Celebration Station

Last night was my friend’s birthday party and HOO BOY did I celebrate. I celebrated to the tune of almost an entire bottle of red wine and something like six vodka and Crystal Lights. I vaguely remember something about flailing limbs and poorly sung Christmas songs. I know when this song came on the radio Megan and I about lost our shit and fell all over one another singing along and making up words because neither one of us knew the whole thing. It was bad. And loud. It’s times like these I am thankful that my friends and I don’t take a ton of photos or video footage of ourselves because last night in no way needed documenting. It would only come back to haunt us later.

I usually have a social “off button” that gets switched by about 11:00pm, because I am secretly 75, but last night this was not the case. I rolled in at 3:00am and Zack looked up from sleep, bleary-eyed, and warned me that I’d come to regret my decision to stay out in about four hours. Ha! He was so wrong.

It took almost seven hours.

Oh my God. The headache. The headaaaaaaaaache. It is intense. My stomach is also swinging wildly between perfectly fine and relatively interested in food to Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! Which led to some clever positioning of my garbage can (thankfully I think the time for trash-puking has passed). I’m happy to report, however, that I haven’t even ONCE lain my head upon my desk or committed any other nap-like act. I am saving my sleeps for a great big mouth-open-wide, arms-and-legs-flung-out snorathon tonight, oh yes I am. The evening ahead looks something like this:

5:00 Tromp home through the ice storm. Walk good and slow so as to avoid falling on ass (see: last night’s dog-walking shenanigans).

5:25 Glorious, glorious sweatpants. Commence Lounging.

6:00 Mmm dinners. Still lounging, for I am a professional multi-tasker.

6:30 Lounge lounge lounge.

7:00 I don’t think I have yet tired of lounging.

7:30 Perhaps I should get up. I’ve been sitting on the couch all evening!

8:00 Lounge in bed! Brilliant!

8:30 Is it too early for sleep?

8:31 Zzzzzzzz.

But that’s just a rough estimate. I mean, maybe I will lounge in bed the entire time! Who knows? I’m spontaneous like that.

Tomorrow we head up to spend Christmas with my family. I will spend the first half of the day cleaning, cursing, gift-wrapping and cursing some more. Then we’ll pile into the car with the loot and the dog and head out of the city for a few days to stuff our faces and dirty up my mom’s house (she misses having us home, I know).  Safe travels to those of you who will be on the road visiting loved ones, too. Happy holidays!

A short post because it’s Friday and also because it turns out all I have to talk about is my dog

Cohesion never really found me this week. I’ve been bouncing around between work holiday parties and Christmas plans/shopping and new projects while at the same time being entirely distracted by my sister’s presence. I did not get to see her enough and now she’s on her way back to California.

Arlo and Jan…omg. LOVE (often inappropriate love) (as in, lots of humping and not all by Arlo). Those two are either robot dogs or someone fed them crack before each visit because dude. They wrestled and played and barked and chased like nobody’s business. Both weigh around 35 pounds but where Jan is the typically stocky and front-heavy bulldog, Arlo is tall(er) and more evenly proportioned (he’s a beagle mix). They were a pretty even match in the wrestle-each-other-to-the-ground-and-roll game that they seemed to prefer. The family who were trying to talk/eat/watch TV/keep the baby from being knocked on her ass had a less stellar time.

Arlo Jan

Arlo doesn’t always get along with other dogs so it was fun to see him fall so effortlessly into being friends with Jan. I am told that Jan is usually pretty intimidated by other dogs so the ease with which she took a shine to Arlo was surprising to Meredith and Tony as well. I’m sad that they won’t have the opportunity to have more play dates (oh for chrissake, I just said “play date” in reference to my dog) but I guess I will settle for a few nights of sound sleep out of Arlo and maybe – hopefully! – last night’s canine fiesta will result in Arlo passing out on our drive to Minnesota tonight. I may have already cashed in on that one, though.

The point is somewhere in the middle

Last week was Blog Post Lite because I was terribly busy stuffing 1,000 holiday greeting cards into 1,000 envelopes and then stamping, sealing and pasting each one with an address label I’d lovingly (frustratedly, irrtatedly, because I can never remember how to do it right) mail merged. It was just as fun as it sounds! I told Zack that we are never sending Christmas cards after that experience and I think he was a little surprised at the foot I’d planted so firmly down about it (because he told me so). I said if he wanted to send Christmas cards with pictures of our adorable children one day then he’s welcome to do it his damn self. I’m a good compromiser like that.

(I think I made up about seven words in that paragraph, in case anyone was counting.)

The weekend was spent resting my crippled hands mostly hanging out up in my mom’s neck of the woods. We went Christmas shopping on Saturday and I am pretty sure I was present for the purchase of at least 50% of the gifts I will be unwrapping next week. But I also helped guide her with some of her choices for Zack, which I think he will surely benefit from. Also I kept her from buying things like scarves and gloves for my sister and Tony, who will only need them for the five days they are in town for winter this year.

And that brings me to the real point of this here post: Meredith and Tony are here!

I got to spend yesterday with them and it was great. We celebrated Christmas and they opened all their gifts and everyone else opened one gift of my mom’s choosing (I got a long frame with pictures my mom printed from our wedding!). My mom bought Meredith & Tony the game Apples to Apples which, bizarrely enough, Meredith started talking about Sunday afternoon before the gift-opening happened. It was like fortune-telling!

But Internet, I am kind of bummed. I have to work all week. They had to drive out so they are not able to be around for any weekend time other than yesterday and I have to hoard my vacation time for the HONEYMOON (!!!) we are taking to Europe (!!!!) in March (!!!!!!). (Am excited, if you couldn’t tell) So I feel like I am missing out on time with my sister and I don’t know when I will have the opportunity to see her again. Stupid boys and stupid California. Or, perhaps more accurately, stupid not having enough vacation time to throw around during the holidays.

In amongst my vacationlessness is Zack’s last final, which happens tomorrow afternoon, and two tutoring sessions he has to uphold (my man is schooling the high schoolers for to help them get good ACT scores and go to college and stuff). Also ye olde [$400] tooth is getting fixed on Wednesday evening. I tried to reschedule but the next available evening appointment isn’t until March, and I think my sister will understand when I say “Um, that shit needs fixin’ before March.” (She’s had teeth issues of her own) (thanks Mom and Dad, for the weak enamel!) Also Meredith’s school friends are visiting tomorrow so she is unavailable then. Sigh.

We are in the process of working out some type of compromise, which I sincerely hope will involve a trip to Cafe Sushi for some delicious rolls. I came late to the delightfulness that is sushi and only had my first “real” sushi experience on Saturday night for my friend’s birthday (where I went through and asked questions about what things on the menu actually were and picked out the stuff that sounded good to me and, you know, learned, rather than just poke my plate suspiciously because OMG RAW!). It was soooo good. I am still thinking about it and talking about it (obvs). Zack couldn’t go because – you guessed it! – he had to study. I got good and drunk and when he picked me up I ranted at him for a solid ten minutes about “THA SOOOOOOOOOSHEEEEEE!” and how we must go there as soon as possible. He thinks he’s going to get out of it but really he is just wrong. Neither of us were wow’d by the sushi we had on my birthday so he doesn’t yet understand the magic that can happen with raw fish and some rice. Anyway, I am hopeful we can work something out with Meredith and Tony so we can see them a time or two before they leave.

Oh, and has anyone seen The Year One? Because if not, let me help you out: DON’T BOTHER. Honestly, we picked it up from Blockbuster on Friday night because we really wanted to like it, despite knowing that it was thoroughly shat on by reviewers when it came out over the summer in theaters.  Which makes it all the worse that we barely made it to the end; we put effort into enjoying it, including an entire bottle of wine, and it was just terrible. There was maybe a weak chuckle or two aimed in Michael Cera’s  general direction but overall, a massive disappointment. Zack blames Jack Black and I’m going to have to go ahead and agree with him there, much as I love School of Rock.

And…wow. How quickly this post has derailed from its point. Or a point of any kind, really.

Eh, it’s Monday. I am also going to blame the Zicam Cold & Flu, because yep, I think I am getting a touch of some disease that I am not naming because to name it is to acknowledge its existence and I am not giving it that kind of power over me (except, yes, I know, I just acknowledged it on my blog so probably I am going to die from it now, shut up).

Happy Monday! I hope your week is starting off in a more coherent fashion than mine apparently is.

Arlo’s Unfortunate Saturday

Friday night I cleared out of the apartment to give Zack some space to really dig in and study for his finals, which began yesterday. When I returned home Saturday afternoon, my dog was broken.

Arlo is a nervous licker (heh, that sounds so much kinkier than it is). He relieves his anxiety by obsessively licking his legs and paws and nothing we’ve tried has convinced him that this is a poor choice of ways to cope. He has a couple of sores on his legs at any given time, just small ones that heal quickly. The vet says this is pretty normal behavior in dogs that are particularly anxious, which he clearly is. I’m just glad he’s over the separation anxiety chewing everything he can get his jaws around phase.

Anyway, so back to Saturday. I get home and Arlo has apparently licked part of the padding off his back right paw, which is no small feat, and the sore looked like it was thinking about becoming infected. He would walk about five steps outside, then sit down to lick his self-inflicted injury.

Also it appeared that he had rolled around in a dust pile after not showering for about a month. His fur was like an oil slick with dandruff added for just an extra dash of ick.

I was alarmed, to say the least, that all this had happened so fucking FAST. I mean, I leave Zack alone for one night, and look what happens. My dog goes to pot (hi, now I am channeling my 76-year-old grandmother) and all of the sudden, on top of my $400 tooth that’s cropped just in time for the holidays, we also have a vet visit now. Awesome!

We decided to try some home remedies since we couldn’t get an appointment until Monday night anyway.

First thing was a bath because SWEET JESUS the DANDRUFF. Then we were off to PetSmart to invest in some dog booties (much to Zack’s dismay) and a cone.

I have been an advocate for the booties since last winter, our first in Chicago, when Arlo limped around outside because the salt stung his feet when it reacted with the snow. Zack thinks they are stupid and lame and said something that started out like “No dog of mine…” and then I quit listening. But aha! Victory is mine! We got some adorable blue booties and started out by just putting one on this injured paw. And Arlo forgot how to walk. He tripped all over himself trying not to use that one foot. So we thought, let’s put on all four and then he’ll HAVE to figure out how to make it work.

I wish I had taken video. It was so so so funny. He would sort of gallop forward and then try to walk a few steps on only his front paws, which worked out even worse than you probably imagine. Then he would stop and look at us imploringly and only at our urging (insisting, demanding, GET OVER HERE NOWWWW!) would he try again. And the scene would repeat. I got him outside for about 4.7 seconds before I felt bad enough to take them off. When I freed him he was like a whole new dog, happy and relaxed and able to poop.

And then there was the cone. It is quite possible he enjoyed the cone even less than the booties (which we are returning to PetSmart since Princess Arlo will have nothing to do with them, despite limping around this very morning in the snow/salt outside). When the cone came out so we could put Neosporin on his foot, Arlo sat, calm but worried, while we [very ineptly] secured it around his head. And he sort of just….drooped. The cone made contact with the floor and there was no amount of coaxing or treat promising or threats that could get him to budge.  I am pretty sure he would have been happier if we’d pistol whipped him. I took pity on him after awhile and let him lay with my on the bed, where he draped himself dramatically across my lap and sighed hugely every few minutes. We freed him after a couple of hours and have not since subjected him to The Cone of Sadness and Woe.

The upside to all this is that none of it seems to have traumatized Arlo permanently and our home torture remedies enabled us to cancel the vet appointment in good conscience . The cone and booties have gone away, though the cone is still lurking around the apartment because I suspect it’ll come in handy again in the future, and his wound has mostly healed without becoming infected. We’ve given him a couple of raw eggs since the weekend and his coat has mostly returned to its normal state of only mildly dandruffed. I did talk to the vet about the skin issue and she thought it was likely due to the dry winter air. Since it never appeared to phase Arlo and it’s pretty much back to normal now, there’s no need to be concerned.

Ella was never worried. She just watched the whole thing from a safe distance and laughed. And Sappho, of course, hid until it was over.

A Twilight-themed rant. You’re welcome.

Okay, I’m going to get a little ranty up in here.

I held off reading Twilight for a really long time. I didn’t even pick up the first book until after all four in the series had been released. I thought (and still think) that the absolute craziness surrounding this story is just that…a whole lot of crazy.

But one day I was bored and figured “What the hell?” I bought the first book and could. Not. Put. It. Down. Then I blew through the rest of the series in about a week.

Twilight is a love story. It portrays true love as something obsessive and all-consuming and angsty as hell. Do you remember being fourteen? Yeah, it’s a lot like that.

It is important to remember that Twilight is also fiction. It’s total fantasy: fantasy creatures, fantasy scenarios, fantasy love.

There’s an article that keeps cropping up on Facebook and Twitter called Top 20 Unfortunate Lessons Girls Learn From Twilight from Wired magazine (which is written by a man who admittedly has not read the series and is being posted mainly by people in my Facebook friends list who I suspect have also not read it). And it’s beginning to piss me off.

Here’s the thing: I am totally fine if you do not like Twilight, don’t want your kids to read/watch Twilight, and think it’s the biggest waste of time and energy that’s ever hit the face of the earth. There are plenty of things that are wildly popular that I feel that way about (see, football). I don’t think it’s fair, though, to declare this series Bad For Young Girls and walk away.

Parents, you are responsible for what your child is exposed to, but you also have to realize that you can’t protect them from everything you never wanted them to know. I heartily agree that Twilight’s love story is unrealistic and unhealthy, but you know? If my 15-year-old wanted to read it, I’d let her (or him). I would just make sure to talk to them about relationships and help them process what they’ve read. It is not Stephenie Meyer’s job to teach my kid about healthy relationships; it is my job. Would I let my eight-year-old read Twilight? No. I think some of the content and themes are too mature and too complicated. But that is my personal opinion.

My overall point is that I don’t think it’s fair for people to pin all the responsibility of the lessons their child takes away from Twilight on the books alone if they are sitting on their hands when it comes to actually finding out what their kid is thinking, how their kid is interpreting this story. I actually think that if your kid is into Twilight it’s a great opportunity to open a dialogue with them about healthy and realistic relationships and how they differ from the relationships portrayed in Twilight.

I very much enjoy Twilight because it is an escape and I expect that’s the reason most people like it. Meyer is definitely a character writer; Bella, Edward, Jacob and many of the other characters are compelling and likable. It is easy to relate to them. I guess I just wish that people didn’t feel the need to get so judgmental and offended by something that they just don’t like. Because it’s not their choice of escape, they feel the need to condemn it or belittle it. But you know? EVERYBODY has some form of escape or another because we all need those ways to disappear from our realities every once and awhile. And just because my escape happens to include vampires and werewolves and unswerving, obsessive love doesn’t mean I’m any worse off than anybody else and it certainly doesn’t mean that my expectations of relationships are convoluted or problematic. It’s called taking it with a grain of salt, or using my critical thinking skills to make a judgment about the role that this series plays in my life. It is not a starring role, but it is a fun one. I think it’s entirely possible for Twilight to play a similar role in the lives of young girls, with a little guidance and WITHOUT a judgmental attitude about it.

Lookin’ Good

As I’m sure you’ve noticed, the blog is a bit different. I think this cleaner, brighter look works better than the Depression Blue of the previous design. Plus I can make my own photos the header, and it’s pretty much idiot-proof, so maybe that will motivate me to move beyond just taking pictures to actually, you know, uploading them onto the computer and posting them here. We shall see. In any case, that’s Arlo on his very first boat ride (which he loved). We continue to wait for him to grace the water with his precious little toesies. He is kind of a wimp about the whole swimming thing. But I suspect we’ll get there eventually. Maybe.

In other news, I spent a considerable portion of this morning bemoaning the fact that we have no Thanksgiving leftovers. Really I am just upset that I didn’t get a chance to make The Perfect Leftover Turkey Sandwich, which for me is more important than turkey with gravy or cranberry sauce on the actual holiday. What is The Perfect Leftover Turkey Sandwich, you ask? It’s simple:

Leftover Thanksgiving turkey + Whole Wheat Bread + Mayo + Salt & Pepper = NOM NOM NOM.

I know that seems, like, idiotically basic and I should just shut up. But it’s all in the ratios, people. All in the ratios. Adding to the importance of capitalizing on my turkey sandwich-making opportunities is the fact that we do not roast whole birds in my household. There’s no aversion to it, I guess, but with only two of us it seems like way more meat than our capacity for leftovers encompasses. Simply put: we would likely not eat an entire roasted chicken or turkey before it would go bad.

Anyway, despite being well within range of leftover turkey this weekend, I did not get even one delicious morsel of perfection because my in-laws? They had no mayo. None! And every time we went out I would tell myself that on the way home I’d stop and grab some. Of course, every time I was on my way home, I forgot. So yes, it’s my own fault. But damn. I was having one of those Cannot Have It Which Makes Me Want It Even More moments (hours) this morning and telling you all about it is kind of taking me back to The Bad Place so I think it’s time to end this.

Happy Tuesday! Unfortunately we are nowhere close to Friday yet. However, can you even BELIEVE that it’s already December? I need to get my little Christmas-shopping hiney in gear.

Meatwads and car seats and tooth decay, OH MY!

Alternate Title: In Which I Ramble In An Almost Completely Incoherent Fashion, ENJOY!

Alternate Alternate Title: Shut Up, Austin.

We survived Thanksgiving! I know, you are shocked.

Turns out making A Big Fat Deal about the recipe! And the grocery stores closing! And traaaaaffic!! Means that we will find an acceptable recipe approximately five minutes after we start looking, make it to the fairly uncrowded grocery store well before closing, and traffic? What traffic?

I need to remember this for future holiday disaster-avoiding.

Anyway, we ended up making Florentine meatballs, which were pretty okay. Not my favorite recipe, to be honest. But they were wine-soaked so it wasn’t a TOTAL waste. Also our conversation at the store re: how much to make went a little something like this:

Zack: Three pounds of lean ground beef’s on sale. Do you think that will be enough?

Me: No one is going to eat three pounds of meatballs. This is a SUPPLEMENTARY entree. Everyone’s going to want turkey.

Zack: I don’t know, there’s going to be like 20 people there. I’m not sure this will be enough.

Me: Dude, I’m telling you. Three pounds is too much.

Zack: I’m going to call my mom. She’ll know.

Me: Much flagrant eye-rolling.

(Makes the call)

(Hangs up phone)

Zack: She thinks it’s too much. I’m going to buy it anyway!

He then proceeded to spend TWO HOURS browning each of the four zillion wads of meat (they sort of became more thick patties than balls post-frying pan) before they could go into the crock pot.

I think about 10 meatballs were consumed by the 16 of us present and everyone was very complimentary.

However. We forgot to put the rest away during clean up. The 3.7 zillion leftover meatwads were out all night and thusly trashed the next morning.

GRR.

Speaking, though, of, um…

Uh…

I have no good transition here so I will just soldier on.

Driving around with someone else’s infant in your car is pretty terrifying. Also guess what? The car we just purchased in April and planned to own until it was dead or we were? Doesn’t so much fit with the car seats. My knees were jammed practically into my eyeballs with Kellen in the seat behind me. I could not even get the car seat into the seat behind Zack’s because his damn legs are so long and he had to be able to do important stuff, like brake, when necessary.

But baby-sitting Kellen was really fun and an important reminder that when we have kids my clothes will be permanently stained, soiled (by bodily fluids not my own) and stretched-out. Good times!

And finally, Ode to a Molar.

You fucking suck, $400 tooth!

Fin.

A Very Procrastinatory Thanksgiving

We are heading to Minnesota in less than an hour with all the rest of the holiday traffic awesomeness that is, I’m sure, building up as I type.

All the grocery stores are closed tomorrow in my husband’s hometown. I mean, I already knew Minnesota was a leetle backwards because you can’t buy booze there on Sundays. Anywhere. Period. (It’s a good thing the Wisconsin border’s only 30 minutes away from the Twin Cities or Zack would NEVER have gotten me to agree to live there). But to close all sources of food procurement on a day that is ALL ABOUT THE FOOD? Now that’s just batshit insane.

You know what else is batshit insane? The fact that we’ve been asked to contribute some sort of “main dish” to Thanksgiving dinner that doesn’t require oven use (since the turkey will dominate the oven tomorrow) and we have no idea what we’re going to make. Isn’t that hilarious? I mean, we’re going to be driving I don’t even know how many hours without a clue as to what we are going to make and we are banking on getting to the grocery store tonight after we arrive at his parents’ house. Hahaaaa. I just think that is the cutest Thanksgiving story ever.

Can you tell I am too much of a control freak to have picked this scenario?

Had it been up to me, I would have chosen the dish sometime last week, shopped for the ingredients during my grocery trip on Sunday, hauled all perishables north in a cooler, and sat myself down with a big glass of wine tonight when we arrive.

But for some reason I don’t really understand, we’ve left it until the very last possible second and you know? I’m a little irritated.

For the record, I am not really irritated with Zack. He’s been working his ass off on a huge paper that fulfills a writing requirement for his degree, so I get that Thanksgiving prep has sort of taken a backseat. I’m annoyed that I didn’t just push a little to make a decision and do the shopping, rather than allow the procrastination that I KNEW would make me anxious come today.

So! I’m going to spend the rest of my few minutes pre-car ride browsing the Interwebs for crock pot recipes that could be crowd-pleasers. We’ll compile a grocery list in the car and my glass of wine will still be waiting for me when I get back from the store tonight. It is not the end of the world. I’m actually very much looking forward to this trip.

After all, I get to see this face!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Catch ya next week.

 

 

 

My mom is totally fine and I am an ass

Or: An update!

She didn’t have laser surgery, y’all. Instead the good specialist took a look at the hole on her retina and was all “Let’s freeze that sucker so the tear doesn’t get bigger! No needle in the eye for you!”

Oh, did I forget to mention the whole needle-in-the-eye thing? Because that was the part my mom was sort of, um, FREAKING OUT ABOUT. And now yeah. Completely worthless worrying.

They numbed her eye (as best I understand, they just squirted the numbing agent into her eye and it worked! Magic!) and then they cryogenically froze the tear. Doesn’t that sound like maybe my mom is half-cyborg now? Like the aliens came and took her off to space to replace half her head with machinery because MAH EYYYYES! and they wanted to study her? Or maybe I’ve just been watching too much V lately.

Her other eye is looking a little shifty so they might have to go back and freeze it someday, too. They’re keeping an eye on things (snort).

I talked to her a few minutes ago. She sounds good; she’s very happy it’s over. There’s no pain but she can’t move her eye yet because it’s still numb.

This caffeine overdose, however, doesn’t appear to be wearing off just because I’m relieved.

My mom is having laser eye surgery and I am acting like she’s been diagnosed with cancer because I like to overdramatize like that

I slept like total junk last night. I was having one of those nightmares where you’re aware it’s a dream and it’s really awful so you wake yourself up, but when you fall back asleep the dream keeps going. Which meant I was awake a lot.

So now I am sitting here, legs jiggling uncontrollably because I’ve had way too much caffeine, and my eyes have that sort-of-puffy look about them which pisses me off because I’m out of eye liner so there’s just no fixing it. I shall have to endure the puff.

I’m antsy because my mom’s having surprise laser eye surgery today and I can’t be there. Even though I know it is routine and easy and an outpatient procedure, it feels wrong that I’m not going to be sitting in the waiting room, ready to see her as soon as it’s over.

Sunday she noticed that she was seeing a flashing light out of the corner of her right eye and after awhile she realized it wasn’t a light, it was a problem with her vision. She got herself to the eye doctor yesterday and it turns out she was having an ocular migraine, just without any pain. During the exam they found a hole on her retina and BAM! The retina is detaching from the eye! She needs surgery to correct it before it can fully detach and blind her! STAT!

Or at least, it felt that rushed to me.

My mom’s had some wonky medical stuff go on in the past couple of years so now whenever something new crops up I find myself tense and waiting for terrible news. We so far haven’t had any really horrible news, just a pretty scary incident where she got lost driving her normal route home from work and began seeing things that she knew weren’t real. All tests and scans came back normal, revealing nothing. She refused to see a specialist and chalked it up to stress, despite our pleas for her to seek some type of concrete explanation.

That all happened about three years ago and she’s been fine ever since. The doctor told her it could have been something as simple as an inner ear problem, but either she got more tests and they came back normal and she never told us she saw a specialist (which is conceivable) or she stuck her fingers in her ears and went about her business as if nothing happened (also entirely possible).

Enter: Fear of finding out something is seriously wrong. Fear that she is going to die. Fear that my kids will never know their grandmother. Fear that I can’t quite squash down and talk myself out of. Fear that is mostly ridiculous but a little bit rational, too, maybe.

I do this every time there might be something wrong with her.

It is not a fun way to live.

She has to be okay. I need her to be.