Friday, November 30, 2012

Something's a little off...

Any female with long hair, and a few adventurous men will know exactly what I'm talking about here, and I won't seem crazy.  I'm just putting that in up front, because there is a percentage of you who will react the same way my husband did.  However, trust me, it's a real thing. As for the second part, well if you can't see things clearly... ah well, just read it.

Me Alright, I gotta go take a shower.  My hair doesn't feel right in my head.

Husband Wait, what?

Me I am going up to take a shower, watch the kids.

Him No, not that part, the hair part.  Your hair is coming out, or you think it will, or it doesn't belong there?  What is going on?

Me Oh, yeah.  My hair doesn't feel right in my head.

Him Should it be somewhere else?

Me No, this isn't like my hair is getting emotional about it's location.  It just feels wrong.  Like it was sitting funny.

Him Somehow, your explanation is not making the situation any more clear.

Me Well it's probably like when you pet a cat in the wrong direction.

Him Nope, never been a cat.  Still have no idea what you are talking about.

Me My hair must've been going in the wrong direction, and now it feels weird, almost painful.

Him How does it go the wrong direction?

Me *sigh* Well, kind of like if you have it pulled up too tight, or hair that usually is draped to one side is suddenly on the other side all day, and you go to move it back and it hurts your scalp.  Like at the root.  Come on, now.  Is this enough information for you?  Can I go wash my hair so it stops feeling weird in my head.

Him  Are you sure you didn't just hit your head on something.

Me Yeah, a brick wall, in like 2 seconds.

Him Okay, go wash your weird hair.

Me Thank you!



Obviously, getting to the shower was hard enough.  I've never had to work so hard for one before, as a matter of fact.  But, I still don't have my new contacts, so now I'm taking what is probably a legally blind shower, and I hate that.  Of course, there was a terrifying incident...


Husband Does your hair feel better?

Me Yes, but now I have chest pains.

Husband How did you manage that?  To go in with hair pains and come out with a heart attack?

Me It's not a heart attack.  It's a panic attack.  There was a tarantula in the shower with me.

Husband What. are. you. talking. about?

Me Well, I don't have my contacts in, so it's very hard to tell the difference between a sock fuzzy and a tarantula next to your foot in the shower when you can't see clearly.  Needless to say, it was a terrifying moment, especially when it started to move.  Was it moving because of water, or 8 furry killer spider legs.

Him First of all, I'm pretty sure tarantulas are not killer spiders.  Second of all, HOW BIG ARE YOUR SOCK FUZZIES?

Me Well I don't know how big baby tarantulas are.  They are probably about the same size as a sizeable sock fuzzy. 

Him And where would this tarantula come from, in the first place?

Me You never know with you boys.  

Him You're not right.

Me Well, at least I'm alive.  I could have been killed in there had I not seen the tarantula and rinsed him down the drain.

Him You mean your sock fuzzy?  At least your sock fuzzy didn't kill you?  First your hair is unhappy with it's current position and now your fuzzies are going to kill you in the shower.  

Me Well when you say it, it sounds stupid.  

Him Yeah, it sounds stupid when you say it, too.

Me It could have been a deadly spider.

Him Are we done here?

Me For now, unless that spider crawls back up the drain.

*silence*

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

I don't see it.

Being the thrilling risk taker that I am, I opened my last pair of contacts before I had an eye appointment.  Today, one of them ripped.  I was lucky enough that someone cancelled their appt today, so I got in.  However, I do get to wait about a week for my new contact lenses to come in, and so I'm stuck wearing my glasses for awhile.  That's what I get for livin' on the edge.

Right away I started not playing well with others making friends by refusing the eye drops.  I insisted it was way more important for me to be able to see well enough to pick out some cute frames than for the doctor to see back into my eye better.  A girl has to have priorities.  At least I know mine.  It did not occur to me that my vision would already be shot since I didn't have my contacts in.  The minute I took my real glasses off, I realized I'd be picking out these glasses all blurry eyed, too.  Hopefully the cute pair I picked out will still be cute when I go pick them up with clear vision.

Speaking of my cute new frames, the lady at the glasses kiosk in the office kept telling me the glasses I was choosing to look at were so "geek chic".  I smiled at her, but I kept thinking "Ummmmm, normal, they are normal to me."  They were all the only ones I'd even consider, so what does that say about me?  I went with this great little pair that turned out to be Kate Spade, and then she pointed out I have expensive taste.  So, expensive geek chic?  What is the conversation we are having here?  Is this like "hipster cat" saying "It cost a lot of money to look this poor?".  I thought they were cute... not "revenge of the nerds".  Not even "revenge of the nerds walks into Bergdorfs."  Maybe I've shared enough of my life with a real geek that I can no longer recognize geek.  Kind of like how you can't smell your own house anymore until you go on vacation and come back.  I can't smell my own geek anymore.   

I guess I'll find out when they come in, and I get the verdict from my family... as long as they haven't become geek-desensitized.  Either way, it's going to be a long week wearing these old glasses that are from a couple prescriptions ago.  I get to enjoy a nagging headache while I squint at everyone.  I guess I'll finally know what it's like to be Gilbert Gottfried... minus the socially insensitive and inappropriate twitter outbursts.    

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

And still with the crickets

Every year the crickets try to hide from the cold in our garage.  Pretty soon they start getting gutsy and try to make their way into our house.  Of course, I do not appreciate their presence.  There are like a million in that garage, and that is bad enough, but in my living room?  Come on now!  My kids think they are entertaining, and my cat's usually stare at them, perhaps mildly amused.  Do they kill the crickets?  No.  They never take care of any bug, or even that one mouse that made it's way into our old house.  They should probably start pulling their weight around here! 

Yesterday was different, though.  2 crickets made their way in...

Me Honey, come on, I'll take you on a tour of cricket bodies and body parts.  It starts on this floor, and then moves into the basement.

Husband There are crickets on these two floors?

Me Not exactly, there are most of two crickets on this floor, and then there are assorted cricket appendages downstairs.  You'll have to pick them up, though, cause I don't want the kids driving their hot wheels through discarded cricket parts.

Husband I have to pick them up?

Me I don't touch bugs or bug pieces.  I threw a tupperware container over one of the bodies upstairs, in case it was alive and had enough legs to jump, hop, or drag itself away.

Husband What is happening?  Why are the crickets in pieces?

Me You'll have to ask the cats about that.  One, or both, of them apparently went A Clockwork Orange on the crickets.  I wonder if any got away to warn the others.  Maybe this will take care of our problem.  

Husband Maybe.

Me Of course, we are then left with the cat problem.

Husband What cat problem?

Me Well, obviously our cats enjoy dismembering things.  You might want to sleep with one eye open.

Husband You are crazy.

Me No, the cats are crazy.  Maybe we should take them to a cat shrink.

Husband Honey, maybe you should talk to the shrink.

Me Maybe YOU should talk to those crickets.  They could point out the bad cat in the line up.  Then we'll see who needs a shrink.  Honey?  Hoooooooooooney.  You know, you are still gonna have to pick up these rotting cricket parts.

Update:  There are still 2 cricket legs in the playroom..... 

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Crickets, balloon launchers, and specialists, oh my!

My oldest kid is naming dead bugs, my youngest kid is building a "chotchkie destroyer 1,000", and I'm getting answers from my childhood from my son's allergist.  It's been a strange week, as usual!

My youngest kiddo is talking more each day, and more clearly, too.  He was getting all fired up about something in our dining room, jumping up and down, pointing, and he finally blurts out "Oh no!  A cricket!!!"  Yep, he was right.  There was a HUGE ass cricket hanging out under a dining room chair.  I don't do the bug thing, so when he was all "Get it, Momma!"  I was all "Get Daddy, son.  It's his job... it's in our vows."  So, my 2 year old comes over to me, all brave, grabs my napkin, and heads for the cricket!  He was totally gonna grab that thing himself.  Well I told him to get Daddy to help him, so he did.  He bent down with my husband to catch the intruder, and it springs up into his little, stunned face.  He's all giggles, while I'm all shrieks, and I go flying into our living room, far away from the wild jumper, who will surely eat my face if he catches me.  My husband bravely stomps on the cricket, then throws it in the trash.  (Sorry PETA?) So, my children...

2 year old Good job, Dada, but I'm gonna miss that cricket.  Then, peering into the trash can Bye jump cricket.

5 year old We can name him Jumpy McJumperson!

So, yep, he named a dead cricket.  But, what else do we expect of the boy who gleefully shouts salutations at the "dead people" in the graveyard as we drive by?



Crickets were not our only excitement this week.  Our youngest also figured out if he placed a hard plastic ball on the flat side of a half deflated mylar balloon and stomped on the inflated side, the ball would launch into the air.  He so proudly launched several balls into my bookshelves and photos on the wall, nearly breaking the antique pocket watch in it's glass dome case, before I made it over to him.  I battled with my feelings of pride over his clever invention, and anger at the invention being so potentially destructive.  Most days, this is what being a parent feels like.  It's like when your kid calls someone who butts in line an asshat and you're all horrified that they swore, but super proud cause that guy WAS a total asshat, and they used a new vocabulary word correctly while also recognizing socially inappropriate and rude behavior.  Yep, just like that.


On a more serious note, we finally got our oldest son's asthma properly diagnosed.  We went to the asthma/allergy specialist today , fully expecting skin allergy testing, and instead he immediately recognized what our boy was going through as "cough variant asthma", which is brought on more by viruses and irritants like smoke, cold air, perfume, or exercise than allergies in my sons case.  He could tell as soon as I told him that from mid September until April he catches every germ and is sick almost every day, and it gets serious quickly... with pneumonia and croup often being the end result of so many of the illnesses.  He told me these kiddos do catch every illness, and where it may be just a cold with the sniffles for an average kiddo, it does turn nasty for someone with cough variant asthma, and is often improperly diagnosed and treated.  So, the bad news is, he'll still catch everything.  The good news is, we now have proper tools to help him.  We are just trying to strike a balance between easy breathing and good behavior, as the asthma and cough meds often lead to serious behavioral changes for our little guy.  We now have to wait until he is ill to see what these new meds will do, hopefully we'll have the magic combo.  He should mostly outgrow it. 

My Mom came with us, thinking we'd have the terrible testing to go through, but it was not only a good day to find out what is really wrong with him, but it answered questions for us about MY childhood experience with the same issue.  I was diagnosed with allergies and asthma, but I had the exact same experience of frequent illness through sept until spring.  It was so bad, I missed so much school, that it started to psychologically mess with my head.  I thought maybe I secretly didn't like school, and just couldn't admit it.  Comments from teachers and students about my absences didn't help.  They didn't see me up all night long coughing, or getting ill at the bus stop because the terrible coughing lead to reflux issues.  They just saw me missing class.  It did continue as an adult, too, just not as frequent.  I still caught many illnesses, and they hit me harder than my coworkers.  I'd need inhalers, have terrible chest pain, and be exhausted from being up all night coughing.  I started to think I was a bad employee that didn't like work.  But, magically, I didn't have the issue when the weather was nice and cough and cold season was over. Times when, if you were just gonna skip work or school for the fun of it, would actually make sense to miss.  So, this visit helped me in ways I never even dreamed it could!  It answered so many questions for my son, my mom, and myself.  I also know I'm not hallucinating his serious illness or imaging it.  You start to wonder when everyone else seems okay, or seems able to handle colds, but it seems to be some big ordeal for you.  Croup, pneumonia, asthma, this is reality, but sometimes it is so much you think you MUST be dreaming... a nightmare  of a dream, but certainly it could not be reality.  Having answers feels like freedom.  I can accept reality, and now I have the tools to deal with it, and the support.  (Just looking back over the winter months of my blog from 2011, you can see what I'm talking about...)

I know that's not my usual smart ass entry, but since I do comment about the illness we go through in this house, and it probably seems ridiculous (cause it is), and I seem absent for longer periods of time, now I have a pinpointed reason why!  Let's hope this year, with the meds, we can keep illnesses to a more "normal" level.  Wish us luck!


Friday, November 9, 2012

It's a band, it's a chorus, it's... wait, what?!

All the talk on my personal facebook page, and in some conversations today about actual conversations that have taken place in my house has made me think I should write this down.  Isn't that the purpose of this blog?  So, let's get on with it.

I was talking about the whole Petraeus scandal today, and as if the news wasn't shocking enough, the news that it could have impacted our security just blew my mind...

Me The FBI investigated to see if his affair posed a security risk. What? How? Oh, wait, maybe he was like yelling out secrets during coitus."

My husband just shakes his head & walks away

Promptly, my 5 year old says What's chorus?

You can imagine how many jokes were spawned from that... not excluding the obvious "Hey, honey, are we going to chorus tonight?"  Yeah... it's been going on for hours, and my husband still hasn't run out of ways to use this.

In case that wasn't absurd enough, my husband had to top it just moments ago with this little gem

Him That's a great name for a music group!

Me What?  

Him Transvaginal Ultrasound!

Me *blank stare*

Him *singing* Trans-va-gi-nal Ultra-SOUND!

Me Okay, Honey.  *pats his knee*


I can't explain any of this or what any of us were thinking.  Maybe there are high levels of dental surgery drugs in our air system.

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Here, you throw this out.

I'm alive!  I'm sure I've already mentioned, this is my busy season, so please excuse any extended absence from the blog.  (My busy season starts winding down in late January... sometimes... sometimes February or March.)

So, now that's out of the way, let's get to it.  My husband and I always joke about how our zombie prepper friend is also our "Here, you throw this out" friend.  You may have one of these friends, too!  They are the type of people who, anytime they are getting rid of things, try to give it to you.  Or, maybe they bring you their junk mail or catalogs, because "I thought you could use this!" (Nah, I prefer Charmin, but thanks!)  Every single time we see this person we get something they should throw out, but for some reason would prefer we throw it out, instead.  I'll give you a few examples:

*A broken radio
* Old, dusty encyclopedias
*Coupons for diapers I repeatedly told them I never buy
*Baby formula (I nursed my babies)
*2 bags of old recipe magazines
*Clothing catalogs for unknown companies
*Disaster prepper supply catalogs
*A random tote bag
*Magazine articles clipped out and mailed to us, so obscure that we weren't sure
which side of the clippings we were supposed to read
*Codes from cereal boxes
*A brochure from their business that hasn't been open for more than 15 years
*Several Bibles

Okay, so if that list wasn't weird enough, and it's just a fraction of what we've gotten and some of them we have gotten many times over, I got perhaps the worst of all "Here, you throw this out"s today.  

Yes, now that Sandy has passed, and we escaped with just two leaks in our house that went through 2 floors of the house (and started on the first floor, not the top floor, so you know that was freaking SIDEWAYS rain!), everyone is getting back to normal around here.  So, our favorite zombie prepper sends me an email, notifying me that they are saving their 50 lbs of sand bags for me, and I can get them next week.  Yeah, I don't know either.  I want to write back "Do I have a sign on my front lawn that says "used sandbag storage"?  No!  Cause I'm not in the business of storing used sandbags!"  (If you haven't seen Pulp Fiction, I'm sorry.)

There is quite a bit of range between newspaper clippings and 50 lbs of something that, should the bags rip, would be a lot like unleashing hell all over my house.  If I ever dreamed it would get to this level, I would've saved everything they ever gave us, boxed it up, and shipped it back to them with "Here, I thought you could use this!"  Then we could be trapped in some warped game of "pass the trash".  I hear that is everyone's favorite game... well 2nd only to "Is it poop or chocolate?" (If anyone remembers which one of my blogs that was from, you get extra bonus points, because I couldn't find it!  Let me know if you remember!)