna be a par-TAY! I know change is hard and all that, but I really need my friends to be more open to having a relatively early evening (1am I can do!) and perhaps not all of it spent smoking (which is getting harder for me to recover from). I AM capable of having movie night, or game night, or whatever without it being a balls to the wall party. Sigh. This is my cry for help!

I had a keratosis thing on my cheek recently. It just appeared and was pretty big and ugly – keratosis is basically a skin bump. I fished around the intertubes and found a thread about diclofenac (yes, arthritis cream) being useful to get rid of them. I had some, so I thought: what the hell! I’d already been using microneedle blemish patches with a little success, as well as hyaluronic acid moisturizer and retinol serum. Well, the diclofenac WORKED! Who knew? I also now have eczema spots all over my body, which I find most irritating. They don’t itch, they just look awful. My neighbor works for Dermalogica, and she gave me some serum stuff that has plant STEM cells for the keratosis. It did little for the keratosis, BUT it did help with the eczema spots. I’ve never had so many issues with my skin. UGH. I hates it.

My chronic GERD has advanced to a LOT more spitting up and/or vomiting up the whole meal. It is fairly random, but sometimes I can feel when it’s going to happen and stop eating immediately. Yes, I know that getting a revision to a full bypass would solve this, but I just can’t. I may be driven to it at some point, but for now, I just can’t face another surgery. So I’ll live with occasional bulimia. Sigh.

Shasti is starting to show her true age. We think she is probably 15+, which is 4 years more than we initially thought. Her eyes have begun to show age with the irises changing colour and the pupils becoming a bit cloudy. She sleeps a LOT more. Her kidney numbers are not great, but holding steady for now. I have to get her on fluid therapy, which means I have to learn to do it myself ($145 a pop? NOPE.). I have a difficult time with the hard jab necessary to pierce that tough skin on her scruff. I’ve managed to get her to take her kidney and constipation meds in her food, but now we are trying to do a week of antibiotics every month, rotating the kind, to see if we can keep that gum infection at bay. THAT is proving nearly impossible to put in food – it is the pink stuff, clavamox, and she is supposed to get 1ml a day. It is too much for food and gods I hate fighting her to take it orally. I spend an inordinate amount of time dealing with the cat.

And finally, I guess I’m just a little on the depressed side lately. I feel misunderstood, I am always tired and I have no motivation to do anything. BUH. It will pass, it always does, but it’s just a DRAG. I try daily to remember that I have a basically good life with a nice home, good friends and a wonderful partner in crime. I try to avoid the news and avoid thinking about this country going down the toilet because I am trapped here and can’t leave, so what good is it to waste time worrying about it? I just try to accentuate the positive, baby.

And with that, I go forth to find some happiness. Which means I’ll probably cook something. ;)

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To Be Perfectly Clear

For those who need more clarity about what’s up:

– I am not here to be your personal chef, therefore I do NOT owe you any dinners at any time. If you find this offensive, then leaving my sphere is the best move. I don’t miss you, HS.

– I will not stand for abusive behavior couched in the notion that it was “for the best”. NOPE. Abuse is abuse and I don’t regret ditching you crazy bitches one little bit, CBH & JC. The children have also been damaged and that is unforgivable as well. Don’t miss you in the least.

– I do not care about your widdle fee fees, RC. YOU are a Nazi sympathizer and Felon worshiper. There is no excuse for that level of complete self absorption. I don’t miss you, either.

I will not acquiesce to demands made by crazy self absorbed people any more. I’ve done it for years to keep the peace and I’m done. IDGAF if I have only a few select friends – I’d rather have FEWER of better quality than a bunch that I don’t really have ties with in the first place.

If any of this offends you, you know where the door is. I’m old, cranky and out of time to waste with people who are just out for what they can get for themselves. I want quality over quantity.

That is all.