For your amusement this Friday

Thanks to my friend Michelle for forwarding this to me.  Any fan of Lolcats will appreciate this:

Ouch not as much

I guess I should update you on the great dr’s appt I had yesterday.   Well, great doctor, lots discussed, and I’m down about another pound, so those are good.  Bad was my blood pressure was high for probably the first time in my life.  I’ll blame work for that one.  All my blood tests were good except the CBC.  As suspected, I’m back down again.  Hemoglobin was a 9, and the last time I went into the hospital for a transfusion it was 8.  I have to take iron pills twice a day until my next appt in a month and they’ll recheck. 
 
We also did a flip flop on my meds, back to something close to what my rheumy had me on in December 2006, since thankfully my dr was able to read what I had been on in the notes.  I’m so thankful that the dr’s office in Dallas really did fax my records over since I hate whining that I hurt to a dr and it looking like I’m a junkie.  So now my daily meds are – AM: cymbalta, zyrtec, and my vit B stress complex.  I’m supposed to have a slow-release iron pill there too, but I thought I had some at the house and I didn’t.  I have to go back to the drug store this afternoon.  PM: mobic, ultram, and another stupid iron pill.  This morning I pulled out one of my lidoderm patches for my lower back too, and I think it might be working some.
 
What was neat was that when I told a coworker who was in the office that I had to go for my appt yesterday, and he pressured me into telling him what it was for, he was surprised.  He told me he would have never known if I hadn’t have told him, and I’ve worked with him nearly a year.  I told him, you don’t see me move too much from my chair though – that’s how you can tell.  He told me that I was always so peppy and stuff that it surprised him. 

And on another note altogether – Happy Clone Wars Day!  I’m taking my young padawan and his big sister to the theater either this evening after work, or more likely, after some back to school shopping tomorrow.  It’s Tax-Free weekend in Texas, but my budget’s so tight this year (thanks to my ex missing his last two child support payments), I won’t really be able to enjoy the shopping experience like I have before.  It’s probably going to be Target for the turkey’s supplies and a couple extra pieces of clothes, Payless for shoes for them both, and 5-7-9 in the mall for the teenager.  I figure after that much stress and walking, it would be nice to sit in an air conditioned theater with a huge tub of fake-buttery popcorn and some junior mints.

FFS It’s HOT!

If you think you may have read this somewhere before, well that’s because everyone in Texas and other lower states are saying the same stupid thing – It’s hot!  Stupid hot, as I like to say.  The kind of hot where you can’t think because your brain is boiling. 

We have four different a/c units in our building at work, and the building isn’t that big imo.  They’re situated strangely that the same two units cover our largest classroom and the main lobby, the third one large classroom to itself, and the fourth a small classroom and a back office.  We called the repair service out last week to replace a part on one of the first two, so we know they’re working.  It’s just that this building probably dates back to the Civil War (and yes, I’m exaggerating), so it’s poorly put together, poorly insulated (and poorly wired too for the record.)

For the second half of the day, I had a string of whiney grown men asking if they could turn down the air.  No – first, don’t touch that thermostat!  And second, it was down to 60!  When it’s 100 degrees outside there’s only so much relief you’re going to get in this building.  I suggested they hang outside for a bit then come back in to appreciate what we do have.  And of course, the coke machine picked yesterday to be a stubborn bitch, probably because of the heat too.  Poor whiney men had to drink water! 

It was cooler at the house, but not enough for me.  The air was set at 68, and it was a boiling 77 in the house.  See, I know I’m being a brat.  I get it.  But I was miserable!  First, off came the bra, pretty much unhooking it as I unlocked the front door.  Next the jeans.  I made the kids a microwaved dinner in a tshirt and my undies, and chewed on koolaid flavored ice.  That seemed to help, but I knew it was about to get miserable again since turkey’s bath time is after dinner.  I have these gorgeous vanity lights in my tiny bathroom…you can see where I’m going with this. 

After I got the turkey cleaned and cooled and tucked in, I told the girl I couldn’t handle it any longer, and got back in the shower myself.  Then I sat on my bed in my towel and my drippy hair watching Sunday night’s Iron Chef America, which made me drool!  Battle Curry!  OMGs it was incredible. 

By the halfway point of Iron Chef I realized I was soaking my bed with my damp towel, and I’m not a fan of attempting to sleep in a damp bed. I get seriously ooged out if anything is wrong with my sheets, and yes, I can tell if the 13yo has watched my dvr during the day because inevitably she gets some sort of crumb on my bed.  So I ditched the towel and the comforter and tried to lay as still as possible under my sheet, trying to will my fan tower thingy to blow cooler.  By judgement time, the drooling had passed my body temperature, so I paused to find a snack.

Amy was still up in the living room, watching Family Guy, I think, and furiously texting or emailing on her phone.  I’m not sure when she figured out she had internet access on her phone, but you cannot pry that thing out of her hand now.  Anyway, I flopped my bedsheet about me and headed for the fridge for a snack of shaved turkey rolled in a thin slice of muenster.  Mmmm.  My daughter looked up from the tiny screen for a moment and started giggling.  She gave me the most wonderful compliment I’ve had in a long time: she told me I looked like a Roman Goddess feasting.  Ok, so it was a sideways compliment, but I’ll take what I can get.  And with the phone in her hand…

 

Busted.

Night and Day, and why isn’t it still night?

Turkey boy is home this week, under the somewhat watchful eye of his older sister.  The preschool was having their air conditioners replaced, and even though they had water activities planned and a lot of fans being brought in, I couldn’t imagine how miserable he was going to be, and in turn, how miserable he would make the teachers.  Can you imagine a room full of 4 and 5 year olds in a room without a/c, in Texas, at the end of July?  I took advantage of their vacation week policy, and paid the big sister a chunk of that instead to play video games with him all day long.

Because of this, both bedtimes had to be adjusted a little.  I wanted the big one in bed by ten, but let the smaller one stay up a little past his normal bedtime to try to even them out.  At eight pm last night, I pulled the squeaky clean turkey boy into my bed to snuggle and watch Iron Chef.  This is where I take a slight detour on the subject to ask where his nipple radar came from.  Is this a genetic thing?  I don’t remember snuggling with my daughter at this age and having her bump, jab or pin my nipple every freaking time she moved!  They’re my boobs now!  They haven’t been his in a very long time, so it’s time for him to leave them alone!

Okay, back on track again (thank you for reading my mini boob rant.  Not that my boobs are mini by far, it’s just that the rant was.  I’ll stop now.)  The boy got tossed into his bed around nine.  The girl at ten.  However, my five year old has no concept of sleeping in.  The thirteen year old on the other hand, would sleep the entire day if not for the telephone, internet, and video games.  She did well the first couple days waking up with him, but apparently Day Three was a bit harder.

After I put on my shoes, I crept into their room to whisper and I love you and I’ll see you later.  As i opened the door a crack, turkey boy looked up at me and smiled.  What a way to start my day, let me tell you.  He sat up in slow motion and reached his arms for me, so I had no choice but to go and give him some good morning hugs.  He told me he’d miss me, and I told him I’d miss him too, but he’d have fun today.  And then I had to wake the girl, since the boy was now awake.

She grumbled and scowled.  I resisted the urge to remind Madam Sleepypants that she had already been paid for babysitting this week, and instead tried to be maternal and encourage her to get up. 

She whined, “I don’t understand how he can get up so easily.” 

I told her, “He likes the world.”

She replied, “Well, the world is too early.”

I had to giggle on my way back out of their room and out the front door.  I think she really hit on something there.

Update from yesterday

I want to thank those of you who were there for me yesterday so much for your support. This was a big blow. I remember calling her from the emergency room years ago, when I thought my ex might have broken my shoulder, telling her he hurt me. She came in like the calvary to help, so she said. However, the next day when I ran to get tylenol or something for my son, who was barely a year old at the time, when I got home, he was sitting on the couch with a diaper that had run through his sleeper. She said she didn’t notice. I remember thinking then…how…?

Anyway, I called and talked to my sister last night. She said that the email she had gotten from NM was titled something like, to make me feel better. The content simply stated, I take payments, again referring to the $259 that she supposedly owes her. I suggested she start sending the woman a penny a month, as a joke. At least it got a good laugh.

This morning I logged back into myspace and reported her for the pictures of me and my children posted without my permission. They are posted where anyone can view them. Not even the pictures on my profile, especially of the kids, are open for public view. I’m not trying to get revenge, I’m just trying to make it clear that I want nothing to do with her at all, and despite her sense of entitlement, she doesn’t have and right to show off my children as part of her.

Also, I would like to mention my recent viewers that ended up here by looking for the Next Food Network Star, and ending up viewing the adorable picture of my son taken close to two years ago.  I hope you drop back by occasionally, since I am a fan of the show, and finally watched the finale last night, a day late.  I’m happy with the results, though I really thing the other guy would have made a more interesting show in the end.

The cookie won

First of all, I would like to thank my daughter for the laugh I got last night.  She was a great sport, and I’m still giggling this morning thanks to her and a cookie.

This weekend she and her brother went to visit their grandparents in Fort Worth.  I agreed to meet my ex-inlaws in Dallas to get some shopping done.  I needed to go to the big Vietnamese market for supplies, since the tiny import market here in Neverneverland, East Texas, is overpriced and half-empty.  One of the things the kids and I enjoy is the selection of different flavored wafer cookies, other than the chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry commonly found in the local Walmart.  In the past, I had become quite addicted to banana wafer cookies, and sparked by a conversation on the 4th with my friends, felt the urge to gather as many flavors possible for sampling.

So in addition to the mango, peanut, coconut, and guava flavored wafer cookies, I picked up a package of durian flavored.  This is where I tell my readers I had never had a previous encounter with durian, only word-of-mouth anecdotes of the unbelievable odor and taste.  Such as this quote from Richard Sterling:

… its odor is best described as pig-shit, turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock. It can be smelled from yards away. Despite its great local popularity, the raw fruit is forbidden from some establishments such as hotels, subways and airports, including public transportation in Southeast Asia.

After dinner, Miss Amy came to me asking for dessert, specifically, if she could open the package of coconut wafer cookies.  I want to say she even saw the lightbulb over my head.  I asked if she wanted to try the durian ones, explaining to her some of the things I had heard about the fruit.  You should know, she’s never been one to shy away from trying new foods, and especially keen on taking a dare.  So we grabbed the package from the pantry.

For reference, I should tell you that i had brussel sprouts for dinner.  I can handle strong tastes and smells.  However, when we opened the package, I had to step back, gagging.

After the initial shock, and scooting back a few feet, I was almost ok.  Amy was intrigued.  Again, this was like nothing in the world we had ever smelled.

I was starting to think she couldn’t go through with it, so I upped the ante.  Instead of a straight dare, I bet her a dollar she couldn’t eat one.  A dollar, though we are in a recession, still buys a 13 year old a coke from the vending machine, so she was back in again.

After a moment or so of psyching herself up for the task at hand, she gathered the strength to take a nibble.

Her courage lasted only a moment more.

And in the end, the cookie won.

Change is inevitable. And frustrating as hell.

I am a creature of habit.  Blame it on my taurean nature, or the desire to create peace in a world of chaos, but I like my routines.  Turkeyboy and I leave the house each morning, I drop him off at preschool, and then I head to the same convenience store to get my crappychino mixed with Folgers French roast.  I come into work, turn on the computer, put my purse in the drawer, and take care of anything that needs immediate attention.  I sit down, log in, get my email going, and then start the tunes.

I’ve been a paying customer of Yahoo music for years now.  I have been pleased as punch for the entire time, downloading music to my phone to listen to by the pool, or to share with my daughter.  I listen to “my station” most of the day, interrupted by Pink Floyd, Depeche Mode, or Sarah McLachlan albums.  I had heard the rumors that Yahoo music was going away, but I chose to remain in denial.

Until this morning.  I was faced with the choice to move my subscription to Rhapsody or just wave goodbye to my musical staple from my desk chair.  I MUST have music, so you know what I chose.

I’m not happy.  It seems like half of my playlists were imported, and the other half disappeared to the same place the Hamster Dance  now occupies – the internet graveyard.  But the one thing that is truly making me scowl is that it looks like I have lost probably four years of ratings.  I had the most awesome “my station,” and now it’s gone.  And did I mention that the song title and artist don’t display in the task bar like Yahoo did?

This is going to take some getting used to.

Um, popular?

I have been shamelessly courted by VH1’s I Love series.  I’ve seen both 70s series, all three 80s, only one of the 90s runs, and last night, started on the I Love the New Millennium set.  (I had to triple check my spelling of millennium btw)  And referring back to yesterday’s post on bedtimes, this was another special event, as 2002 came on right at eight, the year my son was born, so I let him stay up a bit longer than usual to get a pop culture glimpse into his birth year along with his 13 year old sister and me.

However, a bit more than an hour before bedtime, at the end of I Love 2000, there was a segment on Cast Away, starring Tom Hanks. If you haven’t seen the ending yet this many years later, and still want it to be a surprise, stop reading.  The funny people started commenting on how Helen Hunt’s character was married off by the time Tom Hanks’ character, Chuck, had returned, and someone on screen shouted out the word, “WHORE!”

My eyes widened and I glanced sideways at the five year old.  And he caught me, which brought about this wonderfully uncomfortable conversation: 

Brody: What does that mean?

Mommy: It’s a grown up word, and not something you should say at school, or anywhere else really you shouldn’t use words that you can’t define.

Brody: Ok, but what does it mean?

I was trapped.  The smug smile on my teenagers face taunted me to get out of this conversation without stuttering or blushing.

Mommy: Ok, a whore is someone…someone…a girl….

Brody: (flashed his patented innocent attentive look)

Mommy: A girl who has a lot of boyfriends!  But you shouldn’t use that word to describe a girl with a lot of boyfriends.  You should probably just use “popular.”

I gave a satisfied nod, which prompted the teenager’s first raised eyebrow

Mommy: (to Amy, under her breath) Chup!

Amy: (stifled giggle)

Mommy: (to Amy, louder) Chup!

Amy: (the giggles break through)

Mommy: (to Amy, relinquishing what’s left of her maternal dignity): You’re fired!

Bedtime: then and now

Picture a typical 70s living room: tan couches, wicker & glass coffee table to compliment the large wicker peacock chair, a wall and a half of built-in bookshelves loaded with albums, german steins, imitation asian statues, and my father’s last can of unopened Billy Beer.  The orangish colors in the old polaroids even themselves mimic some of the color schemes of that time.  Picture me, the smallest kid in my class, with my Star Wars figurines, iron-on rainbow exclamation point tshirt, and mork-from-ork suspenders.  I fit there, don’t I?

As a child, I hated bedtime.  I could make a bazillion excuses why I should stay up, half of which required me to pass through our idyllic living room to the kitchen as my parents were entertaining, serving her sorority sisters pina coladas or his hunting partners another michelob.  I wanted to be part of their jokes.  I wanted to wear my eye shadow like “Aunt” Ruby.  I wanted to learn to play dominoes for the wonderful clacking sounds.  But my sisters and I were always sent to bed what I still to this day consider unreasonably early to give the grownups their “me” time.  I would usually get caught somewhere other than my bed, the ends of my long brown hair hanging in damp spikes from playing in the tub with my action figures or mom’s tupperware, decked out in a one of dad’s tshirts that we got to wear to bed.  I had to have the door cracked open at night, to have some sort of light shine into my room, so that *things* wouldn’t get to me as I tried to sleep.  And to try to hear what the grownups were laughing about.

Now picture my living room, if you can: the passthrough area between the bedrooms, brown microfiber couches, the coffee table I spray painted blue & silver (yes, what a fun day that was!) being used to hold the larger tv purchased thanks to this years tax refund, brown & shimmery turquoise curtains, and books strewn everywhere.  Some days I swear it looks like the back room at Half Price Books.  Anyway, my son gets sent to bed at eight, unless something really important is happening, which could be as simple as watching the end of ET a few weeks ago.  He likes his bedroom door open too, but I’ve only heard him tell me of bad dreams a handful of times in his life.  I might be jinxing myself here, but he rarely balks when I say it’s bedtime, though in exchange he cheerfully greets the world earlier in the morning than I can. 

Our bedroom doors are a straight line across the cluttered living room.  The older tv now sits on the desk in my room.  Last night, I had on Star Wars again, thanks to Spike catering to the masculine viewers showing one movie in the saga on a near regular basis each Sunday.  And since I tend to tune into Star Wars any time I can, no matter which movie it is and no matter how many times I have seen it before, I had The Phantom Menace set as background as I read.  (I had started Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult yesterday at the pool, and it’s been a bit hard to put down). What I didn’t realize until Amy came in a few minutes after Brody’s bedtime, was that the tv in my room was directly across from the head of Brody’s bed. She suggested I close my door, since he insists his be left open, and he had made sure it was open enough to get a clear view of Darth Maul’s final battle.

I actually started grinning. I could so easily put myself back thirty years, to the tiny kid struggling to be included, even if it meant hanging on the side of the couch slightly out of view to catch a glimpse of the action. In the end, I decided to open my door a bit more to give him the best view I could. I figured, hey, he was in bed, and quiet, and a good kid, why not make bed time as easy as possible. By the time the movie ended and I was ready to put down my book for the evening, I went to check on him, kissed his sleeping cheek, and tucked his Galactic Heroes comforter up to his shoulders.

 

RIP George Carlin, 1937-2008

Rufus, see you in the future.