The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Jammies...

I got my Lexapro Thursday night, and had Friday off from work. I had planned to do a little window-shopping, finding the Ulta and Sally Beauty Supply stores in Fairlawn, and follow that up with a workout at the pool. Since the instructor who does the Friday water classes is the one I think is useless, I decided to shop first, then work out on my own after the class was over.

After a fruitless ton of searching, I found the plaza where the Ulta and Sally were hidden, and managed to get away with only renewing my Sally's card and picking up a small bottle of Orly Cutique at Ulta. Since I was planning to leave my car at the Natatorium for nearly an hour while working out, I talked myself out of going to World Market and buying a ton of chocolate. I did stop at Hobby Lobby on the way home, and that's where my plans hit a snag. I had strolled around and looked at everything, picked up just a few items, and was on my way out when I suddenly realized I needed to find a bathroom. After five miserable minutes hoping no one would come in, I was finished and headed for the car.

Working out while my intestines were distressed did not seem like a very good idea, so I came home, drank a bunch of water and took a long nap. I had more water, and later ate a very cautious dinner. I felt fine yesterday morning, so I worked out for half an hour, then came home and mooched around all day. Today I am planning to clean and do laundry so that tomorrow I can go see my folks for lunch and then make some pesto before I lose another bunch of basil. I was going to go work out this morning, but I overslept and now I can't take the time, so I'll have to do that before I go to Hudson tomorrow.

Happy early 4th/belated Canada Day, everyone!

This is me:

First of all, I've been out of Lexapro since last Thursday and am continually on the verge of tears.

Second, we have three guardianships exploding with crazy family members right now.

Third, I'm planning to take Friday off, so there's a lot of frantic cramming going on at work.

Fourth, I do not want to be around people or have anything to do with any other human beings, so I have skipped working out since Saturday because the pool is a very chatty place.

Fifth and finally, Mom actually apologized for me today when I was angry with good reason with the staff at a nursing home.

I'll be in a ball with my spines out for the foreseeable future.

Another Dad story

I read and reviewed The Passage by Justin Cronin a few weeks ago, then loaned it to Dad. Dad's been very hard to please in regard to books recently, so I just asked him to read the first chapter with an open mind. He started reading the book, and was really enjoying it. It turned out, though, that he only liked the first 250 pages. After that, he finished it hoping for a resolution, but got a cliffhanger ending instead.

Well, I tried. And while I'm sorry he didn't like the whole book, I'm not sorry I gave him something to read for a week or so, and I'm certainly not going to change my review.

Today was definitely a Monday at work, and Mom and I weren't going to answer the phone when it rang at lunchtime until Mom noticed it was from Dad. So she picked up, talked to him, then handed the phone to me. I swallowed a bite of salad and said, "No, I haven't charged the battery on the weed-whacker yet." Dad laughed and said I'd better, but that wasn't why he wanted to talk to me. He wants me to go to Amazon and read all of the 1-star reviews for The Passage. In addition to his earlier caveats, he added "That guy doesn't know shit about electricity." I just said that I didn't either, so whatever errors Dad found in the book (and he has the background to find them) didn't bother me. I also told Dad that I'd bought the book because it has an average 3.86 star rating on Goodreads, and that while he's entitled to his opinion, I'm also entitled to mine.

I'm still not sure why Dad wants me to read negative reviews. Does he want to change my opinion? Reinforce his own? Use other people's reviews to express what he thinks but can't articulate? Okay, the last is not very likely, because Dad is good at expressing himself, but I don't know what he will get from me reading those reviews.

For now, it remains an open question.

Long, long ago,

my mother asked me what I wanted for my 30th birthday.

"Excitement. Adventure. Rubies the size of pigeon's eggs." I answered.

My parents got me a lawnmower.

These days, my mom just starts accumulating things on our shopping trips year-round, and wraps them up, either for my birthday or Christmas, and gives them to me on the appropriate day.

I've never stopped wishing for non-practical birthday gifts, but I stopped telling my parents.

This year, Dad was very excited about the early birthday present he picked out and purchased. In fact, he was so excited, he brought it over a full three weeks early.

It's a weed-whacker. With a bonus leaf blower.

Love you, Dad.

Sadness colors everything

I don't even know where to start to describe the last few days. If I start with the good things, my nephews were up for a visit last week, and Mom and I took them to an Akron Aeros game Friday night. Even though the Aeros lost, the fireworks were even better than last year's, and the boys had a good time. On Sunday, since Mom and Dad had to leave at 10:00 to get the boys back to Columbus, I was at my parents' house at 9:30 to give Dad his Father's Day card and gift, and he seemed to really like the book I got him. Then I headed home, stopping on the way at Temptation Nursery and picking up a peach-flowered verbena for Vegan Lawyer and two black and white dianthus for me. I spent the rest of the day doing laundry, putting away groceries, taking a nap, reading, goofing off on the computer.

I wish I could end there, with just the good things.

But I can't. Because on Friday morning, Mom found out that one of our probate court magistrates, someone I have known since I started working for Mom and someone Mom has known and worked with for twenty years, died utterly unexpectedly at the age of 53.

That loss has colored every day since then. I am sad for the court's loss of someone I thought should be our next probate judge, for community's loss of a woman with an impact above and beyond her job, for her sixteen-year-old daughter's loss. I wish I believed in a heaven, any heaven, and I wish I believed in a god or goddess or whomever would allow Ann to watch over her daughter, but mostly I just wish it hadn't happened.

If you've never had to hear a sixteen-year-old say through tears "I love my mom. I miss my mom." then count your blessings.

EEEEEEEEEEK! IT'S IN THE HOUSE!

On Thursday I carted two boxes of clothing from our Ward who died from the nursing home to the woman who had cared for him and was going to redistribute the clothing.

On Friday I woke up with teeny-tiny fluid-filled blisters all over both hands and my left arm. I checked WebMD, and in a truly disgusting slideshow about common insect bites, found that scabies bites matched the blisters on my hands. I called my doctor's office, and they squished me into the schedule, and then I had about five hours to worry, fret, and try not to scratch.

After seeing the very nice Dr. H., I was reminded why hypochondriacs should not be allowed to search the internet. Without any hint, she asked if I was a gardener and said I had poison ivy rather than scabies. She wanted to give me some steroids to help my skin heal a little more easily, but since they do such a number on my stomach, we settled on calamine and benadrool.

I spent the rest of the day in a benadrool fog, trying to remember if I'd seen ANY three-leaved plants anywhere in the garden. Yes, I've been weeding the lavender bed like mad, but all I really remembered were nettles and lamium. The lamium can't hurt, and I left the nettles in place until I could get back out with my gloves and long sleeves on.

On Saturday, I was reelling in the hose when I saw several three-leaved plants growing up underneath the hose cart. I'll have to get back out there once I have some more Roundup on hand. I know the traditional method of disposal is to burn the plant, but that's a little too close to the house for me to be lighting fires.

Today, I was hauling all the houseplants off the breezeway and outside, and just barely noticed a three-leaved plant sticking up out of the pot I almost had my face in. Like any good last girl, I screamed and backed away, then sat down and thought. Roundup in my geraniums is NOT an option, fire in my geraniums ditto, but I think if I put on gloves and long sleeves I should be able to dig the whole thing out with a trowel.

But that's a chore for tomorrow. For tonight, I have to shudder and try not to scratch all the imaginary and non-imaginary itches.

Book review

Unnatural Issue: An Elemental Masters Novel by Mercedes Lackey

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This would have been 5 stars, except I'm getting a bit tired of Ms. Lackey's overuse of the "Bad guy schemes to take over someone else's body" plotline. Off the top of my head, I can think of three other books, one in this very series, that she's used it in, and I wish she would find some other type of villainy for her villains.



That caveat aside, Ms. Lackey does a good job with the characters and the setting. Clearly, she has done some research into the horrors of World War I, and they are interwoven so skillfully that none of the information comes across as a history lecture. Miracle of miracles, Ms. Lackey even made me care about a character based on Dorothy Sayers's Lord Peter Whimsey, who I cannot stand.



Overall, this is an engaging summer novel, with enough action to make you pay attention, characters to enjoy, and enough bits that make you think without boring you to death.



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Possum: not just for dinner anymore!

Or at least that was what Little Miss Piggie Pie told me, barking at the top of her lungs and straining at the tie-out chain yesterday morning. There was a possum huddled under the dilapidated stone wall on the east side of my property, and LMPP wanted to catch it and kill it and eat it raw. When I hauled her in like a fish on a line, she sulked until it was time for me to leave for work, at which time she was happy to chase the cookies I'd tossed down into the basement.

Because I had dropped my car off for $350 worth of repairs on Thursday (oil change, air filter, new water pump), I had to wait for Mom to stop at a bank before picking me up. We got to work a little before 10:00, and then left at 11:30 to have lunch with three friends from the legal field (and Mom ducked one opposing counsel she'd just left a counter-offer for). After lunch, we got everything Mom needed for Portage County on Monday morning packed up and agreed that while we'd gotten stuff done throughout the week, there wasn't much of a feeling of accomplishment.

Mom took me to get my car, and I stopped for groceries before coming home. My evening consisted of watering plants, finishing the book I was reading, and wrestling the big Norfolk pine outside before LMPP ate any more of the potting soil out of the planter.

This morning I got up early, showered, dressed and stuffed the dog in the basement, and headed for Mom's. We went to a flea market in Chardon, which is northeast of Mom's house. We had a little contest--we each started with $25, and compared notes on how much we'd gotten at the end of the morning. I got three pretty daylilies, a gourmet dog biscuit and two purses. Mom got two hand mirrors, a set of pretty cloth napkins, a basket of sweet white onions and the most adorable birdhouse. She still had money left over, so she won. :) We had lunch at a local coffee shop, then stopped by the knitting store. They were having a big sale for their anniversary, so the $10 skeins of ribbon yarn were only $3 each! Mom got enough ribbon yarn to make ruffled scarves for me and maybe my picky aunt. Or maybe not--the last three attempts at scarves for Aunt Turkey were rejected for various reasons. *eye roll*

I had practiced purling on the way up, since I'd managed to forget how to purl since Christmas. I'm making coasters, because the ones I have are wood, which is nice but doesn't do much to battle condensation in the humid Ohio summer. I didn't knit on the way home, since we went the pretty way instead of the fast way, and I wanted to see everything. I did almost finish my first coaster, though, in a pattern called purl ridges. I'm still just knitting squares, but at least they're interesting squares!

When we got home, both of us slightly gimpy from all the walking and me slightly sunburned and very itchy, Dad told Mom she'd had an urgent call from a nursing home. She called them back, and found out that one of her wards had died of metastized lung cancer, less than two weeks after his diagnosis. Because Mom has been this man's guardian since 1986, she had no idea who his preneed funeral was with, and she was prepared to go into the office to get it. Fortunately, in 2003, I had copied all of the client files off the hard disks she used to use, so Dad remoted in to Mom's work computer, and opened up the Motion. I was able to tell Mom both the name of the funeral home and when she bought the preneed funeral, so unless they demanded the contract, she shouldn't have had to drive down to Akron.

I came home just as Snoopy was finishing up with the lawn, talked to him for about ten minutes, and then LMPP and I took a nice nap. Tomorrow I need to plant my new daylilies, but tonight is going to be all about relaxing.

Book review

The Passage by Justin Cronin

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book does a great job of reclaiming vampires as evil, scary, formerly human beings rather than the romantic ravishers they seem to have become. Somehow, Mr. Cronin managed to combine apocalyptic, dystopian, gubmint-conspiracy, questing, horror, sci-fi and a little bit of humor into a book that had me looking away from the page in an effort to stop bad things from happening to characters I like and yet sad when I reached the end and a little bummed that I have to wait another year for the next book.



There are two reasons this got 4 stars instead of 5:



Conroy shouldn't have died. That was just mean.



Mr. Cronin, you're a professional writer. Learn the difference between "retched" and "wretched" before I am forced to beat you with a hardbound copy of Webster's.



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I ATEN'T DED!

However, both the desktop and the laptop are, so I'm using Dad's spare computer and without any photo-processing software, which means all of the garden pictures that were meant to go on this blog have to stay on the camera, along with all of the nail polish pics for the beauty blog.

I feel cheated that the BIG STORMS the weather guy promised us for last night never showed. When I got up this morning, the sidewalk was barely damp. Even if we didn't get the storm(s), at least the temperature dropped. It was in the upper 80s/lower 90s from Saturday through yesterday, and I damn near killed myself getting one flowerbed weeded and mulched. I need to rig up a chain so Little Miss Piggie Pie can join me in the front yard while I work out there, because she took advantage of my absence to eat a large portion of the potting soil out of the planter holding my Norfolk pine.

Otherwise, work is normal, online life is semi-restricted but normal, and my offline life is just as boring as it ever was.

Oh, and if you don't recognize the title of this post, do yourself a favor and read some Terry Pratchett. :)

The National Weather Service synthesized voice

simply cannot manage to say 'Cuyahoga Falls' in a manner that comes close to sounding human. Nonetheless, I have managed to accustom myself to the sounds that mean the name of my city when tornados are involved, and at about 7:40 tonight, I put my bra and work clothes back on, grabbed my cell phone, the charger, my charm bracelet, Gramma's charm bracelet, the BPAL and the dog and headed for the basement.

On top of a day when I'd been in pain from a ripped-off toenail, balanced three accountings and found out that one of our clients has metastized lung cancer, a tornado warning was almost the last thing I needed. The very last thing I needed was to be in the basement during a tornado warning with a dog having diarrhea from stress or eating who knows what while she was outside earlier. Aargh.

Oh, yes, and when I got upstairs, I discovered the garage had flooded, because yesterday's high winds had brought down a shedload of maple keys and the rain had washed them all on top of the driveway drain, blocking it. I'm sure I have some unspecified ick in my toenails from wading in the overflow to clear the drain.

Anyway, I'm fine, Mom and Dad are fine, the dog appears to be empty, and Yahoo describes the tornados as 'weak' so hopefully nobody I care about is hurt or homeless tonight.

Too much "sub" and not enough "urb"

While I love my house and land, right now I'm wishing I lived in a sterile apartment or condo or bubble.

I have mice in the garage who are occasionally invading the breezeway, so after talking to a pro, I have poison set outside and kill traps set on the breezeway. :(

Last night, I let Little Miss out for her last bathroom break of the night, and was surprised when instead of running to the end of the chain and squatting, she stopped at the end of the house and barked, with all of her back fur up. I do mean ALL, every hair from the top of her head to the base of her tail was standing straight up. I called her and she came in, and I thought it was a skunk or possum or raccoon, and that it would move on and we could try again.

Half an hour later, I put her out again and stayed on the breezeway. I had no more than sat down when Little Miss body slammed the door, barking frantically. I jumped up and opened the door and let her in. She was still barking hysterically and I noticed she'd urinated all over the top step, and just then a deer came charging around the corner. It stopped when it saw or smelled me, and I yelled at it (as if a deer speaks English). It stood there for about thirty seconds, made that angry huffing noise at me and turned and left. Little Miss was absolutely barking her head off the whole time, and I think she was both scared and angry. Every other dog on the street was barking too. I put her Gentle Leader on to get her to be quiet, fed her a couple of treats and petted her until her fur was smooth again, and then I took off the Gentle Leader and we went to bed.

This morning when I let her out around 7, the damn deer was still there, and again Little Miss came running for the door, barking like a crazy thing. At ten I went out with her and saw the deer again. It ran off when it saw me, but not far, and didn't actually leave the property until I stamped my foot and started to walk towards it. My friend clowder thinks it has a baby in the bushes somewhere, eek. So after I have a cool bath and a nap, I'll be heading over to the discount store for a SuperSoaker or similar water gun, and I'll be guarding the dog on her potty trips.

Yeah, a condo sounds good right now...

Local politics

May 16, 2011

My City Council
My CouncilCritter

Dear CouncilCritter:

On tonight’s agenda is an amendment proposed by Representative Derp which would require Cuyahoga Falls residents to clean under birdfeeders and would also prohibit them from having compost heaps. As a long-time resident and taxpayer, I have several concerns with this legislation.

First, on the birdfeeder issue, Representative Derp alleged that fallen birdseed either rots or attracts “vermin” to the area under the birdfeeders, when in fact, fallen seed attract ground-feeding birds, including our state bird, the cardinal.

Second, on the compost issue, is there any solid evidence that there is an epidemic of improperly maintained compost in Cuyahoga Falls? If so, where is the data on this epidemic, how was the data gathered, and how was it evaluated? If there truly is such a problem, isn’t it better to start with education on correct composting rather than punishment? Perhaps the city could do more to let citizens know about the composting tips already available on the city website (by adding a flyer to utility bills, posting a notice in local newspapers, etc.).

Third, also on the compost issue, in these extremely difficult economic times, is it right to tell a homeowner or renter who is trying his best to be environmentally responsible, that the City of Cuyahoga Falls expects each homeowner to spend between $40-$200 the average homeowner may not have? The City will be collecting dozens, if not hundreds, of recycling bins in the next months—will there be a credit for turning in that much plastic? If so, the city should consider using that credit to pay for composting bins and provide them to residents instead of adding another financial burden to households quite probably already in straitened financial situations.

Finally, I ask the same question about both issues—who is going to enforce this, how is it going to be monitored, and are my tax dollars paying for this? Will health inspectors or police officers be sent on “seed patrol,” or will enforcement depend on tips from citizens? If the latter, not only is there a large potential for multiple problems based on misuse of any reporting system, the process would simply duplicate a right Cuyahoga Falls citizens already have, the right to pick up the telephone and call the health department and complain about an unsafe or unhealthy condition.

Given all of my objections, I would ask you both, as my representative and as president of the council, to vote No on this amendment.

Thank you for your anticipated attention to this matter

Very truly yours,

Citizen Jammies

P.S. Tell Mr. Derp to settle his difficulties with his neighbors by negotiating with them, not by trying to pass laws that screw up the budgets and lives of the rest of us.

Book review

Feckless: Tales of Supernatural, Paranormal, and Downright Presumptuous Ilk by Ellen C. Maze

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


There have been a lot of technological advances since I started buying books 30 years ago, but my favorite has to be easy, accessible paper recycling. Now when I make the mistake of purchasing two covers surrounding a giant pile of dreck, I don't feel guilty about tossing it.



View all my reviews

Ow, but worth every minute!

Yesterday morning, Mom and I met at 11:30 at Temptation Nursery, and spent a very happy hour looking at everything, wanting everything, and buying select things. We were in the middle of a spat over how much I was spending on her Mother's Day gift when one of her former colleagues from the university came up behind us, so we spent another ten minutes chatting, and I won the argument. For the record, I told Mom I had $100 budgeted for plants, $25 of which was hers, and the total came to $89, so nyah. I got 5 basil, 3 lavender, 4 tomatoes, 3 sweet potato vines (decorative), a white licorice plant, a heliotrope (!!), a purple and white ivy geranium, and a peppermint. Mom got twelve coleus, a Swedish Ivy, a red ivy geranium, 3 sweet potato vines, 4 tomatoes, an English ivy, two cinnamon basil and two lamium. I did let her pay for the red ivy geranium because it's a gift for her sister.

We took the plants and my car over to my house, and I unloaded everything because I didn't want them to sit in a hot car all day, then went to the restaurant Mom picked in Fairlawn. Lunch was pretty good, but not as phenomenal as the downtown branch. When our waiter brought the check, I tried to get it, but Mom pulled the little tray so hard one of my fingernails went with it, so I let her have the check.

After lunch, we looked for a Sally Beauty Supply, because I need to renew my card and Mom needs to get some ridge-filling nail polish basecoat, but the Fairlawn Sally has moved and I didn't know where, so we just went to the craft store and the discount store. Mom got a bunch of stuff for our secret project for the summer and I got yarn for a brown scarf.

At the discount store, I got a cute shirt to put away for the cruise, three pairs of flip-flops, six pairs of socks, a present to put away for Christmas, two white bath mats and a black iron trellis with "Welcome" along the top. Mom got an identical trellis, plus two shepherd's hooks with "Welcome" on a vertical plate along the upright portion, one short and one tall. She also got a shirt for the cruise, some gluten-free cake mix and frosting and some other stuff I don't remember because by the time we left, my feet hurt! We played car Tetris to get the shepherd's hooks and trellises in, and I need to call Mom and see if she has one pair of my flip-flops. She was tired enough by the time we got to my house that she didn't want to wait for me to cut her some lilacs, so I am taking them to the office tomorrow. That way, she gets pre-Mother's Day and post-Mother's Day goodies!

I feel very spoiled to have gotten alone time with each of my parents in the last few days, and it reminds me of how very lucky I am not only to have two living parents, but to have two amazing people as parents.

Happy Mother's Day to all of the moms and kids!

From "Aaargh!" to "Whee!" and back and forth

This whole week was bipolar. Good things happened on top of bad things and then more good and bad things happened. Some of the highlights:

After a year of fighting with what used to be INS and is now USCIS and a lot of correspondence with Homeland Security, we finally got a replacement green card for an elderly Ward.

We moved two other elderly Wards to new housing, both unwillingly.

My lilacs are in full bloom, but we only got one day of sunshine.

I lost a day and a half to a severe allergy attack.

Still, the week ended on a good note, because I got to spend a day with my dad and got some good news, too.

Mom was originally supposed to take me to my annual MRI-with-sedation and neuro appointment at the Cleveland Clinic, but since the local probate courts don't bother to check with attorneys when they're scheduling, she wound up with a hearing Friday morning. So at 7:45, my dad and I left his house headed for Cleveland.

Traffic was surprisingly light for rush hour, and we made it to the Clinic with time to spare, and then had more time to kill because the sedation nurse is also responsible for the Tysabri infusions, and she had a bit of a crisis. Still, at 9:30 I was getting my Xanax and at 10 I was having the MRI and not minding it at all. The nurse gave Dad a ton of instructions, which I mostly rolled my eyes at, then Dad and I went out for decent coffee and a mediocre Danish, both overpriced. Then we came back and hung out in the waiting room until my 1:00 appointment.

I was very nervouse, because I've been off the Copaxone for over a year, and I didn't know what was going to show up on my MRI. I met with the nurse practioner first, and she had me do all the sobriety test-type things, then we talked, then she told me that Dr. Cohen was actually in (I was told I'd be seeing a staff neuro, so it was good that I was seeing my doc!) and went and got him. Dr. Cohen told me that my MRI still shows that I have a lot of lesions, but none of them have gotten bigger, and I don't have any new ones! He's actually okay with me being off any meds, if I'm willing to come see him more often, but he also wants me to check with my prescription insurance to see if Fingolimod is covered. I would love, love, LOVE to take an oral med rather than a shot, so on Monday, I'll be calling to find out if it's in their formulary.

After I'd skipped out to the waiting room and told Dad it was good news, we went for a late lunch at a Cleveland institution--Corky and Lenny's. I had a bowl of so-so potato soup and a gorgeous corned beef sandwich, and Dad just had a corned beef sandwich. We actually spoke with Corky, who seemed a little insulted that I hadn't finished my soup, but was mollified when I raved about the sandwich. It was pouring when we left, so Dad took the umbrella and went to get the car while I ducked into the Malley's two doors down. The store was a little on the bare side, and they said they hadn't finished restocking from Easter, but that was almost two weeks ago, so it seemed like a lame excuse to me. At any rate, I got two dark chocolate bars with pretzel pieces, and dashed for the car.

One of the instructions the nurse had given Dad was that I wasn't to drive for 24 hours, and he seemed inclined to take that as gospel. I kept telling him that I was fine, that I'd had 2 cups of coffee, a Danish, half a sandwich and a Diet Coke since the Xanax and that I had to stop on the way home and get dog food. After a miserable quarter-hour on the freeway in pouring rain, Dad agreed to let me drive home if I came in and had another cup of coffee before I left. I did, and gave Dad his pretzel bar as a surprise thank-you since he wouldn't let me pay for anything except the doctor co-pay all day. He said he'd rather have the chocolate bar anyway. My dad, the cheap date.

So I drank the coffee even though my tummy wasn't thrilled with it, hit Pet Supplies Plus for dog food, came home and let the dog out, then in, then fed her and then fell into bed for a long nap, despite all the coffee.

And not only did I have a good day with my dad yesterday, today is plant- and craft- and shoe- and other-stuff-shopping plus lunch with my mom! So although the week was more of a rollercoaster than I like, it's still ending well

ETA: I forgot to mention that I have adorable little house finches nesting in one of the trees in front of the breezeway windows!

I think I'll sit this one out

On Thursday, I had an interview that went so well that I was offered a second interview on the spot. That second interview was today, and if offered the job, I definitely will not be taking it. The big boss, who interviewed me today, came across as a huge jerk, and there is no way I want to spend eight hours a day in a trailer with him. At the end of the interview, he complimented me on listening rather than talking, and although I said "Thank you," I was thinking "Well, you didn't let me get a word in edgewise." *snort*

Psychological warfare does not work

on mice! Despite the fact that the killer traps are out of the drawer and in the middle of the counter as a clear warning, I still saw a mouse scamper across the floor last night.

*sigh* Of course, I can't deliberately kill one, so I stopped at Home Depot tonight and spent $10 on no-kill traps, which I will set and then release any mouseses I catch far, far away from my house.

Today was the memorial service for our client who died last week. Mom went, but I just couldn't. I was feeling particularly depressed today, and just couldn't face going.

I think tonight calls for a long, hot bath in a particularly spicy vanilla-clove combination. Somehow, it feels like the winter of my discontent has returned.

The Palm Sunday killer

Last week was really truly the week from hell. One of our nicest, sweetest clients died at the very young age of 63, and I found out Sunday night. The week went downhill from there, and I didn't even get to slam the door in the face of any copier salesmen. We had trial prep, and hysterical phone calls from needy clients, news that one of our wards has bedbugs, multiple inane faxes from a dickweed opposing counsel and assorted other irritations.

This morning, the start of a new week, on the way to pick up my antidepressant, I ran over and killed a squirrel. Anyone who knows me knows I have no love for treerats, but I don't want to kill them. :( Oh, and to anyone else who hits an animal with a car--do NOT look in the rear view mirror. *tears*

Thankfully, the day improved. Mom and Dad came and picked me up at 10, we went to a local non-chain restaurant for breakfast, then drove to Columbus and had presents and cake for my nephew's 11th birthday. We had a nice time, and then came home while it was still light, and I will be headed to bed soon, hoping this week will be better than last week!

P.S. My doggie nephew, Ralph, spent all of Sunday sunbathing. Cute, cute dog.

spring. oh yay.

Signs of spring at Casa de Jammies:

Dandelions and nettles sprouting.

Allergies sprouting.

Trash all over the front yard from selfish pigs driving by.

The juvenile idiots next door revving their crotch rockets for hours on end.

Spastic robins fighting with their reflections in the living room window.

The damn dog running through the house barking at the last two.

On the other hand, I did get to go outside and clean up last year's leaves. One-half of the flowerbed along the front sidewalk is cleaned up, and if the weather holds, I can do the other half tomorrow morning. Plus I get to have open windows in the house, and dream about having enough money to mulch everything this year.

The yard is still paying for my spring of grief over Bigfoot, but I'm trying to get things back together. I'm also trying to figure out what happened to my lemon balm, which sprouted all over in its container on the front porch last summer and did well on the breezeway this winter, but is currently dying off in great swathes right now. It's a puzzle.

Another puzzle is what the heck has happened to my skin, which is suddenly dry and lizard-y. I haven't changed anything about the amount of water I drink or the amount of baths I take or the amount of moisturizer I use, but I am suddenly a leezard.

It drives me crazy that there is so much at work I can't talk about here, but even if I have fewer than ten readers, it's still a public website, and client confidentiality has to be respected.

Ah well, scales and puzzled brain and muzzled fingers and all, I'm still alive, still finding my little pleasures, and still haven't gone completely nuts, so I'm good.

Dear Copier Salesman,

Yes, I did have to unlock the door when you showed up at 4:55.

Yes, I was working late, and so was my employer.

Yes, we had spent the entire day on trial prep.

Yes, trial prep sucks and we have had to do far too much of it the last three weeks.

Yes, I really really meant it when I said that we were fine as far as copying, scanning, etc. go.

Yes, it gave me unadulterated, vicious pleasure to close the door in your face when you wouldn't shut up.

Yes, I would have slammed the door if it weren't 112 years old.

So thank you for giving me that one glorious moment in my day.

Love and kisses,

Jammies

Spring miscellany

The daffodils are sprouting.

On Thursday, I saw the first wild bunny I've seen since last fall.

My allergies and sinuses are going nuts.

Piggie Pie has decided that she lurves a squeaky toy which she used to disdain, and now is so enamored of it she tried to bring it to bed last night.

There are two probate court magistrates who are now forever on my List, one for not believing my mom, and one for trying to make her his enforcer.

I still hate trial prep.

The chives have grown an incredible amount.

The couple inches of spring snow we got last week do not seem to have damaged anything.

I'm still fighting my own body on this DST thing.

I'm still alive!

Book review

Blood Work: A Tale of Medicine and Murder in the Scientific Revolution by Holly Tucker

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


In one way, this book is difficult to read. It deals with some truly horrific experiments in the name of science and some truly horrific human stupidity.



In another way, this book is easy to read. The writing flows smoothly, the events narrated are fascinating and the science is explained in a way that's accessible without being dumbed down.



This book reminds me of Saving Private Ryan and Schindler's List in that I'm glad I read it, I had a definite emotional and intellectual response to it, but I've no desire to read it again.



I can and do recommend this to anyone curious about the beginning of the science of blood transfusion, as long as the reader doesn't have a delicate stomach or a thin skin.



This book was sent to me for review.



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In Which Our Heroine Overcomes Assorted Obstacles

Obstacle number one was assembling exhibits for an upcoming trial and working with a client who provided ninety gazillion documents, not including the ones I actually needed.

Obstacle number two was having my workplace invaded by a horrific stench that resulted from maintenance personnel opening a decades-closed sub-sub-basement.

Obstacle number three was an If Bunny in the shape of an interview and then a job offer for a job that wasn't right for me. The job was one I could have done, but there were reasons why I needed not to jump at it like a wallflower being asked for the last dance of the night. First, the pay rate was not only $3/hour less than I'm currently making, it was as an independent contractor, which would have cost me an additional $75/week. Second, although I don't have a problem taking a part-time job, I do have a problem taking a part-time job which has such an irregular schedule that Mom can't depend on me while she tries to find someone else. Finally, the instant start gave me the problem of not being able to wind things up for Mom.

So I have to keep looking, and trust that I'm worth hiring, despite the fact that I haven't been asked to dance in a long time.

In which Dr. Jammicus jumps to a conclusion

Jane Austen: A Life by Claire Tomalin

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Not only is this a fun, easy biography of Jane Austen, I learned many things never covered in college literature courses. I learned in depth about her family, including her sister, Cassandra, who coped with several devastating losses in her life. The author's analyses of Miss Austen's novels is good solid scholarship.



I also learned just enough about Jane's brother Henry to make a wild conclusion--I think Henry had MS. Ms. Tomalin describes Henry as a hypochondriac, noting that at various times his symptoms included "a glowing of the hands" (which sounds like neuropathy to me), faintness, assorted intestinal disorders, dizziness, all of which can be symptoms of MS. Ms. Tomalin also states that later in life, Henry suffered at least one episode in which he was ill for no known reason, and recovered from what seemed to his family to be a fatal illness. Sounds like a classic MS flare or exacerbation!



My silly theory aside, the book is an enjoyable canvas of Miss Jane Austen's life, and definitely worth reading.



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I hear the Ozarks are nice this time of year...

I hope so, because that's where Mom and Dad are, as they make their way to Texas for my nieces' spring break. They left at noon on Wednesday, spent the night in Cinci with my aunt, and are taking it easy. They're supposed to call me tonight from some place called Mountain Home.

On Thursday, I learned a very valuable lesson--do not make filing rounds at lunchtime! The overpriced fast-food student 'restaurant' in our building smelled like hamburgers, the county building smelled like chicken noodle soup and the state building smelled like bacon. I was so hungry when I got back from my rounds that I ate my lunch half an hour early!

NE Ohio got some nice torrential rains yesterday, then snow last night, and this morning I had water in the basement again. I went in to work long enough to grab some stuff to do at home, then came back and called Snoopy and the guy from the water-proofing company.

The latter made it out here first, and he jackhammered a long trough in the concrete so any water coming in from the west wall could make it to the pipe. I'm a little concerned that Piggie Pie is going to decide she needs to eat gravel, but I hope that doesn't happen. Someone else from the company is supposed to be coming out next Friday to see if they can figure out a more permanent fix. Hopefully, it will not involve lavish amounts of money to replace the chimney.

And all of my good thoughts tonight are going to the people of Japan and Hawaii, and hoping that the American West Coast has nothing worse than extra high tides.

With friends like these, you won't have enemies,

because your friends will eat your enemies' brains!

Meet Jooji, a gift from the lovely and talented Erin. Jooji is a sock zombie, but more than that, he is a ninja sock zombie!




Jooji came with a friend I have named Rose Petal, all sweet and soft and pink until she eats your brains (or your socks, whichever she can reach)

I am incredibly grateful to Erin for the gift of my new friends, so please go get your own sock zombie from her right now!

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!



View all my reviews

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.