Whirlweekend!

Fun, but exhausting.

My toes are still infected, so no water-walking and ten more days of antibiotics. Friday was truly ugly, weather-wise--cold, pouring rain all day. Mom called me Friday night, and she sounded awful. Dad had brought some ick home from the cruise, and Mom had caught it, and every time she gets a cold it winds up in her vocal cords. Between her cold and my toes, we agreed that if it was raining, we wouldn't go to the big craft fair at Stan Hywet, but we were still going to spend the day shopping and having lunch at Aladdin's.

Saturday morning was clear, cold, and sunny, so Mom picked me up and off we went to the Ohio Mart craft fair. The only difficulty was that the ground was so soaked from Friday's rain that my feet were muddy and filthy and my socks were wet through within twenty minutes. Still, that didn't stop me from getting a whole bunch of wonderful things. Most of them were presents, but a few were for me--I treated myself to a geranium-scented candle and eight pieces of maple sugar candy, which I love but haven't had in about five years. Mom picked up a really cute and different Santa ornament, and helped me pick out presents for my brother and sister-in-law.

When we had done as much damage as possible, we left Stan Hywet. We stopped back at my house so I could wash my feet, re-bandage my toes and put on a clean pair of flip-flops, and then had lunch. I of course had kibbie, and Mom had the vegetarian appetizer platter, and we talked about the cruise we might take next May.

After lunch we hit Gabriel Brothers, where Mom got an adorable skirt for my niece for her birthday, and I got underwear, a skirt, a new bath mat, a lavender candle, socks and other sundries. Then Mom dropped me off at home, where I took a T3 and a nap.

One thing I noticed Saturday night--Littlefoot makes the cutest noises when he sleeps. He's barking in his sleep, but so softly and indistinctly that it's this adorable burbling noise with a slight undertone of yipping. Bigfoot used to do it too, and I've always called it "puppy percolating," because that's what it sounds like. Saturday night, Little Miss Underfoot stuck close to me, and when she'd been deeply asleep beside my chair, she started making her sleep noise. She doesn't percolate, though, she growls. Cute bitty-girl fierceness!

Sunday morning I worked at Mom's office, getting caught up on all of the outstanding checking accounts (balancing checkbooks and updating spreadsheets) and doing two child support calculations as well as double-checking on some court orders. Then I came home, changed the sheets on the bed and started a laundry marathon which is still going on right now. As my friend Rogue once asked, "How does one person create all this laundry?" *grin*

One last purchase for myself--the founder of BPTP, the partner of BPAL, lost his beloved dog a month or so ago. Ted and Beth created a wonderful tribute scent for Pa-Pow, with the proceeds going to the Pasadena Humane Society. If you click here and scroll down to the picture of Pa-Pow, you can read the tribute and perhaps purchase the scent. I had to buy a bottle to express my sympathy for Ted and Beth's loss, to give a little money to a good cause, and hopefully, to smell my Bigfoot in a bottle.

Time for some maintenance

I mentioned that last week, I got to go see The Wizard of Oz in HD on a theater screen, thanks to the generosity of China Glaze and Michelle of All Lacquered Up. Even more generous was the fact that as the drawing winners arrived, Michelle surprised each of us with the Rescue Beauty Lounge polish she inspired--Mismas! If you'd like to see an icky picture of me and a better pic of Michelle and the other winners, here is Michelle's writeup, along with pics of her Dorothy Who manicure.

Meeting all those younguns for the movie reminded me that it's time to do something about what my hairstylist calls my "natural platinum highlights." Pleh. If I had witchy streaks at my temples or a dramatic stripe, I wouldn't bother to color my hair, but since the greys are scattered throughout, all they do is dim the color. As soon as I get a trim, I'm going to cover up all the greys!

I have yet another appointment with the foot doctor on Thursday night. Unfortunately, right now it doesn't look as if this antibiotic is working any better than the previous one. :( I need to get my toes healed so I can go back to water-walking, because I miss it like crazy. Plus, Mom's back in town now, and I know she hates going to class without me. I definitely need to do a bunch of Jammies-maintenance things in the next couple of weeks!

For Captain Crossword and Captain Spaulding and O-boy

Heehee! Miss Jams has a bat in her hair!

That's a direct quote from Maresche, the only co-worker to notice I wore a bat barrette today because I couldn't find a green one. It was a good antidote to the rotten start of my up-and-down day.

Not cool: discovering at 11:30 last night that I was out of coffee.

Cool: having M notice my barrette.

Not cool: having a co-worker verify the stuff I'd just done and discover a lot of mistakes.

Cool: my boss being impressed that I talked to her about it and worked out a strategy for dealing with my memory/concentration problems and our busy time of year. She actually said that she was pleased I came and spoke with her about it instead of hiding from her.

Not cool: wondering how I'm going to put gas in my car and buy dog medicine before I get paid next.

Cool: selling a bottle of BPAL for just about what I paid for it, to someone who will love it more than I ever did.

Not cool: worrying about the health and happiness of several friends.

Cool: actually winning something for once! Michelle at All Lacquered Up had a drawing to see The Wizard of Oz in HD, and I was one of the winners! Yaaaay!

Now to decide what nail polish to wear...

*note to self* I love autumn

Sadly, it seems like I need to remind myself that I do love this season. From chilly, foggy mornings where my long back yard is an artwork in chiaroscuro to the slow burn of trees across the street to the smell of woodsmoke to the Halloween decorations starting to show up, I love fall.

That gets to be difficult to remember when I'm at work on a Saturday morning, doing something that two co-workers managed to tangle up between them to the point where it was an emergency. Fortunately, both Dogmama and Wilson were there, so we all got to vent a little, yak a little, joke a little.

My September calendar has seven book-building days listed on it, four down and three to go, October will be worse and November will be ugly. I'm hoping that the foot doc will let me go back to the pool, because deprived of that outlet, I'm eating more and still not getting rid of my frustrations. At least most of my colleagues have a sense of humor and can show it when they're not being pounded into the ground by the workload, and I get to share surreal e-mails with one guy at one of our other offices--my sanity savers.

Happy fall to my few remaining readers.

NO! You may not sleep there!

Friday morning was rushed but uneventful--I did the grocery shopping, went to the library, changed the sheets, cleaned the bathroom and went to my last water-walking class for a while, then came home, showered and dressed and waited for Dad. He picked me up in time to stop and get my post-op prescriptions, and then dropped me off at the foot doc's and went to get lunch. I told him what the doctor's office had told me, that I should allow 90 minutes for the surgery.

The only painful part of the procedure was the Novocaine injections (in fact, I still have bruises on both toes). The one for the left foot hurt, but I could suck in my breath, clench my fists and get through it. For some reason, the one for my right foot hurt to the point where I yelped and the doctor felt bad for hurting me. I must have more nerves in that toe or something...

While the doctor and nurse did gross things to my feet, I read one of the cheesy romance novels I'd picked up for my weekend reading. I couldn't have seen anything anyway, because they had a screen of sorts up, but I didn't want to risk it. I had deliberately worn BPAL's Love and Pain because it's my sleep blend, and it was making me pleasantly drowsy. *note to self* Buy another bottle with your next order. When Dr. W. was done, the nurse cleaned my feet up a bit and helped me get my flip-flops back on and descend from the chair, then walked me out to the lobby. I looked at the clock, saw that it was 1:20; looked in the parking lot and didn't see Dad, so I called him. He was eating lunch, so I told him to finish, and went back inside with my book.

Dad arrived about 1:40, and it wasn't until he said something that I realized that my appointment was at 1:00, not noon, and they'd finished in 20 minutes! Dad dropped me off at home, and I came in and per the doc's instructions, had two of my T3s immediately, then let the dogs out and back in again.

My intention was to take a short nap in the recliner, so I could keep my feet elevated. Between the lavender perfume and the T3, I was more than ready to crash for a while. I turned my cell on, got a light throw, and settled in the chair. The dogs flopped down beside me, but it must have been clear fairly quickly that I was planning to stay in the recliner and sleep, and Little Miss Underfoot decided that was just not acceptable. She is now used to sleeping with me, cuddled up to the small of my back, and when I didn't get up despite some whimpering, some barking, and some Lassie-style running back and forth, she elected to JUMP onto the reclincer, landing squarely on my stomach.

When I had oofed and shoved her off, she jumped back on, so I gave up, got up, went to the bedroom and laid down on the bed. Little Miss Underfoot sprang onto the bed, turned around three times, and settled down to sleep in her normal spot, pleased that her human pet had finally gotten things right.

I had a nice quiet weekend, doing nothing much, reading drivel and posting snarky reviews on Goodreads. Mom and I did work together on Sunday, and got almost all of the prep done so that the office is ready for her to be gone for eighteen days. My toes are not infected, and I am being a model patient, following all the directions for soaking and drops and bandaging. I don't want to have to go a full six weeks with no water-walking!

And Little Miss is just happy I've learned not to sleep in the recliner.

A long weekend

Toe tormenting tomorrow!

I'm going to get up, run to the post office and the grocery store, do one last water-walking class, get an eye exam and new glasses, then go have my toenails pulled out (okay, partially) and then come home and take any pain meds needed.

I have dark chocolate, cheesy romances, silly videos and a cell phone full of friends' phone numbers. I should get through the weekend just fine.

Oh, and I also have enough clean underwear for ten days so I don't have to go down in the basement and do laundry.

Feet per second

Not falling speed, just the rate of speed I can manage while jogging in the pool. It's definitely improved since I started water-walking back in April, as has my endurance. Tonight, I really needed the workout, because it was an extra Mondayish Monday.

The day started with an office in which the air-conditioning was apparently blasting all weekend, a work fridge that has been broken for a week, a nastygram from the building management about people leaving their lunches in the ice-maker, and another nastygram from manufacturing, and went downhill from there.

Over the weekend, I did some proofreading for the Little Mermaid on a book she was supposed to build today. I found three small errors, and knowing she had another multi-volume pub to build today, offered to fix the errors when I got in. She took me up on the offer, and I made what I thought would be three simple fixes.

One of them was easy. The other two were not, and in fact, I lost track of the number of times I started from scratch to add one damn form to the book. Start with the .pdf, convert it to a .tif, load the .tif, put the .tif in the book, yell to tech support that it wasn't working, wait forty minutes and start over again. Finally, tech support told me to send them the .tif file, which I did, and they got it to work eleven minutes before LM left for the day. She'd already notified our forecaster that she wouldn't be building the book today, but still, it's infuriating that some glitch cost me a day's worth of work and LM a shot at getting her book done on time.

Another co-worker scared me to death--I had asked her to proofread something I'd done for MegaBookMan, and she said she didn't see any of my changes in the finished manuscript. So I went in to re-do about two days' worth of work, and every single edit I'd made was there. I don't know wth is going on with that co-worker, but I just re-proofed the whole thing and called it done.

Our busy and hellish time of year is starting earlier, and I'm just hoping that my mnemonics and spreadsheets hold up as we head into fourth quarter mayhem.

Three cheers for Flannel Jammies

Today, my mother, whose age I will not disclose lest she kill me, is riding in her tenth Pedal to the Point. She started doing this before I was diagnosed with MS, and I've always been proud of her, but since my diagnosis, I've felt even more invested in her ride.

I do get a giggle out of the fact that every year she says it's her last ride.

Way to go and thank you, Mom.

Have you ever heard...

a vacuum cleaner burp? I'm pretty sure my HK (that's Heritage Kirby, not Hessler & Koch) gave either a huge belch or a huge sigh of relief tonight.

Mallie & the Scarecrow gifted me with the Kirby when they were here last month. I would never in a million years be able to afford a Kirby on my own, but now I have one! Tonight, it got one heck of a workout, and Little Miss lost the privilege of being upstairs while I'm at work.

Today was a pretty Mondayish Monday, and when I'd fought my way home through a chain of severe thunderstorms, all I wanted was to collapse for a few minutes before heading out to the Nat to meet Mom. Sadly, that was not to be. When I got home, I could see the carnage in the living room from the kitchen.

All of the cushions were off the couch and the loveseat, the skirting fabric had been chewed off the couch, and there was stuffing everywhere. I was convinced that Little Miss had shredded a couch cushion or six. Luckily, the cushions were still intact, but sadly, what she did gut was my oversized stuffed dog, Beecee.

Beecee was a gift from my uncle and his first wife to my mom when she went off to college. My poor forty-year-old stuffy was savaged by Little Miss. :( Most of Beecee is still there, but considerably less stuffed than previously. After I'd let the dogs in and out and fed them, I got out the HK and set to work.

Little Miss objected to the vacuuming and Littlefoot objected to Little Miss objecting. Somehow, I managed to get the living room vacuumed. I was going to do the rest of the house, but I took a quick look at HK's torso and realized the poor thing was absolutely bloated. I'll have to stop at the Kirby store tomorrow and pick up some replacement bags.

Oh, and Monday evening was Mondayish too--I waited in the rain in the parking lot for twenty minutes for Mom, who never showed. When I gave up and headed inside at six, we had about fifteen minutes of exercise in when the pool was closed due to lightning. Then I got home and found a message from Mom on my cell--she'd left her car lights on and wouldn't be able to make it. I'm so glad this day is almost over!

Oh, BLEAH

It's been a week full of pinpricks, and I just called my mom and told her I wouldn't be driving up to the lake to spend the weekend. I'm sorry to miss Bookworm Mathgeek and Tinkerbell, but it's just not a good idea. :(

R E S P E C T

There seems to be a huge lack of it these days. Some time today, someone left a big wad of gum on top of one of the walls at the pool. I cleaned it up, and then spent the rest of my warmup time thinking about the lack of respect for common areas. I'm constantly cleaning trash out of my front yard where people throw it from their cars.

My conclusion is that it's a combination of laziness, selfishness and entitlement. It's easier to throw your trash out the car window or leave your gum on the wall, you should only have to do what's easy for you, and you paid the taxes that built that road or the natatorium.

*sigh*

Some days, I just hate human beings.

The Event of the Season

Was Princess Mathgeek's tea party today. The hostess, wearing a white full-skirted dress with a pink pleated bodice and sparkly pink polish on tips and toes, greeted guests at the home of her grandmother, Flannel Jammies. There were nine young guests, ranging in age from three and a half years old to ten years old, all of whom graciously allowed their mothers, aunts, grandmothers and/or friends to accompany them. Party games were played, including musical hats and a memory game, and the guests decorated a summer visor with Foamies. There were glamour shots on the back deck, with feather boas, fancy hats, elbow-length gloves, lace shawls, fans and a large parasol. Dainty snacks were served, including lemon pound cake with fresh strawberries and blueberries, cucumber, ham, egg salad and PB&J sandwiches with the crusts cut off, heart-shaped sugar cookies, Jan Hagel cookies, watermelon, pineapple and strawberries on fancy toothpicks, mini cheesecakes with cherry toppings, vegan mini strawberry cupcakes, mixed nuts and pastel pillow mints. Each guest was given a handmade sugar cookie in the shape of a hat to take home. After the games, the snacks and the photo ops, there was a great deal of "playing guinea pig," a game which involves running around the house screaming and squeaking.

This was definitely a tres chic and tres successful event, and I pity all of the under-ten set who weren't there.

Juror #6

I can now say that I have both served on a jury and had part of a toenail pulled out and the former is much to be preferred.

Much to my surprise, I was actually seated on a jury, sworn in and instructed in the law yesterday (criminal case). This morning, we heard opening arguments, two 911 calls and three witnesses. This afternoon, a fourth witness testified and then the jury was dismissed for a short break while the bailiff worked to get another audio CD of more 911 calls up and playing. During that time, the prosecutor and defense attorney agreed on a plea bargain and the judge accepted it. The jury was dismissed, and I got to be part of our justice system, got a short break from work, and had lunch with my mom twice in two days. For $5 in parking costs and $2 in beverages, that's a bargain!

Late this afternoon, I saw a podiatrist for the first time. I've had ingrown nails on my big toes for ages, but they've started to get bad recently. After talking with Scarecrow last week, I decided to bite the bullet and look into having them permanently fixed. When I saw the doc, he discovered that my right nail was infected, so he numbed my toe, trimmed out what he could and gave me a prescription for an antibiotic. I have an appointment next Thursday to check on how it's healing, and then hopefully I can schedule the procedure. Sadly, it means three to six weeks of no baths, no water-walking, no closed-toe shoes and no toenail polish. Still, now that I've got my courage up, I want to get this over with.

Scary stuff

Today was an awfully long day for a holiday. Hyphenated Corp. gave its peons the day off with pay, but Flannel Jammies, being self-employed, had to work most of the day. I went in to her office first thing this morning, and we balanced her IOLTA account and one guardianship annual account. Then I went to water-walking this morning because there won't be a class offered tomorrow morning.

Ordinarily, that would have been enough for one day for me, but I came home, had a quick lunch and started putting the study back together. I got the vacuum cleaner out and started with that. Little Miss went absolutely bonkers, growling, snarling and trying to bite the vacuum cleaner. The 'Foots always ran away from it, so I was trying to get her to back off while not stopping the vacuum. All of a sudden, Littlefoot charged into the room and laid into Little Miss. I'm not sure why he thought she was a threat to anything but the vacuum, but they were really going at it. There was a lot of snarling, a few yips, tons of big flashing teeth and overall just a very adrenalin-inducing 30-45 seconds.

For all that I may bitch about Littlefoot being a long-haired, double-coated dog, that coat proved incredibly handy today. I took three steps to get around behind him, grabbed two giant handfuls of fur and yanked. The minute I separated the two of them, he calmed down and she hid behind my leg, trembling. I put him outside, and it wasn't until I'd been petting her for a bit that I noticed there was blood all over my hand and my leg. Littlefoot had gone across the top of her nose and nailed her on both cheeks, and dog faces bleed just as profusely as human faces, so it took a little bit of time to get her cleaned up. When I'd done so, I put her out and let him in, and she'd gotten in a shallow slice on top of his ear, which was also bleeding like mad. I got him cleaned up and felt like collapsing, but then Mom called and said she was on her way.

Mom and Dad spent the afternoon here. Mom helped out with the cleaning and furniture moving, and Dad installed my new ceiling fan/light fixture. It's amazing to have a fan with more than one speed, and truly luxurious to have a ceiling fixture that actually provides real light. As long as the JammiesFest attendees don't bring white gloves, we should be okay.

Oh, and all future vacuuming will be done with Little Miss outside on the chain!

Puppeh pictures!

Someday, there will be pictures.

For right now, my few loyal readers get stories.

Little Miss Smoky has fit herself right into the household. She still needs some reinforcement to not jump on or paw at people, but she's a sweet and loving little girl. Littlefoot got in her face twice on Saturday and got snapped at for his pains, so he's being very nonchalant toward her and very needy to make sure I still love him just as much as I always did.

I don't know that Little Miss has ever had toys to play with. I do know that since I gave her one of the toys and then didn't scold her when she found the toybox Monday evening that she has been very happily occupied most of the time since. She has had every toy out at least once, and while she shows a marked fondness for the rope toys, she likes the squeaky ones too. The only ones I will have to add to the banned list are tennis balls--I came home last night to a study full of quarter-sized pieces which took me a good half hour to clean up.

She's really good about telling me when she needs to go outside, and if I put her out when she hasn't asked to go, she will sit on the top step and sulk until I let her back in.

Tonight was her first visit with Dr. Mark. She weighs 43.8 pounds, and Mark thinks she could stand to gain three to five more pounds. He's pretty sure she's a shep mix, and the only reason she looks slightly Rott-ish is that her head is too big for her frame. She's also got some very dry skin from slightly substandard nutrition, and she got her first kennel cough vaccine tonight. The receptionist working tonight said Little Miss looks like Bigfoot.

After the vet visit, we went out to see Plaid Jammies. She was scared of him at first, but slowly thawed out. At least she didn't growl at him the way she did with Dr. Mark. Dad was supposed to have a quiet bachelor week, what with Mom being up at the lake with my nevvies. Unfortunately, something has happened to the electrical system at the lake house, and Dad was going to head up there as soon as Smoky and I left. Since there were some really violent thunderstorms going on tonight, I think I'll go call and make sure he got there safely.

The house is still a pit, the study is still a half-painted wreck, I am NOT ready for JammiesFest and there are pictures of Little Miss on the camera waiting for me to download them. Hopefully, everything will be taken care of by July 10th!

A New Addition to La Familia de Jammies

Please welcome Smoky Moon. I don't have any pictures of my own yet, so these are the ones from



Petfinder.

Doc went with me today to pick up Smoky. I'm keeping the name she already had, and adding a middle name so she knows when she's in trouble. Smoky Moon is the BPAL perfume I didn't get so I could afford the adoption fee, and she's totally worth it. There has been surprisingly little conflict with Littlefoot, just a bit of snapping when she thought he was trying too hard. She's adorable, and it's hard to understand why she was given to the pound by her former owner all of three days after Christmas. She's just about a year old, and although her foster owner called her a Shepherd mix, the jerk who surrendered her said she was a Rottweiler/Lab mix. I hope she has some Shep in her for the longevity, because I want to have her around for a long time.

We spent about twenty minutes in full sun at Pawprint Paradise so Smoky could get comfortable with me, and bless her heart, Doc didn't blink once at doing it. Then she drove home so I could sit in the back seat with Smoky, who fell asleep with her head on my shoulder at one point. There will be more pictures and plenty of stories, but right now, I wanted everyone to know that I once more am owned by two dogs.

Silver and gold, silver and gold

Silver and gold, silver and gold
Dude, this stuff is ug-leee
Silver and gold wallpaper
Is gone from my li-brar-eee!

Just a little reminder from me to me about why all my books are in boxes, my house is a wreck, my neck hurts and my hands are wrinkly old-lady hands tonight:

Before:





There will be "after" pictures when there is an after, but first there will be a wee paws in transmissions from KJAMZ, as my computer will need to be disconnected and moved this weekend. It is possible but not probable that Dad will have my new-to-me laptop ready by then, so my few readers should be prepared for radio silence.

Nothin' to Say

Night lets you down
Wonder and wander
There's no one around
Nothing to say now, nothing to do
I can feel my heart breaking
And it's all 'cause of you
Nothing to say now, nowhere to hide
I can feel my heart breaking
All the love left inside

"Nothing to Say" by Chris Isaak

I dreamed about Bigfoot Sunday night--he was leaning on my right leg as he loved to do while I was on the phone with the vet hospital, where someone kept saying to me that euthanasia is not reversible.

*sigh*