Cleaning Out and Ugly Babies

I took advantage of the warmer weather and opened up the storage shed in the backyard.  I pulled about 10 boxes inside.  Today, since it was raining this morning, I went through three of them.  I found more pictures, of course.  We have always been a photographic family.  Some of us were even photogenic, too.  I found other miscellany as well.  Decorative items, mostly.  I had sorted a lot of this when I moved from my condo, um, hmm, 12 years ago?  I think that's how long it's been.  I did throw out a few things (broken), put a few in give-away (old, but in good shape) and kept a few things.  I found myself packing up some slightly burned candles in the "keep" box.  I caught myself, but now I can't remember if I threw them out or not.  I'll have to check.

What happens is, I get caught up in a TV show (in this case, the original Hawaii Five-O) and I'm not really paying attention to what my hands are doing.  Then I end up with garbage in the keep box and give-away in the garbage and...well, you get the idea.  Sometimes I end up with several garbage boxes!  Which is not altogether a bad thing, really.

Along with the TV distracting me, I also had Tabitha.  For whatever reason, she found my fake flowers fascinating.  No, she didn't play with the blossoms or leaves.  She rubbed all over them!  I know, they are "marking" when they do that, but she was purring, too!  Loudly.  Then she jumped in the box that I was sorting.  It was almost empty, but had a few pictures and frames remaining.  I found a piece of curling ribbon and tempted her out of the box with it.  Of course, a few minutes later I had to get up and take it away from her because she was eating it!

Okay, purposeful digression here.  You know how there is clumping cat litter now?  And you have to scoop out the, uh, waste to keep it clean?  Well, I always know when Tabitha has been eating things she shouldn't.  Her "deposits" are extremely colorful with a wide range of textures.  That cat must have a cast-iron digestive tract!  Curling ribbon, yarn, feathers, even potpourri!  Yecch!

Anyway, once I had the box empty, I gave it to her to play in.  Most of the time, the cats can't wait to their hands, er, paws on a box.  This time she ignored it.  I think she was peeved about the curling ribbon.

Well, once I sorted through the third box, Hawaii Five-O was over, so I cleaned up for the day.  Most of the pictures I found today were of Brittany when she was two and three.  I've always thought she was a cute kid, even as a baby.  I know I'm biased, but I looked at these photos as objectively as possible and I still think she was a cute kid.  Believe me, I have seen some babies who could never, under any circumstances, be called "cute."  When my oldest niece was born, I went to see my sister at the hospital.  I stopped by the nursery and, next to my niece, was a nearly 13-pound baby.  Now that alone wasn't any big deal, as far as looks.  It was the fact that about five pounds of this kid was all nose.  Jimmy Durante had nothing on this baby!  A few years later, a couple I knew through church had their first child.  The first time I saw this baby, he was swaddled, so I went up to the mom to see his face.  When she uncovered his face, I literally took a step back!  I must have made some sound--a squeak or a gasp--because the mother looked at me with concern.  I turned my head and pretended to sneeze!  I bravely took the step forward again and said, "He's so little!  I didn't want to sneeze on him."  Pretty fast thinking, if I do say so myself.  The best I can describe that poor little boy was "a wizened, old man."  Now if you think I'm being mean, you need to know what the kid's uncle called him.  Yoda.  The saddest part?  Nobody ever laughed when he said it!

Back to Brittany.  I do admit there are a few awkward stages during her first couple of years.  Like at nine months when her ears looked too big for her.  Or when she would pudge out just before a growth spurt.  But once she was about three, I didn't see those awkward phases again until she hit puberty.  For a couple of years, she was overweight and had glasses.  Fortunately, she had perfect teeth.  Then, just before high school, she slimmed down and got contact lenses.  At about 5' 1", she's slender and petite.  (She says she's 5' 1-3/4".  Whatever it takes to keep you going, I guess.)  In this picture, she's about 2-1/2 years.  How old was I?  Old enough.

She even has dimples!
Her hair had been blond up to this point.

Fashion Quest--Part IV

Details, details.  *Sigh*  Details and I have a rather ambivalent relationship.  Things like spelling and punctuation in anything printed are important to me.  Other things, like whether the throw pillows match the sofa--not so much.  As long as they don't blatantly clash, it's all good.  I was thrilled when "lumpy" mashed potatoes became the rage.  I can't be bothered to make sure all the lumps are gone.  And when it comes to fashion, makeup is nice, and I feel like I look better with it, but it isn't a big deal to me, either.  Jewelry rises up the scale, mostly because it's details that are (usually) easy to put on.

So, the details of our wedding fashions.  I already mentioned, the pewter and blood-red stone necklace that my mother will wear with her grey, beaded top tomorrow.  It came with matching earrings, but, since the piercings in her ears have long since closed, she won't be wearing them.  She wants to wear them.  She even hinted at having her ears repierced.  At one point I said "Why would you want to draw attention to your big, droopy earlobes?"  Not one of my finer moments, I confess.

This isn't a very good photo of the
"disco" necklace, but you get the idea.

For the New Year's Eve wedding, I already had a necklace that I knew would be perfect with for my mom's jacket and shell set.  My daughter has been using it for several months, but I managed to get it back with a minimum of fuss.  She calls it the "disco" necklace.  (My daughter, not my mom.)  It is 24" long and is comprised of shiny silver squares.  I have   had this for years.  I remember wearing it at least back to '01.

As far as other jewelry for my mom, she has some rings that we may consider, if there is time.

For myself, between the studs on the cardigan and the fancy necklines on the shirts I'll wear under it, I don't think I'll need necklaces.  When I dress tomorrow, I'll see if the pink tank needs anything else.  I already have a grouping of pewter bangle bracelets that I'll wear both times.  I also have really nifty pewter spiral earrings--that are rather outre for me--that I planned to wear to both weddings.  But tomorrow the temperature is supposed to reach 82 degrees.  I thought maybe I'll wear a nice pair of dangle earrings my friend, T, made with pink crystals and ceramic beads.  They're a little more demure, but that could be good. Leave the spirals for the more splashy New Year's Eve fiesta.

A brief mention about socks.  A lot of people don't really think about socks, or stockings.  I needed to find a pair of navy dress socks for my mom.   Aka, trouser socks, I found all kinds of textures in black.  After four stores, I was getting perturbed.  Finally, at Catherine's of course, I found navy nylon dress socks.  They even had a couple of textures to choose from!  I didn't even care how much they cost at that point.  For my mom's, uh, bad feet, I got the ones with cotton soles.  Feet gotta breathe, ya know?  While I was checking out the knee-high stockings, I realize that I needed something.  My eye was drawn right to the off-black color.  With my black pants and pewter shoes, I think they'll be great.  Will anyone really notice our stockings?  I really hope not.  The point is for people to notice our pants and shoes (especially my spiffy part-ay shoes!).

I realized I needed a clutch bag.  Besides the usual driver's license, tissue and lip balm, I'm going to have to bring both my mom's and my evening medications.  So I didn't want anything too small.  A couple of weeks ago, a shoe catalog came in the mail.  I was sitting with my morning tea, waiting for my mother to finish her breakfast, when I saw the perfect bag!

From Urban Expressions, the studs match
the studs on my cardigan.  It's about 14" wide.
It just has a wrist strap, but it zippers completely,
so no worries of anything falling out.

By the time I found the clutch, it was less than two weeks to the wedding so I wanted to have it ship Express.  The shipping costs in the original catalog was almost as much as the bag itself!  So I got the great idea of Googling it.  Found it on another website with free shipping!  I had to pay a modest fee for the Express, but that was cheaper than the first site's regular shipping!

My mother has an appointment to get her hair set in the morning.  My hair is at just the right length and coloring.

These are "Demure."
They were the least
obtrusive I could find.

Last, but definitely not least, is the makeup.  I will put a light foundation on my mother's face.  Maybe a light stroke of eyeshadow.  Mostly, she just wants her age spots covered up.  For myself, I ordered my expensive, hard-to-find OcuLash mascara.  It is made for extremely sensitive eyes.  I have mineral foundation (because I have Rosacea it has to be organic) and my trusty eyebrow powder.  In another bold move, I bought false eyelashes.  In the last few years, I have noticed that the lashes on my left eye don't curve upward anymore.  The other day, when I was trying to curl them, the eyelash curler slipped.  Besides yanking on my eyelid and making it sore, it also pulled out a half dozen lashes.  Left with a fairly large gap in my straight lashes, I'm going to try falsies!  LOL

I think we're ready.  I can't remember the last time I spent so much time and energy on an outfit.  Oh wait, yeah, that would be when I worked in corporate America!  I would not have had this much fun or been able to expend so much energy on these outfits if I still worked outside the home.  Gotta love being a caretaker!

Fashion Quest--Part III

Two days after my fashion recon, I took my mother to the shops to see what I had picked out.  Mind you, this was a Saturday.  Not my favorite day to shop retail.  Unless it's a small used-book store.  But, I digress, as usual.  With all that's involved in getting my mother up, fed and ready to go, I realized how much easier it had been with an infant or small child.  Between her trips to the bathroom and the painstaking process of dressing, I have to allow her an hour just to get to the breakfast table.  So we got a later start than I planned, but it was still morning when we left.

It was sunny, but cool and breezy.  My mother wore long sleeves, but was still freezing.  We took her larger, more cumbersome walker (Winnie--really, that's the brand name) because it has a seat which she can use to rest.  It is never more apparent how slow she is than when she is crossing a busy shopping-mall parking lot on a Saturday.  Since Winnie has four wheels and the seat, I was tempted to sit her down and push it like a wheelchair.  But she needs the exercise, so we crawled across the traffic, backing it up about 10 cars in each direction.  (The shopping mall has a WalMart and Sam's Club near the clothing stores.)

Inside Catherine's, she was awed by all the styles and colors.  I steered her toward the dressy clothes and found the pants I thought would work for her.  As I went through the rack looking for her size, she was in the middle of the main aisle, trying to sit down on Winnie.  She didn't seem to have the wheels locked and I was worried she would fall.  There is a chair in the middle of Catherine's--I guess for tired shoppers or bored companions.  Someone beat her to it--big surprise.  I helped her to sit on Winnie near the pants I was looking through.  During all this, over-enthusiastic sales ladies were hovering nearby.  I made a loud comment on how someone beat her to the chair, hoping the women sitting on her behind would move.  (Yes,

I love the studs down the front
and the shirring at the wrists.

I know, very passive-aggressive, and rude, too, but what can I say?  It irks me when people who can walk don't defer to people who can't.)  A few minutes later the chair was unoccupied (see?  it works!) and I convinced my mother to sit there.  Using Winnie as a display rack, I brought clothes to her to consider.  As I expected, she liked everything I had chosen on my recon trip.  (No, I'm not being conceited, I just know my mother's tastes very well.)  She was like a queen with her court.  The sales ladies talked to her and she told everyone about the two weddings we had and how it was just like what happened with her son and daughter.  The sales ladies did help me, however, we couldn't find another top for her for the 2nd wedding.  After getting the navy pants and a T-shirt on clearance for her, the grey duster/cardigan and a wine-colored top for me, we were ready to move on.

We bypassed Lane Bryant and headed to Dress Barn.   Since the sidewalk was in shadow, she complained about being cold.  And I thought the stores were close to each other!

In Dress Barn, there was no choice but for her to sit on Winnie.  I got her set up in a relatively out of the way place and proceeded to bring items to her.  The palazzo pants and the pewter shoes for me were a given.  We looked at a couple of dressy jackets and tops for her, but nothing really went with the navy pants.  While I was looking through a rack of sleeveless tops for something to go with one of her possibilities, I found a medium-pink tank top for me to wear to the 1st wedding.  (The wine-colored top from Catherine's would be for the 2nd.)  I was pretty well set.  But what to get my mother?  Well, there was plenty of time before New Year's Eve to find something.  Although the October 1st checks would need to cover wedding gifts for the 1st one, and the November 1st checks would need to cover car insurance and start Christmas shopping, and December 1st would be Christmas . . .  Well, you get the picture.  On a last sweep, I went over to a section I hadn't looked at before because, from a distance, it seemed like the tops were all black.  But as I got closer, I saw it!!  Ooooh, it was perfect!  Technically, it's black and blue.  That combination didn't work with the navy on other tops, but, for whatever reason, it worked on this!  And it shimmered!  I just knew she'd love it and she did:

This is a jacket and shell set.

So we had our outfits.  My mother was delighted with her finds.  With our clothing in garment bags, I went to head back to the car, relieved the worst was over.  My mother looked exhausted, yet she sat through most of it!  But I took pity (on her or the other shoppers, take your pick) and took our stuff to the car (where I spent nearly five minutes trying to get the hanger hook down) and pulled the car to the sidewalk for her.  I really don't remember what we did after that.  Well, went home, of course, but after that, it's all a blur.

Next time:  It's all about the details.

Fashion Quest--Part II

The silver cami that I ordered to go under my mother's beaded top came and looks pretty good.  Now I need to get her to try everything on together.  Usually she would be happily modeling her finery for me, but she's sick right now.  I'm saying prayers that she recovers in time for the wedding, which is just over a week away!

A week or so after we had perused catalogs and Web sites, I spent the greater part of a Thursday reconnoitering the plus-size stores.  There are three in a row at a nearby mall, so I checked out everything that was remotely appropriate for a wedding.  This was not a shopping trip.  It was data collection, which would be collated with catalog and on-line finds and decisions made from there.  I found the navy pants for my mother at Catherine's.  (However, even the petite length needed to be hemmed for her.)  She would need another top for the New Year's Eve wedding, so I kept any eye out for something suitable.  She wanted a little more glitz for the second wedding--but still not gaudy!?!?  But once I found the dressy navy pants, my mind switched to my favorite subject--ME!

I haven't been that
skinny since I was six.

One of the newest trends in women's clothing is the uneven hemline.  Handkerchief hemlines are big again, also.  For myself, I was thinking of a duster with one of those hemlines.  In Catherine's, I found a grey tunic-length top.  They called it a cardigan, but it wasn't at all like a sweater.  Maybe a jacket--but that implies a certain level of heaviness to it, at least in my mind.  So I call it a duster, even though it's not that long.  Anyway, I really liked it right from the start--even though it didn't have either of the the new hemlines.  But this was only a recon trip, so I went next door to Lane Bryant.

Lane Bryant had camis in all kinds of colors and fabrics!  The display took my breath away!  But as I hunted through the dressy clothes, it became apparent that the store didn't have what I wanted.  I went through the racks twice, just to make sure I didn't miss anything.  Oh, they had some nice tops, but not what my mother and I had discussed.  But, I would definitely keep them in mind for the camis.

Next up was Dress Barn Women.   For my outfit, I was thinking of something along the lines of palazzo pants.  I found the perfect pants at Dress Barn.  Palazzo pants with two layers of fabric!  Underneath is solid black; the top layer is shear black.  Very dressy and very chic!  Then, something caught my eye from the small shoe section they have.  Kind of silver, but darker.  Like pewter!  They were beautiful!  Not really wild, but definitely not something my practical, conservative self would have chosen.  For me, they are somewhat outre.  I didn't buy them that day, but I can't wait until the next posting to show them off:

My part-ay shoes!

By the time I looked through Dress Barn, I was pretty sure of what the main part of my outfit would be.  I would get two different tank tops or camis to wear underneath to have a different look.  But I still didn't buy anything!  I took a last look around for the second top for my mother, still didn't see anything that really caught my eye, then made my way back to Lane Bryant.  Even though the cami display was lovely, I decided I wanted more substantial tops for underneath the duster.  The duster doesn't button or zipper, so it'll hang open to show the blouse underneath.  Then I went back through Catherine's one more time, where I looked at the duster again.  It has pewter diamond-shaped studs running down each side of the front.  I knew those pewter shoes would be perfect.

I went home with my mind full of possibilities, yet I was fairly sure of what I would get.  It seemed like angels had led me to these beautiful clothes and shoes!  The plan was to bring my mother back with me on Saturday so she could see everything for herself.  And to look through the dressy clothes for her second top.

Up next:  Taking my mother shopping--a lesson in patience!

Fashion Quest--Part I

The first wedding (I'm invited to) for this fall/winter season is in less than two weeks.  Some people would wait until the day before to plan what to wear.  Others (like me) need or want to plan in advance.  For me, the planning in advance is both a need and a want.  I need to because I only get paid once a month.  I want to because my OCD causes me to panic if I'm not prepared well in advance.  But, no panic attacks for me!  At least not in regards to what to wear to the wedding.

It's not enough to just worry about myself.  I have to help my mother, too.  About six weeks ago, we sat down with plus-size catalogs and my laptop to get an idea of what was out there for this fall.  It quickly hit home that, for my mother, we were going to have to plan her outfits around her shoes.

My mother loves these shoes.

Shoes? you ask.  Well, you would until I tell you that my mother has horrible terrible nasty bad feet.  First, she has tophaceous gout.  Gout is a form of arthritis.  Tophi are nodular masses of uric acid crystals.  I was going to put a picture of it here, but, trust me, it isn't pretty.  Second, my mother's feet have always been wide.  She could never get shoes at Sears or Penney's.  She always had to go to special shoe stores (before wide-widths became standard in most stores).  Third, she has sprained her ankles more times than I care to count, which has left her ankles somewhat . . . misshapen.  All of this means that my mother's shoes are difficult to find and very expensive.  Since she had a fairly dressy pair of navy blue MaryJanes, we had to work with those.

After a few days of perusing catalogs and surfing the net, we decided that, for mom, she would get a dressy pair of navy pants and then different tops for each wedding.  My mother's style is rather oxymoronic.  She loves sparkles and froufrous and embellishments, but doesn't want anything gaudy.  ?!?!  The first top turned out to be relatively easy to find.  She found, in Roaman's catalog, a grey beaded top and was awestruck.
It was rather pricey, but I told her to be patient.  I get two or three emails a week from Roaman's and others with discount codes.  Once my mother makes up her mind, however, she does not want to wait!  (And you wondered how I got to be the way I am?)  Fortunately for both of us, that very evening I received an email for 40% off one item.  Wow!  I'd been hoping for 30% off and expecting 25% off, but this was great.  I didn't even bother with the intercom.  I ran down the stairs and burst into her bedroom.  Well, okay, I hurried down the stairs and carefully pushed her bedroom door open.  I had to mute the TV first, which entailed a search for the remote-control, which had gotten tangled in her blanket and buried under some books.  I told her the good news and her eyes lit up!  "Go order it!" she demanded.  I realized at that point that I should have waited to tell her because I still had a week before I got paid.  I assured her the coupon would still be good and it wasn't likely that the top would be out of stock in a week's time.  It was one of the loooongest weeks of my life!  That last week or so before I get paid is always a killer.  This time I could have cheerfully committed murder.  My mother fretted and fussed the whole week.  I'm surprised she didn't make me wait up the night before payday to wait for the direct deposit to show up in the bank.  But I did make sure I ordered it before I went down to breakfast!

The ordeal was NOT over at that point.  Every day she asked if the package from Roaman's came.  "Not yet" became my mantra.  I didn't even point out to her that it didn't ship until four days later.  It arrived two days after shipping, though, so she had it in less than a week.  It is very pretty:

I found a short necklace at Fashion Bug that has pewter and blood-red beads.  That'll give her some color by her face.  There was some upset when she realized that the V-neck showed more of her bypass scar than she would like.  This prompted a whole 'nother search for a cami or tank that would go under it without looking tacky.  I found a silver shell in some obscure mail-order store that (fingers crossed) should look very nice with it, hide her scar and look great with the pewter-and-red beaded necklace.  Now we are waiting for that to arrive!

Note:  This narrative will take a few postings to tell.  I will show parts of the outfits as we go along and then post pictures of us in all our finery.

Brain Sprain

I have Bipolar Disorder.  I am not ashamed of that, nor do I believe there is any stigma associated with it.  I know some people are still afraid of mental illness.  Technically, Bipolar is a Mood Disorder, not a Cognitive Disorder.  But I didn't start out with Bipolar.  After a number of events, which I'll get into another time, 12 years ago I was diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder and Anxiety.

Please note:  This is a very simplistic description!  I would not even call it Bipolar 101.  More like Bipolar prep.  I've boiled it down a whole lot and you lose quite a bit when you do that.

There is physical proof that these disorders are not imaginary.

Further, there are electrochemical impulses in the brain which have been proven to be associated with Depression.

First, a neuron (brain cell) receives an electrical impulse.  That first impulse is triggered by something happening to us.  Perhaps a physical threat or life-changing news.  Then, the neuron sends a chemical message to the next neuron.  The messenger (neurotransmitter) could be seratonin, norepinephrine, or dopamine, each of which has a known relationship to depression.  We'll use seratonin for this example because I have pictures for.  The seratonin takes the message through the gap (synapse), between neurons to the receiving neuron.  The receiver takes the message, sending the seratonin back into the synapse.  Some of the seratonin will be taken back into the first neuron. That is called reuptake.  And that seems to be where the trouble is.  Medications such as Zoloft, Paxil, Effexor, etc., are Selective Seratonin Reuptake Inhibitors.

The medication blocks the passage that would allow the seratonin to get back into the first neuron.  This has been proven to relieve depression in many people.

It doesn't work for everyone with a Depressive Disorder, but it works for a lot.  And there are other types of antidepressants, too, that work for other people.


This is all taking place in the Limbic System area of the brain.  The Limbic system regulates emotions, physical and sexual drives and the stress response, among other things.  The transmitting of those "messages" is called impulse.  These impulses are about 1/5000 of a second.  Very difficult to catch as it happens.  But there are results of these impulses and that's what scientists look at.

Depression is just one-half, well more like 45%, of what constitutes Bipolar Disorder.  Another 45% is the manic side.  But just putting all this together gave me a headache.  We'll look at the other parts of Bipolar, and how someone ends up there, another time.

Blind Driving

Just a little joke between . . . well, me and myself.  That's how I feel driving at night.  The glare of oncoming lights reduces my vision.  I can't see well in the dark.  What does that leave?  Not much.  There are a few well-lit streets that have those softer-toned bulbs in them that I don't mind driving on at night.  And I can manage just fine in my own neighborhood.  Beyond that, it gets hairy.

My trepidation has increased exponentially with each invite I receive to an evening activity.  This Tuesday night, I have a friend's husband's 50th birthday party to go to.  It'll still be light when I go, but it'll be dark coming home.  Ditto for my nephew's wedding on October 8th, which is on a Friday, and, of course, at night.  The major stomach-wrencher will be my niece's wedding on New Year's Eve.  That's also a Friday and, being December 31st, it will be dark when we go there, as well as coming home.  In addition, it's New Year's Eve.  Half the drivers on the roads will be buzzing, if not outright drunk.  Did I mention the wedding will be in the north-west suburbs of Chicago?  On New Year's Eve!  For those of you who've been living under a rock and have no clue what the weather is like during a Chicagoland winter, we could have three feet of snow!  Of course, it could also be 60 degrees, but that's not likely.  It could also be raining, which could change to sleet.

Am I being pessimistic?  Possibly.  Oh, all right, probably.  But I would rather be prepared for the worst and have things turn out better than expected, than to plan for the best and have things turn out worse than expected.  Make sense?  Well, it does to me.  And, while I am a born-again Christian, I still firmly believe in jinxes and superstition.  So, I'll knock wood, avoid walking under any ladders and beware of black cats.  Oh, wait.  I live with a black cat.  Well, technically, she's a deep coffee-brown that just looks black.  Yeah, that works.  Whew!

If it was just me going, I would crash at my sister's place (which just happens to be five minutes from where the 12/31 wedding will be) afterward.  But, of course, I'll have my mother with me.  There are no bedrooms on the ground floor of my sister's townhouse and I can't expect my mother to sleep on the sofa with her bad back.

Maybe I can talk my daughter into going to her cousin's wedding that night.  She could drive.  Pfft.  Convince my hedonistic, 23-year-old daughter to give up New Year's Eve parties for a family wedding?  Not anywhere near bloody likely!  Maybe I could pay her to drive us . . .  Well, heck, if I'm going to pay someone, I could hire a limo!

Hey, maybe I'm on to something there!  A limo!  Or, at the very least, a cab.  That way I could have champagne, too!  I like champagne.  I would not be exaggerating to say that I love champagne.  I wonder how much a cab from Justice, IL to Lisle, IL would cost?  On New Year's Eve?  Oh sh--, I mean, darn!  We'd really have to tip the drivers bigtime!  There is free limo service to the nearby Hilton, but we don't have money for hotel rooms.  Or even one room.  So we probably can't afford a cab, either.  Oh well, it was a good idea.  I really hate being lower middle-class with upper middle-class (or maybe lower upper-class) relatives.  But that's a gripe for another day.

So, I'll just focus on one day at a time.  Tomorrow or Tuesday, I need to find a gift--in my price range--for a guy who is turning 50 and is also upper middle-class.  I'm thinking a nice card and an herbal alternative to Viagra.  That would be a joke.  A gag-gift, you know?  Fine, I'll just pick up a generic version of Geritol.
Party-poopers.