Nine Lives?

My Kitty is sick.  I wont bore you with all the details, but suffice it to say that his kidneys are failing and he's not long for this world.  Rob and I are actually giving him sub cutaneous fluids, with a needle and an IV pole and everything, which is something I thought I would never do for one of my animals.  It wont cure him, but it will make him comfortable enough until its his time to go.

Surprisingly, my daughter was completely undone by this news.  She sobbed that she wasn't ready for him to go, which is kind of weird because he hardly lets her touch him.  Neither one of my cats give two shits about my kid, and the most they do is tolerate her, and maybe - MAYBE - sit on her lap while she watches TV, as long as there is a blanket between them. 

I have been as stoic as I expected to be at a time like this.  I'm sure it will get worse, and then he will be gone, and we'll all be sad.  He is a very good boy, very skiddish, but sweet, and not nearly as much trouble as the big, black cat, who, while two years older than Sam, is healthy as a horse. 

So, every other night, I hold him on my lap while Rob slips the needle between his shoulder blades and the fluid drips in.  The hardest part for him seems to be sitting on my lap for five whole minutes.  He'll sit perched on my hip all night long, but being held on my lap is his version of hell.

He's doing okay, and for all I know we could be giving him these fluids for the next year or so.  I'll let you know.  In the meantime, I'll clean up his occasional barf with a little less annoyance than I did before...

Brighter Whites!

If you've been a reader for a while, you might remember when I had all that trouble with my dryer, and it took a month to fix, and only got fixed at all because I cried in front of the Sears repairman.  (Yeah, SEARS, I'm calling you out as a horrible repair service!  Deal with it!) Well I have since found an excellent repair service, named Fred, and I love him and believe everything he says because he is honest and hardworking and once spent two hours with his head in my dryer trying to fix a problem while Sears stayed maybe ten minutes and did nothing at all. 

Two weeks ago today, I was blithely doing laundry, when suddenly the mesmerizing wawawawa of the spin cycle turned in to Ka-CHUNK-a-BlunkCHUNK etc.  I ran from my room to the washer and shut it off, tripping on my rug in the process and possibly breaking my big toe.  Luckily the spin cycle was almost over when the washer crashed and burned, so I put the laundry in the dryer (which works fine, but makes an annoying Wa-shhhhh sound with every turn of the drum) and iced my toe and contemplated going to the ER.

I've heard people can have broken toes for weeks and not know it, and I've also heard there's nothing to be done for a broken toe, so I decided to limp around and ignore it.  (I told you I'm tougher than I used to be.) 

Guess which toe it was?

My darling Fred gave it to me straight: Time for a new washer.  And as long as I'm getting a new washer, they may as well match, so time for a new dryer, too.

I was not super excited to spend this money, but once the machines got here, I washed everything in my house, and used all the different cycles, and marveled at the fact the clothes came out of the dryer warm (guess the heat wasn't working in the old dryer) and cleaner than ever.  I even washed pillows.  It was awesome.  And pretty quiet without the wawawa's and the ka-shhhhhhs.  How sad that discovering that the "whites" cycle included a second rinse was so thrilling to me.  This is what its come to: Suburban appliance ecstasy. 

I was so excited, that I went onto YouTube and learned how to clean my hardwood floors since I can't put them in the washer.  Then I bought a mop.  Things are getting weirder and weirder...

The bruising on my toe is mostly gone now, and it only hurts a little by the toe-knuckle.  Do you think its broken?

The Blitz is Blown

Notice I haven't mentioned the blitz in a while?  Well...

I stopped walking, and then I stopped counting calories, and now I've gained back all the weight I lost.  I'm not sure about the last one because I'm too scared to go on the scale. But if the powdered doughnut holes from Trader Joes that I'm eating right now, along with the coke I'm drinking are any indication, I've packed it back on.

I'm also still having all these sleep issues.  For a while, it was that I couldn't get to sleep so I was tired all day.  Now I'm getting to sleep fine, but I'm still tired all the time.  Do any of you readers have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome?  I have never thought this was a real thing, like Restless Leg Syndrome, but now I'm wondering if I have it.  That's why I haven't been posting very much: I'm asleep all the time, and if I'm not asleep, I'm trying very hard to stay awake while behind the wheel of my car.

Every night I go to bed and tell myself, "Tomorrow will be different.  I will not go back to bed after Leila leaves for school.  I will DO THINGS, and WALK THE DOG." But it rarely turns out differently, and I often go back to bed until 10.  What a waste.

So, if you're keeping track: I'm fat, lazy, sleepy, slothy, and probably all the rest of the dwarfs, including Doc since the internet and I are diagnosing all my problems.

No Bodily Fluids for Me, Thanks

I know, I know, its been a while.  I've been lazy lazy lazy.

So, I have been thinking lately that I could totally become a nurse.  My BFF is a nurse, and when we were in college together I couldn't even watch movies with fake blood in them let alone consider dissecting a cadaver.  I got nightmares after I watched Die Hard. 

I feel like I've gotten tougher in my old age, less fearful, more okay with blood and guts (one of my favorite shows is Dexter, take that Die Hard) and I have a great memory for drug names and medical facts, so I think, if I wanted to, which I don't, I could totally become a nurse. 

Switch to a few weeks ago when I agreed to babysit my friends' kids.  I haven't taken care of these kids all that often, but when they were babies, I did watch them a couple of times and every time the youngest would take an enormous shit in his/her diaper.  My own child's diaper/snot/vomit never bothered me, but other kids' junk makes me gag.  But this is before I got tougher, you see.  I'm much tougher now.

So we start the babysitting journey with dinner, during which the youngest, 5, comes out of the bathroom and says, "Hey! My poop is purple!" Luckily Mom and Dad are still there at this point, so they can look at the poop and make the appropriate mental notes (lay off the beet juice.) They leave and we're having a good time, and I've brought Double Stuff Oreos for dessert, and when dinner is over, I get the five year-old to take a shower by telling him he should try to beat the world record for the world's shortest shower.  I want him to take a shower because he keeps saying that he hopes he doesn't have purple poop in his underwear. 

I am not allowed to watch him take a shower, nor would I since I'm just the babysitter, but his sister does and tells him to "just soap up your hand and wash your butt crack."  No purple poop, and the shower was only 53 seconds.  He gets out and doesn't want me to see him naked, so he puts a shoe over his pee pee.  I, of course, take a picture and text it to his parents.  We are laughing at the shoe, and suddenly the middle child, 8, says, "I think I'm gonna throw up."  I respond like a do with my own kid and tell her, "You're probably not going to throw up, but go on over to the toilet just in case."  The poor thing pukes her little guts out.  This is the part where I realize that, tough though I may be, I could never, ever, be a nurse.  I want to go over to her and hold back her hair and rub her back and say soothing things, but I'm too busy trying not to barf myself.  Meanwhile, the 5 year-old is in his little boxer briefs rambling on and on about God knows what.  I have to interrupt him to say, "Give me a minute, your sister is barfing." 

The barfing girl is a real trouper though, and she takes care of business, and decides she is ready for dessert.  I am stupid, so I say, "Okay! Oreos it is!"  We have our dessert, and I put the kids to bed, and little girl whimpers that she is just going to sleep on the floor of the bathroom in case she barfs again.  I say no way, and bring her downstairs with me where we snuggle in on the couch and look at books and magazines.  She ends up puking up the oreos, and I was much better about being there for her.  Not that much better, but a little better.  And somewhere in the middle of all of this purple poo and barf, the dog peed on the rug. 

So, I am crossing nurse off my list of possible things to be when I grow up.  Rock Star is still on there, because you never know, but nurse is off.  As is flight attendant, the reasons for which are also puke related.

Hoooo-ters

So, about Colonial Williamsburg:  Its awesome, you should go there.  I had no real interest in going there, but went because Leila is in the thick of her revolutionary war/colonial times section at school, culminating in Colonial Day, where we parents have to cobble together a colonial costume and watch the kids square dance.  So we went to Colonial Williamsburg because we take our child's education seriously, and we are the world's best parents. 

We started our visit with the Tavern Ghost Walk which describes all the paranormal happenings in the haunted houses of Colonial Williamsburg.  The place does seem kind of haunted.  I did not see any ghosts, but I really wanted to.  Leila was riveted. 

Then we went to Outback Steakhouse, where Leila has been dying to go ever since she started liking steak.  It was on a strip of Regular Williamsburg (as opposed to the Colonial part) with every chain restaurant and hotel currently in existence.  After that, we went to Dairy Queen, (or, The Haunted Dairy Queen) which was right across the street from a Hooters.

I've never actually been to a Hooters, but I know about the scantily clad waitresses and the weird panty-hose.  Leila saw the cartoonish logo and asked, "What's that place?" 

"Hooters." I told her.

"What do they serve there?" asked she, probably looking for a back-up steak place.

"Wings," I said, "Owl Wings."

At first, she didn't believe me, but I made a pretty convincing argument given their owl logo and the name Hoooo-ters.  I told her they were grilled and deep fried, and kept hitting Rob in the leg so he wouldn't ruin the good feminist* thing I had going. (*I realize this feminism was based on lies and aversion therapy, but I'm okay with that.)

Rob gets nervous when she starts to become enraged with the inhumanity of the world, so he tried to soften my story by saying, "They also serve burgers."

Me: "Yeah, owl burgers."

Leila: "Mom!  That's so disgusting!"

Me: "Well, what are they supposed to do with the owl carcass once they cut the wings off? It would be more disgusting if they just wasted it all."

And this is how I have (hopefully) forever associated Hooters with something repugnant and vile in the tender mind of my daughter.  See?  World's best parent. 

Pukey McBarfsalot

Yes, I've been on vacation.  A mad cap tour of the Washington D.C. metro area.  I like to write about these trips backwards, so I'll start with the flight home.

We flew Virgin America, which I loved, but not enough to embrace turbulence.  I hate turbulence and have been known to grip the knees of strangers during bouncy flights.  To prepare for this. I took a leftover xanax from my crown.  Bless my dentist.  Then I had a glass of wine.  The plane bumped, and I took another half xanax.  I was still wide awake, and freaking out.  Rob asked the flight attendant to ask the pilot how long the turbulence would last, which she kindly did, and then she brought me more wine on the house and said she'd keep it coming.  So, if you're counting, that's .75 mgs of xanax, and two good sized glasses of chardonnay. 

The turbulence ends, and I'm feeling better, thought not at all sleepy.  I arrange my head and arms on my tray table and try to sleep, but no dice.  Then Leila starts getting jittery.  She's bored, she can't sleep, she's starting to come out of her skin, she's hungry, etc. etc.  I tell her to eat the peanut butter sandwich I made for her.  She says its gross because the honey has saturated the bread and the whole thing is a sticky mess.  So I tell her to suck it up and try to sleep, and she keeps jittering and whining.  I look over to Rob who is, of course, asleep.  The man can sleep anywhere, any time, and I can hardly sleep in a bed, in the dark, after some ambien. 

Suddenly Leila says. "I'm gonna throw up!  I have to go to the bathroom! I'm gonna throw up!!!" I manage to find the air sickness bag and the poor thing barfs her little guts out into the bag.  I will note, now, that she did not end up eating the gross peanut butter sandwich, so don't start blaming me for her stomach upset.  I woke Rob, and made him get up to let us into the aisle (he didn't want to, he wanted us to climb over him) and I took my poor little baby to the bathroom to wash her face and hands, get some apple juice and fizzy water, and then we sat back down.

She ended up throwing up 4 more times, once in the car on the way home.  I got a pile of air sickness bags from the flight attendant, and Rob said he probably would need one, too.  He felt like crap, and was in no shape to help me deal with a puking 11 year old. One of the bags ripped as I handed it to Leila, and she puked in her lap.  I made use of the airplanes clean-up kit, which includes rubber gloves, bags for puked on clothes, regular wipes, aromatherapy wipes, and a haz mat bag for all your clean up items.  Worked pretty well.

So, its a good thing that all my drugs and the third glass of wine didn't kick in.  I had to get all the luggage and carry everything, and take Leila to the bathroom in the airport to wash her face again, while Rob laid on a bench looking green.  He did not end up throwing up, thank goodness.

We got home at midnight, slept well, and everyone felt fine in the morning, except me, because all those drugs and all that alcohol finally kicked in so I slept all day.  Then I couldn't sleep again during the night. 

I can totally see how people become addicted to prescription drugs.  Its so tempting!

Next, in stark contrast, I'll be telling you all about Colonial Williamsburg.

Golden Girl

I was watching Golden Girls this weekend.  Its part of the new line up on TV Land, and I'm sometimes so desperate to watch TV that I watch bad TV from the 80s. 

Golden Girls is pretty racy.  I started watching it with Leila, and I was all, "Nope, not appropriate for you.  Back to cooking shows.  Or Sex in the City."  That Blanch: What a slut.

But here's the thing about Golden Girls.  I remember this show as one about three older women whose husbands are either dead or divorced out of the picture, living together in Florida, possibly in a retirement community, with an ancient Italian woman.  The episode I watched the other day had Blanch thinking she was pregnant and then finding out she was going through menopause.  MENOPAUSE. 

Think about this for a minute:  This means that the Golden Girls, who were, like, 70 when I was first watching it in prime time in the 80s, were really around 50.  This means that I am almost old enough to be a Golden Girl!  I have friends who would totally qualify to live in that house in Florida!  My mother would be the ancient Italian grandma (only my mom would be German and wouldn't be caught dead in a house coat.) 

These Girls are not Golden!  They are far from it!  Bea Arthur totally could have dyed her hair and not looked 70.  In fact, the woman who played Sofia, Bea Arthur's mother, was younger than Bea Arthur.  What were we thinking in the 80s?  That women in their 50s were dried up old ladies? (Except for Blanch who was anything but dried up.)

I'm not sure why, but I feel insulted by this.  Almost as insulted as I feel when I notice that the Huxtables have 5 children, two full time jobs, and you never see a babysitter or a cleaning lady on any episode. 

I really have to stop watching so much TV...