I always feel like I should do my Statue of Liberty interpretation. You know, "Bring us your tired, your hungry, your whining......" Would that be too much?
It's late here and I am posting this with a black cat meowing plaintively in the background. Last year's Thanksgiving boyfriend with the studio apartment is this year's boyfriend with the real apartment + cat. The cat and I are getting along, mostly. She has claimed my pillow as her sovereign territory, which we spat about, and tonight she is mad that he went to bed and I dare occupy the living room without him.
I can't decide if it is adorable that she wants my constant, ever-loving attention, or merely annoying. When she isn't getting it and adds claws to her gentle nudges, I know the answer to that - it gets her dumped off furniture and shoved out of bed, and she sulks and he laughs at us.
Anyway, you can tell my week is pretty quiet since I am spending most of it locked in... something with a cat. How about you, Pixies? What's the story?
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there is one of those adorable/annoying cats sitting on my desk right now, purring loudly. she is sitting behind the 2 bookends i had to put in back of the keyboard, because otherwise, the keyboard is totally HER space. Boundaries are Very Important.
AW: my cousin is getting married in may! another cousin has enlisted me to help! we like weddings.
W: daughter continues to struggle academically, in her 2d year of college. waiting and seeing, we are. there is some tooth gnashing as well, here at family HQ.
AW: today is my MIL's 80th BD! her best friend pulled off a surprise party! hooray for best friends.
W: additional boob squashing on monday, since something looked funky on the first squash. for the record, ye mammo gods, it is pretty lousy to advise someone of suspicious boobal images by letter, you jerks: get some manners. my doc was reassuring, however.
AW: is there anything so gloriously useful as a brand new huge wheeled recycling bin that takes every kind of plastic and cans and glass containers and paper and cardboard, with no need to sort? i think not.
AW: Lunch with our gracious hostess!!! I <3 Redzils!
W: Stupid work meant I had to cut it short. Ah well, 45 minutes of Redzils is better than no Redzils at all.
W/AW: Coveting Redzils's beautiful Qivet scarf. Sigh.
oh, i'm so incredibly jealous!
more AW: [1] i'm getting GS cookies! from a reliable WW source!
Whine: tired. Last weekend was no break at all, and this weekend looks very far away.
You might have noticed I've been MIA for a couple of weeks. It's not because I have no whining. Mon Deau, non! It is because I went to the hospital last Thursday and remained there until this past Thursday. Whilst I was there I had heart surgery. Totally unexpected heart surgery. I had no clue that surgery was in my immediate future, but evidentally I was just an ignorant fool.
So, the first night I was in the hospital I left the kids alone, disregarding some of your lovely advice because I was SOOL and had no choice. The delightful social worker at the hospital reported me to DSS for leaving my two 16.5 year old children alone for one freaking night. Can you say LIVID?
DSS showed up in my hospital room the second night I was there. Both kids were there as well as two of my support group friends. We were working on a plan before DSS showed up, and they talked to us and took down numbers, etc. and told the kids that they had to check out the house so needed access at 1 pm. Both kids freaked out and went home early next morning and 'cleaned'. Meaning son did next to nothing and daughter did everything, enough to pass the DSS house check.
Kids went to stay with friends during vacation, and I was in touch with them, although they didn't visit very much. Not surprising since they are both self-absorbed teenagers.
Got home and my house was a total mess. Son had decided to stay home the night before I came home and trashed the house. I was FURIOUS.
But the best thing is, he's mad at me for being sick and is on a quick downward spiral and we all know what that means. So I'm home 2 days and dealing with his therapist and his school psych. Because my life is excellent!
Meanwhile daughter is sick and Panera is treating her like crap, so I reported them to board of health and to the state attorney general for unfair labor practices. And then she quit!
I was on NPR Monday morning. If you want to hear the clip, email me or comment here and I'll let you know the URL.
I'm healing OK, very slowly, and my kids are absolutely worthless about helping me. I need someone to cook but they won't so I'm living on yogurt and applesauce. Oh, and a LOT of fruit.
I guess that's about all.
Damn, I forgot to mention the exploding house phenom. We've had FIVE houses explode in the past month in the greater Boston area. All gas leaks. Scares the crap out of me. We have natural gas. Kaboom!
((( margalit ))) -- it sounds like your house already exploded, so i wouldn't worry about the fireplacing natural gas.
where to start? the surgery -- i hope it helped and that you heal well and soon. xoxo hope that a small contingent of casseroles or suchlike make their way to your door. i know the kids are freaked out -- no, they won't say so -- and hope they get some good backup out of the ordeal. sending love, gentle hugs, and virtual food, plus that magic wand.
Whine: my sore throat from last week morphed into...what, exactly? Allergies? A never ending cold? What? Blech.
Whine: the powers-that-be are keeping us in the dark regarding a possible move. Rumor mill says we're moving. But official channels are exasperatingly silent.
Antiwhine: the location that the rumor mill suggests would be very nice.
Whine: the pretty routine schedule that the Sweet Baboo had followed for quite a while has been thrown out the window for unknown reasons, leaving me to guess at the reason for the crankiness.
(((Margalit)))
I'd love to hear your clip. Wish I were closer to provide some practical help.
my daughter barfed tonight. and i caught it. in my hands.
Oh, Amy. That is award-worthy. Sending a hug for your daughter and lots of soap and warm running water for you.
Sending healthy mammo thoughts to KathyA. And have fun with the wedding planning!
Hang in there Margalit. Is it even against the law for 16 year olds to stay at home alone overnight? How stupid to call DSS rather than to see if they could help you.
Oh Amy - the barf. That's just terrible.
My whine is old skool this week - I hate the smell of ketchup. Especially ketchup left on the plate after chicken nuggets. I don't mind eating ketchup, but if the smell persists as an issue, I may have to give it up. If only I could make my son give it up.
I disappointed a friend. I promised to do something that it turned out I needed help from someone else to do, and that person said they would help and hasn't. I can't fix this. I have apologized over e-mail, but there is no reply. I feel like a terrible person. Does it make me a worse person for whining about it?
Also, our internet is dead at work. May be back Friday. Maybe not. I may not make it.
Uccellina, you're not a worse person for whining about it, definitely not - that's what this place is here for. So sorry about the situation.
Margalit, thinking good thoughts for you. Wish they had helped you rather than just calling DSS. Glad you're home at least, may your recovery be
Amy, yargh! bringing the bodily fluids.
I'm bringing the insomnia, procrastination/stress/overwork brand, with a little illness thrown on top. Haven't really slept more than 2 hours in past 3 nights. Crunching on an internal deadline (internal but very important), finding myself completely unable to focus. Today nauseous/wobbly (not from stress b/c the kiddo was too). Worked from home but still not anywhere near there, so hard to focus, but must must must get this done. as i nearly fall asleep in my desk chair. not good. not good at all. having so much trouble with this one.
Forgot to add, I think I have chipped a front tooth and it is bothering me so much -- I keep flossing thinking there's something caught there, but no, I'm pretty sure it's that the front middle tooth is chipped and my tongue can't stop investigating it. Bleah. AW is that I already have a dentist appt for this week - but it's far far away, and if they didn't plan the time to work on that tooth, I'm not sure if i'll have to wait a long time.
aaaaand I have read that lack of sleep can cause hallucinations, and I think it may be - i went into the bathroom and before I turned on the light, I thought there was someone/something in there. but there wasn't, of course.
OK, must leave here and NOT COME BACK till this work is done, nor go to any other place on the interwebs that is not work.
and forgot to add (but will make this quick b/c three in a row is ridiculous) that b/c of upset stomach / nausea I am barely eating. So so stupid b/c I could've napped during the day and then I would be much more productive now. But can't go to bed till this is waaaay further along, nearly done, so I can finish in morning, b/c today was the internal deadline. Yargh.
Amy - eewww....definitely award worthy.
Excellent whineage pixies. Hugs to all.
Whine: Tie Tie. Big boy kitteh decided that crapping in the litter box just wouldn't do, so it was starting to happen in his bed (which is outside of our room).
Night before last, he added the....well, liquid bodily fluid to the bed also. So, I tossed it (no WAY was that smell coming out of the cat bed) - bought him a new one and put him in yet another room (where the litter boxes are really close to the bed).
Anti-whine: He didn't mess up the new bed.
Whine: He woke up at 5:30 and howled until I couldn't stand it anymore at 6:30. I kept thinking he would settle back in and sleep. Not so much.
Now I have a full work day ahead.
Whine: Son #1 flies back Out West tomorrow. The week went way too quickly.
Whine: Did I mention that I'm beyond tie-tie?
Margalit, I'm so sorry and wish I could bring you lasagna.
Amy, Oh God.
Genevieve, go to sleep!!!
AW: My mammo is fine.
AW: My prolactin levels are fine
W: So WTF is up with the 6 years of post-weaning leakage?
AW: My doctor (acually a Nurse Practitioner) is fabulous and also very curious and is sending me to a breast surgeon to get checked out more thoroughly which may lead to
SUPER ANTI-WHINE (Fantasy edition)
What if I can get a breast reduction and have insurance pay for it even though I'm not experiencing any back pain??? Oooh!!!!
Yeah, yeah I know, ohmygod cancer? yadayadayada. I'm not facing THAT fence until I come to it. I might be looking at a C cup!!!! Woot!
Sending healthy waffle-iron breast scrunching wishes to kathy a and celebrating a good mammo for liz. Hooray for your NP - she sounds awesome!
(((margalit))
Visions of maribou dance in my head!
Hugs to the pixies for all these many, many whines.
Amy, was the catching of the puke a whine or an anti-whine? Some folks are proud of their quick reflexes in that department.
Today's immediate whines are jet lag, piles of laundry, and the work I abandoned when I left for the trip. The whines of travel just completed are a bit more complex.
Anti-whine: I drove the freeways and byways of the place where They Say It Never Rains and the driving was relatively uneventful. (There was one close call yesterday very early morning, but My Love had a better view than I did of the car that nearly rear-ended us as I scrambled for an exit. So I'm pretending that one didn't happen.)
Whine: the rest of the trip included some notable events. Including:
- A call from the alarm company at 5:30 am (30 minutes of terror, relieved when neighbor reported all looked fine. Stupid sensor malfunction.)
- My Love ate something that "did not agree with him." Cue bodily fluids and 12 hours of pain. SG and I ate nearly the same things and were fine. Blame seems to belong to the focaccia at Disney.
[Anti-whine: Disney. Had fun.
Whine: Disney. My god, the cost.]
- Also, in the driving category, as I drove s-l-o-w-l-y along a commercial street at 7 am on a Sunday looking for the pharmacy (see: bodily fluids) some jerk honked at me! Honked! Jeez, buddy. There are two lanes. Use the other one.
- The rocket launch we went to see went beautifully. It wasn't postponed past our departure time, the weather was fabulous, the stars were gorgeous in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere. But we found out afterwards that the rocket failed to reach orbit. Dozens of people lost 10 years of work, hundreds of millions of dollars. The science that would have come from it would have been amazing.
Anti-whine: My Love is a side player in that project and has other irons in the fire.
Whine: Let the political jockeying for follow-on projects begin!
Anti-whines: We are home. My Love is eating food again. SG wrote a decent journal entry for school on the airplane, though not without tears.
pixies, the competition this week is FIERCE, not to mention varied, in the bodily fluids category! best to all in resolving the problems.
some nice rest for sue and poor genevieve!
liz just slays me with her fantasy wish, which seems very mullet-worthy.
madeleine, you forgot the next line of the song: "but girl, don't they warn ya, it poooours, man it pours." i think a fireplacing rocket launch is a glorious rock-star of a whine/antiwhine combo -- what a drag that it crashed.
kathy a., I was humming that song the whole time. Also the one about nights in the hills, and the fun, fun, fun song. I was hoping to be near the named Boulevard at sunrise yesterday, but we made it all the way to LAX by sunrise.
It really was a rock-star event, of nerdy inclination. SG took her "VIP" badge to school today to show off.
I'm dreaming of a non-beige bra
That costs less than a new Ford
One that has a front clasp
And won't collapse
From the effort of keeping the girls on board.
I'm dreaming of a non-beige bra
Maybe even one with no underwires
One that's not going to hector
The metal detector
At the airport in front of all the other flyers.
My days would be merry and bright
If my bras weren't only beige and white.
OH, and liz returns with style! brava!
Very nice, liz. My newest acquisitions proclaim that they come in "a variety of skin tones." However. The only ones available in my weird size were much darker than my pasty self! Beige would have been nice, but I guess I can't be picky.
Liz FTW! Awesome song.
I talked to a friend b/c I was feeling panicky, and I worked out a plan - getting some done now, then taking a 2 or 3 hour nap when the kiddo goes to bed, then waking to finish polishing. This has calmed me down such that I have more focus and am getting more of it done now, which is a good thing.
After I get this done, she and I are also going to talk about my coping mechanisms -- I need to deal with my stress earlier on so it doesn't build up like this when I'm on a deadline. Exercise would probably be a huge help with that (husband agrees, having noticed a big difference in my stress levels etc. when I was working out this fall - and I was in such a better mood, so much happier, slept better). He thinks I could use some meditation, which I have tried before and hasn't worked, but I may not have given it enough of a try - I have serious "monkey mind" which will take some focus to learn to calm. Have googled a few articles on methods of meditating w/a monkey mind, and they look helpful. So I have a plan.
I am now getting the creeping crud that everyone else in the general vicinity seems to have had. I can't take tomorrow off because 1) I have Girl Scouts and 2) All my time off is going for a teaching conference coming up.
Would it be really evil of me to wish that Margalit's problem of exploding buildings to relocate to HumidityLikeABrickWall for my school tomorrow? What's that you say? Teachers *aren't* supposed to wish for the imminent implosion of the facility where they work? Dart. I suppose that IS the students' purview....
And, I can't type, either, apparently. That should read "drat." Though maybe darts are a good backup plan....
Crap, I meant to ask this earlier...not precisely a whine.
We are nearing the end of the freezer stash of breastmilk. Shocking, I know. (And a little of a sad moment for the milk-producing mama). The Sweet Baboo's pediatrician has recommended "follow up formula." She says she recommends it for everyone, but especially for preemies. Mr. E and I are skeptical and would prefer, I think, just plain old cow's milk. Hopefully avoiding contamination issues, weird ingredients, etc. Do any of the pixies have experience with the follow up formulas?
I am so pissed right now, you guys...I just have to vent, Or I will literally explode.
A very good friend of mine, who has done so much good for SO MANY people in my community has just gotten shafted in the worst possible way. After 40 years of selfless volunteering, my friend just got backstabbed by people she trusted. I thought I left high school pettiness behind me long ago, and it's so sad to see adults behaving in such a spiteful, vindictive manner. I honestly am so upset right now that I am having trouble forming coherent thought.
Thanks for letting me vent. I'm so glad that I have this community today.
KLee, sorry to hear that. esperanza, how old is the baboo?
Yeah, KLee, that sounds bad, bad, bad. Vent away.
She's 17 months old. Developmentally, on most all fronts, she's around 13 months.
Margalit, I heard you on NPR!!
So sorry to hear that, KLee! Such a helpless feeling to see that happen to a friend.
Madeleine,
I have given it a lot of thought, and I'm just not sure what part of that was anti-whine. It seems like I should be grateful for something, but I just really really really really really really hate vomit. Really. Some new parents say they don't know how they're going to handle diapers and poop and getting peed on, but bring those bodily fluids. I can handle them. Anything from the mouth (e.g., spit or vomit)? Forget it. I'd rather do just about anything else.
After some careful thought, here's how I'd break it down:
She barfed. Whine.
I caught most of it. Whine. (See above hatred of vomit.)
More than half still hit the carpet. Whine.
She trusted me enough to stand there, not panic, and barf where I was telling her to barf. Big Anti-Whine.
Once she was done barfing, that was it - no more overnight or yesterday. Big Anti-Whine.
My husband volunteered to clean up the carpet. BIG BIG BIG BIG BIG Anti-Whine.
You know, as I type this, I should point out that as much as I complain about my husband, he really is a good guy. (See above hatred of vomit.)
Much love to everybody this week. It's a tough week for a lot of us.
Margalit, I cannot even imagine treating my mom like that, but then, I'm not a teenager right now, so I really cannot imagine it. Best of luck for a speedy recovery.
KLee and Genevieve, I'm so sorry.
Esperanza, we did the cow's milk instead of follow up formula. I know that my daughter's eating problems are unusual*, so please take this with a brick of salt. I wish I had done follow up formula. I couldn't get a vitamin in her to save my life, but if she had been on the formula, she would have gotten the added vitamins and minerals and I wouldn't have worried so much, which would have created a better attitude about eating in our house in general. Who knows if that would have helped her eat sooner, but that's how hindsight works in this house. Maybe we would have avoided so much Pedi@sure, which is loaded with sugar but at least she consumes it. If you want to email me to hash out the pros and cons some more, feel free. amy at thetextureofthings dot com.
*Eating problems = she doesn't eat, like, anything ever.
(((KLee)))
Margalit - you are my touch with fame!
esperanza - wish I had some helpful advice, but it's been way too long since my raising-baby days.
Liz - you are SO getting the style award this week. AND the Remembering What it's All About award. You? Rock. Completely.
Good whines pixies!!
esperanza, we used the follow-up formula, but just for a couple of weeks, to ease the transition from formula to milk (because my pumping hadn't kept up with demand in months). If I had a kid who had never taken formula, I probably wouldn't have bothered with it.
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