I got home late Sunday night, welcomed by the wind howling across the desert as I descended ‘the hump’ and thought, ‘at least nothing’s changed.’  Even with the wind, when I reached home, the temperature was 45 degrees, not bad at midnight.  I dragged all my stuff into the coach and cranked up the heat, got online, did a few things, and crashed by 1:30 a.m. 

Monday was more wind, a lot stronger, and the whole sky was overcast and gloomy.  By around 11ish, it was raining and it never stopped, becoming heavier at points and tapering at points – it was an extremely wet day.  I made a run into town around 4 p.m. and got home just before dark – yeah, the light switch clicks off around 5 and it’s dark, no lingering twilight or dim light on the horizon, just dark.

This a.m. snow lay on the ground, still windy but not quite as bad.  It’s 2:30 p.m. and there is still snow on the ground in shaded places, and it’s damned nippy out there.  My main goal is to stay out of the dirt until it dries a bit – the wonderful gumbo-silt-shoe-glue is in full effect with all the rain.  I’m happy to be home.  I had a great time in Oregon, but still…happy to be home.

I haven’t played poker in over 9 days now.  I somehow don’t feel the urge and I’ve been too busy to even really think about it, although Glenda did ping me last night to tell me she was in a spicy 7 stud hi/lo game.  I will be playing the Winter WPBT tournament this Saturday at Caesar’s Palace and Gary Wieck (Marie’s mate) is going to play too.  Yes, we can bring friends, they have to be noted in advance and on the list.  Marie says she will play live games while we play the tourney.

The traditional mixed games will be at MGM on Friday night.  I’ll be there!

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While in Oregon, I went to a gallery showing of some of the local tattoo artists’ paintings at Fenarios in Eugene.  My boy, Josh, *puffs out chest* had the most art on display, and it was incredible.  This is one of his latest pieces:

More on the art show later.

Let’s talk about that Brownie.  Many times over the years I’ve had people suggest the drug scene to me, ask me if I ‘smoked’ and offer me shrooms, nose candy and much, much more.  If I wear black and leave my hair loose and flowing, I’m referred to as ‘harley girl’ by lots of people that don’t know me.  All of that is humorous to me.  I’ve never done shrooms, or nose candy, or been a pill popper, or ‘smoked’ and while I won’t say I won’t ever do it, I will say I doubt that I will ever do it.

Over the last few years, I’ve gone through some really bad runs with pain, that isn’t the kind of pain that sears half your brain off, but it’s pain that hits intermittently in different spots from my hands to my feet, to my abdomen (never my fat ass – must be there’s nothing there except fat so my nerve endings aren’t there crying out, “Pick me, Pick me!”), my head aches, my arms and hands feel like they’re being stabbed, and my thighs are so sensitive to touch that it feels as if the skin is burning if I were to put any pressure on them at all.  I’ve bitched about abdominal distress to more than one Dr. and the standard, canned reply is IBS, to which I say BULLSHIT!  I can go for a month or two and never have a twinge or gripe other than a little grouchiness in my muscles and bones when I go hiking or do some other extreme physical chores (like being a major backhoe-tree moving-planting machine), and then for sometimes a week or longer, my body hurts in intermittent stabs, my head aches, my eyes are sensitive to light, pain all over twinges, etc., and I feel like I might die when I go to bed on the worst day of it.

My new Dr. summed it all up like this – Fibromyalgia.  It’s an answer, perhaps not the correct one but for now it satisfies me.  I can live with it.  I’ve been in for tests on a variety of different issues, asked questions, always getting a canned reply that irritates me, and this answer I know isn’t going to kill me, and it gives me something to work with, rather than just going home wondering WTF is going on.  Believe it or not, I actually felt relieved to hear something other than IBS.  My Dr. says Fibromyalgia is how each individual’s body channels pain.  OK.

Back to the Brownie.  For the last few years I’ve made the statement that if I didn’t have to smoke pot, I might do it daily – yes, because I think I would enjoy being high, and yes, because of the relief from pain…although I don’t have pain everyday, it’s just that when I do, I would love an overall pain removal remedy.

My son has continually told me there are other ways to take pot, eat it is one – yes, I did know that.  When I made one of my trips into town, he gave me a Brownie.  His words were that it would affect me differently than smoking it would, it would be more like taking a pill, etc.  OK.  I was in one of those overall grouchy pain all over the body discomfort modes and decided to have it the following day when I was at home.  Yah, you can laugh your ass off here because Grannie is a drug virgin. I had planned a trip to town for some needed groceries, etc., but that would be later in the afternoon so I went for the Brownie with a cup of coffee.  The Brownie, BTW, was delicious.

I reached a point within about an hour and a half where I lost my train of thought about 15 times…completely.  I was even talking to my truck driving sis on the phone at one point – she was laughing her ass off because I told her about the Brownie – and I remember trying to seriously keep my train of thought because I was telling her about a poker hand in a tournament I played.  I decided to jump into ‘my chair’ and put it in recline mode and get a massage.  It was like an out-of-body experience, I was there but yet not.  Then I felt like I was drunk – for about an hour – and that part I did not like.  I hate being drunk and just don’t go there anymore.  When I stood up, if I took a step, I lurched like I was drunk, that lasted for almost two hours.  And my brain kept nagging me to eat – something sweet (that’s a really bad thing for me since I’m always struggling to lose a few pounds).  Overall, the feeling was of being on Tylenol with Codeine, where it feels as if everything is off some distance in a tube and sound is coming in from far away.  And I simply had no desire to move, in any direction, sitting and staring was fine.

I did make it to town but it was about 6 hours later.  And I really slept great that night, with no grouchies going off in my body anywhere, that part I really liked.

When I related the experience to my son, I said, “Now I understand why you never get anything done.”  Of course I got a long running story about how smoking it is different than eating it.  And he told me I didn’t have to eat the whole Brownie at once.  Well SHIT!  There were no instructions.

In Nevada, it’s legal to grow it and eat/smoke it if you have a Medical Marijuana License, he does.  I may.  But right now it’s not an issue of importance to me.  Time will tell.

If – big IF – I do it again, it would be 1/4 of the Brownie me thinks.