Because who doesn't want a rambly post every now and then

Landon's been sick this week [allergies turned sinus infection - as always]. Today is his first day back at school. And man was he pissed to be back in the routine after being out of it for like 5 days. Oh and now I have to sanitize my hands before going into my kid's classroom (not like they singled me out or anything, but they have a note to all parents that this is the new thing)...which 3 things 1) I don't touch anything but my kid and his paperwork, so I don't really see the point and 2) all this hyper vigilance is going to create a new superbug a la MRSA - just wait and see and 3) if I did have a the flu and I came to pick him up, my hands are the least of what anyone's worries should be - maybe they ought to supply us with those hazmat jumpsuit thingies - I want mine to have a helmet like an Astronaut.

The healthnuts are everywhere! I got chastised by a co-worker for drinking ice water all the time. Not the water part, but that he seems to think that warm or hot water is healthier for you. And I said, hey - it's not like I'm downing a 12 pack of coke every day - water is still good for you. So I looked it up and for some reason a lot of Asian people believe that hot water is better for you than cold water. I can't find any actual scientific stuff that says he's right - also can't find anything to say he's wrong, but do now realize it's a fairly cultural thing I'm dealing with, so I've decided to let it go. He also bothers me about the bacon I eat every morning, but I guess he doesn't exactly understand how sugar and starches affect my body and I don't really want to get into it with him, so I can't really fault him for that one.

Someone I can fault for something is my husband and his cousin. Remember that family cookbook I've been working on? Dude, it's taken like forever - I started it in January. but now I have a deadline, so come June 13th, I have to be done - I work better with deadlines, so that's a good thing. Also - the only 2 people who haven't done their homework for me? My husband and his cousin! You know, the two people who originally thought I should do this thing.

And you know who else is bothering me right now? Little kids. That sounds mean, but some times OPK (Other People's Kids) just irritate the ever loving crap out of me. Remember, when we went to the park and Landon was all - "EEEK other small people, I will just DIE if they talk to me!!" Well apparently, what goes around comes around, even in the toddler circuit, because he's totally trying hard to talk to kids on the playground now and about half the time the other kid completely ignores him. It's pretty frustrating really - we spent so much time trying to socialize him and get him to be willing to talk to other people and now they're ignoring him. Granted they're older kids, so they're probably just trying to get out of playing with a baby - but they could at least acknowledge his presence, I'm not asking them to baby-sit him.

Oh and they added these two giant rocks to the playground, one has a hole in the middle, which Landon like to sit in and pretend there's a TV to watch in there.

The end.

Things

(1) I apparently don't know the definition of pandemic. It sounds so...dire. And yet:

Cases of Swine Flu in US: roughly 100

US Population: 304,059,724


(2) Someone here is fighting with me about the way toilet paper should hang. I put it on properly and the next time I go in, someone has turned it around. It should hang over, so that if your hand is dirty, you don't touch anything but the paper to get it. If it hangs to the back you run the risk of touching the wall behind it and then the next person does and BAM swine flu.



(3) Landon pooped in the potty 2 days in a row. He's not very good at seeing it coming, because you only get about a 10 second warning, but if you can get him to the potty in time. Awesomeness and lollipops are sure to follow. When asked if he would consider peeing in the potty for say - M&M's. He expressed a liking for M&Ms but then declined the offer, because apparently they are not a good enough motivator to not walk around in your own pee all day.



(4) Landon also put on his own pajama bottoms on last night - which means, I am a shirt, socks and shoes away from not having to dress an extra person in the morning.



(5) I have discovered the best parenting hack of all time. We have a glass shower door, and in order to lure him into the shower, I squirt a little shaving cream on the door for drawing. By the time I have him washed down, he's ready to spray down the door with water to clean it off and get out. Total awesomeness - for now, while it still works, because we all know these things won't last forever.



(6)

Well that was...breaky.

Today is Monday and is completely Monday-like. MONDAY WITH A VENGEANCE!

Landon was awake this morning at 4:45. The jerk. Nothing makes me later than waking up earlier than planned.

I drove into work thinking I had forgotten my sunglasses, which I happened to find on the passenger seat while gathering up my lunch bag. Monday morning eye-pain! For no good reason!

Also, I have no clue where my badge for work is...so I got someone to let me in the building and on my floor and I can't leave the floor unless I go admit my lack of a badge to the receptionist, who will issue me a temporary one - which isn't a big deal, except they turn it off at the end of the day (as well as having turned off my real badge), so I have to tell them tomorrow also if I'm a total moron and still can't find it.

**********

I did enjoy my blogosphere break, in fact it gave me enough relaxation about things to go places and enjoy them instead of taking pictures and wondering how I was going to tell this story and that story and not everything was about this damn blog. And that's how it was in the beginning, and I liked that. We went to Clint's cousin's graduation party on the 18th (super yummylicious crawfish) and I didn't even take my camera out of the car. Never mind scary drive over there with the flooding and the rain, and the ant bites that still haven't completely disappeared 10 days later, it was an awesome experience, to just..be somewhere.

Me Hoeping

(I'm Helping)

I don't even know where to start. Except maybe to start at the end and work backwards.

I'm sick again. I swear to God, if I don't get well soon, I'm going to kill someone. My lymph nodes in my neck as so swollen and my throat hurts so bad, I feel like if I still had tonsils they'd be touching each other. I'm wavering between going to the work clinic and complaining until they give me some of their nifty throat deadening lozenges and just waiting it out and seeing if I'm still sick on Friday and going to see my real doctor. The jury is still out. I think I'll probably make a decision mid morning.

Yesterday we went to buy some herbs and tomato plants. The pots were apparently in Clint's way in the garage, and had to be moved. I already had a kickin' rosemary plant, but everything else herby I had was dead. So now I have basil, sage, thyme, and flat leaf parsley. And 3 different kinds of tomatoes. We planted 2 tomatoes upside down and 1 right side up. I also have seeds for chives and dill - but I honestly don't have a lot of hope for those two - My thumb is somewhere between brown and green. If someone else got it to be like 3 inches tall, I might be able to keep it alive, but I have very little faith in my nurturing from a seed abilities.

We also put some wooden stakes in a couple plants and wrapped them in some kind of plant binding stuff to keep them growing up instead of out.

Scarlett would like to know why we let him carry that stick around.

Saturday night I got a call from the fraud prevention department at Clinton's allowance bank. Someone got his debit card number and went on a huge spending spree. Like a total of over $2000. And they're going to get away with it, while we don't have to pay for anything that wasn't ours, the bank said it's too hard to find the people who do this, so nothing will happen. We're trying not to think about the AT&T guy who was in the attic the day before this spending spree and how he may have had access to actually get a card out of one of our old file boxes. They also said that the technology is such that it could have been anyone, because all they need is the number from the card and they can make their own card.

We had Shane power wash the outside of our house and all concrete. Which is awesome. Our house, by the way, is a cream and brown color and the brick is kind of a peachy pink - not green. Who'd a thunk it?

Which brings us back to Friday, when I worked most of the day on completing something that by the time I finished at the end of the day we got an order handed down from the client, that said "no, thanks, we want to wait."

And now, I think I'm going to call the health clinic, because I'm not sure I can take this much longer.

I'm counting on you

You know what we haven't done in a while?

Counted everyone.

I heard on the radio that they are beginning the process of hiring people for the census.

I worked for the census in 2000.

So I thought I'd share a little with you about the census and the people who work there.

The census happens in a couple phases. In the first phase, they hire the best of the applicants to set up the office, then they hire the next best to sort and mail everyone a form. Some people get short forms, some people get long forms. If you get a long form and don't feel the need to answer everything, if you will just answer a few items (in 2000, the required questions on the long form had an asterisk out to the side), they will leave you alone. Ideally, everyone would fill out the form and send it back in and there would be no need for a second phase.

But that doesn't happen. So we have a second phase. In this phase, the normal people they hired in the first place end up being supervisors and they hire most of the rest of the applicants who can range from slightly odd to did-you-come-in-as-Stephanie-or-Tim-today or what-medical-experiment-are-you-signing-up-for-next strange. And they send those people to your house to get you to fill out the form.

So if you'd like to avoid a visit from Stephanie/Tim, you might just go ahead and fill out the form when it first comes. It should be in your mailbox early next year. I'll probably talk about it again when it happens.

Some pointers to avoid being taken advantage of, things I actually saw happen or received calls about when I manned the phones in the evening at the office where I worked:

• You do not have to pay anything. There are no late fees, if you are visited by Stephanie/Tim, because life got too busy and you didn't fill out the form, and he/she tries to get you to pay a fee, they are scamming you. Technically you already paid for it with your taxes. Want to eliminate some wasteful government spending, fill your form out when you get it in the mail instead of having someone come out to your house.

• All census employees have a badge. If they make you feel the least bit uncomfortable about the questions, take their name down, you can call your local census office and report them. They will be dealt with, and we pretty much fired people for asking any questions not on the form.

• The census does not want your social security number. Seriously. They don't. If someone claims to be from the census and asks for your social security number, it is a scam. Do not give it to them, and call the police. If they have a badge, call the local census office and report them, but also call the police.

• Be nice, these people are not making much money. The hours suck, the pay sucks, they just want to know how many bodies lived in your house on Jan 1, 2010. That's it.

• If you have a kid away from home, they should fill out their census to reflect where they live more than 50% of the time. So a kid away at college will tell the census that they live in their college town.

• If you apply to work for the census, when they call to offer you a job, consider not cursing at them and hanging up on them as if they are trying to sell you a time-share.

• The pay varies from office to office based on the cost of living and comparable jobs in the area. When I left College Station to come home for the summer, I transferred to a Houston office. I was demoted, since my shift supervisor position in College Station was not available in the Houston office. And in doing so, I got a raise.

The census is used to determine all kinds of things, from federal aid, to redistricting. It's kind of important to make sure that everyone in the country is represented.

A possibly not word for word, but you get the gist of it conversation while I make dinner.

Him: Hey, I haven’t seen our neighbor’s husband in a while. He seems to only show up on weekends. Do you think he works out of town?

Me: Maybe they’re getting a divorce.

Him: But he stays there when he shows up on weekends.

Me: Well the Iowa truck is back, and they left that U-haul on the street. Maybe she’s having an affair with that guy.

Him: But when he was here before, her husband was at home all the time.

Me: Maybe that’s why they’re getting a divorce.

Him: And he used to do all the yard work, but I saw her hire someone to do it last week.

Me: Maybe he’s dead and that’s a zombie you see coming home on weekends. You know, you don’t want zombies doing your yard work. They’re not very good at it, and the tend to just drop body parts all over the yard. Plus, anyone who has a dinner party in my dream in the middle of a hurricane, is just weird to me anyway. I’m just glad they finally moved the U-haul.

Him:…

Me: Don’t you wish you had a blog?

Him: Like a video blog?

Me: You’re thinking of starting one right now, so you can tell your side of the story of living with me.

Him: Do you still want a reality TV show?

Me: Are you trying to end this marriage with divorce? Or do you think we could be the one couple to have a reality TV show and not end up divorced?

Him: What about John & Kate Plus 8, or the Duggars?

Me: I’m pretty sure that’s about the kids.

Him: What about Sharon and Ozzy?

Me: Are they even married?

Him: Yeah.

Me: Oh, I was thinking of the other guy, um... the KISS guy.

Him: Gene Simmons?

Me: Yeah.

Him: They're not married, but they've been together like 17 years.

Me: Oh, that makes such a difference. Let's totally do reality TV, we so won't end up divorced.

UPDATED: Was there a recall on yesterday that I missed?

UPDATED WITH SCAN OF ELFIN WOMAN: Who is not so much elfin as I remember her, I thought she had pointy ears last night, now she's just big boob sexy comic book stereotype.

Because, I'd like to take mine back and trade it in on a less defective one. Probably not as much as Clinton would like to, but I'd like to none the less.

I stayed late at work yesterday to do a quick project for my project that was supposed to be over, but the client will not let die. Actually the head client guy just seems to be humoring the guy I worked with, because they are asking for things that are not normal deliverables. Anyway, I stayed late.

And I learned a few things.

• Someone in this office is drawing large breasted elfin looking women after hours, enlarging them to 11x17 paper, making copies and then forgetting to take the original off the copier. If it's who I saw walking away from the copier just before my discovery, this does not compute.

• I now know why my office doesn't seem very clean. Custodian came to my floor, left the backpack vacuum out in the hall near my office and never showed up again, and I was here until 9:15 or so. Well, he did show up once. He seemed to be wandering around drinking a coke.

That's not the bad part though. Clinton arrived home to a toilet that didn't flush properly. And after 20 or 30 minutes of plunging, and sewage, and running hot water in the bathtub to try to clear what he thought was a clog, he discovered that the clean-out cap was off and our yard was full of hot water.

This is the 3rd or 4th time we've called the utility district, so the guy with the truck, who has always been the same guy who comes, because it always happens in the evening, came out and about 85 feet out from the clean out he found the problem. As usual. It's cleared and things work well again for the moment, but he said since it's happened so much he's going to escalate it to the engineering department. Hopefully they find a fix for it, because it never happens at a nice reasonable time, you know, like when both of us are home and able to deal with it, or when the baby is in a good mood. Poor Landon, he just wanted to help, but Clinton didn't think he should be helping with sewage water.

This morning, when I woke up Landon, his face was in a puddle of blood. The air has been uncharacteristically dry here for about a week, add a toddler and a crusty booger he just wants out, but isn't awake enough to pin point his activities and poof you have a bloody nose! (And, yeah I should probably set up his humidifier again in order to avoid this.) I have said before that they should make peppermints on sticks like lollipops for just this reason. Peppermints will stop a nosebleed, but I don't like giving him a choking hazard so early in the morning. Luckily I found a candy cane leftover from Christmas, so it worked out, but it would seriously be neater if I could just find peppermints in lollipop form.

He really didn't want to be cleaned up. He kept saying "Enough!" But he did get to have candy before breakfast, so he finally gave in a little. On the way to school, sucking away on his candy cane, he had already sharpened it into a shiv like instrument, and he jabbed the inside of his cheek. "Mom, dat hurt!" "Well, bite it off and chew it, so it won't be pointy anymore" "Oooooh, dat good." And he only ate about an inch or inch and a half, so he's not set up for a big sugar crash either.

This evening, I have all kinds of blood stains to look forward to trying to clean off of various articles of clothing and sheets. Because it's not enough to bleed on your own sheets and pajamas, you then need to wipe your nose all over your ready to go work mom, so she has to change clothes, and roll around on her bed as if your goal in life is to have her wash the sheets that were just put on the night before. I guess I don't have a lot of room to talk, I have a blood stained stuffed armadillo from precisely the same kind of behavior.

Maybe there will be a recall on today too.

Irrational fears

Just before Christmas, I parked my car, and we drove Clinton's car for most of our time off. And throughout the week, as we drove up the driveway behind my car, I noticed that my car was starting to lean a little bit. And a little bit more. And finally, it was pretty clear that I had a flat tire. I assumed it was a nail or a screw in my tire, and I went to look at it to see if I could see where it was and if it was pluggable. I didn't see anything (and found out later that I'm really glad I didn't find anything and you should be too.)

I needed new rims and tires anyway, because there's a whomp whomp sound when I drive, and our mechanic said that 3 of my rims were slightly bent and that all of my tires were out of round. I've known this for some time. Actually, he also said it wouldn't cause any problems to drive it as it was for a while, just that it would continue to make the weird noise. I did intend to buy the new rims and tires at the end of January anyway, I just wasn't quite ready for the expense. But after looking at the tire itself, I didn't think anyone would plug it anyway. Clearly I needed the new tires.

So, Clinton got on-line and bought my rims and tires, as it was cheaper to have them sent to us than to buy them anywhere around here. And on Friday, while I was at work, he put them on my car. And they are awesome.

So I asked him, stupidly, if I had a screw or something. And he asked if I was sure I wanted to know. And I stupidly said yes. And he said "bones." There were 2. With fur. And I don't even remember hitting an animal. He asked if I wanted to see them, and I declined that offer, which saved you from a picture of them, because if I had to look at them, you were going to have to look at them. So you're welcome.

I don't have many irrational fears. but I have a few.

1) Hitting an animal (alive or roadkill) with my car and then having one of their bones poke a hole in my tire, leaving me with a flat tire.

2) Seeing a garbage bag on the side of the road and then noticing a body part in it, leaving me on the side of the road waiting for police to report having found a dead body.

3) Being stuck in traffic for 24 hours straight with nothing to eat or drink and no stores open.

So, now that 2 of my irrational fears have occurred already (#3 happened when we evacuated for Rita.) That means that I am totally avoiding any and all debris on the side of the road, I do NOT want to see a dead body, thankyouverymuch.

5 Inadvertent Benefits of Food Poisoning

We still don’t really know if it was food poisoning or some very very mean stomach virus. I prefer to think it was the former, because that way I can banish the restaurant from my repertoire and be done with it and never think of it again. The latter would require purchasing large plastic bubble suits for the three of us and that’s going to get expensive. I don’t even know how to start with the cleaning of plastic bubble suits, are they dry clean only? Are they like jackets and you only wash them once you see dirt on them or do you wash them daily like your normal clothes? See why I blame food poisoning? It’s just easier.

Anyway, on to the benefits:

• A child free weekend – sure you don’t get to enjoy it because you’re spending 65-75% of your time on the toilet in one form or fashion, but at least you only have to wipe your own butt.

• Weight loss – not that this is a fool proof system and not that it’s the healthiest way to lose weight, but I did lose 3 lbs over the weekend.

• Overcoming addiction – after spending three days eating minimally and drinking mostly water and Gatorade, I went through my caffeine withdrawal while experiencing the rest of my issues and it was barely noticeable. In fact the carbonation hurt my stomach this morning when I got my usual, so I will probably be kicking the habit once and for all.

• Clearing your DVR – it’s not like you can do pool maintenance or mow the lawn, you have to maintain a certain proximity to the bathroom and you’re weak to boot, so, since you have nothing else to do but watch TV, it’s time to clear the DVR.

• Renting movies – once the DVR is empty, it’s time to rent some movies. Redbox is awesome if you know you have the uninterrupted time to watch movies and will not be late returning them. This of course requires at least once person to be in good enough condition to drive. We rented Baby Mama – predictable, but cute, also, we taught Landon to give Mojo – so totally worth it, and Leatherheads – I don’t know, I couldn’t really concentrate on it, it was too slow and I ended up going downstairs to finish laundry instead.

What you thought I’d talk about voting on election day?

Fine.

Go vote.

On the way back from buying half the pharmacy

I saw this bumper sticker that said:

Childhood is Preserved at [Leafy Tree Religious] School

And I pictured all the little kids in jars lined up on the shelf.

I also have been noting a few thing I might have twittered over the past few weeks. Since I haven't joined twitter, I saved you from them at random times.

• Listened intently to Gardenline caller about growing potatoes from potatoes bought at the grocery store. As if I even have a garden. Or would grow potatoes.
• Some jackhole put M&Ms in the kitchenette. They are sabotaging me.

My twitter would be empty.

2 years late, still not really done

So, one of the things Clinton and I did on our staycation (that was for you modernish father) was to fix up Landon's room to what it should have been before he was born. We finally put up the letters to spell his name on the wall and added a bookshelf for toy storage. And of course the little table and chairs.

His most favorite present from all of his birthday presents is that little workbench. Seriously, for the first few days to get him out of anywhere we just asked him if he wanted to play with his workbench and he'd be all "YESSSH!"

We have endured many hours of tink tink tink tink tink "Ooaah" tink tink tink tink tink "Ooaah" tink tink tink tink tink "Ooaah." And I'd complain, but I don't want to return to the former ritual which involved hours and hours of fishies.

Minutiae

I may have blown my wad on that first post vacation post.

One of the things we did over the weekend was take Landon to the local park.




I'm tired of the election already. I don't need the conspiracy theories from either side. I've heard them all.

Although, here's a math lesson from an Obama commercial. If McCain's tax plan gives no relief to the middle class, but Obama's offers 3 times the relief to the middle class that McCain's plan does? It still offers no relief. 3 x 0 is still ZERO! (Also FYI - "Spread the wealth" spells communism at best.)

Here's where I should counter with an ad from the McCain campaign which makes me crazy. Except - I haven't seen one at all - I guess he figures he has Texas wrapped up and doesn't have to run ads here. (Also, FYI - buying up the "bad" mortgages and renegotiating them at lower amounts AND lower interest rates is a slap in the face to those of us who knew what we could afford and have been paying our mortgages like we're supposed to.)

They both suck. I am still looking for an island to conquer so i can get away from it all.

Speaking of ads, and things that make me crazy. High fructose corn syrup is made with terrible corn. Corn not fit for consumption as corn. Also, your body doesn't know what to do with it and it ends up being stored as fat. And if someone objects to HFCS when you offer them something, and then you ask them why? If they felt strongly enough that they objected, they know why. Also, it's hard to eat HFCS "in moderation" if it's in EVERYTHING.

Stresstember

• Landon started day care.
• Ike came.
• Loss of power for 5 days.
• Impromptu road trip around Texas.
• Fence down, requires dealing with an ornery neighbor.
• Fence propped up, but not necessarily stable.
• People are told to return to work.
• They moved my computer, but not my phone.
• Day care has no power.
• No one has supplies for fence building.
• Day care still has no power.
• Work related stuff has a deadline which cannot be met after a week off.
• Fence guy thinks he can become billionaire on my dime.
• Fence down completely.
• Fence still down completely.
• Landon is sent home from school with a fever, not to return until 24 hours post non-medicated non-fever.
• Fencing supplies everywhere you look.
• Get notice that Landon's main teacher is leaving the school.
• Attend work related meeting/interview where I am officially responsible for bringing a massive project ending (if it weren't already being built) sized problem to light and they'd like to know what the hell happened to get us to that point.
• Birthday party coming up on Saturday - have bought 4 plastic tablecloths and candles in preparation and nothing else.
• Work related stuff gets put off to late next week.
• Fence still down completely.
• Discover neighbors are trying to take over ornery neighbor's yard 6 inches at a time.
• Work related stuff gets pushed up to early next week.
• Fence supplies dwindling.
• Landon comes home from Day Care covered in bright orange paint, and I have no orange painting to show for it - nor do they fill out the section of his sheet that is supposed to tell me what he did all day.
• Friend building fence gets called back to work.
• Again with the not telling me what he did all day on his sheet.
• Brother in law coming to help finish fence.
• Work experiences loss of water...I cannot even flush a damn toilet here.

Somebody stole my weekend

I came to work today in order to relax.

Between eye appointments, fence removal, garage door repairs, etc. I am wiped out. And I did very little physical labor.

I am back in my normal office at least.

Here are some hurricane Ike damage pictures.

We were extremely lucky, as this was our only house damage, which was easily pushed back into position:

We lost our entire fence.

This is the side fence, posts snapped at the ground:

This is the back fence, posts also snapped at the ground:

This is the other side. The side with the lady with the dog. The side that disintegrated. We are missing whole pieces of this fence, and that one chunk in the middle that seems to be in one piece? That's the one I fixed, it's the only reasons it stuck together.

And the plant and branch we lost in front:

We currently literally have no fence. Clinton and Shane took it down yesterday, and Shane will be rebuilding it this week. I'll post pictures when it's done.

Cow rider

Only in Texas.

We saw this sign on the dirt road that leads to a dairy farm...I guess they didn't want to have to take care of horses too, so they just ride the cows. We're pretty sure that's a cow anyway.

Confirmation that Landon is getting breakfast, since I can't get anyone to write that down. I'll never really know if he eats it, but at least they're serving it to him.

And that's Noah, whose back is towards the camera.

Don't mind those kids with the square black heads...they seemed normal in person.

Tomorrow I hope to get over myself and have something about the experiment.

Packing my bags

I called Landon’s Dr. to get an appointment for his 2 year well child visit. I have every Friday off and the closest Friday to his 2nd birthday is…his birthday. So I scheduled it for that day and the receptionist/appointment booker lady basically called me mean. And told me he would remember his 2 year old visit. And told me that we had to get him some really big presents to make up for it. And I told her to mind her own beeswax and that if I needed her parenting advice then I would ask for it and also, would she like to pay me my normal wages to come in on a day I don’t have off, if she thinks it’s so terrible that I bring him in on his birthday. Except I didn’t. I possibly mumbled something about his party being the next day and that he wouldn’t know the difference.

****

A couple weeks ago I took Ivan in to the vet for his annual cortisone shot. He’s allergic to mosquitoes we believe, and basically we wait until his ears are all red and bleedy and gross and his nose swells up and get him a cortisone shot and it all goes down and he’s happy until the next year when the mosquitoes come back. He also gets his annual shots when this happens and I tried to combine this appointment with Alexander’s well cat visit, but when I went to gather the cats, the yard guys were making as much noise as humanly possible and only Ivan fell for the old tuna trick.

Well, as it turns out one of his lymph nodes is swollen in one of his hind legs. The Dr. aspirated it and didn’t see anything that indicated cancer or lymphoma saying that not only are the typical cells not present in the sample she took, but also that normally a cat with lymphoma has all his lymph nodes swollen, not just one. But she gave him an antibiotic shot and sent us packing with a huge vet bill. Thank God Alexander was hiding, because if I’d had them both there and had to pay for his shots too, I’m not sure we would have made it out of there without having to wash dishes or something. She said to call in 3 weeks or so and check back in about his lymph node.

Well, she called to check on him. His lymph node is still swollen. She said she has to recommend a biopsy. And I felt like a jackass, but I asked “how much money are we talking here?” She added the histopath and the anesthesia and came up with about $300. “And what happens if it comes back as cancer? Cat Chemotherapy?” Yeah, pretty much.

And here’s where I then have to choose between money and cat chemotherapy.

Cat chemotherapy will probably only actually extend his life a year. A sick year. A year of 2 daily pills and a shot every 3 weeks. Basically, a year of hell. And since I suck at remembering to administer pills probably less than a year. On a cat that seemingly is pretty durn healthy at the moment. I didn’t even ask how much that was going to cost me. She did say it was pretty reasonably priced. This vet also told me that the shot antibiotic I had opted for over the pills was about the same price and very reasonable ($90 is NOT reasonable for a cat antibiotic.)

Bottomline, I’m not going to go for cat chemotherapy – I’d rather watch him live happily as he is doing now, and when/if I see a decline in his health we’ll reevaluate the situation. She said if I wasn’t going to do the treatment there really no reason to biopsy. Honestly, I think that it was probably inflamed due to an infection from the mosquito bites and once it’s all good and healed he’ll be fine. Plus, he’s an outside cat, and he’s 6 years old and he’s already outlived a lot of his siblings.

****
The dog next door is still there, but they did get his fur cut. So yea for the system. Except, he's still alone 99.9% of the time and I still feel bad for him.
****
Have you seen the commercial where they ask President Bush if he ate dinner with his family growing up and claim it keeps kids from doing drugs and committing crimes? He says he did, and then Barbara chimes in about it...does no one remember his convictions for cocaine. Is he really the best spokesman for that spot?

Tidbits

Yesterday at work, they passed out ice cream sandwiches and fruit popsicles (your choice.) Today the leftovers are in the freezer. One in particular has this note: "[Lastname]'s. EAT & DIE."

Our A/C is being worked on. Again. I think when we had the drains re-routed a while back, the guy who did it didn't do the angle right or something. It keeps clogging now.

Clint is at home due to the A/C thingy, but he woke up early enough to do everything I normally do to get ready for work, except wake the baby and get dressed. Including getting me my normal breakfast from Chick-Fil-A. The girl who normally serves me gave him a funny look and asked if it was for him. He said "No, it's for my wife." She said "I thought so, tell her I said 'Hi.'"

I don't have anything else of note, so here are a few things I read/saw in the past week or so that made me laugh, cry, wonder and boil.

Laugh:
Jesus on a dog butt!

Cakewrecks

Cry:
Feral Girl is found living in unfathomable conditions. She was rescued. She has since been adopted by a loving family, who kind of treats their son like a red headed step-child now, because she needs so much attention.

Wonder:
Montauk Monster washed ashore. What the hell is it?

Woman fights off lion during donkey ride. (No, Nonsoccermom, not your kind of donkey - a REAL donkey) This story was on the news this morning, but they kept saying she was on a bike ride. Was the donkey named Bike?

Boil:
GWB goes to China. Arrives with a soap box under his arm, fresh from having insulted his hosts.

Take some No Doz, you're going to need it

I submitted an online complaint to the SPCA detailing the dog situation. If they do nothing, I'm just going to have to assume that I'm over-reacting. I still feel bad for the dog, but maybe it's because I treat my dogs like children with the exception of day care, and that whole locking them up in a box all day. Ok, maybe not so much like children as dirty smelly house guests. Bottom line, I don't lock them outside all day every day and only talk to them once a week. And while my dogs don't require the grooming that a long haired dog requires, if they did, I would most certainly take care of it, especially in the summer in Texas. Ok, enough. Are you as sick of hearing about that dog as I am of writing about it?

I got my PE certificate in the mail yesterday. Thank you, mail lady, for bending it. I think I can flatten it with a heavy book though, it's not creased or anything. Now I just have to send in the paperwork with my picture and the stamps I had made, so they will be approved. I have my grandfather's PE certificate with a picture of him framed, so I'm thinking of doing something similar, it seems awfully self indulgent, but I also have my diploma framed, so maybe there's no difference. Maybe it's the picture that makes me feel that way. I'm probably over thinking it.

I have developed a plan of attack for my experiment (more on this tomorrow.) Actually, I guess it's a plan of organization. A plan for a plan. I may need some psychiatric help, I'll add it to my to-do list, right after "type packing list for this weekend" and before "start Christmas shopping list for Christmas 08."

I drove my grandmother's car to work today, and learned several pretty good lessons. People do not get out of your way in a Corolla like they do when you're in a full sized truck. The drive through windows at Chick-Fil-A (and probably various other places) are not so much eye level, but more way the heck up there. I am taller than the car I'm driving for the first time in a REALLY long time, it's weirder than I thought it would be. It's coming back to me, but I just hadn't realize exactly how much the size of your vehicle truly determines how you have to drive. Also...it kind of feels like I'm driving a roller skate. But it's going to be totally worth it in gas savings, even just driving it for a few weeks.

It used to be a drinking problem

OR LOOK AT ME, I'M A SLOB

OR WHY SOME PEOPLE SHOULD GET OVER THEMSELVES AND JUST WEAR BIBS

So yesterday I was wearing clothes at work (yeah, I know, novel idea) as usual. And I dropped my lunch down my front (which, now that I think about is also...as usual). Because what better way to present yourself than to have a giant grease stain on the front of your shirt right between your boobs?

And it couldn't have happened on a better day (when is someone going to invent sarcast-a-font?), because I had no time to go home before going out to dinner with 4 other girls.

I managed to get to the restaurant area about 20 minutes early, so I went into Target to buy another shirt.

And less than 2 minutes into eating the free appetizer (sign up now! give us your email address! we'll annoy you forever, but we'll give you this free $6 appetizer!) I had cheese on my new shirt.

I used to have a back-up shirt in the diaper bag for when Landon puked on me, and when he got over that phase, I thought I was free and clear. But this morning I decided to put a back-up shirt in my truck for my own personal emergencies. And when I got in my truck to leave I noticed a very similar stain on my shirt to the one from yesterday, so I'm already wearing my back-up shirt.

News people make me cranky

I'm kind of cranky today.

Last night we were watching the news and several stories smacked of "This just in...water is wet!"

And is it just me or could they stop reporting how high oil could go. I mean, if I were looking to buy oil as a commodity and they were all - oh, it's still going to go up another $45 a barrel, I'd be all over buying that crap. Which means it will go up. Which means it won't go down. And if they'd shut the hell up, maybe, just maybe, it would at the very least become stagnant. News bastards.

And also, maybe I'm too cynical to watch the news anyway, because they want me to feel sorry for a woman who let her 2 small children (ages 7 and 3) play outside at the apartment complex, went inside to throw a load of laundry in and came back and the kids were gone. But then didn't report them missing until 9pm. So either, she was letting them play outside in the dark - which means she's crazy to begin with...or she waited a hell of a long time to report them missing...or you know - the truth - which is something happened to those kids and she didn't think of her cover story until 8:45. She didn't seem very upset on the video they shot of her. Which my insides tell me means that she knows where those kids are (whether they are dead or alive.)

Ok, maybe I'm not "kind of" cranky. Maybe I'm very cranky.

"This just in, my kid does actually speak, but not so much in words or anything."

He's talking about the ducks he saw and how you can see the playground from the little pier thingy in the park. What, you didn't get that when you listened? Listen again.