RFG FAQs

I’m a little late with some kind of acknowledgement of the one-year anniversary of my adventures in blogsville, but I’m finally getting to it. I’d planned to post answers to questions many of you (OK, a couple of you) have been asking about me, and the blog, and how everything is going here on the hill.

Q: Who the heck is Gargamel and why are you rooting for him?

A: Those of a certain age might remember the Smurfs, a Saturday morning cartoon from the late 70s that featured some very irritating little blue characters, called, oddly enough, Smurfs. A bunch of guy Smurfs lived in their little Smurf village with one Smurfette, which people though was kind of…well, a bit unfortunate and not really fair at best, and kind of sick at worst. Their arch enemy was Gargamel, this twisted guy who looked like a monk on the wrong medication, and he was continually plotting ways to get the Smurfs. I don’t remember why (perhaps he merely thought them too irritating to live), but å la the Coyote and the Roadrunner, Gargamel’s complex plots were always thwarted. I (and many people I know) secretly rooted for Gargamel to squish all the Smurfs into little blue road pizzas. Hence the name.I was also psyched on a Google search to find out that "Gargamel" is also the name of an American rock band and a Norwegian "progrock" band.

Q: What’s with the penguins?

A: I was (still am, when I can find it, or what it morphed into) a big fan of the comic strip Bloom County. Particularly Opus P. Penguin. Op starting showing up as a stuffed toy in the stores in the mid 80s, and Gladys (a frequent commenter to RFG) bought me my first. He became my “buddy” when I lived in Boston (remember “The Velveteen Rabbit?”), and soon, more followed. Once, as a Christmas present for a couple of Husband’s friends (this was about the time of the Jamaican Bobsled Team), we bought two plain small Ops and converted them, with yarn dreadlocks, little Hawaiian shirts, and sunglasses, into Rasta Ops, and packaged them in burlap sacks stenciled “Jamaica” on them. Don’t know what happened to them over time, but we’ve got a good dozen or so of the little guys (and some not so little) scattered throughout the house. They get a little demanding when it comes to fish and Pop Tarts, but other than that, they’re easy to keep.

Q: What’s fibromyalgia and how are you doing with it?

A: For a full explanation of what fibro is, check out this article I wrote for AC. I have good stretches and bad, and right now I’m just gritting my teeth and waiting for spring (fibro doesn’t like the cold). Fortunately, there’s getting to be a lot more good information out there (books and on the web) and I’m working on an article about what to do when you first learn you have it. Thanks for asking.

Q: You talk about this Husband guy but we never hear from him. What’s the deal with that?

A: He reads some of my posts, and has commented one or two times, but says he “lives” each blog entry so therefore doesn’t feel he needs to read or respond to each one. But check out his own rantings at The Happy In Hell Radio Show. Leave a comment. He likes to feel needed. ;)

Q: Whatever happened with that sleep study?

A: This question refers to an entry I posted about going through a sleep study (All Hail The Borg Queen). Not much was revealed. I don’t have sleep apnea or any kind of nocturnal arrhythmias, which I guess are the big kahunas they’re looking for. It also speculated that I shouldn’t eat too close to bedtime. (then why the heck do they call them “bedtime snacks?”) So basically, it was a night connected to an oxygen sensor and a lot of electrodes with a camera inserted into my sleep mask and a microphone in my mouth. Which here at the Playhouse we call “Tuesday.”

Anyhow…thanks for reading, and thank you for your support. Especially to Highlander for getting me started. It’s been a great year. Especially for penguins.

But not so much for Gargamel.