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 |  "Clean cup! Move down!" ~~the Mad Hatter, Alice in Wonderland, Walt Disney cartoon |
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** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Sometimes in life, you have to pick up and move down the table. A regroup, a fresh start. A clean slate. |
| Soooooo........... Hi. Apparently I have gotten no better at updating this thing, if anything I have gotten worse. I promised Jenn I would update, though. First.....even though I don't update here? I still read all of y'all's blogs. I'm heavily invested in all your lives.  Sorry I suck at reciprocating.Thomas. Thomas is getting super big. He will be seven months old in a couple of days. He has begun crawling and he is sitting up alone now. His favorite thing to do is the same trick CJ used to have. He gets his walker up to ramming speed and bashes you in the shin and ankle with it or he rolls over your feet and giggles like a maniac when you hop around cradling your bruised and/ or bleeding toes. That's his favorite game. He also loves to take CJ's phone and yammer at it and lick it when he wants to Skype Banana. He loves giving me slobbery, licky kisses via the phone screen. Sadly he got exposed to pink eye over the holidays and CJ keeps having to use a warm wash cloth to keep his eyes from being crusty. There isn't an urgent care or anything like that where she is, but she was able to get an appointment with his doctor tomorrow. Health. My health is getting better. I'm still woefully out of shape. And super heavy. I currently am twice the weight I was when I got married. Twice. It's not good. BUT, I've only had a round dozen ER visits this year. We've done Fourth of July and Thanksgiving so far. We are thinking if we can do a Christmas visit, we'll have collected the holiday set. Possibly they'll issue us free steak knives or something.  Work. Work is basically the same. Assholes and idiots. Same old, same old. Writing. I'm doing ok with a couple of stories. The second in a series and the first in a separate series set in the same world. I'm also working on editing the first book in the first series. I have been working at them all but not as hard as I should. I've been playing WAAAAY to many FB games. So, I'm banning myself from FB games. They are just a time suck. My house. My housework super suffered while I was so sick. Like it was starting to look like we had been pillaged by Vikings. Hubby has helped me hold some house cleaning sessions a couple of times. Now I think with one more session, we can be ready for the in laws coming at Christmas. And possibly CJ and Kyle and Thomas. We will see. My in laws. So......we got the definitive diagnosis of Alzheimer's this past month for my mother in law. Sadly we also discovered that she is also still doing the deposits at her work. We've talked to FIL and told him he needs to have a meeting with her boss and explain they need to do something different, but he won't because he's afraid they will let her go and then she'll just be at home. And that would lead to a huge decline in her cognitive situation. We also found out yesterday that FIL has Whooping Cough. He's in "isolation" meaning he can't leave the house but she is coming and going dragging his germs all over the place. She works in a T-Shirt shop in down town Estes Park which gets over three million visitors a year. And she's sharing Whooping Cough germs with all those vacationers and day trippers. When we talked to her she was baffled why FIL got it when none of her kids ever got it. We couldn't make her understand that our age group was the first to get mandatory vaccinations for it. And THEIR age group didn't. I will be super, super surprised if she doesn't get it. Without her being able to sort out the extra washing and germ containment that they would need to prevent her getting it, it won't happen. She'll come down with it for sure. Which makes me sad, because I feel like if she takes extended time off work or gets really sick? She won't go back to work. I don't know the whole thing is a mess. She's started telling FIL that there are squatters in one of the downstairs bedrooms. A man and his girlfriend. (There is absolutely no one else in that house.) She also thinks Maria at work is stealing from her. (She is not and would never.) I just feel extremely sad that the wonderful woman I've known for twenty years is slowly having her personality eroded by this disease. Ok, well writing that paragraph depressed me. So I will try to write more later this week. |
| Hello. I'm getting worse and worse about updating this thing. I'm on the mend (FINALLY) and if it weren't for the smoke all around the valley, I'd be totally better. It's been a tough fire season what with Yellowstone National Park on fire. And Northern California. And random fires all over Montana. The problem with the fires in YNP is that they don't really combat them. They just.......kinda let them burn. Which would be fine if they were able to do controlled burns during less......combustible parts of the year. But they don't. So when a fire gets going? It rages out of control on all the available undergrowth and uncontrolled vegetation. Firefighters only really get involved in Park fires when it will damage an historic structure or it ranges outside the Park. Too many years of stupid policies made by people far removed from the backlash of stupid policies. All of that serves to make the air quality around here awful. As an asthmatic, I struggle mightily. But all of my kidney woes are behind me. We are just sorting out the remainder of allergic reactions to the various meds they put me on during the Summer of Medical Crises 2016. Let me assure you, anaphylactic reactions suck ass. (I'm looking at you Amoxicillin.) This weekend, Hubby and I are holed up in the house hiding from the smoke. He has made me a "clean room" in our living room. We have a air purifier and a portable air conditioner set up in here. (12 years of living in MT, never had to have an A/C. This year I would suffocate if left in a closed room.) So I've been sleeping on the couch. Watching endless Netflix. (If you haven't seen it and are even slightly into horror, sci-fi or Victorian melodrama........watch Penny Dreadful. It's disturbingly awesome.) I'm baby sitting the office manager's kitten this weekend, too. She's tiny. Our boss found her under a hay bale. She was only about a day old and had been abandoned. She is still being fed with a bottle, she's so tiny. Sofie is in love with her. She keeps following her around and licking her like Sofie is a mama cat. Goofy dog. I've also been writing. And editing. I found my 2007 NaNo novel. (Which had been lost on a misplaced thumbdrive.) I let CJ and a friend beta read it. Both liked it and demanded a book two. (It's the first in a planned series.) So now I have heavy editing and new writing to do. I talked about doing NaNo for book two, but I've got all my ideas lined up now. I think I'm just going to write it. I can't keep the ideas fresh for two months. It was exciting to find the book and then realize, "Hey. This doesn't suck!" It made me feel like a real author. At any rate I can fake it til I churn out book two. |
| We are now up to EIGHT ER visits. I had an allergic reaction to one of the meds they put me on. Full on anaphylaxis. Got to have an epi shot, the whole thing. Throat closing, hives. Big fun. I can feel your jealousy. They take out my stent on Wednesday. But I'm bored with what I'm calling my Summer of 2016 ongoing medical crisis. Enough about that. INSTEAD........ CJ and I are both wanting to get back into writing. Starting today we are holding each other to 300 words a day. We are being flexible for now about exactly what those 300 words consist of, but as we get sorted, we will up it to 600 words a day, 300 of which must be on a primary work. The other 300 can be blogging or whatever. We are also stipulating "no rollovers," "catchups," or "banking" words from one day to the next. Each day must be a fresh 300 words. We're strict. Anybody wanting to play along is welcome to join us. It's the honor system and track you own shit. Just report in each day that you did your words. Maybe mention what you wrote about. For instance? Today? I wrote this. Yay me! The rest of my word count will be some editing work on my novel as I sort through and familiarize my self with my story again. |
| Guess who got to have surgery again? My left kidney was blocked. So I got to have another stent put in. Like you do. It's like a nightmare that won't end. Six. Six ER visits. Three surgeries. An over night in the hospital. Multiple visits to my primary doctor. Aaaaannnnd, I have to go back and have the stent removed. smh |
| Just got back from the ER. That's trip five since we started this shindig on July 1. I had passed/ was passing one of the left over fragments of stones in my left kidney. It backed my kidney up. Pain so bad it dropped me to my knees and made me gag. Urine all blood. Have I said yet how completely completely completely I'm the fuck over this? Cause I wanna go on record. That is all. |
| Just to recap: four ER visits, two surgeries, one overnight in the hospital, two visits to my regular doctor, and I'm about to head in for my second round of blood drawn for labs to rule things out And a partridge in a pear tree. X-Rays yesterday showed that the fluid is all off my lungs, but I still am having hella trouble breathing. My bloodwork yesterday showed (again) I DON'T have pneumonia. But I am still short of breath and I'm having leg cramps. Today's labs are supposed to see what my electrolytes are like. They think I have an imbalance. I'm also having....other...difficulties. Gastrointestinal difficulties. So that's tons of fun. Hubby felt so sorry for me he totally spoiled a surprise that has been in the works for about a month. CJ and baby Thomas are coming to visit Nana and Pappy on Friday!!!!! I'm so fucking excited. I just hope I feel well enough to play with him. CJ says I can sit around and hold him and she will clean my house for the second surprise............BIL and SIL are coming the following Friday. Yay!!!!!!!!! But, my house looks like Vikings pillaged it right now. I am almost down to wearing my swimsuit because it is the only laundry clean. Poor Hubby is a great caretaker of me? But a craptastic substitute for me around the house. Seriously. My house is a pit. It's kinda stressing me out how awful it is. When I'm not running to the bathroom, mostly I'm sitting around wheezing in our living room,which Hubby has converted into a "clean room" with the help of an air purifier and a dehumidifier. We are eating in here, sleeping in here, just........camped out in my living room...watching Netflix. I have to sleep sitting up. Hubby has pillaged all the pillows in the house to tuck around me while I sleep all propped up on the couch. I would give my left boob to be able to lay down flat right now. I'm miserable. I'm watching House. I figure I need House to diagnose me. Ha! |
| This Friday I went back and had the stents taken out. Before that, I spent (in addition to the Sunday night trip I wrote about last) Monday in the wee hours, in the ER again. More pain. Massive pain. When I got the stents out, she told me that all my stones had passed through the stents. (That was what all my pain Sun and Mon were about. I was passing huge kidney stones.) After the surgery this Friday, I started having massive problems. I had to stay the night and be monitored. My kidneys were having spasms and at one point shut down. They gave me a drug, Lasix, to help get things going again. It jumped my pain up to about a 12 out of 10. It was the most pain I've ever experienced in my life. I couldn't do anything but cry and beg to be knocked out. So we spent the night in the hospital and just....tried to maintain. I got discharged Saturday around noon. It was nice to come home. Sunday I woke up and couldn't breathe. Hubby monitored me all day and finally convinced me to go back to the ER. (That's three trips in a week.) We went and they ran tests to rule out blood clots. They had given me antibiotics on the previous Sunday night, so pneumonia wasn't really on the table. They finally determined I had fluid on my lungs. So.....naturally, they gave me more Lasix. *smh* The ER doctor prescribed me MORE Lasix for today and tomorrow, but also encouraged me to visit my regular doctor this morning. I went to see her this morning and explained how hateful and painful the Lasix was. She called my Urologist and they agreed on a different diuretic to help flush the fluid from my lungs. So.....I took it. Now I can barely pee at all and I am about to have to go BACK to the fucking ER because I'm struggling to breathe again. It's kicking my ass. This whole ordeal. I'm so completely over the whole thing. |
| In the continuing saga that is my fucked up life........ Last night I started feeling yuck, so I went to bed early. After laying down, I got up an hour or so later, feeling even worse, but I had to pee. Peeing since they put in the stents has been an exercise in extreme pain. And there is always blood. So I went to go pee and apparently had so much pain it caused me to pass out in a kind of shock. My husband found me laying unresponsive on our bathroom floor. Scared the crap out of him. He told me he did the whole face slap thing and everything. Nothing. I wouldn't wake up. He calls 911 and I guess he got me lucid enough to tell him I hurt....bad. There I am, totally stark naked (I sleep in the buff) laying on my bathroom floor telling him I'm hot so he doesn't cover me, instead he gets a wet towel to stick under my face and head. At this point, I'm talking crazy, I guess. He has no idea if I hit my head, if anything is broken, anything. He just knows I'm passed out. So the firefighters and EMT's come. To find me naked in my bathroom floor. They sort me out, but they keep asking me "Do you know where you are?" "What year is it?" questions. I don't know, it was all fuzzy. I think I answered them okay. I know I kept telling them I hurt. They get me to the hospital about 10pm last night and then we get to stay there while they run tests on me til 3:30 this morning. I guess I have a bladder infection and some other complications. So they gave me some antibiotics and finally let me go. I also have a giant bruise on my shoulder from where I fell when I fainted. All in all, it was a mess. Just a big hot mess. I'm kind of over the whole thing. |
| The surgery today turned into the day from hell. We get there and get sorted, like you do. We get to my pre-op room. Three tries to get my vein for the IV. I have excellent veins. BUT whatever. Took two nurses. I get into surgery, that was fine. Coming out of anesthsia? Not fine. I was dry heaving and in massive pain. I knew something was wrong. Get out of recovery to the post op room? Hubby tells me the surgery was a bust. My ureters are super super tiny. The doc couldn't get the instruments and camera in. So she put stents in in an effort to widen them (like gauges for earrings). I go back NEXT Friday to have the scents out and try the surgery again. Meanwhile? Massive pain with sitting upright. The doc said my awful pain in my kidneys is my body being unable to pass the actual stones . They just grind away like rocks in a tumbler trying and failing to get down the teeny openings. When I feel like i'm passing stones? It is miniscule sediment off the stones. That's it. I almost cried when she said, "my God that must be killing you." Yes it is killing me. I felt so validated yet angry. She didn't really belive me when I initially said my kidneys hurt. She was ready to write me off as a bipolar nut. It took her seeing to belive me. My husband felt so bad about the whole deal he bought me a bear from the giftshop. A " sorry your health sucks,, I didn't really believe your pain" bear. 😑 |
| Surgery is on Friday, and it can't come soon enough. I keep missing work because I'm in pain. In the meantime, I'm zoning out on Oxy and watching various shows on Netflix. I finished the Batman cartoon, Justice League, Justice League Unlimited AND Young Justice. I am currently finishing the latest season of SHIELD. I'm kinda in comic book mode right now. I got myself an Unlimited subscription for Comixology. I am reading comic books almost exclusively right now, I'm not sure why. So for Camp NaNo, CJ is helping me write my own comic book. I'm doing the story and she is doing the art. I'm super excited about it. We are brainstorming about it right now. She's doing prelim sketches and we are figuring out background sets, etc. My comic (and heroine) is called "Alter Ego" and the bad guy for the maiden comic is "Spark." It will be epic. AAAANNNNDDD, working on the comic keeps my brain occupied with something beside pain. It's win-win. |
| More heath things, but first? Baby Thomas is about to turn 2 months old and he can hold his head up well enough that he can be put into the little body carrier facing frontways now. (It's one of those backpack type contraptions where you strap the baby to your chest.) Only? He has no object permanence yet, so when he is in it he cranes his neck around to make sure the person carrying him (Usually Mom and Dad) are still back there. (There is new research that suggests that infants figure out that objects stay there when they aren't looking between 3-6 months.) He got to go swimming today. So...if you follow me on FB, I should have pics up soon. On to the squidgy thing on my wrist. So, I had to get it biopsied last week. Not sure if y'all have ever had anything biopsied? Not. Cool. It was yuck. And after the lidocane wore off? I had a hole in my arm and it felt like I someone had put a cigarette out there. It was owie, owie, owie. They called me this week and I had to go have the damn thing frozen off with nitrogen. It sucked, too. It was a precancerous lesion. A lichenoid keratosis. Apparently they are "uncommon"? But seen almost exclusively in middle aged, Caucasian women. My doctor had to look up what it was. She had never even heard of it. That always instills tons of confidence. I've been passing kidney stones all week. It's been super sucky. I've been struggling with taking Oxy and trying to lead a normalish life. Next Friday I have the surgery and it can NOT come soon enough. So for now? The view from here is one of patience and more patience. It's a waiting game. |
| I haven't updated my blog in a month because I've been up to my knees in Da Nile. My kidney stones are back with a vengeance. Ya, those kidney stones. The ones I had lithotripsy for almost exactly six months ago. *smh* My asshat of a urologist failed to inform me of the fact that my main bipolar med (that I asked repeatedly about. REPEATEDLY!!!) causes kidney stones and he let me continue to take them. I consulted a nutritionist. I completely changed my diet to one that was AWFUL for my liver (I have liver disease as well) just to avoid more kidney stones when it was nothing I was doing that was causing the damn stones. It was the meds ALL. ALONG. So on July 1st I get to go have kidney surgery. Again. Cause who doesn't love that?! It isn't even lithotripsy this time (which is non-invasive sonic waves), no...this time I have to have some stupid catheter surgery. When I found out I had the stones again and figured out (on my own!!!!) what was causing them? I made my regular doctor refer me to the Urology clinic in Billings which is 150 miles away. That's right. I'm driving over two hours away to have this surgery when there is a hospital and urology clinic right here in Bozeman because the ONLY urologists in this godforsaken town are all associated with the jackweasel who put me in this position. The new doctor took one look at my new CT scans and my chart and immediately scheduled surgery. Like within 15 minutes of seeing her she was sorting out when the surgery would take place. I was soooooo angry. I still am. Her next recommendation after scheduling the surgery? Get off the med. I was like, well, NO SHIT, Doc. I'm all over that. Unfortunately it isn't a med I can just stop taking. I have to be weaned off of it. It is a three week or so process. In two days I'm done with it. In other unfortunate news? My psychiatrist and I can't hit on a replacement med. I try them and have immediate awful side effects. One made me feel like I was having the flu. The one I'm trying now? I woke up at 3am and finally got out of bed at 6:30 to come down and clean my kitchen. I'm NOT a clean my kitchen early in the morning kinda gal. I'm not an early morning kinda gal, period.  Hubby wandered into the kitchen and said, "I don't think this is the one either. You are manic as hell." YA THINK?! Also my stomach is KILLING me. I have to call in to my psychiatrist today and report in on this med. We will see what she says. In other news, I need to call my regular doctor because I have a weird spot on my left wrist about the size of a pencil eraser. It could be nothing? I could be paranoid (also a fun side effect) but it looks suspicious. It's red and raised and yuck. It WAS a burn scar from my oven from about 5 or 6 years ago. But now it looks all......yuck. Kinda scaly? IDK. It also itches sometimes. I think I'll go stand in Da Nile some more. |
| I'm at CJ and Kyle's in New Mexico. To help out and see Thomas now that he is here with us. He turned two weeks yesterday, but it seems like he has always been here, a part of our lives. Those of you who are friends on FB have seen pictures of him. He is, quite possibly, the most adorable baby in the universe. I am, quite possibly, biased in this. (If you AREN'T my friend on FB and want to be, please feel free to friend me--Teresa Mooney Blum--just reference WdC and your handle on here in the friend request, as I may not know your actual name out in the real, non-yellow world. )CJ and I have been hanging out watching crap tons of Netflix. Baking. Puttering around. Playing online games. And being stupid about this kid. He cracks me up. He already has a little personality. He likes to lick me when I hold him. Only me. Apparently something about Nana inspires licking. CJ, Kyle and Pappy (that's Hubby) thought I was making it up until I showed them. I hold him up on my shoulder and he will giraffe his little neck around until he can get good access to my bare shoulder, neck or cheek so he can lick me. Then he grins. Little goober. The next best thing is if he can get hold of a handful of my hair to stuff in his mouth so he can suck on it. His mother didn't believe that one either until she caught him doing it. I guess the Nana tastes good. That's me, Tasty Nana. He hardly cries at all. When he is hungry he smacks his lips loudly twice. *smack smack* If you don't feed him, he will do it again. *smack smack* And then he will open his mouth like a baby bird and crane his neck around. If you don't make with the boob juice that third time, he will do a quiet little *squonk* and then restart the process. *smack smack* He is also the Shart King. This kid can shart with the best of them. He'll screw up his little face and let 'er rip. *sharrrrrrrrt* Then he grins. Overall, he's just a happy baby. He loves bathtime. He fusses when you take him OUT of the water. He likes to just hang out in the warm water and chillax. Pretty much I'm just in love with the little goober. And if his licking is any indication, he likes Nana, too. |
| After 35 hours of induced labor with a nice followup C-Section, CJ finally had Thomas Kyle tonight around 10pm. He was almost a month early and was still 8 pounds 2 oz and 20 inches. He has a full head of red hair like his father and his Nana. About three weeks ago, CJ developed gestational diabetes and then about two weeks ago started showing all the signs of preclampsia. (sp? IDK, I'm too emotionally wrung out to look it up right now.) I had it with her and was on the verge of gestational diabetes the whole pregnancy with her, as well. I also wound up being induced and having to have a C-Section. She kept hoping those genes would pass her by, but..........alas. DNA will out. After her symptoms reached peak levels, they admitted her to the hospital yesterday morning at 7am and then ran umpty billion tests on her before beginning inducement in the late morning. She would jog along ok with the contractions, but not dilate, so they'd ease back on the drip and give her dilation meds and she'd dilate a tiny bit and then slow down and almost stop on the contractions. So they'd up the drip and she'd stop dilating........on and on for 35 hours. Poor little Thomas Kyle was not distressed, but he did get a squazzled little pointy cone head from hanging out in the birth canal for so long. Finally the doctor was like. "Look. We've really given this the ole' college try, but, we need to do something different. Let's do a C-Section." I think if he'd have said, "Hey, we are gonna get a cheerleading squad in here to do basket tosses with you and that's really gonna move this operation along. CJ would have been like, Yup, let's try it, Doc. ANYTHING is better than laying in this bed for ONE MORE DAMN MINUTE." She thought they were going to induce her on Monday, which would have been cool, because that was MY birthday. But then she was sad because they induced her yesterday. But then was pissed it was taking two days. THEN her husband was ecstatic that his son was going to be born on Star Wars day. (May the 4th be with you!) So I guess it all worked out in the end.  So......Yay! Bebbies, bebbies, bebbies!!!! |
| CJ's baby shower is tomorrow. On the one hand she is a little sad I am not there. On the other she is like, whatever, because we aren't really sentimental people. Birthdays, anniversaries, holidays.......they are just days on a calendar for us. I mean, yeah, important? But being there day to day.....that's important. Also? She is afraid I might curbstomp the chick "in charge" of the shower. Back when CJ announced she was pregnant, my sister Amelia (who lives in Charlotte, NC, but who USED to live in Hobbs) and I told CJ we would help throw her a sort of "virtual" shower since we couldn't be there. We sorted it all out and got going on it in January. CJ was talking about it with some local "friends" of hers and they were all, "Oh, NO, you need a REAL shower." And one of them, T, bragged she had thrown lots of showers and she knew exactly what to do. So she was going to take everything over. Mmmk. So, she did. And since CJ knew my sister and I had already started the ball rolling for certain things, she started a FB group and looped me, Amelia, T and another lady, G, who was also going to help out, all in together and we started sharing. Well about 1 hour into this group, T pissed my sister off so bad that Amelia bowed out of the group and washed her hands of the whole deal. Just........walked away. Thanks, no thanks. I am made of sterner stuff. And this is my kid and my grandkid. So I hung in there. CJ knew exactly where and when she wanted the shower. The park she had her wedding at, on the weekend of her and her husband's one year anniversary. She thought that would be really neat. I agreed. My sister agreed. T dicked around so long with everything, CJ finally bought and sent out the invitations herself and had to change the date to two weeks later because they went out so late.  I kept politely prodding T and she kept giving excuses and what not. The shower is now tomorrow. Today...let me say that again...TODAY...she started making arrangements about the chairs and realizing the park was booked. Like she never booked the pavilion at the park. She also started TODAY making food arrangements. This son of a bitch is tomorrow. I thought she and the other chick were talking or texting or fucking SOMETHING in person. No. I LOST it. I sent a very very very nasty message to her in the facebook group. I warned CJ I was going to, but I had also been letting CJ know what was going on with everything and the whole situation was making CJ cry. T was informing us that she had decided to move the party to T's house and a bunch of other crazy shit. I called a halt to that because I KNEW CJ didn't want that. We exchanged several pointed but polite messages and then she started getting shitty with me. And I pulled the trigger with this: "Imma say a thing here because I am just that flavor of a bitch. You took this on to plan and you said you would be happy to do so. You also implied that it wasn't proper for any of the family to take care of things. So we have stepped back. But you have half-assed this thing six ways from Sunday. If you upset my 9 month pregnant daughter who is having a difficult pregnancy by fucking this shit up you will seriously regret it. Right now I'm so angry with you I'm literally shaking. You fix this and you fix this now." There was total radio silence for about 15 minutes while she absorbed that. But then, G stepped in and she and T began working together to simply make it happen correctly. There was no more talk of moving venues. There was no more waffly bullshit. I was on a message thread with CJ the whole time so she understood what was going on and CJ was laughing, she said, "Oooo, I just told Kyle that T fucked up getting shitty with you. You are the last person in the world to get shitty with. You don't put up with that! LOL" And I don't. I will give a person every opportunity to back away from the situation, but I don't put up with shittiness. When I pull out the big guns and go full on bitch? You can bet I gave you ample opportunity to walk away from it. But apparently you pressed the issue. And when I throw down verbally with you and we have the Come to Jesus talk? I explain every way in which you could have avoided the ass eating I am handing out. If I know I am going to have to deal with you again in the future? I will even wrap things up by explaining how you can avoid pushing the Go button in the future. I'm nice like that. But in the meantime? I will in fact be calling your parentage, your IQ, your general attitude and your basic life capabilities into question. And there will be heavy duty cuss words used. And possible mild to moderate threats. CJ said T later contacted her and basically told on me. T informed CJ that there had been a "misunderstanding" but that I had essentially made T cry. Lightweight. If you tell me you can do something or that you are handling something? I take you at your word. But if I find out later that you didn't handle it or that you lied and that you can't do it? Woe. Woe be unto you. She said that she had thrown "lots" of showers. Today when she was crying about how mean I was being, she kept saying that this was her first shower and she had no idea how hard it would be to pull together. Naw. Nana don't play that noise. I'll come down there and make you cry for real, lady. |
| One month out from grandbebbies. Ok, if you use the doctors calendar, we are six weeks out. But we aren't using that calendar. I say we are having grandbebbies on May 14th in the wee morning hours. To that end, I will be flying down for the having of grandbebbies on 5/10. Alone. Hubby will not be joining me. Whomp whomp. I'll be down there until the 25th. Hubby can't be away from work that long. We are entering our busy season at work. So that means I will be officially without Hubby for 14 days. Which is no bueno. And longer than we have ever been apart from each other in our 20 years of marriage or our 21 years together. Hubby is the official family travel agent. (By family, I mean the ENTIRE family. He books tickets for me and him, his parents, CJ and Kyle.....he does all the ticket booking and travel arrangement making.) But this time, he drug his feet horribly. He kept saying, "We don't have a firm date!" I kept saying, "That's not how babies work! They come when they come!" Finally he said, "Then you book the damn tickets!" So I did. It's not like I don't possess the knowledge on how to book tickets. I mean, even though for twenty years, he has made every single travel arrangement for me, I am still a reasonably intelligent adult. I can book a damn airplane ticket. Then as soon as I booked them and there were no takebacks..........I realized. Two weeks. No Hubby. So I freaked out. I also realized that was the reason Hubby had been dragging his heels. He wasn't looking forward to spending two weeks with out me either. We are co-dependent idiots.  And CJ laughed at me. Apparently she and her father have been quietly wondering on the side to each other why I've been so calm about this. It is a function of my bipolar that I don't spend the night away from my husband. Like..........ever. We even talked to our boss and if Hubby has to go away for business, I go with him. Our boss and the other women in the office just understand, that's the way Hubby and I work........we come as a set. A handful of times, we have had to be separated for family things, but even then, it was only for a couple of nights. (And they were crappy, awful nights and I had to have someone with me.) When CJ lived with us, he could be gone longer, because, I was with her. (Sadly, CJ has had to play a very adult role most of her life.) So they both reassured me that I just have to fly by myself to Texas where Kyle (and possibly CJ.....it depends on how she is doing) will pick me up in Lubbock so we can drive the two hours to Hobbs. (Lubbock TX is the closest "major" airport near Hobbs, NM. Hobbs only has ONE flight a day in from Houston and it comes in at 7pm at night. So I'd have a 12 hour day of travel. Most of which would be spent in layovers in Denver and then Houston. Everyone felt like that would be excessive for someone who hates to fly. Besides, according to CJ, the Houston airport is a total hole.) After that, I'd be with CJ and have Thomas (that's the baby) to distract me. I told CJ she needs to pop Thomas out quick quick once I get on the scene. No shilly shallying around. Then I can get down to some serious grandma-ing. I can get my Nana on. All of the other relatives have been asked to NOT come until I leave town so that there is no unpleasantness. Since this will be my only real time with Thomas. Since they all live near there, all those fools will have ample chances to cuddle him, etc. This is my shot. They can piss up a rope. So no biological family, none of my family, his family will be coming right as I leave, so that's nice. I get to do all the initial imprinting on his little brain. |
| I was just at Albertsons. It's spring snowing here. That means giant ass snowflakes. Super wet ones. I finished my shopping and was walking out to my car with my bags and in the Subaru beside me were two hipsters. How do I know they were hipsters, you ask? I couldn't see the one in the passenger seat, but the guy with the back door up leaning in taking pictures of his grocery bags was wearing hipster apparel 101. He had on skinny jeans (and he was a large man), he had a flannel shirt on, he had a beanie and he had a carefully styled to look unstyled beard. Also retro hipster sunglasses on a completely overcast day. I walked up on them while he was mid-rant. "This is totally going on Instagram! I can't believe this! I hate when the fucking baggers do this shit! Turnips, right on top of my eggs!" I start loading my groceries as he continues on in this vein taking several angles of Instagram shots of this heinous turnip/egg situation. The companion asks if he is going to go back in with the pictures and complain. "Well, shit, man. No....." He trails off looking dejected. Apparently passive aggressive postings on Instagram are as far as he is willing to take this issue. The companion then queries him as to the actual state of the eggs in question. "Well, no, I mean, none of them are actually broken. But they shouldn't put stuff on top of them anyway." By this time I'm pretty much just lingering in the snow and the wet to see how this works out. He shuts his back hatch in a huff and shoves himself into the drivers seat and they sped away into the dreary March afternoon. As I got into my car I realized how sad the whole encounter had made me. This dude was about 19? 20? And he got THAT worked up over a bagger putting his turnips on top of his perfectly unharmed eggs. But instead of being able to say to himself, "Hey, next time I need to remember to say something to them that I prefer my eggs bagged alone or on top." He has to post a series of indignant Instagram photos about.........nothing. That was his go-to solution for this non-situation. Post it on social media. Invite people to share his derision and scorn for the perceived subpar bagging skills of the local Albertsons employees. I see people posting videos about parenting situations all the time, too. Like, instead of parenting a situation, they are more concerned with capturing the situation to share on social media. What does that say to these children? I'm more interested in you for your entertainment value than as someone I should be raising as a person? I'm glad I didn't have any of that when I was raising CJ. I think it makes it too hard. Too easy to make bad parenting choices. And as teens and young people, too easy to make poor life choices. When you start thinking or having to think, "How will this look on social media? What can I do that will play well on social media? Where can I take my next selfie?" You need to completely rethink your life. |
| Sister in law and her husband left today after a whirlwind visit this weekend. I love when they come. We have tons of fun with them. I was sick last Thursday with a little stomach bug. Nothing major, I just didn't want to be too far from the potty.  Hubby came home that day and said, "Do you wanna go see Deadpool again this weekend?" Um, yeah? "Do you wanna go see it with SIL and BIL?" Wait, what? "Yeah, they will be here tomorrow at one." Um.........ok? So, I had to quick clean up my guest room for visitors. Friday night, we went to Deadpool. It was just as fabulous the third time as it was the first time we saw it. We went to the gun show on Saturday and then went out to the range on Sunday and shot trap. It was tons of fun. That's the first time Hubby and I have been to the range this season. It was gorgeous weather for it, too. The wind got up as the afternoon wore on, but otherwise, it was nice. In the 50s at least. SIL and BIL always ask to go shoot when they come here. They love shooting with us. Hubby and his sister are super, super competitive with each other. Yesterday when I came home from work (Hubby spent half the day with them.) we played Playstation3 frisbee golf. They kept competing for the low score. There was lots of trash talking. BIL was right in there, too. I was ten strokes up. I had to laugh when SIL was cheering me on, telling me I could catch up. I told her, "I'm an excellent cook; I'm great in bed and I have incredible tits. I don't need to win this game to feel good about myself." I learned years ago not to try to compete with my husband's family, that way lies madness.After we ate dinner, we went to the Bozeman Hot springs. Who doesn't love soaking in hot springs? It was fabulous. |
| Since I had the kidney stones and the urologist gave me a new diet to follow, I have been struggling with what the hell to eat. The problem being that all of my various "specialized" diets conflict. I would go into the grocery store and just push my cart around blankly wondering what to eat. "No, I can't eat that, too much salt." "No, spinach is out." "No, red meat is out." "The kidney diet says no on the whole grains, the liver diet says ALL the whole grains, which do I choose?" I was getting super frustrated and would wind up just eating any damn thing I wanted even if I regretted it later because, how the hell was I supposed to figure all that out? So I went to my regular doctor and asked her to give me a referral to a nutritionist. I decided I needed help sorting out my various diets. I have been to her twice and I really like her. She helped me tailor a list of foods TO eat instead of focusing on all the foods to avoid (that way lie madness). I really enjoy spending Sundays cooking my various meals for the week and then having them ready to go so that I can make easy good food choices during the week instead of going........"Ugh, I don't have any ideas or anything prepped. Guess I'll eat badly tonight!" Today, I am making breakfast for the week and lunches for the week. I'm super, super excited about them, too. For breakfasts, I'm making cheese blintzes with fresh strawberries. I am baking up the blintzes today so that I can just reheat them each morning and have them with the fresh strawberries. Then for lunches, there is a mom and pop restaurant near our work that does all these amazing sandwiches. One of them is so freaking good, I get it all the time, but at $10 a sandwich it gets expensive and I think their version is too salty for me. So I decided to recreate it. Only problem is there are a lot of moving parts to it. It is a twist on a chicken philly with a homemade onion jam and a housemade aioli. I could eat it every day. I just finished making red onion jam. It is excellent. I found a recipe on line and then tweaked it to be less salty and instead of red wine, I used rice wine vinegar which is less overpowering, just lighter and fresher in my opinion. I also added a little brown sugar to give it a hit of sweetness because the onions were a little heavy. Soooo good. I made up the aioli, too. I used a nice light olive oil mayo and used roasted garlic and roasted garlic salt to really pull together that smoky flavor. I don't need the salt? But a little of this will go a long way on a sandwich. I just need to cook the chicken up so that I have it all ready to go. I got sandwich rolls and sliced cheese at Costco. Each day I can take the components to work, toast the bread, heat the chicken and assemble the sandwiches on the spot for something fresh and tasty. Yes! I'm so stoked!!! I got myself beer battered cod from Costco, too, that you oven bake, so I can have cod and sweet potato fries or another approved veggie at night. I made myself a Ginger Lemon Remoulade to go with the fish. Yay! Breakfasts, lunches and dinners. All ready to go. AND, I have some new recipes to add to my cookbook. Edited to add: OMFG.......I ate a sandwich for dinner because everything looked and smelled so good. I envision a world where going foward? Everything I eat gets onion jam and roasted garlic aioli on it. So tasty nom nom. I actually licked the plate. |
I have some peeves to air today. Just stupid shit that pissed me off for some reason this week. When you pull up to a stop light? Pull aaaalllll the way up to the line. Don't stop ten to fifteen feet back from it, like an asshole. Why? I'm glad you asked, fellow motorist. The majority of modern stoplight systems do not operate strictly on timers like they did back in the day. They operate either on pressure plates (the older models) or electric eyes. If you stop so freaking far back, they can't sense you waiting. So you, green Explorer, cause our entire line of cars waiting to turn left to get skipped in the cycle because it thinks no one is waiting, hey thanks. When I come into the Urgent Care with a migraine, nurse Steve? I could really do without your having marinated in whatever flavor of Axe that is. It really exacerbates my problem. To the point that your stench was the reason I started throwing up and is the reason I asked for a different nurse. Aggressive scent is unprofessional in any setting, but in a medical setting? Just, no. Rule of thumb? I shouldn't be able to smell your scent unless we are dancing or hugging. And Steve? We were doing neither. Lady and her teenage daughter at the coffee checkout line. BACK THE FUCK UP OFF ME. Ahem, please and thank you.The end. |
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