Funny Strange is Lori Culwell's blog.

Keen observations on life, observed while under the influence of fever

So, being sick is boring.  Last week I had a fever for five days in a row, which I guess would be abnormal if it wasn’t for the freaky white blood cell problem.  Fevers create white blood cells, I guess?   During my convalescence I have read four books, watched an unending stream of cop shows, taken large amounts of cold medicine, and confined myself to certain parts of the house that have good ventilation. I have cabin fever, but luckily Stephan hasn’t gotten it so far.    Also, I have had a lot of time to ponder the greater questions of life, such as:  why are we here on Earth?  What is the sound of one hand clapping?  And, perhaps most importantly, why do attractive women keep going out with Adam Duritz from Counting Crows?

I’m sorry, but did anyone notice that Adam Duritz is (and has always been) MIDDLE AGED AND FRUMPY, and yet has a history of dating totally hot women?  How is he doing this?    Remember in the nineties when he was dating Jennifer Aniston?  Now he’s moved on to an even younger and hotter girl, Emmy Rossum.  Dig this picture, where she looks like “Hey, this is my funky, dreadlocks-having dad.  He’s a total dork, but I’m letting him go to this concert with me anyway!”

But no, that’s not it at all.  They’re on a date, even though he looks like Sideshow Bob from The Simpsons.  Yiiiiikes!   I was going to say that we needed to have an “Emperor Wears No Clothes” with old Adam Duritz, but then the thought of him wearing no clothes grossed me out so much, I had to totally rewrite that sentence.  I’m sure he has spectacular (ahem) mojo, but….dude!  You’re 46.   Cut your hair and buy a suit so at least people won’t shrug and scratch their heads in amazement when you go on these improbable dates.

Paging Dr. House...

Ok, I’ll admit it—the other reason I haven’t been writing as much lately is because I seem to have this mysterious illness that keeps coming back—an illness not unlike the mononucleosis I enjoyed at age 17, only not as severe.  I like to think of myself as one of those really healthy types who walks four miles a day, so I try not to dwell on this strange part of my life.   I would like to mention, though, that I totally get the flu shots and whatever other vaccinations they’ll give me, wash my hands all the time, and take a ton of vitamins, just so you don’t think I’m slacking.   As it turns out, if I didn’t do all these things, I probably would be getting even sicker, even more often.  And, here’s why:  I DON’T HAVE ENOUGH WHITE BLOOD CELLS, PEOPLE.

Here’s how I know this:  I keep getting this thing where I have what I think is an allergy attack (see my delightful "You're Allergic to the World" allergen test above), and then that develops into a fever/ swollen glands/ sore throat/ feeling awful thing, and then I have to “take it easy” for a few days, and then it goes away, and then two weeks later it comes back.     Lather, rinse, repeat.  If you’ve seen me lately, I have probably been in the middle of one of these cycles, but no one ever seems to catch this illness from me, so don’t worry—you’re probably fine.

Yes, I have been to the doctor.  No, it’s not Lyme Disease, or Lupus, and no, my mono did not come back.  What I do have a mysterious and hereditary condition called leukopenia, which means that I have less white blood cells than you, so don’t breath on me, and that I actually did once get on a plane in New York healthy, and land with the flu.     You’re jealous, right?  This is another reason why I’m lukewarm on little kids, because as you probably know, they can get you really sick even if you have enough white blood cells.  So, there’s that.

It’s been bugging me, though, so last week I went to a doctor who told me that if this condition didn’t go away and I kept getting sick for no good reason, they were going to drill my bone marrow, because, get this, sometimes LEUKOPENIA IS THE FIRST SIGN OF LEUKEMIA.   What what WHAT?  

Did I need to hear this?  No!  I was like “I have a sore throat!  I’ve had that white blood cell thing for TEN YEARS.  That has nothing to do with my bone marrow, dude!”

But, as of last night the fever came back, and the sore throat, and with no medical explanation, I either need to be on an episode of House, or I’m one step closer to the dreaded “Hem-Onc” department. 

Send healing vibes, please.  And white blood cells if you have some.  I have the 'penia!  Oh, and before you ask me, no-- I totally don't have any of the diseases or take any of the medications listed in that Wikipedia listing.   Nope!  Mysterious, right?

Let this be a warning to you

Um, why am I so anti-social?  Well, for one we went on vacation last week, to Carmel, to celebrate our 11-year anniversary!  I actually can't believe it's been that long-- time has gone by so fast it maybe feels like five years ago, but definitely not ELEVEN.  That is a crazy long time!

I had a whole long "how we met" post almost done and I was going to post it on our anniversary, but then I got busy and overwhelmed again with the computer meltdown and subsequent Quicken rebuild (omg.  OMG! still going on), so I didn't finish it and instead went out of town and had a great time, and am now back where I am once again being oppressed by missing data and co-op board issues.  

I do have some fairly-hilarious notes from the real estate hunt I've been on lately (like, I toured a house where the owner bought OLIVIA NEWTON JOHN'S BATHROOM and reconstructed it piece by piece, and feels this is a premium item and not weird at all), but I'm going to have to hold that update until I come to some semblance of something with Quicken and get our accountant the information he needs to file our (already extended) taxes.   So, bear with me-- the vacation was fun, thank you for the anniversary wishes (on Facebook), and please, PLEASE buy a backup hard drive and backup your computer every month, then take that hard drive to a second location.  

Oh, did I mention that one of my friends has the swine flu?  Yiiiiikes!   He lives in Seattle, but still I think about it every time I see him on Facebook.  When will he feel better?  Can I get the germs by talking to him over Facebook?  Blllaaahhhh!  Feel better Jason!

Updates, and The Closer!

In case you are wondering about a variety of topics, here is a smattering:

Regarding my getting our place ready to become a rental and looking for a place for us to move:  no, we are not leaving L.A. (yet).   It's been two years and we've always intended for this place to become a rental, so we're looking around at all the screamin' real estate deals out there and trying to decide what to do next.   Real estate investment:  just a part of the Cox/ Culwell empire.  No joke!

Work/etc:  still swamped.  Getting a little more under control.  Ongoing computer problems are making this a continued pain in the a*#, which is why I haven't been updating as much.  Bear with me, people!  One day I will get everything organized again, and then it will be 2010.  Lessons learned:  always back everything up, and use a Mac from the beginning.

Perhaps the most exciting news of the day, which I have mostly been holding until now:  I can be seen in tonight's season finale of The Closer as a slasher victim.  In case you want to pause your Tivo, that is me, dead in the laundry room in the DVF wrap dress.   I will post the gory version tomorrow, now that I have prepared you in advance.  Look for me in the episode--- I'm in the murder book, and my name is "Michelle Ward."

Also, you never know with editing--I could be on the cutting room floor by tonight, but watch anyway!  It's a good show!

This update is mostly family-related, may be boring to you.

So, lots of family stuff going on this week-- on Wednesday, we were preparing to drive north for Stephan's mom's knee-replacement surgery (ouch!) when we learned that a new cousin-in-law had been welcomed into the family.   In case you know Cory and Caroline, they had a baby boy named Will on Wednesday, and from the photos, he is every bit as cute as Henry.   I'm sure my family members don't want me telling my blog readers too much about them, so let's just leave it at that and if you know them, feel free to email them!

Yesterday Jan went in for the knee-replacement, and no kidding, THIS MORNING SHE GOT UP AND WALKED ON THE NEW KNEE.  Damn!  Double damn!  In case you're wondering, that means my mother-in-law is GANGSTER when it comes to her pain tolerance.  Again, for those who know her,  the surgery went well, her pain management (from other medical issues) is under control, and we are all seeing her frequently to make sure she's entertained and not wanting for anything.  This knee replacement is the first step in a couple of surgeries she needs, so we're all excited to get that process underway and get her back to health.

On another note, is there anything more depressing than a hospital cafeteria?   I've had the dubious fortune of visiting a number of hospitals in my day, and I have to say, by and large they all contain the same things:   salad bar where you're like "um, I'm a hospital, why would I want to eat food that's out in the open like that?",  "hot food" area where the food is pre-cooked and sitting under a heat lamp (shudder)-- this one included mashed potatoes, some baked chicken, and (for some reason) Swedish meatballs.  Nothing like some heavy, carbohydrate-rich food to make you logey so you can be at your most efficient providing life-saving medical services, right?   This cafeteria was also special in that it resides in the basement with absolutely no natural light, and has a big sign on the way in that says "DO YOU KNOW THE SIGNS OF MRSA?" with a large photo of someone's hand who has a MRSA infected-sore on it.  Because that's JUST the kind of thing you want to see on your way in to get some salad bar and Swedish meatballs, right?

Did I mention that I have "food in germ" phobia?  Yes, this means I do make my own vegetable sandwiches and bring them with me.  I do have to give it up for the Starbucks in the lobby, though.  Spending twelve hours in a place with no coffee would probably have been as bad as eating those meatballs.

Email or comment with messages for Cory, Caroline, or Jan if you like.  For the rest of you, I will try to remember to get a photo of that totally special MRSA sign for you this afternoon.  And....have a nice weekend!

Last Week Was Weird. Discuss.

So—I don’t know if it was because of some eclipse that was supposedly going on (I never know about eclipses-- isn't the sun supposed to go dark?), or because Stephan was in Argentina where it was winter during summer, thus rendering everything back home Bizarro world, but last week?  Weird.

First off, and I know I’ve mentioned this before but please bear with me because it’s still going in, my computer continued the Great Meltdown of 2009, and I was forced to totally wipe out the PC side and build the whole thing up again just as a Mac.  Because, believe you me, if you get a MacBook, and you try to partition it to be both a PC AND a Mac just because you think it will be neato, and then you end up using the PC side a lot, eventually it will act like a boy who you dress in pink dresses because you really wanted a girl. 

That’s right—eventually the transgendered Mac/PC that you have created will throw off the dresses once and for all and be like “Stop it Mom!  You can’t force me to be something I’m not!” and will then proceed to rob you of your valuables and run away forever. 

And that, my friends, was what happened last week, when the PC side of the transgendered Mac/ PC caught a horrendous virus and proceeded to eat itself, piece by piece, until all I could do was boot it up and frantically pull files off of it until it completely froze up and died again.  My own fault, really.

It took me two days, but I did manage to salvage all of my files—everything except my Quicken files, which (sadly) contained five years’ worth of data.  Well, to be fair, I did salvage that file, but the version of Quicken for Mac is only up to 2007, so the data I have saved in the 2009 PC version apparently isn’t backward-compatible, which totally sucks.  If you or someone you know has a solution to this problem, I would love to hear it, because I am not looking forward to re-building that monolith of information.

But, onward and upward.  At least I didn’t lose everything, and let me tell you, it was dicey there for a minute or two.  So, because I bought my MacBook the very moment before the Leopard upgrade, I first had to get that and install it to even be able to wipe the PC partition.  I went to the UCLA bookstore to get this, and that’s when……

I drove over tire spikes in the UCLA garage.

Yes, that’s right.  I drove over tire spikes.  Don’t laugh, because one day it will happen to you. You’ll be driving along, thinking about your poor dead PC and all the work you’re going to have to do to build your system back up, and you’ll drive into an entrance you think you’ve driven in a thousand times, and only right before you actually drive over the tire spikes will you see the sign, only it won’t make sense, because you’ve driven in this entrance a thousand times, and then….pop!    And when you call Toyota roadside assistance and mention the tire spikes, the customer service rep will say "Um....were you being pursued by law enforcement at the time?"

This is another “bad news/ not such bad news” situation, because after I waited for roadside maintenance to come and help me, they told me that a minor miracle had occurred—that only ONE of my tires had been damaged, and that the hole was so small it could probably be patched.  So—they put the spare on (because they were there already, not because I don’t know how), I drove to a gas station, and the awesome repair-shop guys (who just happened to be there at 8:45 at night) repaired it for under $20.  Not bad, considering I drove the wrong way into row of tire spikes that had a red sign and the words SEVERE TIRE DAMAGE.

Note:  I don’t think I would try this if I were you, as your results will probably not be as favorable.  Like I said, it was Bizarro Week.

So, I get the tire fixed, and the next day I get Leopard, which gets installed and works well.  I kill the PC side, even though it hurts me and I am a little obsessed that there’s something I forgot to save.  I start re- building the system, which is good.  I get a call that my friend who works on The Closer wants me to come and be a murder victim in a photo shoot on Friday, which is also weird, but in a good way this time.

But then—the pendulum shifts back.  More weirdness, this time not so good. My credit card company calls.  Someone has randomly gotten ahold of one of my credit card numbers (which is now destroyed, but the card for which was in my wallet the whole time), and has attempted to make THOUSANDS of dollars worth of jewelry purchases, like some old-timey Jewel Heist kind of thief.   I don’t know how they did this and I don’t really want to know, and you shouldn’t either, because everyone in the fraud department of my credit card company was ALL OVER this case because of the large numbers involved.  This is weird too, because I think if I were a credit card number stealing-type person, I might keep my purchases conservative (like gas and Target, for instance), instead of trying to make a purchase so big it’s GUARANTEED to make the fraud protection department call you, even if that is your real credit card.  I do have one charge I have to contest and now I have to change all my “automatic billing” type things, but again, bad news/ not such bad news, right?

On Friday, I played a slasher victim in a photo shoot for The Closer, which was at once weird and awesome.  Actually, I just laid on the floor of a laundry room and had my photo taken, and apparently they add the gore later in PhotoShop, which you know is going RIGHT up on this blog the minute after the episode airs on the 24^th.   In case you’re looking for me, I am in the murder book that is in the Season Finale episode airing on August 24^th.  I am slashed in a patterned Diane Von Furstenburg wrap dress, in case you want to pause your Tivo.

Luckily, Stephan and his cousin returned from Argentina on Friday morning, thus ending the week of weirdness.  I’m telling you, everything has been totally normal ever since then—machinery is functioning normally, computers are working, projects are getting done, and the world is once again rotating on its proper axis. 

Anyone else have examples of weirdness last week?  I am genuinely curious about this.  I am not talking about regular, run of the mill weirdness.  I am talking about transgendered PC, tire spikes, jewel heist, “I am a slasher victim on The Closer” weirdness.    Bring it!

If you only knew how broken my computer is.....

So, I got a hard time this morning from my (rude) friend Rachel for not posting for awhile, but, OMG you guys, if you had any idea how dead my computer is becoming, and how I'm right in the middle of writing a post and then the computer goes KAPUT without saving, and how frustrating that is, and how instead of painstakingly pulling all the files off my computer and backing it up so I can get it fixed, what I really want to do is throw it out the window, you would laugh and cry right along with me.  That said, I have a couple of posts in a notebook that I can transfer using another computer, so that's what I'm doing now.  

The SUPER funny part is that I really brought this on myself, through laziness.  A couple of years ago I bought this awesome MacBook Pro, then because I was transitioning over from a PC and I didn't want to do all the re-conversion it was going to take to be "all Mac," I instead put that energy into partitioning the MacBook using BootCamp so that half of it would run as a PC.  Only, of course, I just set up the PC side and never did the rest of the transition, because I was busy, blah blah blah.  I knew that this "partial PC" thing wasn't a permanent solution and that it was subject to the same viruses as a regular PC-- and yet, I didn't care.   I think it had something to do with Apple upgrading its OS right after I got the MacBook, and that added another layer of complication and expense to becoming "all Mac," so I never did it.

I'm sure you can see where this story is headed.  The virus warnings actually didn't start until a month or so ago, which is about a year later than I thought they were going to.   For awhile I was able to "clean" the virus files, but then they infiltrated my System Folder, and now.....just, OH MY GOD.  Why didn't I map my Outlook folder to my backup drive in the first place?  Why don't I have a regular system of backup in place?  Why didn't I just bite the bullet and do the Mac upgrade when I had the chance and didn't have 2 1/2 more years of work built up?  

Now I have on my pith helmet and am basically in a never-ending cycle of "boot up the PC side, grab files, wait for the system to crash, groan in frustration."   The PC side has eaten Mozilla, so all my bookmarks are gone.  Google Chrome is the only browser that will even open.  AND for some reason, my backup drive refuses to do a "mass copy and save" from my huge saved Outlook folders, so I'm having to go through everything one by one, re-name it, and save it.   At one point, tired of the endless re-naming, deleting, and sorting, I actually tried to transfer ALL 14,000 saved messages (not a typo) into my backup Hotmail account for sorting when I had more energy, and that has been going on for more than an hour. 

Isn't it so annoying when something like this happens, and it's made that much worse by the fact that you knew you could've prevented it, but didn't?    When I am done backing up, I am going right to the UCLA bookstore so they can re-format my computer, thereby destroying the virus-ridden partition.  Then I will be back and less irritated, at least, and able to observe some of the funny that is assuredly all around me, were I able to look up.

By the way, I am still watching Dance Your Ass Off.

Clash of the Only Children

Most of the time Stephan and I get along just famously.  Every once in awhile, though, we disagree on how to do something, and the oppositional defiance can get a little funny.

Here is an example from last Saturday night.  Of course, I have to preface this by saying that Stephan cooks all the food in our house, and I usually do the dishes willingly-- except for the mini-grill, because frankly, that thing is so hard to clean, I would rather not eat if I have to clean it.  So, if he cooks on that, I will clean absolutely everything else, then make a big scene about how hard it is to clean that damned grill.

I know, I am already coming off really great in this story, right?

Last Saturday he made barbeque chicken and a lot of other really good stuff like baked beans and corn and cornbread muffins, and it was so good, and everything was clean, and...oh my God the dirty grill.  So daunting.  We started a discussion about how to clean it better, and this ended in my getting out a wire barbeque brush meant for an outside grill, which I scraped against the the mini-grill a little until I realized it was scratching the teflon.

Here's how the rest of the grill-cleaning went.  In this story, I play the role of a total ingrate who can't cook and should absolutely be cleaning everything, but who is instead giving up on cleaning, and giving unsolicited, backseat driver style advice to poor Stephan, who is already tired from cooking me dinner.

Me:  "This isn't working." (Sigh).  "I guess I have to just scrub it.  Uuuggghhhhhh."

S:  "Give me the wire brush.  It will be fine. "

Me:  "No, you're going to scratch it."

S:  "I'm the one who cooks on it, so technically it's mine."

Me:  "Maybe we could soak it.  There must be a better way."

S:  "You're not supposed to submerge the part that plugs in."

Me:  "Only one side plugs in.  You could soak the whole other half in the sink."

S:  "I'm doing it my way."

Me:  "Your way isn't working."

S:  "What do you suggest?"

Me:  "Are you serious?  I just said soak it."

S:  "I'm almost done anyway.  You can go."

Me:  "Fine, then I'm going to go eat Peanut Butter M & M's."

S:  "......Get me some."

So, where were we?

Well well well!

 

I finally finished my book tour and have managed to get myself down from three giant piles of sh$t on my desk to one, which I am working on.  So, if I owe you an email, I'm getting there.  I started my UCLA Class, and that is going well-- the students are awesome so far, and we're making good progress on their projects.  Even though this photo is of the San Francisco book signing, I thought it was funny so I decided to put it up. 

 

I've been a little more diligent about updating Facebook just because it's easier, but just for fun, let me re-cap the book signing that was last Friday in Palm Desert.  I should probably preface this by saying that it is very, VERY hot there now.  Like, 108 degrees at 5:30 in the evening hot, which makes people in the desert go a tiny bit crazy.  I can attest to this because I grew up there.  And even though that is the case, I don't know if you can really ever prepare yourself for that kind of hotness-- the hotness that wears you out before you even get from your air-conditioned car to your air-conditioned house.  Actually, in high school I had a car whose A/C didn't work, and I was constantly getting burned on the steering wheel and the seats.  For real.  Getting burned by the seats of the car.  That's how hot.

 

Anyhow, I arrived in the desert a few hours before the signing, and tried to keep myself from dying of heat exhaustion before 6:00 pm, which was no easy task.  Fortunately there were already some people I knew there right when it started, so I didn't even have time for the "is anyone going to show up?" nervousness that always precedes an event.  Actually, people showed up from 6:00 until about 8:30, which was just awesome.  Alot of cool people were in town for a high school reunion (not mine), so they came as well, and it was totally nice to see everyone again.

 

But, back to the heat crazy.   The first person I might have put into this category actually ended up buying a book, so I feel guilty slandering her when she is now one of my readers.  For that reason, I will write up a little note about that and put it on Facebook for those who are interested.  You can also leave a comment if you'd like to hear the story but are not my FB friend.

 

Next up:  a guy who brought me a hand-written note, but DID NOT buy a book, so game on!  He was an older man who had read about me in the paper, and it seemed like he wanted me to do something for a charitable event he was putting together (at least this is what I could derive from the hodge-podge of inclusions in the envelope, one of which was a semi-obscene business card), and he called himself "Tijuana Joe."  He wore a seersucker shirt and a white fedora, and when I asked him if he was going to buy a book, he said "No, I don't have time to read, I'm a man on the go."  This went on as my friends and some other people from the bookstore looked on, like "What is going on here?"

 

I also had a few random elderly people wander over and ask "What kind of book is this?"  and when they heard it was fiction, they told me they only like to read books on real things that really happened, like wars, which is no surprise because my grandma tells me the same thing.  Is it a thing that when you get old, you don't want to read made-up stories anymore?  I'd think it would be the opposite, that the older you get, the more experiences you've had, and the more you want to see things that come out of people's imaginations.  But, what do I know?  I'm not old, I don't have a fedora, and I don't really care for books on wars or Hitler. 

 

Next, I spent a few days hanging out at a high school reunion that wasn't mine, which was totally fun and interesting.  I knew some of the people (and in fact, I went there with my friends), but it was pretty amazing to me how everyone from high school falls into the same patterns, even after 20 years.  Same people hanging out together, and for the most part, people looked the same.  I'm not saying that because I'm trying to say I look the same, but it was kind of crazy how "the same" everyone actually looked, like barely any time had passed.  I remember my mom going to her high school reunions, and I also remember the pictures and that the people seemed totally old.  Maybe it's a matter of perspective, or maybe it's that with the healthy food and the face cream and the hormones the drinking water, we're all just living longer and looking younger.  That part was pretty amazing to me though.

 

Oh, I should also mention that it is a very, very bad idea to take a totally black Prius to the desert during the summer.   Also pretty amazing is just how hot the inside of that thing can get when you park it in the sun and it's 113 degrees outside, then you make your friends ride in the back seat when they are wearing their fancy reunion clothes.  Sorry Lisa and Brett!

Book Tour: Last Stop, San Diego

So, tonight is the last stop on the whirlwind Summer of 2009 book tour, and I would be remiss if I didn't give you the info, lest you live in the San Diego area and want to come out.

Hollywood Car Wash Book Signing # 4

Monday, June 29th

6:30 - 8:00 pm

Bay Books

1029 Orange Avenue

Coronado, CA  92118
http://www.baybookscoronado.com/

Be there!   It is possible that my grandmother might be making an appearance.

Tomorrow:  a write-up of some over the weekend antics, including the Class of 1989 reunion that I crashed, even though I did not graduate that year.  I repeat, I DID NOT GRADUATE IN 1989.  :)