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Monday, August 11, 2008

Ride on the Whine Train!


Summer is winding down already! Yikes, where did it go? Oh yeah, I was drafted for the Dysfunctional Family Olympic Marathon -- and I'm so ready for some good old-fashioned Random Bullets of Everyday Stuff:
  • Fleas! I need to catch the not-quite-socialized-yet kittens and dose 'em. Please send reinforcements, long leather gloves, humane traps, irresistable cat treats, bandages.

  • Road Warriors. If there is interest, there will be a special prize this week for best dramatic rendition of a road-related tale.

  • How come nobody else thinks doing the dishes is their job? Do they think clean dishes grow on trees, or what?

  • Pawprints in the toilet: go ahead, top that. One of my cats thinks he is a dog.

On the antiwhine side:

  • Flowers!

  • Good cheap Mexican food on a date with my beloved.

  • Stupid comedy DVD's. Strangely addictive.

  • New storage shelves to hold some of my boxes and boxes and boxes of paper, so there's some room in my office for current stuff.

  • Good friends and family.
How's by you, Pixies? All Aboard the Brigadoon Express!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yeah, posting early. I lost my brain someplace, and am filling time until I find it.

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

major, major, major whine folks.
My job has imposed serious internet restrictions and one of the things that is now blocked is anything ending in blogspot.
AAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaahhhhhh!
Now just so we're clear - I am definitely not an addict or anything - 10 minutes is usually all I need to catch up. But during slow times, yes - I definitely can blog surf.
With the new restrictions I'm not sure I can fit in actual whining during the workday (and I'll probably forget during the evening!) so....*sniff sniff* if you guys don't see me for a while *sniff* I'll just be at work - actually working. *WAHHHHHH*

Madeleine said...

Diane, that stinks!

My big anti-whine of the week: Snuggly Girl is now taking all medicines in pill form instead of arguing with us about the liquids or chewables.

Whine: The only form of swallowable calcium I can find that isn't horse-pill sized is made of coral and costs a small fortune.

Anti-whine: easier than dipping Tums in Nutella every morning and then still arguing about it.

kathy a. said...

Oh, Diane! It's a month until the bambino is scheduled to appear, but never too soon to check out the hospital's internet access.

Madeleine -- "easier than dipping Tums in Nutella . . . and then stil arguing about it" is an excellent anti-whine!

Gary said...

Madeleine - they're not immediately swallowable, but would these work?

Madeleine said...

Gary, thanks for the suggestion. We tried those. I thought they were delicious but Snuggly Girl begged to differ.

I really need to find a pregnant woman to whom I can donate the three different flavors of Tums in nearly full bottles.

Jenevieve said...

Antiwhine: Done working at the stoooopid small animal clinic! Back to working at the awesome equine hospital!

Whine: So tired. Always so tired. And when I get home from work, Matt foists the baby onto me. I love the baby, but I'm tiiiiired. Whiiiiiine. I want some dang time to myself to do nothing.

AW: I'm doing a two week trial at Curves, and I love it so far!

Liz Miller said...

I smashed my knee. I thought I'd just banged it, but I'm afraid I actually smashed it.

Anonymous said...

Oh Diane...cursed internet restrictions. My husband's work blocks our family website...and every once in a while my emails to him as well. And if you have internet at the hospital, I shall be quite jealous.

Kathy A--stupid comedy on DVD...definitely an anti-whine. I am a sucker for the sale (<$10) DVDs on Target of the dumb old comedies.

Whine: Camp ends this week. I am not energetic. How will I entertain/ contain/ sustain my lovely children for the next 2 weeks? Darn WI law that school can't start until after Sept 1.

Whine: I am 32 weeks. Could I have dropped already? I felt a shift today and there is so much pressure low down.

Anti-whine: 46 days. The kids are excited. I am excited. My husband and I seem to have reached detente on a name. (No, we're not saying. We never do. And it may change :) I feel OK, if I don't try too much. (and am hoping that whatever downward shift in the whine above will shift up in the night tonight).

Liz Miller said...

AW: Knee only banged after all. Whew.

kathy a. said...

ouchie, oochie, Liz!
hope this does not mean a long
night in the E.R.

Liz Miller said...

I did not go to the ER, I packed ice on it for a few hours last night and then got up and walked on it this morning. All is well when walking up stairs and on level surfaces, not so good going DOWN stairs.

Madeleine said...

Liz, I'm glad to hear your knee is improving. You've probably figured out what works for you, but when I had a knee incident this spring I found that going down stairs I needed to lead with the bad leg and bring the good one to join it. Vice versa for up stairs. Ensures that the bad knee only takes weight when it is straight, not bent.

Whine: Orthodontist consultation for Snuggly Girl this morning. She has approximately the same problem I had as a kid. This means:

whine a1: I get the familial blame. Clearly my genes at play here.

whine a2: I know exactly how unpleasant the palate stretcher is going to be. Oh, yes I do. I remember that little key. Anticipatory anxiety is in full swing. I'm trying to be honest with her without causing outright panic. Time enough for that later.

Anti-whine a1: The aforementioned ability to swallow pills means pain relief will be more convenient than it used to be.

Anti-whine a2: The little rubber bands come in several different shades of purple. She's already picked out what she wants for the first several rounds. "I'll have this one first, then this one, then this one. And for Chanukah, these." (Yellow and blue. Because a dental assistant told her in June that at Christmas you can have green and red.)

Anti-whine a3: My Love's dental insurance started partially covering ortho this summer. Good timing. Sigh.

Sue said...

That sucks Diane. Kathy a...pawprints on the toilet - ew.

Tums in Nutella...hmmmm - what a fool I've been all this time swallowing those horse pills!

Jenevieve - sympathies on teh Tired. Been there. It's hard.

Ouchies to Liz on the knee thing.

Glad you're into the countdown Sarah!

Whine: First appointment last week with structural integrationist. It HURTS, big time - but the head pain that night was lower than usual. Nine more sessions. Very new-agey, but I believe it will be effective.

Anti-whine: Going to another city on Sunday for treatments of myofascial release. It will also hurt apparently, but the doc has a REALLY good reputation for eradicating chronic pain.

Whine: Family doc appt. last night. I have to stay off all pain meds, even otc meds for another 30 days to determine diagnosis. The first 30 days were unbelievably hard - the next thirty - ugh.

Anti-whine: He assured me that if the pain is still there after another 30 days he will medicate me enough to return to work (and do a happy dance that his original diagnosis was correct). Ego much?

Whine: He will be doing a drug-test on me on day 59. A drug test. A fireplacing drug test. After living in hell for 60 days, this is the level of trust I have from him.

Wah.

Liz Miller said...

Sue, I volunteer to take a clue-stick to your GP's kneecaps.

esperanza said...

Liz, I'll join you on Sue's behalf. I'm not sure that I'm aiming for the kneecaps, though.

Diane: that is not fair, just not fair.

And Madeleine, my sympathies to Snuggly Girl. Just the phrase "palate stretcher" brings back all those memories. Heck yes, it hurts. You'd think in almost 30 years they'd have come up with something better. Ow, ow, ow.

As for me, I am teh tired too. Baboo is growth spurting (antiwhine), but she likes to eat in the middle of the night again. Or, alternatively, have a giant party on Saturday night from 11 pm to 2 am. You may remember I'm a pastor. And you might notice that Saturday night comes immediately before Sunday morning. And that Sunday morning would be a particularly good time to be rested. Yeah. I have NO idea what I said Sunday morning.

Sue said...

esperanza, I have no idea how pastors with wee babes manage the Saturday night baby party thing. I'm sure you were brilliant on Sunday even if you can't remember it. My boys were grown when I began ministry, so I have zero advice but lots of pixie sympathy.

Thanks for the clue-stick esperanza and liz, especially for the aim, which we all know is vital.

Anonymous said...

Sarah, here's hoping everything moves upward, if only for your comfort. About a month ago (I'm 32 weeks this week, too), my boy chose to move as far upward as possible - somewhere in the neighborhood of my collarbone. It happened fast, lasted a week, and then he moved back to middle-land. He also spends a day or two at a time on the left or right, so my belly almost always looks like a Frankenbelly. It's really quite attractive.

My whine this week is a case of same-ol', same-ol'. How fireplacing hard is it to put the condiments away after dinner? If you ask my husband, he'll just say he's sorry (again) for the loss of the mayo/sprinkle-cheese/whatever, but if you watch his pattern of behavior, it's clear that it's really, really hard for a human being to do.

I think the key for him is related to a misguided belief about responsibility. I believe that the last person to use the condiments is responsible, or possibly the person who did not make dinner (that would be him). But he seems to subscribe to the school of thought that if my hands touched or could have touched the condiment in any way during dinner prep or dinner proper, then it's my responsibility to put them away. Even if I excuse myself from the table to go lie down 10 minutes before he's done because I don't feel well.

And yes, if you're wondering, last night's dinner dishes are still at the table right now, along with the brand new deli-case cheese that cost $4.

Oh. Wait. Is this just the pregnancy irritability talking again? I can't tell from this side of things. Gah.

esperanza said...

Sue, all you have to do is take the wee babe with you to church. Her cuteness blinds and deafens the sweet elderly parishioners to anything silly you yourself may be saying.

At least that's our tactic so far. The problem is, Daddy's a preacher too, in a different congregation. This distraction technique can only be used in one congregation per week, unfortunately.

Liz Miller said...

I have an idea for your husband, Amy. Any condiments (or expensive cheese) left out that he should have put away, he has to use instead of shampoo. That way they won't go to waste.

Anonymous said...

oh, liz, i could kiss you for the idea, but i live too far away and i don't feel like traveling. will you accept virtual chocolate as thanks instead?

Anonymous said...

I was all set to whine about technological problems—I spent close to an hour trying to figure out why my headset stopped working, preventing me from talking to Dancing Girl on Skype, but now I’ve bigger fish to fry—the REASON she walked to talk.

While I was troubleshooting she wrote her dad a long email, explaining all the hidden/unexpected costs she’s running in to while she’s doing her semester in Mexico. If current trends continue, these items (none of them large in themselves) will easily total another $500/month that we didn’t budget.

We don’t have that kind of money lying around; Bert and I are very average people. Bert was so angry that he was all set to yank her home until I pointed out that if we did that she’d have no housing and no fall classes.

We’re Costing All You’re Making University has been extremely opaque about all these things, adding to our ire. Moreover, in an extremely clueless move, they sent DG’s financial aid paperwork to our house earlier this week, with an 8/21 due date. DG is in MEXICO, and these forms must be signed by HER. Ain’t no way in hell she will even GET them before the 21st, let alone get them completed, signed and back in the City Like No Other by the deadline. We can’t do it ourselves because DG turns 20 the day after the paperwork deadline. We’re not even sure how strictly the financial aid people will interpret FERPA—they may not even talk to us.

Antiwhine: Skype headset is working again. No clue what was wrong or what I did to fix it.

NUD