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