What Would Mulder Do?

Finally, finally, I've found a great tasting non-dairy margarine. After buying four different tubs, this one is great, perfect texture(butterlike and homogeneous) and taste pretty good considering that it only has soy, no milk.

It that TOM again. Went in a bit late today, wasn't sure if I was going in, got up and felt horrible and thought I'd just stay in bed till I felt I could move. Then nature called so I had to get out of bed and felt a little better then. Took my midol and went to work. Was ok until about 4pm, took another midol. Went out for a curry lunch with the guys today. Cheated on my diet, had 2 wonderfully warm pieces of naan. Naan's made with ghee so counts as dairy. Planned to be good and only have rice with the curry but the naan was fresh, just brought out. Plus, I had to attempt to keep up with the guys right ;) They had 12-14 pieces between the 3 of them. Had 2 plates, not heaping plates but still, it was too much. Only just had some toast(with the yummy fake marg) and its 11pm now.

Just took another midol. It hurts when I...cough...stand...sit down...walk around. If I stand in one spot for a while, its ok and after I've been sitting a while, its ok. Only hurts when I move.

Got a worrisome call from my sis tonight. Hopefully she'll be ok. She's very allergic to shellifish/molluscs/etc. and she told them that at the restaurant and DQ ordered a shrimp dish. She thinks maybe they prepared them near or in the same pan b/c she started having a bad reaction - trouble breathing/heavy congestion. She called me (from Spain, yeah the country) b/c she forgot to take her epi-pin with her and she didn't have any regular anti-histamines. She has an epi pin due to the severity of her last exposure to shellfish. She took her zyrtec though and her emergency inhaler as well but was still very congested. And she told me she was kind of itchy all over. Added to this, the main-drama-queen-in-our-family(DQ) is there visiting and she's drunk as a skunk. Apparently, she was drinking the sangria like it was water. She's not a great drunk to be around for long, no control whatsoever and her usual drama-queen-tendencies escalate to the point where you almost want to knock her out. I've seen her drunk and its funny for like 5 min. After that, its annoying as hell. So I'm really feeling for my sis tonight. Plus DQ doesn't have allergies and has never had an allergic reaction so she has no idea how serious a situation this could be and that my sis has a right to be concerned. She keeps making fun (I could hear her in the background) in between bouts of crying and hysteria and singing out loud how she's call for the hospital if necessary. In case you're wondering how I know all this, I could hear her singing "hoss-pital, Hosss-pital, HOSSS-PITAL" in a high-pitched wail.

I know its a bit mean of me but I kind of hope she's really ill tomorrow and takes better care next time not to drink as much. I guess it takes a while for that lesson to be learnt. She didn't drink in her teens or at college at all so she's probably trying to make up for lost time now. Kind of like I did. Except I started in college but I didn't go to college until I was 23. We're 6mths apart. And she's more like a sister to us than a cousin. We love her but sometimes it hard. Family is like that, messy, sometimes difficult, sometimes annoying, but...still family.

What can you do? Or as a fellow x-phile at work said to me today...What Would Mulder Do? I thought that was so funny and cool. I want to make a bumper sticker of that. Except that I think many bumper stickers are dumb/dorky and don't want to fall into either category. He's one of the IT guys and I was telling him about my computer woes. Not the home woes but work ones. My computer at work died. Weird error on a blue screen during startup and then nothing. It's been 'dead' since Mon morning. Sent a help request to IT. Wed, they came and took the hard drive(the whole tower thingy), told me it seemed to be dead and that they would check it out. Good thing I didn't have to work on reports this week.

My writing area is now full again. My friend (chinese buffet buddy) moved back to his old spot next to me and 2 other people moved opposite to us. Its ok but I kind of miss the alone time. One of them talks a lot. Even when I was working on my report she wouldn't shut up and let me do it. Couldn't she see I was busy and had a deadline. I told her about it. So she knew. Eventually, I just kept saying 'ah huh', to everything she said while I kept looking at my screen. Everyone else has their own computers b/c they brought theirs with them when they moved. So now that mine is dead (which other people used as well), its very inconvenient. I have to wait till one is free. Can't exactly ask someone to move out of their seat so I can check my email or the internet/intranet for stuff? So I have had to go without.

Projects end from time to time and new ones begin, so people move around from area to area and sometimes building to building (we have 2 sites here in town and you can be assigned to just about any project in any one of the buildings at our sites - the site I'm at has 2 buildings assigned to scientists and people often move back and forth). I've been lucky so far - although my projects and groups have changed, I'm still in the same building I started in. This is kind of unusual, most people who have been here for as long as I have have worked in at least 2 or more buildings and/or sites. When you move you usually have to move your lab equipment as well as files/stuff from writing areas. It takes time and is a bit of a hassle but you do what you got to do.