The last thing I did Monday night

...was invent a new way to fall. I took a step backward to let the dog in and tripped over my own feet, staggered into the wall, banged one leg on the dog's table and the other on the floor when I went down on one knee.

Then on Tuesday morning, the company who'd said they couldn't come Monday didn't call, and when I called them, they said they couldn't come Tuesday, either. The guys from the water-proofing company showed up and said there wasn't anything they could do to help. So Tuesday morning I put every rag I had in the house on one of the giant basement puddles and put the dog down there and felt bad.

I got to work about 10:30 and started helping Mom with trial prep, and called Snoopy to see if I could borrow his shop vac. He said he'd go over around two and replace the bathroom faucet he was supposed to replace last weekend and clean up the water. Mom and I got the trial prep done, took a couple of minutes for lunch, and I managed to get out of there by 4:30.

Little Miss Piggie Pie was waiting for her dinner when I got home, and Snoopy was just finishing up in the bathroom. I fed her and put her outside and then back in again, and then Snoopy dragged his shop vac down to the basement. It took him about an hour, but he got most of the remaining water off the floor, yay. Then I had four loads of rags to wash, but at least I had a damp basement rather than one with standing water in it and I'm only out $100 for Snoopy's labor. Of course, that doesn't count the bump in my gas bill from having the heat on so high for so long and the bump in my electric bill as well, sigh.

I was so tired I didn't even take a bath Tuesday night, and my muscles were really screaming from the fall when I woke up this morning. However, I had the satisfaction of knowing that Mom went to court with her ducks not just in a row, but lined up with military precision. The hearing got continued because opposing counsel didn't have his ducks even the same room, but Mom did get one of the things she asked for, court-ordered mediation.

Tonight, Mom's at Antique Club and I am definitely going to use one of my hoarded, discontinued, cinnamon-mint Lush bubble bars to soak my aching muscles in!

I've always known I hated Mondays,

I just never knew Mondays hated me back.

The MS flareup is still ongoing, making it very difficult for me to do anything much more than type with my left hand (and at that, I'm wishing I didn't need to capitalize any of the letters I type with my right hand). I still managed to get the bathroom cleaned and the laundry done yesterday, at which time every thing in the house was normal.

I knew today and tomorrow were going to be absolutely crazy at work, because Mom has a big trial coming up on Wednesday and so there'd be a lot of copying, collating, etc. for me. I was already half-dreading the day as I showered, got dressed and packed my lunch, but that was nothing compared to the fact that when I went to put Piggie Pie in the basement there was standing water at the bottom of the steps. I left her down there, went in to work, went through the mail from Friday and Saturday and called both of Mom's afternoon appointments to cancel. I also made all the copies of the finally balanced accounting from last week and got them ready for Mom to take to court and checked the voice mail. By the time Mom got there at 9:15, I had the decks cleared enough so that I could come home and call my insurance agent.

Of course, said agent isn't sure whether the damage is covered, but he gave me the name and number of a cleanup guy and started the claim process. Michael, the cleanup guy, was booked solid today and is hopefully going to come out early tomorrow, because I made a point of telling his office that I had to be at work to do trial prep.

Please note that at no point in this process did I call my father. Dad is pretty much out of the home repair business after almost killing himself with work on his own house last summer, and right now, I can't manage cleaning up the basement, even if he had brought me a mop and bucket. I couldn't even do my usual trick of putting towels down and then taking them to the washing machine in a basket--there's just too much water!

I did put on my boots and go down and check, and the water appears to be coming in the west wall, and it's pretty much all gone towards the south (front) and east walls, which means that it is away from the furnace, water heater, washer and dryer (good) but far away from the sump pump (bad). At some point while I was exploring and evaluating, Mom called Dad.

Dad called me, told me he couldn't do anything but said he'd come over after dinner with his mop and bucket. I have not told Dad about the flareup, because he's going through enough medical crap on his own, so I didn't tell him that wouldn't work, just said that my insurance guy wanted me to have the pro clean it up. Dad then yelled at me for not keeping better track of the one piece of paper we have regarding the alleged basement waterproofing done two decades ago. I declined to get into that with him, because while I believe that Mom has said piece of paper, I also know that I could have stuck it "someplace safe" and I'm tired of hearing about it from him.

Mom called about 6:30 and said she'd found it, and gave me the name of the company plus the phone numbers from the sheet of paper. Dad said he'd looked them up online and they had a good rating both with Angie's List and the BBB, but he couldn't give me the url because he used Google and just went straight to the site. I used Google too, but got several different companies in different states with the same name. I finally found it and wrote down the number. The last thing Dad said to me was, "Don't make an appointment for tomorrow." I said I had to, because I can't leave Little Miss in a wet basement. His response was, "Your mother needs you more than your dog does."

I hung up on him. I am SO sick and tired of him being a crabby ass bastard that if he were here, I'd hit him with his own damn mop.

*breathe breathe breathe*

I did reach three different guys at the waterproofing company, and someone will be at my house between 8:30 and 9:00 tomorrow morning to take a look. I tried to call Mom to tell her, but the phone's busy, and since they have call waiting, I think maybe crabby ass bastard took the phone off the hook. Fine, I'll call in the morning and wake his crabby ass up.

Wahooooooo!

Mom and I got the accounting balanced, and I am not going to say one word about the client. *zip*

Little Miss Piggie Pie had a dental cleaning with anesthesia this morning, which mean no food or water after 10 last night. She was a very sad doggie when I dropped her off this morning, and a very NAGGY doggie when I picked her up. Per the standard instructions, she got half a normal dinner at 7, and I just gave her the other half, so she has now forgiven me and is sleeping by my chair. This morning, LMPP was a good girl and got on the scale (and she is two pounds overweight, the little fatbutt!) but then sat down and looked at me when the tech tried to take her downstairs. I had to leave before the guilt ate me.

So tomorrow is a matter of getting all the forms ready for the accounting and then holding down the fort while Mom takes three accountings over to court, eek. Then it will be the blessed, blessed weekend!

I can haz Friday?

Mom and I have been working for weeks on an accounting that just won't balance. Today we decided that my short day tomorrow will be a long day so we can go over all of the numbers from start to finish, and the whole thing makes me feel like a failure. In my head I know it's not my fault it doesn't balance, but that doesn't change my feelings about the whole thing. I just want to hide under the bed whenever I think about it. :(

It's official!

For their 50th anniversary, Mom and Dad are taking the whole famdamily on a cruise at Christmas time 2012. We'll be going on the new Disney Fantasy and I'm going to have my own room! With a balcony! Time to start saving money for fun spending. :)

In the meantime, I am struggling with the fact that it's now been more than a year since I was laid off and I've had only two in-person interviews and with the fact that I'm having a MS flare-up which consists of hands (especially the left) feeling like they're swollen when they're not, very painful and tingling more than usual. Also, there is a pompous, pretentious, patronizing, preening jerk on Goodreads I'd like to slap into next week and I've been very bad about sticking to my workout schedule. I'm not sure what I need, but I need something.

Why bush babies shouldn't drive

Last Sunday was bad, what with falling hard on my butt onto iced-up concrete and a few other small disasters, Monday was worse with a tough workday which ended with the discovery that at some point I'd lost the left lens out of my glasses and failed to notice until I went to put them on to drive home.

I managed to get through Tuesday and Wednesday without killing myself or anyone else, and made a Thursday appointment for an eye exam. It had been two years since my last exam, so I was due anyway. The good news was that my right eye hadn't changed, only my left was a bit worse. That was good both because it was the left lens I needed replaced and because my right eye is my dominant eye, so I was okay to use my old glasses for a couple of days. I had a nice chat with the receptionist about knitting, and was about to leave when she commented that my eyes were still dilated and maybe someone should come get me. I assured her I didn't have far to go, and left.

Usually, when I have an eye appointment, it is in January or February, and every appointment I've had until now has been on an overcast or full-on snowy day. Thursday was different. It was sub-freezing cold but brilliantly sunshiny, and in the four minutes it took me to drive less than a mile home, I was in acute pain. I had intended to measure the distance between my pupils so I could get a spare pair or two of glasses from Zenni, but when I looked in the mirror, I didn't even see irises, my eyes were all pupil and I looked like a bush baby. So I took a nap. Two hours later my eyes still hadn't gone back to normal, so I did some desultory knitting, ate dinner, had a bath and went to bed early.

Happily, my replacement lens was done on Friday, so I will be ordering my spare pair(s) soon. Plus, Mom paid for a nice lunch for all of us yesterday, and we had an enjoyable hour, so the week ended much better than it began.

Workout stats (a work in progress)

Water walking, 02/05/11:

Steps in to building: 84 (was lazy and parked near the door, plus it's COLD)
Steps in first 2-minute jog: 184
Steps in second 2-minute jog: 192
Steps in third 2-minute jog: 170 (lazy, lazy, lazy)

Water walking, 02/12/11:

Steps in to building: 134
Steps in 4-minute jog: 292

Observing cats

Everyone with MS needs to spend some time watching cats. Not only do you learn about the importance of personal grooming and frequent napping, you can also learn the nonchalant walking-away stalk which clearly conveys "I meant to do that" even when "that" is something incredibly stupid.

One of my fun MS symptoms is occasional spasming of my right hand and arm. Of course I am right-handed, so if I happen to be holding something in my right hand, it goes flying. Usually it's a pen, but it has on occasion been a knitting needle, a cracker, a cigarette...

Today I essentially threw a stapler halfway across my mom's desk, and then had to explain about the spasms and my "I meant to do that" theory. Twenty minutes later, it happened again, this time while I was holding the lid to the large glass jar she keeps her paper clips and binder clips in. I just said "I meant to do that" and we went on getting subpoenas ready, so I must be getting better at the nonchalance.

Snow Spam!

Book review

Ghost Ocean by S.M. Peters

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


First of all, whoever listed this on Goodreads as "Whitechapel #2) was smoking something that isn't tobacco. This book has absolutely nothing to do with Whitechapel Gods.



Second, Ghost Ocean is not nearly as imaginative as S.M. Peters's first book. In fact, it's pretty much a decently-written Charles de Lint knock-off. Plucky twenty-something in an unspecified North American city must find the magic within her and undergo hideous trials to save the world, etc. If you like that sort of thing, read one of de Lint's books rather than this one.



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Nibbled to death by ducks

While the storm on the East Coast is causing the city of Atlanta to shut down entirely, here in the Midwest, we're supposed to be used to this, and we're expected to shut up and get on with our lives. While I would like a snow day or two, it usually doesn't bother me to drive into work through a ton of softly falling snow.

However, today was different. First of all, the roads weren't even close to clear. Second, the driver in front of me had his hazards on despite the fact that everyone was driving slowly. Thirdly and possibly most important, I've been off my anti-depressant since Friday. My neuro's office pretty much decided that I don't get refills on either my Lexapro or my Neurontin until I come see the doc and get another MRI.

Yesterday I logged on to the Cleveland Clinic's website and requested appointments for my MRI with sedation and a follow-up with my doc, both to be scheduled on the same day. When I got home, there was a mumbled message on my answering machine saying that I had the MRI on February 8th and the doctor's appointment on February 24th. Of course it was too late to call and reschedule when I got the message, so I listened to it three times and wrote down all the numbers.

After my icky drive in, I took care of the urgent things that needed to be done at the office, then called the number left on my answering machine. I got the main switchboard and some jerk named Michael who got snippy with me for not having enough digits in the extension I'd requested and then for not having even part of the Mellen Center scheduling's extension correct. He put me on hold before I could snap back that I was repeating the number I was given and I was very sorry people had called off work but he didn't need to take it out on me. When he transferred me, the phone line got goofed up and everything had a loud echo to it, including the Clinic ads, hold music, and the person answering my call at scheduling.

The woman who took my call at the scheduling desk was also less than thrilled to help me. At first she tried to tell me that doctors don't allow same day MRIs and follow-ups because the patients aren't coherent. When I told her I'd done it that way for the past six years and if I wasn't coherent, my mom would be coherent for me, since I had to have a driver anyway, she asked why I couldn't do the appointments on two separate days. I tried to explain that A. I have a 45 minute drive one-way from my house to the Clinic and B. Now that they are charging $40 extra every time you set foot on their property, I can't afford more than one visit per year. [Name redacted because it's distinctive] said that it was not her fault about the charges, and anyway, the one-day appointments would be too far apart because MRIs were at 9 or 10 in the morning and then the doctor's appointments were all in the afternoon. I told her that was fine, that's what I always did, which was in my appointment record, which caused her to snap at me that she couldn't read charts.

I asked her to please schedule me for one of those days with a morning MRI and afternoon follow-up, and suddenly the appointments in February and March disappeared and the first thing I could get was April 8th. FINE.

My next call was to the doctor's office, and of course I didn't have his number and had to go by the listing on the Clinic's website, which was for the Neurology Department rather than the Mellen Center. Thankfully, that time I had a real person who cheerfully transferred me.

At the doc's office, I was on hold for a long time, but again I figured they'd had call-offs. When one of the admins answered the phone, I told her that I was out of Lexapro and Neurontin and couldn't get an appointment until April, so could someone please call me about refills? She checked my chart and said, "You requested a refill via e-mail on Monday and we sent it to your pharmacy yesterday." I asked why I hadn't gotten a notification for said refill and she said they don't do notifications any longer (apparently, they expect their patients with memory problems to call the pharmacy until they actually get a refill). At this point, I was upset and frustrated, but managing to hold on to my temper and hold off tears.

My next phone call was to the pharmacy, where I was informed that instead of one month refills on the Lexapro and three month refills on the Neurontin, the doctor's office had gotten it backwards. Oh, yay, time to call the doc again. This time, the tears were a lot closer to the surface, but a different admin swore that they'd call the pharmacy and correct the error.

Right now, I'm afraid to call the pharmacy and check, but I have to admit it will be nice to lie in bed and not have pins and needles in my arms and legs keep me from sleeping, and maybe to be on an even enough keel that I'm not fantasizing about threatening to firebomb a major medical center.

Book Review

Not Less Than Gods by Kage Baker

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


The world in this book is well-constructed, but the characters are more two-dimensional than three, and the plot is more a series of vignettes than a full story. I suspect that readers of The Company series will enjoy the book quite a bit, it just doesn't hold up all that well as a stand-alone novel.



This book was sent to me for review.



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Christmas, Act II

Since approximately two-thirds of the family was in Texas on Christmas Day, today was Christmas, Act II. Mom and Dad left Dallas on Thursday and arrived in Columbus around sixish last night. This morning, I locked up the dog and the house and drove down for breakfast and presents.

Anabel made a simple but awesome breakfast of eggs, potatoes, bacon, quiche, muffins and corned beef hash. After demolishing the food, we talked for a bit and then got on with the giving.

I was so excited about the gifts I'd brought that I was practically bouncing, and I made sure that at least two of my gifts were in the first round handed out. I got my nephews those reindeer that poop jelly beans, and that's what they opened first from me. Super Doughnut got two Nintendo DS Club Penguin games, and I got The Awesome Nacho a Halo MegaBloks kit and remote control vehicle. I got Anabel scrubs from Lilypad and Skindecent, and a pretty dark brown cardigan. Mom and Dad got their gifts from me in Texas, but I always give Mom a Santa for Christmas, and I found these earrings from Hummingbird Hill and couldn't resist them. I got Jeeves a book he asked for and a DVD of Hogfather.

I got a pair of purple suede gloves from The Awesome Nacho; a pair of navy velvet and satin slippers from Super Doughnut; a purple plaid shirt, purple vest, purple ruffled scarf, blue and white picture frame, black chenille gloves, green and black chenille Christmas socks and a hand-knitted black and white scarf and hand-knitted boiled wool brown and copper hat from my mom (technically both parents, but yeah, from Mom) and some of my favorite Lush products from Anabel. Mom, Anabel and I all got hand-painted ornaments from Jeeves, a tradition he created years ago and has stuck with ever since.

Of the three of us, Jeeves is the most observant of traditions and the most affected by them. This summer, Mom brought over a bag of stuffed animals she'd found in the attic and assumed were mine. They were actually Jeeves's stuffed animals, including his teddy bear. Then when Captain Crossword was here in October, we were talking about how Dad's mother always had her white and gold candy dish filled with pink wintergreen lozenges, and Jeeves mentioned that he really liked them.

So I decided that my unofficial Christmas gift to my beloved brother was going to be his teddy bear, Gramma H's candy dish, and a bag of pink wintergreen lozenges. Of all the gifts I gave and got, I think that was my favorite, just for the expression on my brother's face when he saw Teddy.

My Christmas list

1. Spend four days in Dallas: check
2. Watch three animated movies and a live ballet performance: check
3. Watch people I love open and enjoy presents I chose for them: check
4. Watch my brother do an arabesque in order to turn on the Christmas tree lights without stepping on the presents: check



5. Spend quiet time with people I love: check
6. Eat tons of awesome food: check
7. Get awesome Christmas gifts: check
8. Come home to a dog delirious with joy at being released from doggie jail: check

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season!

More picspam

I just had to share pictures of the Box Sherri sent me because it's so very cute:

Christmas Dog

"They will pick out your nursing home"

That's what I kept chanting to myself Friday night, as I wrestled with putting together gingerbread houses for my nephews. The original plan for the second weekend in December was the same as it has been for the second weekend in December for the last four years. Mom would go down to Columbus, pick up the boys and bring them up here for a weekend at her house. We would all go out to dinner and a live performance of some sort on Saturday night, and Sunday morning the boys and I would decorate gingerbread houses. Then we would have lunch and birthday presents for Super Doughnut, whose birthday is the 18th.

This year, SD had his first Saturday morning basketball class, so Mom was going to drive down Friday night and bring the boys back early Saturday afternoon. We had tickets to see A Christmas Carol and reservations at a nice restaurant for dinner beforehand. Thursday night, my dad saw a review of the show in the newspaper that praised it as a very good, very dark and VERY scary version of the classic, so Mom decided not to take the boys. Then on Friday, we started hearing about the next big storm headed our way, with up to two feet of snow. The snow is predicted to start on Sunday, just when Mom would be driving to Columbus to take the boys home, and then back by herself. She was pretty upset and miserable, caught between wanting to celebrate SD's birthday and being afraid that the weekend was going to be a complete wash.

Friday morning, I suggested that I ask Snoopy to let Piggie Pie out and feed her, and that Mom and I go to Columbus for the day. Annabel was agreeable, and I told her that she and Jeeves could do whatever they had planned for the day and Mom and I would stay with the boys. Friday night, I was putting together gingerbread houses and making a giant chocolate chip cookie for SD's birthday, and having trouble with every step of both projects. I just kept telling myself that the boys would be the ones picking out my nursing home, so I'd better be nice to them. ;) I finally made it to bed at 11:30, but wow, that alarm felt early at 5:00 a.m.!

I had the dog locked up and everything I was taking ready to load in the car when Mom showed up at 7:10, and five minutes later we were headed for Columbus. On the ride down, I learned how to purl, and I have to practice a bit today so I don't forget! Mom had loaded all of the Christmas presents into the car so they could be hidden there. Dad and Mom are driving to Dallas for Christmas, and they'll stop on the way back, and I'll come down on New Year's Day, and we'll have our second family Christmas then.

Mom and I got to the house before Annabel and the boys got back from basketball, and we had all of the Christmas presents hidden and the birthday presents temporarily out of sight. Super Doughnut picked the restaurant for lunch, and Jeeves joined us there after his hot stone massage. We had a nice lunch, but SD started to get cranky--apparently, he had stayed up past midnight and gotten up before six.

Back at the house, Annabel and Jeeves were going to go do their holiday shopping, Mom was going to bake sugar cookies, and I went upstairs with SD to listen to his holiday story CD. Annabel was pretty sure that if I laid down with him and listened to the CD, he would take a nap.

Annabel was wrong.

I was the one who fell asleep, and SD went back downstairs and mooched around with The Awesome Nacho while Mom baked. Mom woke me up after an hour and we started decorating the gingerbread houses. The Awesome Nacho not only decorated his house but created an entire story about what was going on. He's a very imaginative young man. The reindeer and snowmen were part of a government force trying to break into the house for some reason, and they were surrounding the house while one of them was using a candy cane to force the front door. Super Doughnut, on the other hand, put a few decorations on his house, and then had an overtired supermeltdown. Tears, hiccups, misery, all of it. His big brother offered to call their mom, but Gramma just said that no, we were going to finish what we were doing and SD could either lie down on the couch or join us. We did finish The Awesome Nacho's house and I added a few details to Super Doughnut's, and then we decorated cookies and had just finished up when Annabel and Jeeves returned.

Super Doughnut opened his birthday presents, and was just thrilled with all of them. Mom and I had tried to coordinate our gifts, but we both got him the same toy in one case. SD didn't seem particularly upset, but I did tell Annabel mine came from the store and I would send the gift receipt.

Mom and I left around six, and thought about stopping for dinner at one of the restaurants on the way to 71, but figured the wait on a Saturday night would be too long. We settled for Taco Bell on the way home, and got home about fourteen hours after we left.

Even if it wasn't the weekend Mom wanted, we still got the gingerbread houses decorated and celebrated Super Doughnut's birthday, even if I did have to call Annabel from the road and tell her about the giant cookie.

Money can't buy happiness?

Little Miss Piggie Pie says $2 can buy hours of happiness for her!

All dressed up

Last night Mom and VL took us office peons to a Christmas dinner at and then tour of a local house museum. Stan Hywet was all dressed up for the holidays, and parts of the house were set up as scenes from A Christmas Carol. Dinner was very nice, although poor VL had to wait about twenty minutes to find out if there was any gelatin in the cranberry-orange relish. The walk through the house was probably more fun for Mom and I, as she is a long-time supporter and has gone on numerous "Nooks and Crannies" tours and I used to be a tour guide there thirty years ago.

I didn't quite finish the tour--the second floor still gets incredibly hot, especially in the daughters' bedrooms, and I was sweating and dizzy, so I headed down to the first floor entrance and waited for everyone else. Fortunately, I thought to ask where the tours exited, and one of the volunteers told me that I needed to be by the family staircase. When I asked if it was the one behind the hidden door in the linenfold hallway, she looked blankly at me, and the other guide said, "I guess you do remember this place!" Another volunteer had to open the door for me, because heaven forbid a museum patron touch something, and I went through it just in time to see Goldilocks' back.

When we got outside, I could have cried at how good the cold air felt. It took at least five minutes until I felt chilly enough to put my wool coat back on. All in all, it was a nice night, and it didn't hurt that I got compliments on my new satin top from two complete strangers.

Book review

Bloodshot by Cherie Priest

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I was so excited to have won this on First Reads, and overall, it was quite enjoyable. Ms. Priest does a little too much telling in the first couple of chapters, i.e. having the protagonist describe herself in detail, but once past that bump, when the story got going, it really got going.



Vampires, ghouls, black ops, a drag queen Navy SEAL, a venal but somehow appealing museum employee, and lots of fast-paced action overall made this an exciting read. Taken individually, all of the plot elements and most of the characters in this book have appeared elsewhere, but all together they're a thrill ride. I will definitely keep an eye out for the next book!



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Need a Christmas present from the heart?

Buy a Heart for the Arts, made by my wonderful and extremely talented friend Megan.

I don't mean to brag,

but is there another family in the United States who celebrated Thanksgiving with exploding squash and a blowtorch?

It's been a few years since Mom had Thanksgiving at her house. For almost a decade, she and Dad have loaded up the van with presents and food and driven to Texas to spend turkey day with Captain Crossword and his family, which had the added bonus of not having to pay to ship the Christmas presents. This year, however, Mom and Dad and I are all going out there for Christmas, so Mom had Thanksgiving at her house.

I do not say "Thanksgiving dinner," because the celebrations and food started Tuesday night, when Jeeves and his family arrived. My sister-in-law's parents were also on hand, but I can't remember whether they got in Tuesday or Wednesday. At any rate, Mom has been cleaning and cooking the last few weeks, and I got to try all sorts of yummy new recipes in the run-up to the big weekend.

On Wednesday, I got the e-mail telling me I hadn't gotten the administrative assistant job, so I skipped going out to Mom's for dinner. Thursday morning I spent quietly with the dog, then got dressed and headed out. I actually got lost on the way to the house I lived in for 17 years, thanks to some recent road "improvements" undertaken in the last year.

When I got there, the house was warm and bright and smelled wonderful. Mom had decreed that lunch would be appetizers from 11-2, and I got there just before the Brie baked in sourdough was put away. A little bit of that with some of my mom's wonderful snack mix was just what I needed for lunch.

Mom had made the decision to have a full turkey and a turkey breast, and my brother was in charge of cooking them. The turkey breast was in the oven, and the full turkey was in the roaster that's been in my family for 40-odd years and still works. The only drawback to the roaster is that the turkey cooks but doesn't brown. As the bird was resting on the counter, my brother lamented the lack of brownness, and Annabel suggested a blowtorch. Jeeves responded, "It's not a creme brulee!" I was in favor of dousing the turkey in some of the sherry my brother was using for the gravy and dropping a lit match on it, but I was outvoted.

Dad, of course, has a small, portable blowtorch, which he brought in, and although I took pictures of my brother flaming the turkey, Dad claims I used the wrong camera. I think Jeeves bribed him.

In the maelstrom of last-minute preparation that included the stuffing, the green beans with pesto, the turkey breast in the oven, the blowtorching, the rolls, and the mashing of the potatos, somehow the new squash and cranberry recipe Mom was making expanded so much that it climbed the sides of the casserole pan and landed all over the floor of the oven, leading to a smoke-filled kitchen, slightly alarmed younguns worried about fire, and my father's dramatic declaration, "The yams have exploded!"

Dad is not a vegetable guy, and can't tell the difference between root vegetables and gourds.

Despite the smoke and the damp chill from having all of the outside doors open, we had a lovely meal, with food, fellowship and family. I hope all of my American friends had the same experience, however they celebrated.

Requiem for an If Bunny

I didn't get the job. It's okay, though, because there were some drawbacks, not the least of which was leaving Piggie Pie alone in the house for 11 hours Monday-Thursday and having my water-walking schedule messed up. I think Doc's going to be more upset than I am, because she is the one who told me about the job, and I would have been working right down the hall from her.

The feeling of rejection is still there, but not nearly as strongly as it was the last time I was on a concentrated job hunt. Part of it is that I know I did a good job at every step of the process, and part of it, I think, is that I might have grown up a little since 2001.

I do have to keep looking, but for now, I shall be thankful for the job I do have, the opportunities to keep looking, and my incredible support system of friends, family, and one crazed small dog.

Mailboxes and If Bunnies

The driver who hit my mailbox fell asleep at the wheel about 12:30 a.m. In the realm of odd coincidences, she both lives at the apartment complex where I used to work and has the same insurance company I do. Snoopy gave me an estimate for the labor, Plaid Jammies is going to pick up a new mailbox at Ace, and hopefully State Farm is going to pay for the whole thing.

On Veterans' Day, I had an interview for an administrative assistant at a local college. The benefits are good, if pricey, the time off is stellar, and the commute is hideous. I didn't know until the end of the interview that I was one of only four people offered in-person interviews, but after an e-mail yesterday, I now know that I'm one of two people to be asked for second interviews. Eeep. If (big, bouncing If Bunny) they offer me the job at the higher end of the salary range, I'll probably take it and split the extra money between gas and maybe one day at week at doggie daycare for Little Miss Piggie Pie.

When I got home tonight, there was a message on my machine for a phone interview for a position I applied for a few weeks ago, so that's another If Bunny.

Also, today was a horrible day at work, thanks to a family tragedy yesterday, the details of which I just learned last night and am still trying to process; a bitchy field examiner from the VA; a monster masquerading as opposing counsel and topped off with a brainless client. I really needed my workout tonight.

How do I even describe this day?

Last night, when I got my mail and brought in the recycling bin, all was perfectly normal at the end of my driveway.

At 9:00 this morning, when my parents picked me up, my mailbox was gone, the post was on the ground, there was a bumper attached to my neighbor's tree and giant ruts in the ditch in front of my lawn.

On the way to Columbus, I called the police non-emergency line, and they said that they had an accident report involving a mailbox from last night, and that the accident was reported because the car had to be towed. The officer told me I can get a copy of the report on Monday.

When we got to Columbus, Mom and Dad and I had lunch, then headed over to meet my brother and family to watch The Awesome Nacho's black belt ceremony at the taekwondo academy. Afterwards, pretty much the entire graduating class went to dinner at House of Hunan, both of my nephews' first experience with hibachi food and service. They both loved it, of course.

Mom missed the turnoff for my house, so we had to take a longer way to get me home, and when I got home, the package I had been expecting wasn't there, so I checked the USPS website for delivery information, and it said "Notice Left."

Um, where? In case you hadn't noticed, THERE'S NO MAILBOX TO LEAVE NOTICES IN.

They could have just left the damn box on the step the way they've left every other box in the last year, but noooooooooo, they had to f up my day.

Anyway, at least I got to see my nephew get his junior black belt, and I had a lemon drop martini at dinner. :)

Happy birthday to my dryer

My Kenmore dryer is about 43 years old. It's had new motors, new belts, new fans and other maintenance over the years, but the last year or so, the paint has come off the drum and left bare metal, which leaves rust stains on my laundry. So rather than buy a new dryer, I bought a can of special appliance spraypaint and on Halloween weekend Dad came over and took out the drum and took it home to paint it. According to the guy at the appliance parts store who sold me the paint, you can't use it inside ever. Dad's a little sceptical, but he followed instructions and on Sunday, he brought the repainted tumbler back and we put it in.

It's been a long time since I was Dad's mechanical assistant, and there were a few fumbles as I tried to hand him the right tools or parts and hold the light where he needed it, but we did okay. Dad did a lot of grumbly cussing, but only one f-bomb, and when the exhaust pipe came out of the wall for the third time, if he hadn't said it, I would have. He even made a joke at one point--he was putting the door back on the dryer, and I was essentially bent in half trying to support the entire weight of the tumber when he said, "Now stay just like that. I'm going to go have a cigarette and I'll be back in about ten minutes."

Ha. Funny man in my basement. :p

I have to thank Sherri and Jay for the Legacy Kirby, because the dryer had a ton of lint and dust and whatnot inside, and with the cleaning attachments on the vacuum, I can say that I'm confident there isn't a cleaner 43 year old dryer on the planet.

Dad and I were done in about two hours, with one coffee-and-cigarette break, and then I got to work on two weeks' worth of laundry. I'm still not completely done, but it's really nice to know I won't have giant orange blotches on my clothes!

Thanks, Dad.

Ghost dogs say "Boof!"

Happy Howloween to everyone. I'm fighting a megadepression right now, and not feeling like writing or talking or doing much of anyone, but since Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays, and it was Littlefoot's birthday, I wanted to at least do a post to mark the day.

Cheering myself up

Sherri once said of me, "Jammies gives good box" and I do try to make gifts special. Sherri and Jay and I had a great time talking on the phone while Jay opened his belated birthday box last month.



Even with the very tightened state of my finances, I am enjoying picking up Christmas gifts for friends and family, and making some of them. I'm also putting together two Halloween boxes for friends, and I love having an excuse to shop for all sorts of fun and different goodies!



I have to admit that there's more than a bit of selfishness in my gift-giving. I love how it makes me feel when a loved one opens a box from me and is delighted with the contents. I recently had a chance to turn sadness into happiness with a gift. The day I had Littlefoot euthanized, I happened to be wearing a purple holographic nail polish (Wild at Heart from Color Club), and I was afraid I wouldn't be able to wear it again without feeling sad. Fortunately, my friend clowder is another purple nail polish lover, so I got a bottle for her. Her delight in the polish means that now I can wear it again and think of her happiness.



When Kogi lost her dog, I knew I wanted to do something very special for her. I asked what color he was, and she sent me an adorable picture:







Since I couldn't find a yarn that was creamy white, I combined a short plushy white yarn with a longer eyelash yarn in ivory, and made a wrap for Kogi to cuddle in:



She loved it, and her joy at receiving this fuzzy hug made me feel better that I couldn't be there in person to hug her.


I count myself lucky that I have friends who let me shop for them and send them presents!

A week's worth of mudge

On Monday I found out that I have a blood clot in my left palm, and I'm now on stomach-killing NSAIDs to get rid of it.

On Tuesday I had to go to the dentist.

On Wednesday I started my day with being tailgated through hilly S-curves in the fog, then spent forty minutes on the phone with six different people just to change a contact phone number at the VA. The last hour of the day was spent frantically rushing around trying to get a Medicaid reapplication ready and mailed before 4:30 while a client showed up forty-five minutes early to read and sign her will. After I'd done all that and hurried home, I got to water-walking only to find out that the useless substitute was teaching the class.

This morning, I found out that the VA didn't correctly change the number, but they called Bosstopus at home last night with an appointment reminder instead of calling the veteran's nursing home.

I think I shall schedule a nervous breakdown for tomorrow.

Halloween Houses!

Flannel Jammies made a wonderful find at the craft store last week--Halloween gingerbread house kits. She bought two, and I put them together last night. In addition to the gumdrops and candy corn that came with the house, I had picked up Peeps ghosts, candy bats and candy skulls & bones, plus orange and black striped icing and green and black striped icing. I found the Peeps, bats and icing at the craft store, and deliberately went looking for the skull & bones candy because JenJen had sent me some in a recent decant package.

The Awesome Nacho and SuperDoughnut were spending the weekend with Mom and Dad, so this morning I went out to see the boys and decorate the houses. Plaid Jammies was in one of his worst scary-bear moods. I don't know what was wrong with him, but he was one big crankypants all morning. The four of us just ignored him, and the boys and I got to work.

Every year, they get better and more creative. This year, they built fences, put ghosts and bats on the ceilings, and just were very creative. They each ate a Peep and a bunch of candy, but the funniest thing was the black drizzle icing that came in the kits. After the boys had splorped it in various places on the house, both of them licked their fingers, which resulted in two very black mouths and tongues and lots of grey teeth!

Here are the adorable results:

Rollercoaster time

From being miserable yesterday to being irritated this morning when the instructor left early instead of doing the water-walking class to being overwhelmed with tears and gratitude, it's been an interesting 72 hours.

My ninjas got together and sent me the urn for Littlefoot's ashes, a mug with Little Miss on it, another Kogimug, and a gift card for $300.

Thank you, Kogi, JenJen, Katestamps, Lpakosh, TD, Courtney, Nursekins, Lycanthrope, opticnerd (aka Squishy), tempete, Hlinspalda, Sistinas, Tarak, Yvaine, Jilly, Emsuzanne, Morphmouse, Penemuel, copyshopclerk, Rachel, Queenie, Clever_Girl, Mamacat, seadragon, DolphinDolls, Owls, CLA, pugmom, Vampkat, Girlygirl, BevC, seaotter, clowder, HL, Coleva and anyone I missed. I don't deserve you, but I'm lucky to have you in my life.

Blue Jammies

Everyone knows that job-hunting sucks. I won't belabor that point.



But on a morning when the BigBoss at the office which kicked you and 149 other people to the curb sends EVERYONE an e-mail lauding one kickee for having a job specially created for her at a major medical center, wherein she will be meeting the president and many other VIPs, it just sucks to get a "Thanks but no thanks" e-mail less than 24 hours after you applied for a job.



I hate everything right now.

Thing 1 and Thing 2

I shall take a leaf from Sherri's book and say that I am knitting multiple Things right now. Thing 1 is for me, and it is on the back burner until after the holidays. Things 2 and 3 are gifts which are started but have been interrupted so I can start Thing 4, which is a Very Important Present for someone who needs some extra love right now.

Having access to television shows on the interwebbinets is doing wonders for my knitting time. I'm progressing all over the place. In fact, Thing 2 is ¾ done, and I am confident that it will be done by Yuletide. I've also watched almost all of season 6 of Project Runway.

On Sunday, I will have at least two hours of knitting time, as Mom and I are driving to Pittsburgh to take my great-aunt out to lunch to celebrate her 88th birthday. I will volunteer to drive one way so Mom can knit, and she can drive the other way.

In the "I have to laugh so I don't cry" files, when I got home tonight, the bill from the vet was in my mailbox. I took a deep breath and opened it, only to find that they'd charged the euthanasia & cremation to Little Miss.

I called the vet's office, and fortunately, the staff smartass answered the phone. I said, "Hi, it's Jammies, and I got the bill for the E&D. Unfortunately, you put it on Little Miss's chart. She's over there eating her dinner, and she's the liveliest damn dead dog I've ever seen!"

Little Miss is very interested in my knitting--in fact, last night I caught her noshing on the length of yarn I was about to use. Please note that all knitted items will be washed before gifting so there is no dog slobber included (unless you feel that adds to the value--drop me a line and I'll leave your Thing unwashed).

Okay, time to knit!

God is an iron

"If a person who indulges in gluttony is a glutton, and a person who commits a felony is a felon, then God is an iron." Spider Robinson, God is an Iron, 1977.

On Sunday, as I was taking Little Miss out to Mom and Dad's for dinner and a visit and to pick up Littlefoot's ashes, Kogi was working on Littlefoot's urn. When she got home from work, her own dog was in so much pain from spinal arthritis that she had to have him put down. This is the darling old boy who'd been with her for sixteen years, and who had even provided her screenname.

Farewell, little Kogipup. You gave love out of proportion to your size for a lot of years, and words can't express how much you will be missed.

Thank you all

for all of the support and love I've gotten, especially in the last ten days. Mom is still confused by the thought that anyone would send a sympathy card (a real one? in the mail? with a stamp?) for the loss of a dog, but I love you all for the cards and the comments here, and the e-mails and PMs.

Thank you so much.

Littlefoot's last day

When Littlefoot collapsed Friday night and I had called the vet to schedule the appointment, it took a while to get him up and outside for a piddle, then he came back in and collapsed again. He ate a little bit of his canned food, and a chewable pain pill, then he ate a bit of bacon. Throughout the night, I petted him every time I walked by, told him what a good, sweet boy he was, and a couple of times I put Little Miss outside so I could sit on the floor and hold Littlefoot and tell him how much I loved him.

I talked to Dad, Kogi and Mallie, and managed not to cry.

Saturday morning, Littlefoot woke me at seven by coughing, which he'd been doing all week (the main reason I took him in on Thursday). I got up, put him outside and fed Little Miss, then put her outside. Littlefoot wasn't interested even in his canned food, but he ate the pain pill. I had my morning coffee in my Littlefoot mug that Kogi made for me.
All morning, Littlefoot tried to follow me around, coughing every time he did, and I kept my own movements to a minimum.

At eleven, I put Little Miss in the basement and had to lift Littlefoot into the car. He wasn't interested in looking out the window at all for the ride to the vet's, and both of those things told me I'd made the right decision.

When we arrived, I got hugs from both receptionists, and Littlefoot got pats, and then the tech took us downstairs to the presurgery room. We had about ten minutes alone, and then the tech came back with Dr. Mark, and they lifted him onto the prep table. I stood by Littlefoot's head with my arms around him, his head resting in the crook of my right arm, and I stroked his back and told him I loved him as Dr. Mark shaved a strip of fur from his leg and slid in the needle.

It wasn't long before my eternal puppy was gone. Mark and Carlee left me alone with him, and I cried into his fur, kissed the top of his head and rubbed his velvet-soft ears for the last time, and said goodbye.

I will miss you so much, little guy.

R.I.P. Littlefoot

My eternal puppy, October 31, 1996 to August 28, 2010

Littlefoot has made his decision

Although I was hopeful after a long talk with the vet this morning, when I got home tonight, all the hope was shattered. I let the dogs out of the basement, and Littlefoot took two staggering steps and then collapsed and couldn't get up. After about fifteen minutes, he managed to get to his feet, but he wasn't interested in eating anything, and it was all he could do to take three steps away from the house to piddle.

His appointment is at 11:45 tomorrow.

Unadorned bad news

I can't sugarcoat this for me, so I'm not sugarcoating it here. Littlefoot is severely anemic, he has three teeth which need to be removed but can't be because he can't afford to lose any blood, and his kidney values are climbing despite the special food and he has left "mild kidney failure" for "moderate kidney failure."

Rain

It finally rained good and hard last night, and supposedly things will cool off now! At least in this house I have air conditioning to get me through the hot days. I've never been very heat-tolerant anyway, but the MS has kicked my heat intolerance up to 11. I was only recently diagnosed when I bought this house, and the whole-house air just seemed like a nice thing to have. Good thing it was here, because it has saved me from misery every summer since!

In my old house, my bedroom was a converted attic and I didn't have AC. My first summer in the house, I tried everything I could think of to be comfortable, including trying to sleep on the floor in front of a fan. All that got me after I'd wrestled the mattress off the bed and set up the fan was Bigfoot curling up on my pillow as if I'd done that just for him. Then when I reclaimed my bed, I got dry eyes and a headache from trying to sleep with the constant airflow. Almost every night in late July and August, I cried myself to sleep because I was so miserable. I do remember one day when it rained going outside and playing in the rain and splashing in puddles while Bigfoot watched me from the windows, convinced I had lost my mind! The next year, Dad gave me Grandpa Arnold's old window unit, and I could at least sleep in cool comfort.

I also remember visiting Disneyland when I was about twelve or so. It rained all day, just a soft drizzle, and it didn't really bother anyone in my family because a January rain in California is much warmer than a January snowfall in Ohio! I did think it was funny that the PA system was playing "It Never Rains" by Albert Hammond as we were leaving.

Thanks to last night's rain, I can harvest my basil and lemon balm without the leaves being all heat-shriveled. Time for pesto! :D

Lake pictures

My last day at the lake consisted of about two hours, from when I woke up at 6:20 until I left for the second time at 8:20 (I forgot my cell the first time I left), so since there isn't much to write about, here are some pics:

Lakeside Day 3, Friday, August 6th

As usual, I woke up early. This time, I managed not to wake up Mom, but instead got my coffee vewy, vewy quietly. I'd been up for about 20 minutes when SuperDoughnut came downstairs. He was very disgruntled to see me awake, and I'm not sure what the big deal is about being the first one up, but he was Not Happy with me.

The morning followed the usual Lakeside routine--doughnut run, breakfast, newspaper run, swimming. I skipped the swimming because my knee still hurt from Thursday's fall and read instead. After lunch, I took another nap, and this time my father woke me up because "You slept a very long time and I was worried about you."

Again, pot, kettle, blahblah.

Mom gave me a lecture on being more careful about where I stepped, what with the MS balance issues and NO sympathy about my poor knee, but Annabel and I bonded over falling in public, so it was a net gain for family relationships. Either Wednesday or Thursday night Bookworm and I had bonded over Mad Men, which I just barely managed not to spoil for her. Great show, btw, and you should watch it.

Dinner Friday night was a very American vacation meal--corn on the cob, hamburgers, beer, and Great-Gramma Jammies' summer blockbuster consisting of sliced peaches mixed with blueberries and brown sugar. There were also lovely tomatoes and fresh sliced cucumber, which I was pleased to find out SuperDoughnut shares my love for.

After dinner, there were several golf cart rides. Captain Crossword took the kids down to the pier so that The Awesome Nacho could do a photo shoot with his new Domo plushie, and later there was a group golf cart/bicycle ride down to Whistle Stop for ice cream. As I've mentioned, I'm more of a salty snack person, and when I saw that they had freshly popped cheese popcorn, I got that and a soda.

Oh, my. Why did I not know about this on Wednesday? Imagine freshly popped popcorn with movie theater butter and bright orange cheese flavoring. It was warm and messy and so very good. I shared with the nieces and nephews, because like movie theater popcorn, a "small" was pretty damn big, and while they all liked it, Tinkerbell enjoyed it the most.

When all of the ice cream and most of the popcorn had been consumed, we walked out on the pier. The waves were really high, and were splashing over the pier at various points. We watched the sun sink, and it took me a minute to realize that the sun set about forty seconds earlier for me than for my "little" brother because I'm about 8 inches shorter!

Dad and the kids and I took the golf cart back to the house. We took the long way, because this was the last golf cart ride before turning it in Saturday morning. Tinkerbell had fallen and scraped her ankle on the way to get in the cart, and she cuddled up to me for the whole ride. When we got back to the house, there was triage and a bandaid, and it was all good again.

Lakeside, Day 2, Thursday August 5th

Despite a late-ish night, I woke up at my usual time of 6:20. Despite trying to be quiet, I managed to wake Mom up when I nuked myself a cup of coffee. She got herself one, and we were sitting on the porch talking very quietly when SuperDoughnut came down. He looked a little grumpy, and said to me, "I'm usually the first one up." After about ten minutes, he pronounced himself bored, and when none of Mom's suggestions worked, I asked if he wanted to draw on the apron I'd gotten him. He initially said no, but then came back about five minutes later and had changed his mind.

Not too long after SD was ensconced at the porch table with his apron and two packets of permanent markers, The Awesome Nacho and Princess Mathgeek came downstairs (Tinkerbell likes to sleep in--she's a nine o'clock girl all the way). Mom had put out all the different cereals and bowls and spoons and then taken her bike ride, so after I got dressed, I fixed bowls of cereal for SD and PM, and went back to reading my book.

Captain Crossword and Tinkerbell came downstairs around nine, and I got her her first bowl of cereal while little brother got some coffee. Then, before he had even had his second cup, he took the kids on a golf cart ride to get doughnuts, which is a morning ritual at Lakeside.

I am not fond of doughnuts--my personal taste for junk food is salty rather than sweet. But a cake doughnut from The Patio, fresh out of the fryer and thickly crusted with cinnamon sugar, tempts even me.

After dropping off the kids and the pastries, little bro went back out on a quest for a newspaper box that actually had newspapers inside it. The kids each had a doughnut, Mom came back from her bike ride, everyone except for my father got up and dressed and moving. Shortly after CC returned with the newspaper, a general poll was taken on who wanted to go swimming at the indoor pool. It wound up being me, Captain Crossword, Jeeves, Mom and all the kids.

I'm not entirely convinced that someone didn't replace my nieces and nephews with fish during the ride over to the pool. Tinkerbell doesn't swim yet, but she's completely comfortable in the water, and the other three are both skilled and fearless. Between the cannonballs, swimming underwater, roughhousing and other silliness, two hours flew by.

After swimming, we had lunch. Mom always has a ton of good food, and this year was no exception. After lunch, when Mom and Captain Crossword and Annabel took the kids to East Harbor, and I took a nap. I'd told Mom that I would go with her and Dad to pick up Bookworm Mathgeek's birthday cake and ice cream. East Harbor in August, or really any outdoor venue in August is right out for me--I've never been particularly heat-tolerant anyway, but that's the one thing that has gotten noticeably worse thanks to the MS.

A word or six about my father: The man loves his sleep. He is the last one up in the morning, or sometimes the only one waking up in the early afternoon. He takes naps, and whether he's napping or sleeping, he will put his good ear in the pillow so his alarm clock can shrill for up to an hour without him noticing. Getting him up when he's not ready to wake up involves repeated trips to his bedside, with occasional shoulder-shaking and sometimes some yelling.

So that Thursday, I'd laid down between one-thirty and two. At three-thirty, Dad opened the door to my room, stuck his head in and stated that Mom wanted him to call me. At three-forty-five, Dad stuck his head back in the door, and said in a tone just dripping with disgust, "This is the second time I have had to call you. You had better get up!"

"Thanks, Mr. Pot."

I got out of bed and got dressed, laughing to myself at my father's inability to see that the things he dislikes in me are his own worst character traits, and the three of us headed out on an ice cream hunt. The object of our search was Bookworm Mathgeek's favorite ice cream, Ben and Jerry's Chubby Hubby. Alas, it was nowhere to be found in Marblehead and Port Clinton, and believe me, we looked everywhere. Fortunately, the store where Mom had ordered the cake had her second choice, Toft's Peppermint Party Mint. Mom also got noisemakers, matching crepe and tissue paper, and silly gifts from the kids.

We got back to the house, and my poor, unsuspecting sister-in-law was reading in the hammock. We put out the cake, decorated the eating area, wrapped the presents and put them out.

Sneaking this in here, so it's not quite so obvious--Thursday afternoon I had my annual Fall Over My Own Feet At Lakeside. I careened down the concrete garage stairs, grabbed the card table to steady myself, and instead managed to take a glass ashtray with me, shattering it on the floor.

The girls were so excited that they rousted Bookworm out of the hammock and brought her inside, where we sang to her. She opened the presents and the cards, and then we went out to dinner.

A note about my card: Given that Bookworm and I are both readers, and we both tend to be alternately amused and appalled by typos and grammatical errors, I got her a card which mentioned casinos and bars as "disrespectful places." I'm pretty sure it should have been "disreputable places," and was planning on giggling with her over the error. What I hadn't planned on was the card-opening taking place in the middle of a storm of family. So it just looked like I got her a card with a mistake on it. :p

Instead of the winery restaurant where we used to go for the big fancy family dinner, which has gone down in quality and up in price, we went to an upscale sports bar for dinner. Crosswinds was a big success--everyone's food was great, the service was both cheerful and competent, and I had my very first (and my second) Lemon Drop martini. I was smart enough to decline cake when we got home, although Tinkerbell confided to her Daddy that she was full but had just enough room in her tummy for cake. ;)

Between the food and the alcohol, none of the grownups were up for long after the kids went to bed that night!

Lakeside, Day 1, Wednesday August 4th

Wednesday morning started with a beep and a whimper. The beep was my alarm clock, and the whimper was from me on account of said alarm clock going off at 5:20. I got up, got caffeinated, showered, packed the car with my suitcase and the dogs' tote bag, and headed off to the vet hospital.

After leaving the dogs at boarding, I went out to Mom and Dad's house, to see if I could find Tinkerbell's two kangaroo plushies and the folder with all of her medical info (and an active prescription). It wasn't looking too good at first, because my ADDDad had started changing the locks, never finished, and had taken my old key and given me a new one before he finished the lock-changing. Fortunately, I remembered where he hides the spare key, and was able to retrieve the 'roos from under the guest room bed and the medical folder from Grandpa Arnold's desk.

Off I went to work, for a frantic three hours of trying to get everything caught up before the office was without both Mom and myself, then I headed out to my car and up to the lake. I made the drive in a bit less than two hours, and was surprised to find that everyone was home when I got there. The Awesome Nacho and Princess Mathgeek helped me get my stuff inside the house, and then I got hugs from everyone.

As always, my brothers had visited The Cheese Haven on their first full day at the lake, so there was a large selection of wonderful cheeses in the fridge and assorted candy in the pantry. After a bit of grazing, I unpacked, changed clothes and then napped until dinnertime.

After dinner, the whole famndamily sat around and read and talked. Tinkerbell asked me to read to her, and I was thrilled when she picked one of the two new books I'd brought up to the lake, Once Upon a Cool Motorcycle Dude.

When the kids had all gone to bed, Jeeves had drunk enough beer to get juvenile about the author of the book I was reading. If you can't figure out what's humourous about an author whose initials are P.N., bless you, and if you have figured it out, trust me, it's not funny the first time, let alone the twenty-first.

I swear I went to sleep just to get away from the brat.

KJAM on radio silence

Headed up to the lake house for four days with the whole famdamily. Wish me luck!

Dear White Trash Neighbor,

My condolences for your impotence and the fact that your insurance won't cover Viagra. However, when you choose to buy fireworks to compensate, I would appreciate your keeping in mind that the Fourth of July was a freaking month ago, and I do not appreciate feeling as if I were living in downtown Beirut.

Sincerely,

Jammies and the dogs on the verge of a nervous breakdown

Back to the dentist

If you're squeamish, stop reading now.

Yesterday, I went out to Mom & Dad's to babysit while Mom went and put in five hours at the office. Dad has a cold, so he's being a complete baby and he slept all day (except for the forty-five minutes where he pushed the girls' craft projects out of the way and ate and read at the kitchen table). *eyeroll*

The girls were overall well-behaved, and we had fun, but my mouth was really sore. It felt as if the swelling had gotten much worse and my gum above the missing tooth was hot. Despite regular doses of ibuprofen, it wasn't any better this morning, and then when I was brushing my teeth, something snagged on the brush, which was how I discovered a bone sliver was working its way out.

Although the oral surgeon had done the extraction, my regular dentist squished me into her schedule. After a quick x-ray and exam, she came back with the Novocaine and told me the sliver was too big to allow it to work its own way out. As soon as I was numb, she enlarged the hole, pulled out the piece of bone, and showed it too me.

I am not exaggerating when I say that this sharp-edged, pointy piece of me that had decided to break loose was the size of my pinkie fingernail. Eeep! I wound up with three stitches in my mouth and an appointment on Tuesday to see the oral surgeon again for follow-up. I also feel as if someone has been beating on my gums with a mallet.

Ow.

Girly day

Today was a complete immersion in girly stuff. Mom, Princess Mathgeek, Tinkerbell and I went out to lunch with Vegan Lawyer and her granddaughter and stepgranddaughter. We had lunch at Southern Gardens Tea Room, where the girls' soda, pink lemonade and milk were served in teapots and their lunches arrived on two-tiered stands. After lunch, we went to a kids' salon, where all four girls got their hair styled, their fingernails painted, their makeup done and then an all-over dusting of glitter. Michelle from All Lacquered Up would be pleased that both of my nieces selected Dorothy Who? for their manicures. Cupcakes were consumed, pictures were taken, and we had a lovely pink day.

Toothless

It's done. It was fast and brutal. There were two points at which I came up out of my chair, but the whole thing took only 25 minutes. Of course, after reading the "post-surgical" instructions, the potential side effects sound worse than a bad tooth!

Can someone give me a ride?

The good news is that I don't have to wait three weeks and two days for my extraction, the dentist had an appointment available tomorrow evening.

The bad news is that it's at 5:15, which makes it impossible for Mom or Dad to take me, since they have the girls. It's not a long distance or anything, but driving myself means no sleepytime meds to make things easier.

So if anyone wants to give me a lift tomorrow evening, I can pay you in perfume, bath stuff or cinnamon ice cream. ;)

Edited: Dad's going to take me when he's done with work. He said yes and then hung up on me. Ahhh, paternal love. *grin*

"But I didn't want a birthday party!"

So said Plaid Jammies when informed that events had conspired against him. Flannel Jammies said with utmost reasonableness that it hadn't started out as a birthday party, it just sort of evolved from the following chain of events:

Plaid Jammies turns 70 today.

Captain Crossword, Princess Mathgeek and Tinkerbell flew in to Ohio from Texas last night.

Flannel Jammies' big brother Robert* and his wife were headed back to Florida from Lakeside, and would be stopping overnight last night.

T and C, a couple that the Jammieses knew from grade school on, were babysitting their two granddaughters about three minutes away from the Jammies homestead.

Therefore, Flannel Jammies elected to feed everyone she could get her hands on, from dinner to dessert, and we also had presents.

I got there early, both to help Mom get ready and because she had asked me to stop for some sweet corn. That is one of Captain Crossword's all-time favorite foods, and while it's available other places, it's best in Ohio in July and August. He'll get more up at the lake, too.

When I got there, Mom was out getting ice cream, because heaven forbid she only have Dad's favorite dessert, three kinds of Ben & Jerry's, diet soda cake and fresh berries, someone might want vanilla ice cream! So I talked Dad into opening his present early, and he was very pleased with the book and the Borders gift card. Then I sat on the front porch and shucked the corn, finishing up just as Mom came home.

For some reason, before he left for the airport, Dad decided he had to show me how to refresh the page the flight info was on. Thanks, Dad. :p

Mom and I had just gotten everything to a point where we could sit down and talk when her brother and sil arrived, so they joined us on the deck. After we'd caught up for a bit (I can't believe my cousin's daughter just finished her first year of college), we resumed dinner preparation.

At that point, a pretty impressive storm was blowing up, but fortunately, it didn't hit until just after Dad came home with my brother and nieces. Princess Mathgeek, who has stayed at Gramma's house before, showed her sister everything she remembered, from the guest room to the toys in the basement, and then we sat down to eat.

T and C and their granddaughters joined us later, for dessert, and the four little girls had a great time making sundaes and playing while the adults chatted. Unfortunately, I was the one to break up the party, since I had the longest drive home.

All in all, a great night, even if Dad didn't want a birthday party.


*Yes, Bob's my uncle. :)