Pet Peeves

I Did NOT Push a Kid Under a Counter

6 Comments / Daily Dose, Day to Day, Health and Wellness, Pet Peeves /

TW takes a lot of meds and some of those meds make it hard for her to sleep, so she takes a sleeping pill. To be specific, she takes Lunesta. This works really well for her but it’s not so great for me. Last night’s a good example of the power of the “butterfly” pill.

I turned off my bedside lamp at around 10pm. TW took her evening meds and then we took the dog out one last time (hah) shortly after that. I climbed into bed and rolled over to go to sleep while TW finished a chapter of a book. The puppy was laying on her bed, on the floor — until all hell broke loose and she sniffed something scary. (More on sniffing scary things tomorrow…)

TW got up and walked her around the house and outside and generally made soothing noises along with warming up a frozen beef bone to keep her occupied rather than sniffing scary things.

She came to bed at about 10:45 and turned off her light. The puppy was on the floor eating a mostly frozen bone. The puppy eating that bone was very, very loud and I commented upon this to TW. Her response was, “It’s better than her running around howling and growling and barking.”, which was true.

I closed my eyes again, listening to the dog make horrible bone chewing noises. I was just getting used to those noises enough that I thought I might be going to sleep when TW said, in a loud and clear voice, “Why did you push that kid under the counter?”

I said, “Huh?”

She said, “Why did you push that kid under the counter?”

I said, “What?”

She said, “That kid at the ice cream shop.”

I said, “TARRANT. SHUT UP.”

She said, “OK”

It was obvious to me that she was asleep and talking. She does this a lot after taking her sleeping pill but it’s not usually so quickly after falling asleep. And she’s not usually so clear — it’s more often low mumbling that I have to fight to listen to in order to make out the words.

At 10:58pm her phone vibrated.

She JUMPED out of bed (this is a big deal because TW never jumps out of bed and she’d also just gotten out of the hospital and was taking more woozy inducing meds than just a sleeping pill.) She read the text, I assume from Prince J, typed something, peed, and then climbed back in bed.

Notice the time between her turning off her light, accusing me of doing something weird to a kid, and the text message? 13 minutes. 13 minutes!

Because besides the bone crunching noises, the dog also spent much of the night growling, howling, barking, pacing, jump on the bed and laying there for awhile, jumping off the bed and eating her bone again for awhile (or sleeping on her own darn bed) and TW says she doesn’t remember ANY OF THAT.

She also doesn’t remember taking the dog outside or wandering around the house with the dog twice more in the wee hours.

The power of Lunesta. She sleeps through all sorts of things and I get no sleep at all.

And no, I’ve never pushed a kid under any counter much less an ice cream counter.

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I Am Never Buying Chocolate Chips Again

8 Comments / Daily Dose, Family Funk, Pet Peeves /

I was kicking ass in the get stuff done vein. I started the load of laundry that’s been accumulating in the washer and laundry room basket since the girls went back to their dad’s. I folded the load that was in the dryer. I made two batches of brownies for TW’s mom to take to the Senior Center. I got most of the trash cans emptied and the bins to the road. I straightened up the family room in preparation for the uverse dude’s visit. I cleaned the old leftovers out of the fridge and ran a load of dishes through the dishwasher. I even got the dishwasher unloaded and the few dirty dishes in the sink added to the dishwasher.

I thought I’d be extra super woman and do a tiny load of laundry and get all of TW’s underwear clean (I know, probably too much info but… hospitals cause her to want a lot of fresh underwear… just sayin’.)

So, I started tossing the wet laundry from the washer into the dryer… I noticed something “dropped” out of the wet laundry. One something dropped to the floor, another to the bottom of the dryer. I glanced back, something small and brown. I figured it was on old dog treat that someone had leftover in her pocket from treat training. I reached for the thing in the dryer just as Skeeter reached for the thing on the floor.

Soft, smooshy, chocolate.

Chocolate chips.

I peeked back into the washer and what did I see — dozens of chocolate chips sprinkled in with the “clean” laundry.

Dammit.

I pulled each piece of laundry out of the dryer, shaking every piece. Chocolate chips rained down onto the floor. I pulled each piece of laundry out of the washer. Still raining chocolate chips. At the bottom of the washer, a good half cup of chocolate chips.

I cleaned them out, cursing a certain child who I was SURE was responsible since most of the laundry I’d done was kid laundry, TW’s mom’s laundry and dirty towels with just a couple of TW’s stuff tossed in to fill out errr over-fill the load.

I added a little water to the washer then pushed it to the spin cycle. Each time I opened the lid, more chocolate chips were on the bottom and sides of the washer.

While the chocolate chips were spinning around, I texted the youngest child who has a strong affinity for chocolate chips.

Her response was “why in the hell would I have chocolate chips in my pocket?”

So I suggested she might have cleaned up spilled chocolate chips with a towel and then dumped the towel (chips and all) into the washer.

She insists she didn’t do it and pointed a finger at her sister.

So I texted her sister and asked her if she’d had a chocolate chip accident. She insisted she had not touched a chocolate chip in forever. I asked her if she was sure she hadn’t spilled chocolate chips and cleaned them with a towel? She insisted, again, she had not. I asked once more, “Are you sure you didn’t make a chocolate croissant?” Her response, well, I do have limits about what I’ll share about my kids so I’ll just keep that a secret. Basically, no. She insists it was not her.

During this texting/spinning session, TW’s mom wandered in and I explained what had happened. She had her suspicions about who might have done it and in the end she said, “All I know is it wasn’t me.”

So. It wasn’t TW’s mom. It wasn’t Elly. It wasn’t RJ. It wasn’t me, lord knows.

Did Skeeter do it? Or, was it someone else?

The world may never know.

I just know that I’m never buying another bag of chocolate chips because that was a pain in the ass and I don’t ever want to have to clean chocolate chips out of the washer and dryer again.

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Forget “How’s TW?” What About ME?

12 Comments / Daily Dose, Health and Wellness, Pet Peeves /

When I decided to do NaBloPoMo, I was kind of afraid I’d be writing about stupid hospital visits. Bah humbug.

I’m also tired of everyone saying “How is Tarrant?” I don’t have a good answer for that. Here are some I’ve tried:
– She’s fine.
– No change.
– She’s bitchy.
– She’s more confusing as ever because she’s getting pain meds.
– She’s grouchy.
– Fine, thanks.

None of these seem to appease those who are asking. So what the heck am I supposed to say? Here are the facts, you tell me what my answer should be, ok?

– She has a lot of abdominal pain, when it’s been awhile since she had fresh pain meds.
– She is nauseous if it’s been awhile since she’s had nausea meds.
– When she sits on the toilet to pee, her oxygen levels drop.
– Her oxygen levels drop off and on just in general, for no clear reason.
– Her blood pressure was high, for her. (Not super high for normal human beings) And is still a little higher than her normal, from time to time.
– She has no fever.
– She’s not vomiting.
– She’s also not having any bowel movements, which annoys pretty much everyone right now.

So basically – she’s fine. Nothin’ happening. Nothin’ to talk about.

Except me! Let’s talk about ME!

– Nobody put a mint on my pillow last night.
– I had to make the damn bed this morning.
– I had to feed TW’s mom dinner and also her birthday breakfast this morning. I guess I have to take her to Culver’s tonight for her birthday dinner, too.
– I have been making trips back and forth between the house and hospital for 24 hours now and it ain’t a walk in the park. (Do you know how many god damned trains there are between me and the hospital?)
– I have to deal with a very unhappy, pathetic puppy who is either in my lap, biting at my coat sleeve, crying, barking at me, or staring at the bedroom door (refusing to move or even blink in case TW is on the other side of that door.) PATHETIC.

– I had to take the dead pumpkin out of the prairie dog cage.
– I had to feed the prairie dogs.
– I AM THE ONLY ONE HERE TO SAY YES to the PUPPY!
– Driving around in the car by myself is lonely.
– Going to vote by myself is not fun.
– Sleeping all by myself is errr well it’s kind of nice because nobody is causing me to have dreams about fires but it’s also kind of depressing, too.
– There is nobody to talk to about weird emails and weirder blog posts.

TW’s fine. I’m pretty much in hell. Thanks for asking.

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The Problem with Passion

10 Comments / Daily Dose, Day to Day, NaBloPoMo, Personality, Pet Peeves /

Once upon a time, you could write a post about almost anything and be fairly confident you weren’t going to be attacked, ridiculed, questioned, or called out as having completely missed the boat.

I’m not talking about the traditional hot button topics like abortion, circumcision, bottle feeding, religion, alternative sex topics, politics — those always have been hot button issues and probably always will be.

No, I’m talking about things like recipes and family stories and lists of favorite things. Those types of posts used to bring in discussion. People who could relate said so. People who had ideas to share did so. People who couldn’t relate or didn’t have anything to add, either stayed silent or left a comment indicating they’d read the piece but didn’t have a lot to add.

In today’s hyper-active internet, no topic is safe any more.

Post a recipe, someone’s going to have something negative to say about it.

Post a list of favorite things, someone’s going to call you out for missing something.

Misuse a comma and you’re fucked. An apostrophe out of place and you’re even more fucked.

The peoples, they are passionate. And I’m not just talking about other peoples. I find myself doing it, or close to doing it, a whole lot more often than ever before.

It’s so bloody easy to let our personal (or professional) passions get the better of us. It’s hard to read with a gentle eye. It’s hard to stop and look at the individual behind the post. Who is she? Where is she coming from? What led her to post this recipe, story, list, idea? If we stop to look and listen. Stop to think about the person behind the post, would we be less quick to react from a place of passion? Would that allow us to have more proactive and positive online interactions?

We’re not all professional writers, recipe developers, politicians, activists, etc. Most of us are just people who want to share ourselves with others. Our posts aren’t perfectly polished. Our ideas aren’t perfectly formed. Our experiences are colored by our environment. Our beliefs are informed by our histories. We’re also not that interesting in changing others at every drop of the hat, so there’s no reason to get your hackles up if someone posts something counter to your beliefs, opinions or experiences. And, we really do not want to be changed, improved or informed about all of our shortcomings (in your opinion) at every drop of the hat.

I need to remember to use my passion wisely and maybe not always take things quite so personally. How about you?

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Eff You! I Want My OBs!

2 Comments / Daily Dose, Pet Peeves /

I can’t muster up this much angst about 2010. Hell I can’t muster up this much angst about any year, even the horrible year that brought us to Chicagoland or that other horrible year when the little kids went to England.

It’s the same every year. Bad things happen to good people. Good things happen to bad people. There are natural disasters. People die. People get sick. People lose money. There are horrible, horrible natural disasters. There’s hunger and poverty and war.

But.

I’m seriously ticked off about the loss of the OB tampon. I mean WTF? “Women in dismay”? THAT is an UNDERSTATEMENT.

I don’t particularly care about the OB Ultra but give me the regular OBs NOW, not “sometime in 2011”. It’s not like I can just say, “Oh. I won’t have a period until sometime in 2011.” and wait for them to return.

Then again, I might not need them since I’m at the point where my periods are weird, to say the least. But hell, just typing that and thinking about it makes me mad. I should be able to use the tampon that I PREFER during the last months of menstruation, shouldn’t I? Particularly since there seems to be no legitimate reason for the entire OB line to have disappeared.

WHAT THE HELL? I NEED MY OBs. NOW. (Or in a few days, actually.)

Posted via email from Life. Flow. Fluctuate.

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How the heck do you wear this thing?

4 Comments / Daily Dose, Day to Day, Personality, Pet Peeves /

Did I mention TW made me a really gorgeous alpaca scarf? She did. I love it (thank you @haldechick and Knit 1.)

Today, I was at Great Lakes getting gas and it was 9 degrees. Plus wind. And it is really really windy in the Great Lakes Naval Station area. As I was pumping the gas, and freezing my ass off, and thanking GOD and TOYOTA for making a car that gets such damn good gas mileage that I only need to put two or three gallons in thus standing in the cold for only a few minutes, I realized that I could wrap that really awesome scarf around my mouth and nose rather than leaving it wrapped around my neck (which was already covered by coat.)

One problem. I don’t know how to wrap a scarf properly around my mouth and nose.

I see people do it all of the time in movies and on TV. I’ve read books where people do this. I’ve even seen a few people up here in arctic Illinois do it. But when I tried it, the scarf just slipped down. I am scarf illiterate.

TW attempted to model scarf wearing. But, it just made me laugh. I think I need more help than TW can give me.

tw modeling scarf wearing



















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