Totally, Zen! (Are we FB friends? My profile addy is good too). Puerto Vallarta's a little farther for you, but it's super cheap....Miami I can't find a decent hotel cheap.

I have Friend Requested you on FB! I'm under my RL name which... you actually may not know. Elizabeth. Where the heck is Puerto Vallarta?

The thing is, mac is actually pretty athletic, he just lacks the confidence. He used to play soccer much more aggresively and had better ball skills. I am not sure where the disconnect is.

I was more athletic when I was real young, and the older I got, the more self-conscious I got, and I lost confidence, and it kinda built until I couldn't do anything without falling down.

"I will do literature reviews for food."

I think the only thing I could barter with is illegal in 49 states. Oh, I'm great at reading aloud, too, but I don't think anyone needs that.

Prognosis is a massively deviated septum - one more sinus infection like that and the Dr. will be chasing me down for surgery. but not yet.

Yikes, Sox. But! My niece had that surgery, and it fixed a LOT of problems for her. Also lowered her voice a bit, which seems to have helped with her fronting vocals for her death metal band. So, you know, your death metal screaming ability should improve. (She did not lose her sense of smell. Relevant to nothing, my friend Katie lost her sense of smell at a young age after falling on her head.)

Speaking of which, there's apparently a drive to make all sudafed prescription-only, not just something you need to get from a pharmacist. Oregon did it, and it killed the meth industry in the state. But argh!

AAIGH. I'll have to stock up, discreetly and in a non-potential-criminal manner.

The doc asked if he could show the images to the rest of the staff as an extreme example?

Ha, my surgeon showed the X-rays of my feet pre-op to his staff as an extreme example of Frankenstein bunions. (Frankenstein, not a technical term.)

One of the reasons Portland OR became the awesome place it is

If I ever leave here, I'll probably head to Portland OR. I love that city. Where I live is within walking distance of a supermarket/shopping complex; it isn't very big but it has anything you need. It's about five city blocks away; I see lots of people walking there from the apartment complex "next door". We're also right across the street from a large park. There were all major considerations when I was moving here.

Speaking of which, there's apparently a drive to make all sudafed prescription-only, not just something you need to get from a pharmacist. Oregon did it

I lived here for years before I realized this. Because I am so allergic to everything, I had a script. I think it was just for convenience until I went to the pharm for more. I had to hitch it fifteen miles to the border for some because my clinic was closed that day. Less illegal than when the border town was Tijuana, at least.

~ma, Jilli.

AAIGH. I'll have to stock up, discreetly and in a non-potential-criminal manner.

Just don't pay cash, and you should be OK.

I like downtown Indy, but it feels like a fake city to me. Which it sort of is, right? They built the big convention center and then built malls and hotels and stuff around it. So not fake, but not organic, either. Anyway, I have always enjoyed it.

Indy is totally a fake city--suburb of nothing! So they had to create a downtown!

I have Friend Requested you on FB! I'm under my RL name which... you actually may not know. Elizabeth. Where the heck is Puerto Vallarta?

and friended back and emailed! PV is on the west coast of Mexico.

I have dreams about parenting skills, housecleaning, and craftiness that center around probably similar gesticulations

my gesticulations on similar matters are not suitable for polite company

In regard to Oregon and prescription-only sudafed - OK, it wiped out the meth industry ... how many law-abiding citizens with bad sinuses did it also get?

I need to walk around our neighborhood more often, because we've got some cool stuff around here. But I'm still bitter about the condos-with-retail-space construction that are responsible for the closing of the thrift store and fabric store that were three blocks from our house. I'm especially bitter since almost all of that new retail space is still empty three years later.

My little area should be walkable, but there are not sidewalks really. Still I could and should walk to the the library and PO and bread store. If I pushed through the fact that NO ONE walks here, I could even walk to the park where mac has soccer practice, the Goodwill store, and an ice cream place or 7-11.

Still, there's not *all* that much there -- a small grocery store, some restaurants, the post office. How I long for a bookstore or movie theater in the neighborhood, let alone a pediatrician!

Judging by my mother's stories of growing up in East Nashville, the two factors that made it much more feasible not to have a car were the streetcar and the fact that downtown was still the shopping hub. She rode the streetcar downtown on Saturday and went to movies and shopped at the big department stores. There was a grocery store and a pharmacy with a fountain in walking distance, but not really a lot of shopping.

Halifax is pretty walkable, but I live an hour walk form downtown, so it's mostly transit for me. I used to live centrally, and everywhere on the peninsula was a 20-30 minute walk. I miss that neighborhood. I wish I could afford it again.

I can walk to a couple of grocery stores, a drug store, a terrific nursery (although I need my car to haul flats of annuals or big bags of mulch), and a handful of restaurants. Hauling out my bike brings my hair salon, more restaurants, and an ABC store into my ken. There's also a hardware store that would be an easy walk if it was open more than 9-5 weekdays and a handful of hours Saturday morning. I can pretty much guarantee I will never be shopping for anything from a hardware store at those times.