Hi, I'm Ginnilee, and I live in Belchertown, Massachusetts.
I enjoy cooking, baking,
reading and writing sf/fantasy and reading mysteries, hiking
(when I have the energy). I was diagnosed with FMS when I was 10
years old, and have learned many ways of doing things that won't
knock me flat. I do have the help of a physical
therapist/chiropractor, nurse practitioner and doctor, and a
psychologist, which makes all the difference in the world. I
bless the day I met Gail Gnatek, and she referred me over to
Barbara Jeanne and Saralyn! I get myofasical release therapy,
acupressure and massage and adjustment of whatever hurts the
most that day with Barbara Jeanne, and she has kept me out of
the permanent cast I had worn (for 11 years) for the last
3 years. Sara gives me someone to talk to about my frustrations
with having this disease, and someone I can talk to when my
siblings don't seem to want to understand what I'm going
through. And all 3 of them of them (and Barbara Jeanne's kids!)
appreciate my cooking and baking skills, which helps just as
much as the treatment they give me. And I'm an October, Friday
the 13th child.
I am also the primary caretaker of my mother, who also has FMS
but she also has other health problems (a heart condition,
tachycardia, non-convulsive seizures, brittle diabetes,
arthritis, macular degeneration and she broke her right fibula,
left ankle and left forearm a couple of years ago when her blood
sugar zeroed her out), and is mainly restricted to a wheelchair
but can use her walking stick around the house. I do have
someone who helps me with her, but she also has FMS and some
days has flares, but some help is better than none. And she's
really nice. ;-)
I am a compulsive reader, and I own about 1800 sf/fantasy books
and about 800 mysteries, along with my history texts (mostly
Celtic history) and a large cookbook collection. I have a huge
interest in both Celtic history and the history of food; I'm
very curious about how we learned what is edible and how to
prepare it. I was reading college-level books when I was 10,
partly because I actually understood them and partially because
I had trouble sleeping after several major asthma attacks; I
"borrowed" my mother's copy of the Complete Works of
William Shakespeare and read it at night when I couldn't sleep.
Of course, my parents owned a bookstore before I was born, until
they moved from New York City to southern California with 4 boys
age 4 and under, and 2000 books. Seeing a pattern here? One of
the books that made a big impression on me, and probably what
began my life-long interest in all types of history, was
"Lost Worlds: the Romance of Archeology" by Anne Terry
White. Unfortunately, when we moved to Minnesota in 1987,
it somehow got left behind. Fortunately, I found another copy
this year at bn.com used & out of print books in great
condition and only $17. After 17 years. My clothing purchases
depend on how big the pockets of the skirts or pants I'm going
to buy; my bosses know about the fact I keep a book in my pocket
since I have understandable separation anxiety and I never know
when we're going to have a fire alarm set off by the air
conditioning system or when I have "a call of nature."
I basically work for Barnes & Noble to subsidize my
addiction, and because I have a large family who all read.
I have 4 brothers, the oldest of whom are 9 years older
(identical twins), the next is 8 years older and the youngest of
them is 5 years older, as well as a sister who is younger than I
am by 22 months. Currently, I have 5 nieces and 4 nephews, and I
love to spend time with all of them. As I also like to dye
clothing, the kids enjoy the fact I am perfectly willing to
spend time with spray bottles full of Rit dye and t-shirts on a
clothesline with them and spend time decorating those t-shirts.
I think I'm more of a playmate than an aunt; I'm willing to play
with them and be silly, like the time we were playing "keep
away from the inflatable shark" and the kids were
hiding under the blankets while I was trying to get the shark
under those same blankets and get the kids. All my brothers are
married, as is my sister. Now they're trying to get me married
off. When I find the right guy, I will, but he would have to be
very understanding and have a very warped sense of humor, not to
mention appreciative of my cooking. <G>
Cooking is another passion. I've been cooking since I
was 11, when my father became more ill, and, while
Mom's health has never been the greatest, she had to take
care of him, the oldest 3 brothers were all in college, and the
youngest brother was in his senior year of high school and
the class valedictorian. That left me and my sister, but she was
too young and not really interested in the kitchen arts. I
discovered I really enjoyed it, leading to a life long
obsession with the kitchen. I love to play with recipes, and
inventing my own. And I have willing guinea pigs in my
co-workers and Lois McMaster Bujold likes my baking.
I'm infamous with my alcoholic brownies, fudge and "doctored"
cupcakes. The brownies made it into my job reference from
the Mall of America B&N when I transferred to Hadley, and my
current store manager's first words to me were "so, when do we
get some brownies?" I told her the day I start
working, which is what happened. I rarely make
mistakes in my experiments, and those are easy to get rid of;
I'm the only one who can tell it's a failure.
I've always had cats in my life. There was Simona, who thought
all 6 of us kids were her kittens. Ever had a cat wash your
ears? It's a unique sensation; kind of like a wet q-tip crossed
with sandpaper. And my brother's cat, Little John; he was a
marmalade persian who ate anything Tim ate, even if it was peanut
butter or Pepsi, and there's almost nothing funnier than
watching a cat eat peanut butter or try to avoid the bubbles in
the Pepsi. If Mom needed to keep me quiet for a while
when I was little, and Tim was at school, she'd put me and
John in my play pen with National Geographic, and we'd be
occupied for hours with all of the pretty pictures. Then there's
Cromwell and his Cromwellians; a family of cats who all had
round heads. We had Rudy, who was sweet but not very bright, and
always at the vet's. My sister had a cat named
Wolfgang who, when he was done with something, made it look
as a gang of wolves had been at work! He's the only cat
I've ever seen who was very determined, and managed to, bite a
corner off of a coffee table, and once he fell asleep on the back
of Mom's chair, and rolled right down her back. He had a buddy
named Lopes, who was my cat. Lopes' full name was Carlos Y
Cristo el Gato Lopes, Count of Catula because Tim and I
disagreed over what his name should be, so I just stuck them all
together. He was 1/2 native California Wildcat and 1/2 domestic
shorthair silver tabby, and weighed 22lbs fully grown, and stood
3 feet tall when standing on his hind legs. We had a couch we
called "mt. couch" since he would lie alongside it on
the floor and pull himself paw over paw until he
reached the other end. Now, I have Cristo and Carlita, both
named for Lopes. It's kind of funny that we had a black and a
silver tabby in Wolfgang and Lopes, and now we have another
black (Carlita) and another silver/brown tabby (Cristo). To
Cristo, anything I own is technically *his*, and I have no
say in it. He and Carlita think that I have throw pillows under
my comforter for them, when it's really there for my knees when
my back is really bothering me. He also likes to hide underneath
my comforter if he thinks Carlita's being too much of a pest.
I'm very talented in the accidents I've had over my life. I've
had my right knee immobilized twice, and the 2nd time it
happened, I had my sister calligraph "if you can read this,
you've fallen and I can't help you up" on the velcro strips
of my splint. The first time I did my knee in was when I was
walking over to church choir practice and found ice the hard way
with my right kneecap, and it was 3 months in the splint. I've
sprained my left wrist about 11 times, and wore a permanent cast
for 11 years. In college, since I could no longer turn my palm
up and I had to hold my choir folder with my left hand, I ended
up putting velcro on the splint and velcro on the binder Winona
State bought me so I could hold my folder. When I was 2, Mom
told me to stay away from the swings, and I normally would have
listened to her, but for once I didn't, and I ran under the
swing my brother was on, requiring a complete reconstruction of
my nose and sinuses by a plastic surgeon, but they managed to do
most of the work inside my mouth to minimize scarring. I have
rotator cuff syndrome thanks to no wet floor signs at the
Montgomery Wards I used to work for, and landed on my lower
right arm, shoving my shoulder into the socket. Oh, and always
wear shoes when you're making a roux; dropping some between your
toes is NOT fun! I've also frozen my left middle finger in the
refrigerator, and nearly boned myself several times when working
with raw meat. And it's easier to make lime tarts by putting the
mini tart pans on a cookie sheet than taking them out 1 at a
time; I have a lovely scar attesting to that fact. And I've lost
track of all of the concussions I've had. I was putting some
silverware in a pan and some trash in the trash can and forgot
that a shelf was right in front of the 2, and smacked my
forehead on the shelf. There's also standing up after hooking a
couple of choir music boxes right into the bookcase. I had to
ask my choir director's wife to please get her husband to stop
asking me how the d*mn shelf was, and she said "oh, that's
just his warped sense of humor, but I'll talk to him about
it." I had fun with the fact his initials are H.A.M., and
he was denser than plutonium, so it was easy to play practical
jokes on him. And his wife helped in a few of those.
Well, I've rambled on long enough. Remember, having FMS without
a sense of humor can cause dain bramage, and leave you open for
spoonerisms and bad jokes. If one doesn't get you, the other
will
Ginnilee
Lady Lavender of Teal