Pilly uses the internet

There I was, over to the facebook, just minding my own business and taking the occasional survey--a good, safe pastime for me--when suddenly I was overcome with the irresistible desire to go google celiac disease.

Oh, relax.  That's nothing new, I often have an irresistible urge to google something that has absolutely nothing to do with actual life and no one knows why I am overcome with a need to know .

I have been overcome with a need to know something so deep it was enough to wake me from a sound sleep and drive me to the computer at three in the morning.  At least now it only happens when I'm awake.  That's an improvement, isn't it?  Yes, it is.

So, anyway, the celiac disease.  I found this great site called diagnose something that promised to give me all the time my doctor won't, on account of the actual doctor is busy, and apparently the herd of doctor's they keep on call over there to the diagnose something site have limitless time to just read crap crazy people send them without even a small break for golf.

No, I don't know why they would have limitless time, how could I know that?  Probably some guy kicked them out of actual medical school or something and this is their idea of revenge.

So anyway it takes like, about four years to answer all the questions, because they keep giving you these windows where you can write in the details and ask stupid questions, and what self respecting hypochondriac could possibly resist a chance to natter on endlessly about their symptoms?

I know I couldn't.

So, anyway, at the very end, after you have told them everything and remarked about how great they are, they tell you that for a small fee of only $55.00 they will be happy to send you their report.Of course, they fail to mention that until after you have already given them your phone number and mailing address.  Even I am not stupid enough to follow that with my credit card number, but even so, they know everything about me now, right down to that birthmark on my butt that is shaped like Canada (if you squint).

So withholding my credit card info at that point is probably not going to slow them down for long.

But, anyway, I would just like to point out that on days when I must skip a dose of Lithium to have labs drawn, perhaps it would be wise if whoever is my keeper of the day denies me access to the Internet.  Just get me set up with a nice game of the Sims (which I will happily obsess over until the baby reaches old age and dies) and just quietly disable the Internet.

I feel it is incumbent upon me to try and help with my care and feeding as much as possible.

Because, believe me, I require some awesome care and feeding.  It takes at least three full time adults just to guarantee I don't sign anything, spend anything, or decide to take flying lessons and order a piper Cub just because I am convinced everyone needs one, or they will never live full, productive meaningful lives.

At least, I am better with the Lithium, but until I reach optimum therapeutic levels (in my case, it is possible that I will die of heavy metal poisoning before I get there) we all agree that I should not make decisions.  In fact, we are pretty sure I should not  even answer the telephone.

I will either
A) agree completely with anyone nice, even up to agreeing to donate large sums of money (which we don't actually have) to a good cause.  Be advised that as long as it benefits dogs or children I am not only sure it is a good cause, I also think it's alright to hold people at gunpoint to make them donate.

Or

B) I disagree and have a tendency to dare the Klan to come and burn a cross on my lawn so that I can jazz up the annual Gay Pride picnic with a really colorful marshmallow roaster, and I have no fear so I sometimes invite them to come and kill me and threaten to shoot them on sight.  Presumably while they're erecting the cross.  Do not even get me started on neo-Nazis.  They don't call me anymore.  I may have killed one, I'm not sure.

So, overall, it's better to keep me off the phone. Keeping me off the porch is good, too.

If you are a Jehovah's Witness or a Mormon, please do not try to save me before June.  One of us is going to have a life changing faith experience of epic proportions if you try that and it probably won't be me.  Just so you know.

So, anyway, it's only four hours until I can return to being safely medicated.  In the meantime,  I am going to quietly play the Sims and let Jacob answer the door.

Probably.

Heeere's Pilly!

Couldn't think of a title, sorry.  This whole sanity thing is a bit tricky--not that I'm complaining, mind, it just takes some getting used to.  I used to just turn off my inhibition factor, (something that is fairly easy if you're Bipolar, since you don't exactly HAVE an inhibition factor) and before you could say Bob's your uncle, there I was with a Pilly story.

What that has to do with my new stove I couldn't begin to tell you, and that was what I thought I was going to write about.  Clearly I was wrong.

Also, it seems I am no longer familiar with the computer keyboard, apparently sanity affects your fingers all to hell and gone.  Who knew?

So, anyway, my stove.

Pellet stoves may be the greatest invention in the history of people.  Seriously.  Well, okay, it takes awhile before it seems alright to you to burn something that looks like a cross between rabbit pellets and cow feed, but aside from that, you couldn't ask for anything more, really.

They're clean, they're efficient and they guarantee that you no longer have ice in your bathtub.  That right there is reason enough to love them, in my opinion. You pry a few frozen towels off the bathroom floor in the morning, you get right fond of a stove, I can tell you.

Alright, it thawed that block of ice under the kitchen sink and I was not entirely prepared for the ensuing flood, but it saved having to find a bucket to mop the kitchen floor, so it all worked out, really.

Seriously, I have the most wonderful husband in the world and I should quit poking fun at my life long enough to tell you the real Pilly story, which isn't funny, but is a good story just the same.

When I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder it was a tremendous relief to me, but it also was a scary thing.  Not every husband in the world wants a truly crazy wife.  Alright, it's true he stuck by me when I was completely insane, which you would think might have given me a clue that he probably was in it for better or for worse, just like the vows said.

But in real life, knowing that your partner suffers from a major mental illness, and knowing what that might mean in terms of your future, all too often makes people realize they really aren't in it for that much potential worse.  And I'm not judging anyone.  If you can't deal with that, you can't and the person is probably better off without you.

So I confess I worried about what it would mean for MY future.  And my family's future.  At least for the moment, I can't handle our finances or take care of any of our business and Jimmy has to be away on the road.  As a rule, a truck driver needs a partner who can take care of home while he makes  the many sacrifices needed to earn the family's living.

But it turns out that I am profoundly loved, and not just by my husband, either. It is a very humbling thing to realize that you are loved that much by so many people.  It is, in fact, a little like God's love.  The Love that exists,  not because you are worthy of it, but just because you are.  It makes you want to love back, with all your heart and mind and soul.

And if you are reading this, you are,  like as not, one of the people in my life who has loved me.  And so, I want to thank you for every minute you have been in my life and in my heart, part of the fabric of my life.

Thank you for all the times you tried to keep my safe, when the last thing I thought I wanted or needed was safe.  Thank you for being exhausted by me, for never giving up on me, for not just pretending I didn't exist or disowning me when I gave you trouble or got in trouble or was the trouble, which I so often was.

Thank you for never trying to make me be somebody else, for letting me be what I was, for teaching me that love always loves, and always forgives and truly forgets, and values everything, good or bad, that makes up a human soul.

Because of you I know God.  I know about His love, because you demonstrated it for me in the best of all possible ways.  You were Saint Francis to me (preach always, if necessary use words, he said.  You did.  And you didn't need words).

And what did my wonderful husband say, when we discussed what my illness might mean for our lives?

He said, " I love you ," of course.

And he does.

It's cold.

How cold is it, Pilly?

Well, I'll tell you.  It's cold enough that I seriously considered sinning in a big way just so I could be sure of going somewhere very warm after I'm dead.

But I scrapped the idea because, really, what if the Eskimos are right and Hell is just endless frozen tundra with no igloo?   And frankly, I already live there, so what would be the point of dying?  At least in Wisconsin, spring does come eventually.

I would just like my husband to know that calling me every ten minutes to inquire whether I am a popsicle yet is not really useful.  I believe the pioneers only survived the winters on the prairie because there were no phones.  One too many phone calls inquiring about how they were doing would have eventually led some settler to take an ax and wipe out the whole colony and the United States would all be east of the Mississippi, today.

This house leaves a lot to be desired in the way of comfort.  On the up side, I cannot die of carbon monoxide poisoning because it's so drafty you can't keep a candle lit in the living room on a breezy day.  On the down side, you risk frostbite every time you get near a window.

Well, that's life,  you know.  As Almanzo Wilder was wont to say, it all evens out in the end.  The rich man gets his ice in the summer, but the poor man gets his in the winter, so it's all good, really.

There are some decided advantages to a cold house.  For instance, if you forget to put the leftovers away they don't spoil.  You have to thaw them in the microwave to eat them, but still. 

I think I have figured out why the pioneers only bathed once in a winter.  As the ice formed on top of the washtub they were sitting in they had to hurry in order not to be trapped til spring, and once of that was probably enough for them.

I'm still working out how they managed not to have to go to the outhouse until spring.   Whiskey may have been involved.  I read this really great diary kept by one of the lesser known Ingalls brothers who stayed in  Wisconsin and apparently never did anything notable.

I'm not sure why he felt the need to keep a journal.  Every day it's too cold to go anywhere, he gets lonesome for the neighbors, he eats the same thing once a day, occasionally he gets out to do some lumber jacking, once during a warm spell when it was only about forty below he managed to get to the neighbors cabin and have some coffee.  He mentions that he told the guy's wife he guessed he'd have to get married.

She should have started sleeping with the ax next to her, there were decided overtones of, "If your husband were to fall through the ice, maybe I could move in."

Apparently he never went that far, however, as for the rest of the winter he does nothing but complain about his loneliness and have the occasional pancake.

I used to wonder how Ma Ingalls managed not to kill Charles, as every time she got decent furniture and a garden planted he decided to push on further west,  Now I think maybe she was hoping it was warmer farther away.  This is the man that burned hay to keep warm one whole winter in South Dakota.  I think Jimmy might be one of his descendants.

So, anyway, here I am once again, trying to stay warm in one more fabulous antique of a house.

At least no one has asked me to plant a garden.