While talking to my superbestfriend 'Doodles recently, we somehow got on the subject of people leaving the house in various states of dressing. In particular, I was lamenting how I dislike people walking about in their pajamas.
She said, "Well, I don't know. I mean, I've gone out in mine before..." but added, "but they're cute black fuzzy pants. I've got a matching hoodie. I guess technically those aren't pajamas, they're really a jogging suit, but really cute and I wear them as pajamas sometimes." I agreed and said, "Right. I have my black yoga pants that I wear as pajamas. I may have been out in public with them once or twice, even though they are considered pants you could wear in public, but I just don't. But that's not what I'm talking about. I mean the pajama pants that are OBVIOUSLY pajama pants."
We discussed the difference, and I told her how some of the military moms in particular in my old apartment complex would come out to the bus stop in them every morning. They weren't pants that could pass for anything but pajamas; they were big, flannel, and plaid. Pajamas, and no mistake. Usually there was a huge T-shirt and a sweatshirt thrown over the top when it got cold, but the crowning glory was the slippers.
Ok... maybe some people think taking their kids to the bus stop doesn't really register as being "out". It does to me, but, eh... (shrugs)
So, what about the store? The mall? I've seen grown women (and men) walk around in slippers in the mall. What the hell?
As I told 'Doodles, "I mean, what next? It's like they just got up, thought about going to mall, thought about getting dressed and instead just said, 'Aw, fuck it'. What kind of thinking is that? I mean, SLIPPERS! Those aren't SHOES. Why not just say to hell with the slippers, too, and just walk around the mall in your freaking socks? What's the difference? Where does it end?"
Next thing you know you'll be wandering out with rollers in your hair, maybe a mud mask on your face. Hell, why not bring the bath and your rubber ducky?
My point to 'Doodles was just simply this: "How hard is it to just throw on a pair of jeans? I mean REALLY? And some flip flops. I mean, come ON. It's not hard. But some people just don't care."
And then I have to wonder when it was I got so old. It my teenage rebellion punk rock years I would wear shredded button down shirts with my grandpa's giant ties. Loved it. Wore my Converse till they were only held together with acrylic paint, safety pins and duct tape. I don't know how many times my mom tried to throw those away and I'd fish them back out of the trash. I wore my knee length jean skirt with a full length frilly white cotton slip and went roller skating. I remember a girl asking me, "You DO know your slip is showing, right?" as if I could miss a foot and a half of slip and not notice.
And I'm complaining about pajamas?
Heh.
Friday, November 30, 2007
"This might be a stupid question....?"
Thanks to Bear for that one. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
the good stuff
While looking for a good picture of the mountains I used to live in, I ran across a gorgeous set of photographs of The Blue Ridge Parkway while listening to
.
Now THAT is therapy.
.Now THAT is therapy.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
ho ho humbug
Black Friday... I'd never even heard of it till this year. It seems I live in a cave, which I already knew. We had to go out this weekend and grab something from Target, normally a innocuous adventure. After the first three minutes I noticed I was feeling like I might be coming down with a bad case of Holiday Homicide, it seems to be a virulent strain of superbug. I think you can get it from touching shopping carts, that's probably why places have those sanitizer wipes inside the door. Being neurotic, I usually partake, but that time I abstained, and I paid the price: the sound of crying babies became magnified in my inner ear, causing my brain to try to turn to goo. I turned down shopping aisles, coldly staring down oncoming traffic that couldn't fit through: one of us had to give, and my aforementioned brain goo was causing me to imagine how to alter my cart to be more like a Battlebot. I had to get the hell out. Next time I'll use the wipes. And earplugs. And a tranquilizer dart blow tube.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Happy Birthday Mister Brown Eye
It sounds like it could be funny, and it might be, but mostly it's just me expressing my seemingly endless amount of disbelief at the sheer stupidity of the asshat I mistakenly chose to breed with.
Damn.
Let's get the stupid part out, then the funny.
He's suddenly starting calling us again, and I mean calling a LOT. Since he is either using the phone at work to call us long distance or using a cell phone of his own but blocking the number, I can't ever call him back. He can't give me the number, he tells me. Because of that, he must call us over and over and over again when he wants to get in touch, hoping he manages to catch us. And by catch us, I mean catch me in a mood to answer the phone that I sensibly screen, duh. I don't need caller ID. Every time I see "Unknown Caller" I already know it's him. (rolls eyes) One night he called maybe ten times, left piles of messages, and I finally left the house out of sheer annoyance. My husband said I should have just answered the phone to see what he wanted.
I told him, "I know what he wants! He wants to know what we're doing for Christmas!" At least, that's what he kept saying on the machine. But, as most things go with him, it doesn't really jive. For example, he already knows what we're doing for Christmas. Why would he repeatedly call to have me tell him again? That makes no sense. Supposedly it's in refernece to the fact that he wants to come visit Little Monkey a week or two before Christmas, and he and I already discussed that, too. He told me he could probably catch a ride with a friend, and I told him that since it would be during a school week, he should come with the knowledge that he would get to spend an hour a day with the little guy, tops. In between school and homework, etc, there's no time to visit during a school week.
That's a stupid idea. I think anyone with the brain power of a dust mite or above could reason that one out, but it appeals to him. I know because I know him- its a great plan because that way he only spends small amounts of time with his kid but it's not HIS fault, it was just circumstance you see.
The few times he came to visit before he got a hotel on the beach with his girlfriend, a hot tub in the room, and they went out to eat the whole couple of days they were here. It was over a weekend, too, and he managed to spend two hours with his son on one of those days. The other one was about three hours. He was busy. You know. 'Cause he came a few hundred miles to visit his son but had to check out the local area of course. And spend piles of cash on seafood. Oh, did I mention he wasn't bothering to pay child support then, either? Hmm. Yes.
So now there's this impending visit, and he's calling over and over and over, and I answer the phone only when I am already filled with an overwhelming sense of calm. Or, as happened a few weeks ago, when my husband decides he doesn't want to listen to the phone ring and watch me scowl all day and just picks the damn thing up and hands it to me. Argh. Foiled.
That was the day after his repeated phone call and messaging spree. He had to know something about Christmas! Clearly this was an emergency! I couldn't see why, since I had spoken to him a few days before when he had announced, "Can you believe I'm gonna be forty one on Monday?"
I was in a surprisingly good mood and tried to put up with his alien jovial mood. I never understand why sometimes he just calls up and wants to chitter chatter. The same man who makes sure I cannot find him for months on end suddenly wants to tell me about his soccer game, for fuck's sake. Like I care. But I try to be nice. I do.
However, when my husband handed me the phone on the morning I did not feel jolly, I answered it and was thrown for a total loop when Bane says, "So... I'm kind of surprised I didn't get a birthday card..." in a reproachful voice.
I. What? Kill. Must. Breathe. Kill.
At a complete and utter loss, I said the first stupid thing that I thought of, something in fact very much like he would say, "Uh... it wouldn't have... gotten there...in time?" He said, "Oh, yah, right, ok, you know, I was just wondering..." and went on to tell me how he kicked ass in his soccer game over the weekend and strangely did not mention Christmas at all, or anything about it. He hung up and I had to walk into the other room so I could quietly mutter, "I hate him. I hate him. I hate him. I hate him." The kind of mantra of total and complete certainty, something as inherently part of life as, "I breathe air. I breathe air. I breathe air. I breathe air." It was said with just as much mundane lack of passion as well, I should note.
The thing is, he doesn't even know when my birthday is. He totally fucked up his son's birthday by calling up (after not talking to him for months, like usual) and promised him a hundred bucks and a pile of stuff and none of it came. His actual birthday card came a week late. It was post dated the day OF his birthday. A month later a present came, some pair of shoes that he had been talking about giving him for over a year. Like that makes sense. Then there was another birthday card that had a $15 gift card to Barnes and Noble, and the stupidest card I have ever witnessed in my life.
First of all, the card looked like someone kept it in the trunk of their car for years and he just asked if he could use it. So the card says, "It's your birthday! On your birthday, I'm giving you the star treatment!" and shows a guy opening the door to a limo. On the inside it says, "I'm giving you my autograph!" or something like that. Only... it was blank. It didn't say anything at all. Not my son's name, no personal note, and most obviously, not the dumbass's autograph. All I could do was blink at it, it was so utterly and totally fucking stupid.
Then he disappears for awhile again. Child support finds him. Suddenly he's calling again, since he's not hiding from them anymore anyway. Might as well, geez whiz, ya got me. And he's mister chummy, wants to come visit, actually pays a couple of chunks of his child support off, and by that I mean $800 of the $16,000 that he owes. Still, eight hundred from him is nearly a miracle.
Yet, he still has a warrant out until he pays them some predetermined amount. And I sure as hell am not letting him toodle on up for a vacation on the beach, take my son any-freaking-where, because I seriously doubt he has a legal license yet either, and that warrant still on his head...
Uh, no.
He also has a court date on Monday. I called them today to see what the deal was, and the lady told me they can't locate him to serve him the papers to appear in court, which essentially means that if he doesn't show, it doesn't mean shit. I told her, "They know where he works! I mean, what's not to find?" and proceeded to give her as much info as I could. It's not much. And it's Thanksgiving weekend, it's not like the law is going to take some extra time for some lame deadbeat dad case. Pssht.
The only thing that cheered me up at all was when the lady told me that if he does appear in court, he has to pay three thousand something or go to jail, and stay there until that three thousand something is paid. Last he knew, it was one thousand, and he's thinking he's paid it off already. He hasn't, actually. He hasn't been keeping track, despite the fact that I keep telling him to just use the easy peasy web site, DUH. He's probably afraid Big Brother will find him if he does. Asshat. Still the likelihood of him actually showing up in court in nil, and even if he did, he doesn't have three thousand dollars anyway, and no one to lend it to him to get him out. Yah, he'll be in jail and at least not calling me ten times a day, but what good does that do anyone, really? It does cancel out the idea of him visiting, which is pleasant.
Besides, he's going to find it hard to call soon. I got off the phone with the guy from the phone company just a little while ago while I was setting up the free service of denying any blocked or anonymous numbers from going through on our line. Looks like he'll have to get his information some less annoying way, at least for now.
As I finished typing that last sentence, he called. Apparently the call block thing hasn't activated yet, so what the hell, I answered it. He yammered on about how he's sent money and this and that, I just played nice and friendly and clueless, telling him that I had actually called the child support people today to make totally sure that I didn't have to appear in court on Monday. (bats eyelashes not innocently at all) I told him the lady said I didn't, but she DID tell me to make sure to tell he SHOULD be there, if I talked to him. He said he shouldn't have to because they haven't served him the official notice, and he was pissed off because he didn't want ANOTHER warrant out for failure to appear... I told him she wouldn't tell me anything about that, but that I thought he was paid up, I mean, that's what he told me, right? Right. So maybe (more eyelash batting) it would be a good idea to go, just in case, and make sure he goes in and straightens them out. Yah.
I'm so evil. And sometimes, just sometimes, it's DELICIOUS.
And Christmas? I asked him... he said he was just wondering. Yah. 'Cause, he can't come up anyway, not till at least February, turns out he's too busy at work. So...wait. Why the fuck have you been calling me repeatedly, you freak? Apparently, no reason at all. Other than to have me bend him over, and if possible, let him go pick up the soap for awhile...
Oh, yah. The funny part. I did promise.
When I was pregnant, he came home one night, tipsy from the bar, and hung out to watch TV with me. He was wearing jogging pants, and when he stood up and bent over to grab the remote, his pants dropped, right when I looked up. I started laughing so hard, because it was just utterly ridiculous- all I could see in front of me was his hairy butt crack.
He had his moments. They were rare, but he did have them.
He didn't hike up his pants at all, but started shaking his ass around and singing some song about "Mister Brown Eye". He's a musician, and quite talented (too bad it's wasted) and it was, for an ad libbed song about an anus, utterly hilarious. I laughed until I cried.
So. He wanted a birthday acknowledgment. Here it is:
Clearly, someone knew it was his birthday.
Damn.
Let's get the stupid part out, then the funny.
He's suddenly starting calling us again, and I mean calling a LOT. Since he is either using the phone at work to call us long distance or using a cell phone of his own but blocking the number, I can't ever call him back. He can't give me the number, he tells me. Because of that, he must call us over and over and over again when he wants to get in touch, hoping he manages to catch us. And by catch us, I mean catch me in a mood to answer the phone that I sensibly screen, duh. I don't need caller ID. Every time I see "Unknown Caller" I already know it's him. (rolls eyes) One night he called maybe ten times, left piles of messages, and I finally left the house out of sheer annoyance. My husband said I should have just answered the phone to see what he wanted.
I told him, "I know what he wants! He wants to know what we're doing for Christmas!" At least, that's what he kept saying on the machine. But, as most things go with him, it doesn't really jive. For example, he already knows what we're doing for Christmas. Why would he repeatedly call to have me tell him again? That makes no sense. Supposedly it's in refernece to the fact that he wants to come visit Little Monkey a week or two before Christmas, and he and I already discussed that, too. He told me he could probably catch a ride with a friend, and I told him that since it would be during a school week, he should come with the knowledge that he would get to spend an hour a day with the little guy, tops. In between school and homework, etc, there's no time to visit during a school week.
That's a stupid idea. I think anyone with the brain power of a dust mite or above could reason that one out, but it appeals to him. I know because I know him- its a great plan because that way he only spends small amounts of time with his kid but it's not HIS fault, it was just circumstance you see.
The few times he came to visit before he got a hotel on the beach with his girlfriend, a hot tub in the room, and they went out to eat the whole couple of days they were here. It was over a weekend, too, and he managed to spend two hours with his son on one of those days. The other one was about three hours. He was busy. You know. 'Cause he came a few hundred miles to visit his son but had to check out the local area of course. And spend piles of cash on seafood. Oh, did I mention he wasn't bothering to pay child support then, either? Hmm. Yes.
So now there's this impending visit, and he's calling over and over and over, and I answer the phone only when I am already filled with an overwhelming sense of calm. Or, as happened a few weeks ago, when my husband decides he doesn't want to listen to the phone ring and watch me scowl all day and just picks the damn thing up and hands it to me. Argh. Foiled.
That was the day after his repeated phone call and messaging spree. He had to know something about Christmas! Clearly this was an emergency! I couldn't see why, since I had spoken to him a few days before when he had announced, "Can you believe I'm gonna be forty one on Monday?"
I was in a surprisingly good mood and tried to put up with his alien jovial mood. I never understand why sometimes he just calls up and wants to chitter chatter. The same man who makes sure I cannot find him for months on end suddenly wants to tell me about his soccer game, for fuck's sake. Like I care. But I try to be nice. I do.
However, when my husband handed me the phone on the morning I did not feel jolly, I answered it and was thrown for a total loop when Bane says, "So... I'm kind of surprised I didn't get a birthday card..." in a reproachful voice.
I. What? Kill. Must. Breathe. Kill.
At a complete and utter loss, I said the first stupid thing that I thought of, something in fact very much like he would say, "Uh... it wouldn't have... gotten there...in time?" He said, "Oh, yah, right, ok, you know, I was just wondering..." and went on to tell me how he kicked ass in his soccer game over the weekend and strangely did not mention Christmas at all, or anything about it. He hung up and I had to walk into the other room so I could quietly mutter, "I hate him. I hate him. I hate him. I hate him." The kind of mantra of total and complete certainty, something as inherently part of life as, "I breathe air. I breathe air. I breathe air. I breathe air." It was said with just as much mundane lack of passion as well, I should note.
The thing is, he doesn't even know when my birthday is. He totally fucked up his son's birthday by calling up (after not talking to him for months, like usual) and promised him a hundred bucks and a pile of stuff and none of it came. His actual birthday card came a week late. It was post dated the day OF his birthday. A month later a present came, some pair of shoes that he had been talking about giving him for over a year. Like that makes sense. Then there was another birthday card that had a $15 gift card to Barnes and Noble, and the stupidest card I have ever witnessed in my life.
First of all, the card looked like someone kept it in the trunk of their car for years and he just asked if he could use it. So the card says, "It's your birthday! On your birthday, I'm giving you the star treatment!" and shows a guy opening the door to a limo. On the inside it says, "I'm giving you my autograph!" or something like that. Only... it was blank. It didn't say anything at all. Not my son's name, no personal note, and most obviously, not the dumbass's autograph. All I could do was blink at it, it was so utterly and totally fucking stupid.
Then he disappears for awhile again. Child support finds him. Suddenly he's calling again, since he's not hiding from them anymore anyway. Might as well, geez whiz, ya got me. And he's mister chummy, wants to come visit, actually pays a couple of chunks of his child support off, and by that I mean $800 of the $16,000 that he owes. Still, eight hundred from him is nearly a miracle.
Yet, he still has a warrant out until he pays them some predetermined amount. And I sure as hell am not letting him toodle on up for a vacation on the beach, take my son any-freaking-where, because I seriously doubt he has a legal license yet either, and that warrant still on his head...
Uh, no.
He also has a court date on Monday. I called them today to see what the deal was, and the lady told me they can't locate him to serve him the papers to appear in court, which essentially means that if he doesn't show, it doesn't mean shit. I told her, "They know where he works! I mean, what's not to find?" and proceeded to give her as much info as I could. It's not much. And it's Thanksgiving weekend, it's not like the law is going to take some extra time for some lame deadbeat dad case. Pssht.
The only thing that cheered me up at all was when the lady told me that if he does appear in court, he has to pay three thousand something or go to jail, and stay there until that three thousand something is paid. Last he knew, it was one thousand, and he's thinking he's paid it off already. He hasn't, actually. He hasn't been keeping track, despite the fact that I keep telling him to just use the easy peasy web site, DUH. He's probably afraid Big Brother will find him if he does. Asshat. Still the likelihood of him actually showing up in court in nil, and even if he did, he doesn't have three thousand dollars anyway, and no one to lend it to him to get him out. Yah, he'll be in jail and at least not calling me ten times a day, but what good does that do anyone, really? It does cancel out the idea of him visiting, which is pleasant.
Besides, he's going to find it hard to call soon. I got off the phone with the guy from the phone company just a little while ago while I was setting up the free service of denying any blocked or anonymous numbers from going through on our line. Looks like he'll have to get his information some less annoying way, at least for now.
As I finished typing that last sentence, he called. Apparently the call block thing hasn't activated yet, so what the hell, I answered it. He yammered on about how he's sent money and this and that, I just played nice and friendly and clueless, telling him that I had actually called the child support people today to make totally sure that I didn't have to appear in court on Monday. (bats eyelashes not innocently at all) I told him the lady said I didn't, but she DID tell me to make sure to tell he SHOULD be there, if I talked to him. He said he shouldn't have to because they haven't served him the official notice, and he was pissed off because he didn't want ANOTHER warrant out for failure to appear... I told him she wouldn't tell me anything about that, but that I thought he was paid up, I mean, that's what he told me, right? Right. So maybe (more eyelash batting) it would be a good idea to go, just in case, and make sure he goes in and straightens them out. Yah.
I'm so evil. And sometimes, just sometimes, it's DELICIOUS.
And Christmas? I asked him... he said he was just wondering. Yah. 'Cause, he can't come up anyway, not till at least February, turns out he's too busy at work. So...wait. Why the fuck have you been calling me repeatedly, you freak? Apparently, no reason at all. Other than to have me bend him over, and if possible, let him go pick up the soap for awhile...
Oh, yah. The funny part. I did promise.
When I was pregnant, he came home one night, tipsy from the bar, and hung out to watch TV with me. He was wearing jogging pants, and when he stood up and bent over to grab the remote, his pants dropped, right when I looked up. I started laughing so hard, because it was just utterly ridiculous- all I could see in front of me was his hairy butt crack.
He had his moments. They were rare, but he did have them.
He didn't hike up his pants at all, but started shaking his ass around and singing some song about "Mister Brown Eye". He's a musician, and quite talented (too bad it's wasted) and it was, for an ad libbed song about an anus, utterly hilarious. I laughed until I cried.
So. He wanted a birthday acknowledgment. Here it is:
Clearly, someone knew it was his birthday.
take two?
In a various search of Oceana air shows, I happened upon this video by chance. Now, obviously with the accent this guy is likely nowhere near here, but the unexpected response from him had me laughing so hard I cried. Once I could breathe again, I posted this, because everyone deserves to know.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
"I'm sorry. I did not understand."
Sometimes the new fangled voice recognition programs can be handy, sometimes not.
For example, I just called The Mighty Student Loan Overlords to inform them of my address change (belatedly, but whatever, I'm doing it). They offer a voice recognition program. Hmm, methinks, ok. It's likely to be faster than waiting for A Human (Who Hopefully Speaks Semi Fluent English), so what the hell.
I ran through the steps, silly as they were, and realized two important things:
1) You cannot unload your dishwasher or perform any other potentially noisy task while using this handy dandy service
and far more obviously
2) You should not live anywhere near an airport, racetrack, train crossing, firing range, people with big dogs, people with screaming children (even if they may be happy screams), and perhaps even cantankerous old men who wish everyone would just stay off their damn lawn. I'm sure I've missed a few cliches there, but that will have to do.
In my case I live close enough to a Naval air base that the jets are sometimes loud. Not as deafening as the last place we lived, but still loud. Add that to the fact that it's a gorgeous day so I opened the windows, and you get:
TA-DA!
An automated robot woman who repeats things you did or did not say by responding in her ever so pleasant robot voice, "I'm sorry. I did not understand." The way she says it indicates that she has spent her entire life being programmed to be subservient and pleasant. Every time the silverware clattered or a jet flew by, she would interrupt by telling me once again that she was sorry, and she did not understand. Her voice was so freakishly pleasant that I couldn't even get up the ill will to be annoyed, and besides, I was trying to not laugh, lest she tell me once again that she was sorry she was unable to comprehend my laughter.
The poor robotic dear. Well, no need to pity her, as she obviously doesn't. Perhaps she could teach me a thing or two...
For example, I just called The Mighty Student Loan Overlords to inform them of my address change (belatedly, but whatever, I'm doing it). They offer a voice recognition program. Hmm, methinks, ok. It's likely to be faster than waiting for A Human (Who Hopefully Speaks Semi Fluent English), so what the hell.
I ran through the steps, silly as they were, and realized two important things:
1) You cannot unload your dishwasher or perform any other potentially noisy task while using this handy dandy service
and far more obviously
2) You should not live anywhere near an airport, racetrack, train crossing, firing range, people with big dogs, people with screaming children (even if they may be happy screams), and perhaps even cantankerous old men who wish everyone would just stay off their damn lawn. I'm sure I've missed a few cliches there, but that will have to do.
In my case I live close enough to a Naval air base that the jets are sometimes loud. Not as deafening as the last place we lived, but still loud. Add that to the fact that it's a gorgeous day so I opened the windows, and you get:
TA-DA!
An automated robot woman who repeats things you did or did not say by responding in her ever so pleasant robot voice, "I'm sorry. I did not understand." The way she says it indicates that she has spent her entire life being programmed to be subservient and pleasant. Every time the silverware clattered or a jet flew by, she would interrupt by telling me once again that she was sorry, and she did not understand. Her voice was so freakishly pleasant that I couldn't even get up the ill will to be annoyed, and besides, I was trying to not laugh, lest she tell me once again that she was sorry she was unable to comprehend my laughter.
The poor robotic dear. Well, no need to pity her, as she obviously doesn't. Perhaps she could teach me a thing or two...
making friends with the ironing
I know, I know: the title to this post is nearly an oxymoron, but then sometimes, so am I.
Here's the deal: I hate ironing. And because I hate ironing so very, very much, I have invested much time and money into various things that will assist me in ironing. Because I hate it, you see.
First there was the ironing board. Gotta have one. But then there was the pretty Hawaiian floral print ironing board cover I had to have. I mean, if you're going to be faced with something cruel, at least it can look pretty, right?
Next came the (how do I explain this?) portable closet thingy. Suffice to say it's separate from our closet, and I use it to hang currently unused hangers in it, as well as clean but not yet ironed clothing. This beats the hell out of my old method, which was "throw all ironing on a table and make the bedroom look like hell". For some reason, I just didn't like it. It's hard to have sex knowing there's a hideous beast of burden staring at you in the corner. I think that's all I really need to say about that.
And then, OH and then, I went and spent a good hour staring at irons. This was after I spent a good amount of time online staring at irons, of course. I then proceeded to Irons In Close Enough Proximity To Fondle Them Without Yet Making A Purchasing Commitment.
I stood there so long a girl finally came up to me in the store and asked if she could help. I told her I was looking for a cordless iron, and her mouth dropped open. "They MAKE those?" she asked rather breathlessly. "Yah! They DO!" I excitedly informed her. I immediately liked her, because she obviously understood my plight on some very basic level. Primal Ironing Angst. We are sisters, united. I showed her the one I was looking at, and she said everything there was to say: "Wow. Cool. Tell me if it works, ok?" I promised her I would.
I bought the thing and went home.
It took a few days, but I finally hauled it out of it's box and gave it a test run. It was weird, and seemed to not do a very good job at all. After some trial and error I realized it was much cooler than my last iron, not by way of being awesome but in actual temperature, so I just turned it up and it was fine.
The biggest selling point was the cordless bit, but also, it can shoot a horizontal blast of steam. Yes. I know. That means I can iron the curtains in the living room by just taking the iron off it's ever so handy clips onto the ironing board base, walk into the other room, hold offending wrinkled curtains in one hand and just blast the bejeesus out of them with the iron. Wrinkles, gone.
Oh, I know, there's commercials for those steam irons things that you can do that with, too, but I looked at those, and they lacked a critical component: you can't actually IRON with them, just steam shit. Whoopdeedo. I can't steam creases into my husband's dress pants. So blow me. I got the Shark cordless iron.
Although I must note mine is prettier because it's blue, nyah nyah.
I have one final revelation to add to my ironing conundrum, besides only forcing myself to do it on sunny days so I don't go mad, and that is:
Lower the bar.
My standards, my actual ironing standards, people. Now I can press the few creases into a shirt and the rest of it I just hold up and blast with steam. To hell with it. My husband can't tell the damn difference, so why should I drive myself batty? Battier? Whatever. The point is I can iron in about half the amount of time, and I did about two weeks worth of ironing fast enough to let me just lay on the bed and eat chocolate while reading a book as the sun shines in on my gloriously guilt free bedroom.
Have I mentioned I'm awesome?
Here's the deal: I hate ironing. And because I hate ironing so very, very much, I have invested much time and money into various things that will assist me in ironing. Because I hate it, you see.
First there was the ironing board. Gotta have one. But then there was the pretty Hawaiian floral print ironing board cover I had to have. I mean, if you're going to be faced with something cruel, at least it can look pretty, right?
Next came the (how do I explain this?) portable closet thingy. Suffice to say it's separate from our closet, and I use it to hang currently unused hangers in it, as well as clean but not yet ironed clothing. This beats the hell out of my old method, which was "throw all ironing on a table and make the bedroom look like hell". For some reason, I just didn't like it. It's hard to have sex knowing there's a hideous beast of burden staring at you in the corner. I think that's all I really need to say about that.
And then, OH and then, I went and spent a good hour staring at irons. This was after I spent a good amount of time online staring at irons, of course. I then proceeded to Irons In Close Enough Proximity To Fondle Them Without Yet Making A Purchasing Commitment.
I stood there so long a girl finally came up to me in the store and asked if she could help. I told her I was looking for a cordless iron, and her mouth dropped open. "They MAKE those?" she asked rather breathlessly. "Yah! They DO!" I excitedly informed her. I immediately liked her, because she obviously understood my plight on some very basic level. Primal Ironing Angst. We are sisters, united. I showed her the one I was looking at, and she said everything there was to say: "Wow. Cool. Tell me if it works, ok?" I promised her I would.
I bought the thing and went home.
It took a few days, but I finally hauled it out of it's box and gave it a test run. It was weird, and seemed to not do a very good job at all. After some trial and error I realized it was much cooler than my last iron, not by way of being awesome but in actual temperature, so I just turned it up and it was fine.
The biggest selling point was the cordless bit, but also, it can shoot a horizontal blast of steam. Yes. I know. That means I can iron the curtains in the living room by just taking the iron off it's ever so handy clips onto the ironing board base, walk into the other room, hold offending wrinkled curtains in one hand and just blast the bejeesus out of them with the iron. Wrinkles, gone.
Oh, I know, there's commercials for those steam irons things that you can do that with, too, but I looked at those, and they lacked a critical component: you can't actually IRON with them, just steam shit. Whoopdeedo. I can't steam creases into my husband's dress pants. So blow me. I got the Shark cordless iron.
Although I must note mine is prettier because it's blue, nyah nyah.
I have one final revelation to add to my ironing conundrum, besides only forcing myself to do it on sunny days so I don't go mad, and that is:
Lower the bar.
My standards, my actual ironing standards, people. Now I can press the few creases into a shirt and the rest of it I just hold up and blast with steam. To hell with it. My husband can't tell the damn difference, so why should I drive myself batty? Battier? Whatever. The point is I can iron in about half the amount of time, and I did about two weeks worth of ironing fast enough to let me just lay on the bed and eat chocolate while reading a book as the sun shines in on my gloriously guilt free bedroom.
Have I mentioned I'm awesome?
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Fruit Fly: Evil Like Bears?
After waiting an eternity for our local stupid supermarket to carry Americone Dream ice cream:
My son finally spied a single container of it. I'm guessing it's the one I had to special order, repeatedly, and no one ever called me to tell me it was in. Asshats.
We open it. It is delicious. We begin to eat. The phone rings. I answer it. I go back to the bowl of ice cream to see... a FRUIT FLY hovering near the bowl, trying to sully it's purity with obvious evil.
And so, I submit to the nation:
The Fruit Fly must join the ranks of the the godless Bear.
Or at the very least, be put On Notice.
My son finally spied a single container of it. I'm guessing it's the one I had to special order, repeatedly, and no one ever called me to tell me it was in. Asshats.
We open it. It is delicious. We begin to eat. The phone rings. I answer it. I go back to the bowl of ice cream to see... a FRUIT FLY hovering near the bowl, trying to sully it's purity with obvious evil.
And so, I submit to the nation:
The Fruit Fly must join the ranks of the the godless Bear.
Or at the very least, be put On Notice.
What's up, doc?
Some of my recent interactions with various folk of the medical (and psychiatric) field may have people wondering if I am not the charming and wonderful darling you've come to love.
Get a load of my ego!
Seriously. There's a load of it.
It's left a bad taste in my mouth. I don't want to be such a jaded bitch about it, and living in that kind of endless mind numbing depression (due to pain) is enough to drive anyone to either go totally postal or pull themselves up by the proverbial bootstraps and get serious.
After the last appointment with my shrink, I called my best friend and whined. When she asked me where I was, I told her, "Sitting outside Target." I sarcastically added, "I'll probably figure out more just walking through Target than I did just throwing my money away at the shrink." As soon as I said it, though, I realized it was true. Why would that be?
So I walked, shopped, and thought. I realized that I'm so busy trying to NOT be a total bitch (from the pain) that instead I'm letting myself be a total doormat. My doctors aren't listening to me because I'm not using my usual charismatic superpowers to leave them blinded with an uncontrollable desire to bend the universe to suit my needs. In essence: I'm being treated like a wet towel because I've adopted the personality of one. I go into appointments and just desperately try to be polite and not piss off the people who are supposed to want to take care of me. It's not their fault, and it's not that they don't want to help me, they just don't have a clue what it is I'm trying to accomplish because I'm being as bland as possible to be polite, and anyone who has had much experience dealing with doctors can tell you: all that gets you is being treated as a mass produced blob on the assembly line. They're busy. Really busy. I know this not just from experience but from quite a bit of research on various topics in which I've read doctors themselves stating that they simply can't give everyone their utmost attention. The squeaky wheel really does get the grease.
So I squeaked.
More specifically, I made follow up appointments with both doctors who were currently on my shit list, and the pain specialist was the most significant. I did what seems counterintuitive, but actually worked: I took one of my last remaining Darvocets before I went it to tell him how much pain I was in. And I told him so.
He was running late, but I sat in the chair and closed my eyes, as close to a lotus position as one can maintain with spinal problems while sitting in an office chair, and I laid out all the paperwork and questions and everything I brought with me on the exam table instead. I breathed. I waited. I did not allow myself any hysteria, because I had already decided that if they can't help me, to hell with them, I'm going somewhere else. There's no need to be frantic or desperate, just be extremely present. Unpleasantly present, if need be. But I was not about to walk out of that office without knowing I gave them a real chance to help me.
When the doctor came in, I said a pleasant hello and just started right in, telling him I knew there wasn't much time and I had a lot of questions I needed answered, and to please pardon me if I seemed abrupt but I wasn't leaving without my answers and I had no time for idle chit chat. He seemed utterly unfazed and just let me lead, answering my questions one by one and even remained unflappable when I interrupted his explanation of something by saying, "I know, I research everything and I need other things answered, but thank you..." and kept on going.
In the end, he told me I was indeed correct in assuming that starting prolotherapy before having the trigger point in my lower leg corrected was a bad plan (yes, I know!), and agreed I should go back on pain meds for the time being. He fitted me for the ever so unattractive SI belt, and told me something that the other doctor failed to ever mention: if the belt improves my mobility, then the prolotherapy is a definite course of action. That is to say, if the belt does not help, prolotherapy wouldn't either. He also explained that prolotherapy doesn't work for some people, apparently some people's bodies just reject it, their immune systems ignore it completely. Unfortunately, the only way to find out is to try it, but he did at least give me a better idea of how long one should try it before giving up.
He also gave me a straight answer about the weird blood tests the other doctor asked me to get. I told him I was pissed off that the other doctor was obviously sugar coating what she told me, and I said, "Look, I know I'm a tweaker. But NOT knowing something is far worse than knowing. If I don't know, I'll just obsess about it. When she sent me to have these tests but wouldn't tell me what they were for, I just took the damn paper home with me and googled it. Duh." He raised his eyebrows, and for someone as expressionless as he is, that must have been a sign of astonishment, I don't know. But come on, any idiot can google something nowadays; did this other doctor think I was too fragile to know what she was testing me for, and if so, that I was too stupid to figure it out? Ugh. I told him she wants follow up tests done, and I wanted to know why and exactly what they were, and how bad is it?
He looked down at the papers and shrugged, his mouth curling up at the edges in a near smile. I think I may have impressed him, but maybe he was constipated. Who can tell? He said, "I don't think you have endocrine cancer at all, frankly. These results are so low it's highly doubtful...but why wouldn't you have the follow up tests done, just to be sure?" I told him I agreed, and appreciated his candor. He told me the follow up tests were no mere blood work but involved cat scans and specialists (whoopeee! More specialists!), and although it was a pain to do, it's just sensible. "But really," he added at the end, "I've seen really high scores that turned out to be positive... you're nowhere near that. You barely register above a normal level. It's highly doubtful." He added, in what I felt was an obligatory manner, "But of course you should have the testing done, just to be sure." I nodded, yes, yes, because I am made of money and would love to have more invasive testing done for terrifying diseases, of course. Of course. He even answered my question about the big What If, as in, "What if I do have it? Then what?" He said it was something that would require surgery, removing it, but that it wasn't the sort of thing that spread rapidly, and I thanked him for erasing THAT little extra tidbit that keeps me up at night despite the other doctor's meaningless sugar coating. Hmph!
For now, I wear the belt, I take the pain meds, and I'm up and active and not a total freaking bitch face anymore. Mostly. I joked, although my husband knew it was true when I said, "I think (that doctor) gave us the best anniversary present of all." My husband stupidly replied, "Yah. He gave us the ability to not hate each other." Thanks, honey, that was wonderfully blunt. Just because I'm not in pain doesn't mean I won't dream of throwing a very angry weasel in your pants for that. Timing is everything, and the time for that remark was never. Especially on our anniversary. (sigh) I'm trying to see it as a small price to pay for all the agonizing months he's spent with my volatile and morbid self. He's done pretty well, mostly. There are a few moments that are seared quite firmly into my head, but hopefully time will ease those, as perspective kicks back in.
I haven't really been able to see anything clearly for months, if truth be told, over a year now. It seems bizarre, but being on painkillers (light as Darvocet is, really) has given me back the ability to think clearly. And it's really, REALLY weird. I feel like I'm waking up from a long and horrible dream. Memories are fuzzy and vague, and I've noted quite a few things that I remember as a spiky haze, or some things, not at all. That's not a good feeling. I try to just relax and not spend too much time worrying about the bizarre things I may have said or done in the last year, the last few months especially.
All in all, it's time to move on. Up. And brace myself for the next bunch of medical crap, but at least there's this strangely peaceful middle ground. It's strange because I think if someone else were to be able to step into my body and feel it, it wouldn't be peaceful at all, but in contrast to what I felt like before, it was. I try to not think too much about the fact that without the belt and the Darvocet, I'd still be in the same place...
*shudder*
All I have is the present moment. And in the present moment, I'm getting a hell of a lot done. That feels good. And I'm making plans for dealing with the future, which was, until quite recently, an incomprehensible pain, nothing more and nothing less.
While looking for something else entirely, I ran across this quote from Dr.Suess:
“I have heard there are troubles of more than one kind. Some come from ahead and some come from behind. But I've bought a big bat. I'm all ready you see. Now my troubles are going to have troubles with me!�
And this gem:
"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.�
Now there's a doctor that seems to know what I'm talking about.
Get a load of my ego!
Seriously. There's a load of it.
It's left a bad taste in my mouth. I don't want to be such a jaded bitch about it, and living in that kind of endless mind numbing depression (due to pain) is enough to drive anyone to either go totally postal or pull themselves up by the proverbial bootstraps and get serious.
After the last appointment with my shrink, I called my best friend and whined. When she asked me where I was, I told her, "Sitting outside Target." I sarcastically added, "I'll probably figure out more just walking through Target than I did just throwing my money away at the shrink." As soon as I said it, though, I realized it was true. Why would that be?
So I walked, shopped, and thought. I realized that I'm so busy trying to NOT be a total bitch (from the pain) that instead I'm letting myself be a total doormat. My doctors aren't listening to me because I'm not using my usual charismatic superpowers to leave them blinded with an uncontrollable desire to bend the universe to suit my needs. In essence: I'm being treated like a wet towel because I've adopted the personality of one. I go into appointments and just desperately try to be polite and not piss off the people who are supposed to want to take care of me. It's not their fault, and it's not that they don't want to help me, they just don't have a clue what it is I'm trying to accomplish because I'm being as bland as possible to be polite, and anyone who has had much experience dealing with doctors can tell you: all that gets you is being treated as a mass produced blob on the assembly line. They're busy. Really busy. I know this not just from experience but from quite a bit of research on various topics in which I've read doctors themselves stating that they simply can't give everyone their utmost attention. The squeaky wheel really does get the grease.
So I squeaked.
More specifically, I made follow up appointments with both doctors who were currently on my shit list, and the pain specialist was the most significant. I did what seems counterintuitive, but actually worked: I took one of my last remaining Darvocets before I went it to tell him how much pain I was in. And I told him so.
He was running late, but I sat in the chair and closed my eyes, as close to a lotus position as one can maintain with spinal problems while sitting in an office chair, and I laid out all the paperwork and questions and everything I brought with me on the exam table instead. I breathed. I waited. I did not allow myself any hysteria, because I had already decided that if they can't help me, to hell with them, I'm going somewhere else. There's no need to be frantic or desperate, just be extremely present. Unpleasantly present, if need be. But I was not about to walk out of that office without knowing I gave them a real chance to help me.
When the doctor came in, I said a pleasant hello and just started right in, telling him I knew there wasn't much time and I had a lot of questions I needed answered, and to please pardon me if I seemed abrupt but I wasn't leaving without my answers and I had no time for idle chit chat. He seemed utterly unfazed and just let me lead, answering my questions one by one and even remained unflappable when I interrupted his explanation of something by saying, "I know, I research everything and I need other things answered, but thank you..." and kept on going.
In the end, he told me I was indeed correct in assuming that starting prolotherapy before having the trigger point in my lower leg corrected was a bad plan (yes, I know!), and agreed I should go back on pain meds for the time being. He fitted me for the ever so unattractive SI belt, and told me something that the other doctor failed to ever mention: if the belt improves my mobility, then the prolotherapy is a definite course of action. That is to say, if the belt does not help, prolotherapy wouldn't either. He also explained that prolotherapy doesn't work for some people, apparently some people's bodies just reject it, their immune systems ignore it completely. Unfortunately, the only way to find out is to try it, but he did at least give me a better idea of how long one should try it before giving up.
He also gave me a straight answer about the weird blood tests the other doctor asked me to get. I told him I was pissed off that the other doctor was obviously sugar coating what she told me, and I said, "Look, I know I'm a tweaker. But NOT knowing something is far worse than knowing. If I don't know, I'll just obsess about it. When she sent me to have these tests but wouldn't tell me what they were for, I just took the damn paper home with me and googled it. Duh." He raised his eyebrows, and for someone as expressionless as he is, that must have been a sign of astonishment, I don't know. But come on, any idiot can google something nowadays; did this other doctor think I was too fragile to know what she was testing me for, and if so, that I was too stupid to figure it out? Ugh. I told him she wants follow up tests done, and I wanted to know why and exactly what they were, and how bad is it?
He looked down at the papers and shrugged, his mouth curling up at the edges in a near smile. I think I may have impressed him, but maybe he was constipated. Who can tell? He said, "I don't think you have endocrine cancer at all, frankly. These results are so low it's highly doubtful...but why wouldn't you have the follow up tests done, just to be sure?" I told him I agreed, and appreciated his candor. He told me the follow up tests were no mere blood work but involved cat scans and specialists (whoopeee! More specialists!), and although it was a pain to do, it's just sensible. "But really," he added at the end, "I've seen really high scores that turned out to be positive... you're nowhere near that. You barely register above a normal level. It's highly doubtful." He added, in what I felt was an obligatory manner, "But of course you should have the testing done, just to be sure." I nodded, yes, yes, because I am made of money and would love to have more invasive testing done for terrifying diseases, of course. Of course. He even answered my question about the big What If, as in, "What if I do have it? Then what?" He said it was something that would require surgery, removing it, but that it wasn't the sort of thing that spread rapidly, and I thanked him for erasing THAT little extra tidbit that keeps me up at night despite the other doctor's meaningless sugar coating. Hmph!
For now, I wear the belt, I take the pain meds, and I'm up and active and not a total freaking bitch face anymore. Mostly. I joked, although my husband knew it was true when I said, "I think (that doctor) gave us the best anniversary present of all." My husband stupidly replied, "Yah. He gave us the ability to not hate each other." Thanks, honey, that was wonderfully blunt. Just because I'm not in pain doesn't mean I won't dream of throwing a very angry weasel in your pants for that. Timing is everything, and the time for that remark was never. Especially on our anniversary. (sigh) I'm trying to see it as a small price to pay for all the agonizing months he's spent with my volatile and morbid self. He's done pretty well, mostly. There are a few moments that are seared quite firmly into my head, but hopefully time will ease those, as perspective kicks back in.
I haven't really been able to see anything clearly for months, if truth be told, over a year now. It seems bizarre, but being on painkillers (light as Darvocet is, really) has given me back the ability to think clearly. And it's really, REALLY weird. I feel like I'm waking up from a long and horrible dream. Memories are fuzzy and vague, and I've noted quite a few things that I remember as a spiky haze, or some things, not at all. That's not a good feeling. I try to just relax and not spend too much time worrying about the bizarre things I may have said or done in the last year, the last few months especially.
All in all, it's time to move on. Up. And brace myself for the next bunch of medical crap, but at least there's this strangely peaceful middle ground. It's strange because I think if someone else were to be able to step into my body and feel it, it wouldn't be peaceful at all, but in contrast to what I felt like before, it was. I try to not think too much about the fact that without the belt and the Darvocet, I'd still be in the same place...
*shudder*
All I have is the present moment. And in the present moment, I'm getting a hell of a lot done. That feels good. And I'm making plans for dealing with the future, which was, until quite recently, an incomprehensible pain, nothing more and nothing less.
While looking for something else entirely, I ran across this quote from Dr.Suess:
“I have heard there are troubles of more than one kind. Some come from ahead and some come from behind. But I've bought a big bat. I'm all ready you see. Now my troubles are going to have troubles with me!�
And this gem:
"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.�
Now there's a doctor that seems to know what I'm talking about.
Monday, November 12, 2007
happy anniversary to us
Today (and technically yesterday) is (was) our second anniversary. It seems to be a time to reflect and ponder this and that, but as it turns out, I spent half the night up with my son, checking on him after he somehow split his ear open. Thankfully 'Doodles was here, with her medical expertise, and the lucky little bugger got to lay in his bed with one gorgeous 'Doodle hovering over him and making sure his ear stayed together. I, mighty mom that I am, managed to help and barely avoided passing out. I'm not a fan of blood.
So, there are things to think about (not blood) and I'm raring to tell you them, right after a nap. I hope. If the school doesn't call. We'll see.
And for those of you wondering where I've been, I succeeded in getting the doctors to pay attention. That translates to: I am not in as much pain, so I've been busy trying to catch up with every little thing that's hurt too badly to do.
Soon. Or, so I optimistically believe.
(wink)
So, there are things to think about (not blood) and I'm raring to tell you them, right after a nap. I hope. If the school doesn't call. We'll see.
And for those of you wondering where I've been, I succeeded in getting the doctors to pay attention. That translates to: I am not in as much pain, so I've been busy trying to catch up with every little thing that's hurt too badly to do.
Soon. Or, so I optimistically believe.
(wink)
how to be the perfect girlfriend
Variously amusing, I snorted when they got to the part about measuring things and patronizing a woman, but allowing him "air time". Doesn't sound like anyone I know...
Monday, November 05, 2007
damnable gadgets
There always seems to be such a discrepancy among men and women and how difficult we find each other to understand. It's really quite simple: we are not the same species.
Somehow we mate, yes, and produce more of our differing species, but how that happens is, I can only assume, done by some sort of best not to ask about sorcery.
We recently bought an office chair. This is no simple office chair, no chair that you can even stroll into an office supply store and purchase, oh no. You must stroll in, talk to a guy who specialized in "special orders" and then wait for some hulking dudes (two) to carry your brand new four hundred fifty dollar pre-assembled office chair up to your door.
One would think that such a chair would be the pinnacle of chairly perfection, but no. I mean, I thought it was, but apparently once we got the carpet protector thing to sit under it, the sheer weight of the chair, (plus humans) put dents into the carpet protecting mat, and that irritates my husband since it tends to roll into it's usual grooves.
One might think of getting a new mat. I know I did. I suggested this brilliantly simple plan to my alien spouse, who decided the best course of action was to spend a few consecutive weekends (and weeknights) at the local hardware stores, inventing some new fangled contraptions to replace the rollers on the bottom of the chair so that it could instead slide on coasters instead.
Yes. Remove the four hundred fifty dollar chairs coasters (despite the feeble unheard mumblings of his wife alien saying something about concerns of voiding a warranty, etc) and instead build NEW parts. Viola. Bionic chair.
Is it better? According to him, yes.
I finally tried it out today and at one point backed the chair up so far that it scooted off the plastic mat. My husband said it "didn't work so well" when that happened, but I assumed that was no big deal.
Ha ha. I lightly picked up the chair (which is, I might add, somewhat literally worth it's weight, or the other way 'round), and suddenly discovered I was holding a very expensive chair at a horrible angle while looking at piles of assorted nuts and bolts, plastic parts and rubber rings laying around the floor where those godawful rollers used to be.
I had to very quickly decide what to do, and was reminded horribly of the time I sat on my brothers parked Harley and it started to tip over. Being a scrawny teenage girl (I was tall and strong, but not strong enough to right a six hundred pound motorcycle) I did the only thing I could: set it down as gently as possible and pray my brother didn't kill me when he got home. Obviously he spared my life, but I learned a valuable lesson about men and their gadgets: don't fuck their shit up. Even by accident.
Ok, so the chair's not a freaking Harley, I know. But still, I imagine Jack's face when he comes in the door to see the ergonomic chair of almighty goodness (and I do love the chair) sitting lopsided on it's heavy and entirely unevenly supported legs, and I do what must be done- I propped the damn thing up with my shoulder and back and worked all the HELLO not glued together in any way shape or form pieces back together and sit on it to type this.
I swear I do not know how the human race has survived this long.
Somehow we mate, yes, and produce more of our differing species, but how that happens is, I can only assume, done by some sort of best not to ask about sorcery.
We recently bought an office chair. This is no simple office chair, no chair that you can even stroll into an office supply store and purchase, oh no. You must stroll in, talk to a guy who specialized in "special orders" and then wait for some hulking dudes (two) to carry your brand new four hundred fifty dollar pre-assembled office chair up to your door.
One would think that such a chair would be the pinnacle of chairly perfection, but no. I mean, I thought it was, but apparently once we got the carpet protector thing to sit under it, the sheer weight of the chair, (plus humans) put dents into the carpet protecting mat, and that irritates my husband since it tends to roll into it's usual grooves.
One might think of getting a new mat. I know I did. I suggested this brilliantly simple plan to my alien spouse, who decided the best course of action was to spend a few consecutive weekends (and weeknights) at the local hardware stores, inventing some new fangled contraptions to replace the rollers on the bottom of the chair so that it could instead slide on coasters instead.
Yes. Remove the four hundred fifty dollar chairs coasters (despite the feeble unheard mumblings of his wife alien saying something about concerns of voiding a warranty, etc) and instead build NEW parts. Viola. Bionic chair.
Is it better? According to him, yes.
I finally tried it out today and at one point backed the chair up so far that it scooted off the plastic mat. My husband said it "didn't work so well" when that happened, but I assumed that was no big deal.
Ha ha. I lightly picked up the chair (which is, I might add, somewhat literally worth it's weight, or the other way 'round), and suddenly discovered I was holding a very expensive chair at a horrible angle while looking at piles of assorted nuts and bolts, plastic parts and rubber rings laying around the floor where those godawful rollers used to be.
I had to very quickly decide what to do, and was reminded horribly of the time I sat on my brothers parked Harley and it started to tip over. Being a scrawny teenage girl (I was tall and strong, but not strong enough to right a six hundred pound motorcycle) I did the only thing I could: set it down as gently as possible and pray my brother didn't kill me when he got home. Obviously he spared my life, but I learned a valuable lesson about men and their gadgets: don't fuck their shit up. Even by accident.
Ok, so the chair's not a freaking Harley, I know. But still, I imagine Jack's face when he comes in the door to see the ergonomic chair of almighty goodness (and I do love the chair) sitting lopsided on it's heavy and entirely unevenly supported legs, and I do what must be done- I propped the damn thing up with my shoulder and back and worked all the HELLO not glued together in any way shape or form pieces back together and sit on it to type this.
I swear I do not know how the human race has survived this long.
Saturday, November 03, 2007
"Meow?"
Thanks to my mom, who has now inspired my whole family to point at our mouths and say, "Meow?" for any number of reasons. It's a pretty handy phrase. I think cats are smart like that.
Friday, November 02, 2007
fly away, black bird
After waiting two days for someone to come out and see what was making all the racket in my chimney, the guy showed up today and very quickly pushed open the flue and said, "Oh...it's a bird. I can see him. Oh. The poor thing... he's really cleaned your chimney out."
The next thing I knew the man was laying there with the bird in his hand. No gloves, no anything protecting his hands, just a very, VERY black bird held gently in his huge hand.
I blinked, astonished, and asked, "Is....is it alive?" trying hard not to let my voice tremble. It's hard to do when you know something has been suffering in your chimney for two days, at least, it is for me.
He said, "Yes, but I doubt he'll make it. He's been breathing in all the dust, you see." I ran forward, asking if I could help it in some way, mind racing and thinking of people cleaning off seals after oil spills, if mouth to beak resuscitation was possible, anything.
He started towards the door and I raced ahead of him, opening it. He didn't let the bird go, but slowly walked down the stairs and out into the lawn. He then slowly opened his hand and rubbed it gently.
It perched itself on his hand, obviously alive and obviously in no mood to try to nip at it's hero. The man shook his hand gently up and down, trying to incite the bird to fly off, but it just held on and opened it's wings a bit.
I heard him say to the other fellow, "I doubt it'll make it, but..." and walked away, softly holding the bird in his hand. I walked inside and sat on the floor sobbing. I know it's dramatic or whatever, but I don't know what else to do. The poor thing...
All the while, the silly song from Mary Poppins was stuck in my head, the one about chimney sweeps. It's demented, really, it's not like the bird wanted to clean out my chimney for me, but there it is, stuck in my head anyway. I found this on youtube and thought it was a nice tribute.
Think good thoughts for my sooty friend. Maybe he'll make it. I hope so.
The next thing I knew the man was laying there with the bird in his hand. No gloves, no anything protecting his hands, just a very, VERY black bird held gently in his huge hand.
I blinked, astonished, and asked, "Is....is it alive?" trying hard not to let my voice tremble. It's hard to do when you know something has been suffering in your chimney for two days, at least, it is for me.
He said, "Yes, but I doubt he'll make it. He's been breathing in all the dust, you see." I ran forward, asking if I could help it in some way, mind racing and thinking of people cleaning off seals after oil spills, if mouth to beak resuscitation was possible, anything.
He started towards the door and I raced ahead of him, opening it. He didn't let the bird go, but slowly walked down the stairs and out into the lawn. He then slowly opened his hand and rubbed it gently.
It perched itself on his hand, obviously alive and obviously in no mood to try to nip at it's hero. The man shook his hand gently up and down, trying to incite the bird to fly off, but it just held on and opened it's wings a bit.
I heard him say to the other fellow, "I doubt it'll make it, but..." and walked away, softly holding the bird in his hand. I walked inside and sat on the floor sobbing. I know it's dramatic or whatever, but I don't know what else to do. The poor thing...
All the while, the silly song from Mary Poppins was stuck in my head, the one about chimney sweeps. It's demented, really, it's not like the bird wanted to clean out my chimney for me, but there it is, stuck in my head anyway. I found this on youtube and thought it was a nice tribute.
Think good thoughts for my sooty friend. Maybe he'll make it. I hope so.
Thursday, November 01, 2007
things that have been contemplated:
(Dude. This took me two days to actually type out. I'm not sure what my point is about that, other than amazement that I used to be able to bang out whole small novels in less than an hour. That and various parts of my ass hurt from sitting here. Argh.)
1) I shall continue with the doctor.
I finally called her office today and left a message. I realized, after my amazingly unsatisfying appointment with my shrink earlier this week, that I am being passive about my medical care, in the sense that I'm angry and dissatisfied, but just kind of floundering in my despair instead of knowing what to do about it. On some higher level I know what to do, but I feel unable to cope with the emotional strength needed to actually accomplish the task (or tasks) at hand. To put it plainly, I'm in so much pain that I'm a bitch, so I'm overcompensating by trying to be agreeable and instead just being a doormat. A very angry and depressed doormat.
Today I waited for some magical guy to show up and see what critter is making such a racket in our chimney, but he failed to show up. However, while I was waiting, I decided to just take a damn Darvocet so at least I could deal with stress of a potentially freaked out and soot covered squirrel running amok in my impeccably clean home, while not killing the dude that's arrived to try to save said critter's life. Although the critter saving dude did not arrive, I did have a lot of spare time on my hands to ponder, in a much calmer and not in mind numbing agony sort of way, what I wanted to do about the doctor.
Go figure- I ended up calmly calling her office and leaving (yet another) message while also calmly planning what it was I wanted to say to her once I got her in earshot of me. I realized that taking a Darvocet before talking to her is quite possibly a brilliant plan, and then I can just deal with her as I need to, not worried about coming off as the homicidal maniac that I feel like I actually presenting when I try to smile despite my pain.
Who knows how soon I'll hear from them, but that's another matter.
2) I shall continue with the shrink.
The same thing that applies to my laughably named "pain management specialist" can be applies to my shrink. While I thought I would just trust her to lead the way, clearly that's not an option. And, really, when have I ever been a "just lead the way" kind of girl? I know where I want to go, and I do try to appear patient, but my patience ran out a long time ago. I'm just doing everyone around me a disservice by trying to be something I'm not, at least, something I am currently not.
3) My husband needs to have a social life.
There's a few different things that have made me aware of this recently, one being a rather awkward moment between he and one of my friends last night, and the other being a talk a had with my shrink about how much he works.
The awkward moment with the friend is lengthy to explain, but the summary would be he spoke to her in a matter befitting someone who is more familiar than he is with her. Plus what he said was retarded, but that is it's own can of worms. In short, he committed a faux pas and insulted her while attempting to compliment her nice booty. After much talk, all I can think to myself is, "Dude. You need to get out more."
It seems to me that his social skills currently consist of the people he works with and whomever he might run into in various stores or pumping gas, and then my son and I. That's not a balanced collection. Well, we have to add in his kickboxing class, whom he would consider peers, but peers whose ass you're trying to kick.
Here's how I see it: at work, either he is the subordinate of a very few people, in which case his role is clearly defined. Mostly, he is the boss of the rest of the people he interacts with, and as he gets more comfortable with management, I've noticed it spill over into home life.
I've had to, on quite a few occasions now, explain to him that he isn't AT work and he is NOT my boss and would he please stop using THAT tone with ME, unless he is looking for a verbal brawl to ensue. I think somewhere in his head he's getting used to telling people what to do, and as a consumer in a store, he also has that right, and as a father at home he also has that right, and then there's his wife... Ok, sometimes I need protecting, but not very often. So it seems he's so used to being in charge that he rarely steps out of that position, and he doesn't seem to be shifting gears too easily.
Any woman staying home with her newborn baby knows what I mean: you sit around all day with a cooing or crying blob that can't have conversations with you, then you walk out into public and realize you've forgotten how to speak to people. Your brain says, "Make googly noises, that makes them giggle!" but that doesn't go over well with the adults that you so very much want to be participating in conversations with. It's hard to switch gears.
I feel like my husband has been watching way too many episodes of the anti-Telletubbies. It's like the Managementtubbies. They all sit around and discuss business strategies in closed rooms with dry erase boards in their button down dress shirts and then go out among their fellow tubbies and decree, "LET IT BE DONE!" When he asked me if I would pick out his clothes this morning, I was happy to help. He was running late, and it's something I frequently do for him in the morning. He thinks it's sweet. But this morning he was about to get in the shower, looked at the clothes laying out and said to me, as I was pulling on my OWN pants, "Shoes and socks, please?"
I just looked at him with That Blank Look, the one that says there are a whole plethora of expressions hiding behind it that I'm trying really damn hard to not let you see lest you turn to stone, and I said, "Yes. I'm getting there..." and looked pointedly at him. He apologized and got in the shower. Afterwards I told him that what he said was polite enough, indeed, it was his expression that did him in. He looked at the clothes and realized that something was not complete, then Managementtubbie opened it's pie hole and decreed, "You have not completed the task at hand. LET IT BE DONE."
No, he didn't really SAY that, but I know that look. And it would be best if he left that look at work and not aim it at his wife who already made his coffee, breakfast, got a resistant child out the door and onto a bus with his teeth actually brushed, while her husband was once again working on something for work, at home.
This gets to the point about talking to my shrink about him. I told her he works all the time. If he's not at work, he is usually at home working on work, or working on something related to some project at work, and perhaps he may wish to interact with the other humans sometimes. Preferably me. I told him recently I feel like the only way I can get his attention is to try to entice him into watching one of our favorite TV shows together (which are piling up on the DVR) or have sex.
I know he feels like he's doing the hard work necessary to have a comfortable life by assuring that he's successful, but sometimes I just want to scream, "WHAT ABOUT RIGHT NOW?!?" I can't live for someday. What if he died tomorrow? I'd have lovely memories of listening to him typing away and seeing his back lit with the aura of a loving computer screen that he faced for so many hours of our lives together...
Fuck that. I mean, I'm thankful that he's so responsible, but there's a point at which you're supposed to stop and be in the moment. Relax? Enjoy?
*sigh*
4) I also need a social life.
Just like I can't rely on him to be the sole supplier of emotional support for me, I can't rely on him to take on the role of supplying my fun time, either. If I can pry his face away from the computer or a project or a technical manual, it takes him so long to decompress and relax that it's two freaking a.m.
I'm tired of looking at his back and sighing. Maybe if I just go out and have a life without him he'll realize that maybe he wants to come out and play, too.
This brings up a fear of mine: he'll resent me for it.
Another fear: he doesn't enjoy hanging out with me, but if other people are going to be there, well, then he can manage to pry himself away from work.
Hmph.
*stares off into space for a long while*
This one could be a blog post of it's very own. Oh yes indeed.
*shakes head to banish dark and brooding thoughts for now*
5) We both need parental counseling.
We've had quite a few talks about different parenting methods and what is proper, and the thing that keeps popping back up is that we don't think our parents did it right.
Mmm. I should amend that. I don't think either of our parents did it perfectly, but he seems to think his dad was the bees knees, and in conversations about what role a father should play, he frequently brings up what his dad would do. I tend to feel like his father was far more controlling than he noticed, and I've mentioned that his own mother has told me this, repeatedly. So him acting like his father, although his father was wonderful in so very many ways, also fits in a bit too well with his Managementtubbie style that gets on my nerves.
And there are definitely things we disagree about. When some kid bothers my son at school and my husband says, "Just knock his lights out" I have to give him The Look, which is always answered by The Question- a very indignant, "What?!" which precedes The Deep Slow Intake Of Breath from me, followed by The Sigh and accompanying Rolling Of Eyes. We then debate the pros and cons of assertiveness, passivity, and aggression and how they could/might/possibly/should/will/shouldn't affect my son.
There is also the discussion of my son being mine. That is to say, he is raising my son as if he were his own, but there are many instances where the bottom line decision is mine, and I won't relinquish it. This has been a point of contention on numerous occasions. My husband has the point of being male, and therefore understanding some things about growing up male that I definitely do not comprehend. I have the point of having done this for over ten years, versus his three, and my not always fair but nonetheless true ace in the hole of "You can always leave." Not meaning I want him to leave, but if anything happens to our relationship, my son comes with me. We are a package unit. My husband tries to point out that this reasoning is obsolete, due to the fact that he won't ever leave, and I am left with the sigh and staring sullenly at a wall while thinking, "Yah. I've heard THAT before," but not wanting to compare him to my son's good for nothing father or my last boyfriend who was there for five years of my son's life, although he was good for very little, at least he was good for something slightly more than nothing. Either way, it's a yucky comparison. But the fact remains that I've heard that twice before, albeit by idiots, and I watched my son suffer the heartache of losing them both. Every time he goes through something stressful, he gets very clingy, and as he's currently going through another mommas boy stage, it's hard for my husband to deal with sometimes. It's hard for me, too.
I think it's just best to pull the shrink in and let her help us sort it out.
6) I'm trying this weird belt thing.
It's one of the things the specialist doc told me to try. It looks like this, although I think this one is way cuter, and this explains the purpose of them quite well. This one is a bit easier to read, complete with pictures, yay pictures!
The doc thinks it will help, and I think she's right. As I told her in the office, "Sometimes I just push on that spot (right in my hip) because it makes it feel better. It doesn't hurt less, really, it just seems comforting." I think it would hurt less if I could keep it up, but my shoulders and arms tweak out eventually, trying to exert that much force. So, having a belt thing do it for me sounds like a dandy plan.
The bonus: hopefully it will ease some of the pain and I can put off the decision about prolotherapy for now. My current plan is to get the belt (already ordered) and see the doc again, and just tell her straight up that the prolotherapy is expensive as hell, and until she can MAKE TIME to convince me it's the correct course of action and that she isn't an asshat, I'm not doing it. And until that time, she can write me a prescription for Darvocet, damn it. I hated going on them last year, and I hated coming off of them, but for me the bottom line is that I've been in too much pain for too long now and emotionally and mentally just cannot bear to start prolotherapy, regardless of the cost. I need a break, for a few months of non agony, to build up my emotional reserves for what sounds like a long and painful road to healing.
That's what I've decided, and she can shit or get off the damn pot.
My own inner Managementtubbie has decreed it. Let it be so.
1) I shall continue with the doctor.
I finally called her office today and left a message. I realized, after my amazingly unsatisfying appointment with my shrink earlier this week, that I am being passive about my medical care, in the sense that I'm angry and dissatisfied, but just kind of floundering in my despair instead of knowing what to do about it. On some higher level I know what to do, but I feel unable to cope with the emotional strength needed to actually accomplish the task (or tasks) at hand. To put it plainly, I'm in so much pain that I'm a bitch, so I'm overcompensating by trying to be agreeable and instead just being a doormat. A very angry and depressed doormat.
Today I waited for some magical guy to show up and see what critter is making such a racket in our chimney, but he failed to show up. However, while I was waiting, I decided to just take a damn Darvocet so at least I could deal with stress of a potentially freaked out and soot covered squirrel running amok in my impeccably clean home, while not killing the dude that's arrived to try to save said critter's life. Although the critter saving dude did not arrive, I did have a lot of spare time on my hands to ponder, in a much calmer and not in mind numbing agony sort of way, what I wanted to do about the doctor.
Go figure- I ended up calmly calling her office and leaving (yet another) message while also calmly planning what it was I wanted to say to her once I got her in earshot of me. I realized that taking a Darvocet before talking to her is quite possibly a brilliant plan, and then I can just deal with her as I need to, not worried about coming off as the homicidal maniac that I feel like I actually presenting when I try to smile despite my pain.
Who knows how soon I'll hear from them, but that's another matter.
2) I shall continue with the shrink.
The same thing that applies to my laughably named "pain management specialist" can be applies to my shrink. While I thought I would just trust her to lead the way, clearly that's not an option. And, really, when have I ever been a "just lead the way" kind of girl? I know where I want to go, and I do try to appear patient, but my patience ran out a long time ago. I'm just doing everyone around me a disservice by trying to be something I'm not, at least, something I am currently not.
3) My husband needs to have a social life.
There's a few different things that have made me aware of this recently, one being a rather awkward moment between he and one of my friends last night, and the other being a talk a had with my shrink about how much he works.
The awkward moment with the friend is lengthy to explain, but the summary would be he spoke to her in a matter befitting someone who is more familiar than he is with her. Plus what he said was retarded, but that is it's own can of worms. In short, he committed a faux pas and insulted her while attempting to compliment her nice booty. After much talk, all I can think to myself is, "Dude. You need to get out more."
It seems to me that his social skills currently consist of the people he works with and whomever he might run into in various stores or pumping gas, and then my son and I. That's not a balanced collection. Well, we have to add in his kickboxing class, whom he would consider peers, but peers whose ass you're trying to kick.
Here's how I see it: at work, either he is the subordinate of a very few people, in which case his role is clearly defined. Mostly, he is the boss of the rest of the people he interacts with, and as he gets more comfortable with management, I've noticed it spill over into home life.
I've had to, on quite a few occasions now, explain to him that he isn't AT work and he is NOT my boss and would he please stop using THAT tone with ME, unless he is looking for a verbal brawl to ensue. I think somewhere in his head he's getting used to telling people what to do, and as a consumer in a store, he also has that right, and as a father at home he also has that right, and then there's his wife... Ok, sometimes I need protecting, but not very often. So it seems he's so used to being in charge that he rarely steps out of that position, and he doesn't seem to be shifting gears too easily.
Any woman staying home with her newborn baby knows what I mean: you sit around all day with a cooing or crying blob that can't have conversations with you, then you walk out into public and realize you've forgotten how to speak to people. Your brain says, "Make googly noises, that makes them giggle!" but that doesn't go over well with the adults that you so very much want to be participating in conversations with. It's hard to switch gears.
I feel like my husband has been watching way too many episodes of the anti-Telletubbies. It's like the Managementtubbies. They all sit around and discuss business strategies in closed rooms with dry erase boards in their button down dress shirts and then go out among their fellow tubbies and decree, "LET IT BE DONE!" When he asked me if I would pick out his clothes this morning, I was happy to help. He was running late, and it's something I frequently do for him in the morning. He thinks it's sweet. But this morning he was about to get in the shower, looked at the clothes laying out and said to me, as I was pulling on my OWN pants, "Shoes and socks, please?"
I just looked at him with That Blank Look, the one that says there are a whole plethora of expressions hiding behind it that I'm trying really damn hard to not let you see lest you turn to stone, and I said, "Yes. I'm getting there..." and looked pointedly at him. He apologized and got in the shower. Afterwards I told him that what he said was polite enough, indeed, it was his expression that did him in. He looked at the clothes and realized that something was not complete, then Managementtubbie opened it's pie hole and decreed, "You have not completed the task at hand. LET IT BE DONE."
No, he didn't really SAY that, but I know that look. And it would be best if he left that look at work and not aim it at his wife who already made his coffee, breakfast, got a resistant child out the door and onto a bus with his teeth actually brushed, while her husband was once again working on something for work, at home.
This gets to the point about talking to my shrink about him. I told her he works all the time. If he's not at work, he is usually at home working on work, or working on something related to some project at work, and perhaps he may wish to interact with the other humans sometimes. Preferably me. I told him recently I feel like the only way I can get his attention is to try to entice him into watching one of our favorite TV shows together (which are piling up on the DVR) or have sex.
I know he feels like he's doing the hard work necessary to have a comfortable life by assuring that he's successful, but sometimes I just want to scream, "WHAT ABOUT RIGHT NOW?!?" I can't live for someday. What if he died tomorrow? I'd have lovely memories of listening to him typing away and seeing his back lit with the aura of a loving computer screen that he faced for so many hours of our lives together...
Fuck that. I mean, I'm thankful that he's so responsible, but there's a point at which you're supposed to stop and be in the moment. Relax? Enjoy?
*sigh*
4) I also need a social life.
Just like I can't rely on him to be the sole supplier of emotional support for me, I can't rely on him to take on the role of supplying my fun time, either. If I can pry his face away from the computer or a project or a technical manual, it takes him so long to decompress and relax that it's two freaking a.m.
I'm tired of looking at his back and sighing. Maybe if I just go out and have a life without him he'll realize that maybe he wants to come out and play, too.
This brings up a fear of mine: he'll resent me for it.
Another fear: he doesn't enjoy hanging out with me, but if other people are going to be there, well, then he can manage to pry himself away from work.
Hmph.
*stares off into space for a long while*
This one could be a blog post of it's very own. Oh yes indeed.
*shakes head to banish dark and brooding thoughts for now*
5) We both need parental counseling.
We've had quite a few talks about different parenting methods and what is proper, and the thing that keeps popping back up is that we don't think our parents did it right.
Mmm. I should amend that. I don't think either of our parents did it perfectly, but he seems to think his dad was the bees knees, and in conversations about what role a father should play, he frequently brings up what his dad would do. I tend to feel like his father was far more controlling than he noticed, and I've mentioned that his own mother has told me this, repeatedly. So him acting like his father, although his father was wonderful in so very many ways, also fits in a bit too well with his Managementtubbie style that gets on my nerves.
And there are definitely things we disagree about. When some kid bothers my son at school and my husband says, "Just knock his lights out" I have to give him The Look, which is always answered by The Question- a very indignant, "What?!" which precedes The Deep Slow Intake Of Breath from me, followed by The Sigh and accompanying Rolling Of Eyes. We then debate the pros and cons of assertiveness, passivity, and aggression and how they could/might/possibly/should/will/shouldn't affect my son.
There is also the discussion of my son being mine. That is to say, he is raising my son as if he were his own, but there are many instances where the bottom line decision is mine, and I won't relinquish it. This has been a point of contention on numerous occasions. My husband has the point of being male, and therefore understanding some things about growing up male that I definitely do not comprehend. I have the point of having done this for over ten years, versus his three, and my not always fair but nonetheless true ace in the hole of "You can always leave." Not meaning I want him to leave, but if anything happens to our relationship, my son comes with me. We are a package unit. My husband tries to point out that this reasoning is obsolete, due to the fact that he won't ever leave, and I am left with the sigh and staring sullenly at a wall while thinking, "Yah. I've heard THAT before," but not wanting to compare him to my son's good for nothing father or my last boyfriend who was there for five years of my son's life, although he was good for very little, at least he was good for something slightly more than nothing. Either way, it's a yucky comparison. But the fact remains that I've heard that twice before, albeit by idiots, and I watched my son suffer the heartache of losing them both. Every time he goes through something stressful, he gets very clingy, and as he's currently going through another mommas boy stage, it's hard for my husband to deal with sometimes. It's hard for me, too.
I think it's just best to pull the shrink in and let her help us sort it out.
6) I'm trying this weird belt thing.
It's one of the things the specialist doc told me to try. It looks like this, although I think this one is way cuter, and this explains the purpose of them quite well. This one is a bit easier to read, complete with pictures, yay pictures!
The doc thinks it will help, and I think she's right. As I told her in the office, "Sometimes I just push on that spot (right in my hip) because it makes it feel better. It doesn't hurt less, really, it just seems comforting." I think it would hurt less if I could keep it up, but my shoulders and arms tweak out eventually, trying to exert that much force. So, having a belt thing do it for me sounds like a dandy plan.
The bonus: hopefully it will ease some of the pain and I can put off the decision about prolotherapy for now. My current plan is to get the belt (already ordered) and see the doc again, and just tell her straight up that the prolotherapy is expensive as hell, and until she can MAKE TIME to convince me it's the correct course of action and that she isn't an asshat, I'm not doing it. And until that time, she can write me a prescription for Darvocet, damn it. I hated going on them last year, and I hated coming off of them, but for me the bottom line is that I've been in too much pain for too long now and emotionally and mentally just cannot bear to start prolotherapy, regardless of the cost. I need a break, for a few months of non agony, to build up my emotional reserves for what sounds like a long and painful road to healing.
That's what I've decided, and she can shit or get off the damn pot.
My own inner Managementtubbie has decreed it. Let it be so.
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