The guilt is crushing me a little
We flew to Miami today; tomorrow we’ll board the cruise ship, and I predict Chickadee will be hurled overboard by Wednesday at the latest. (Um, did I mention she’s on her second course of Prednisone? Hell hath no fury like an itchy tween on steroids. Mercy.)
Last night Otto and I were up until midnight, doing the things one does the night before a big trip (no, not THAT): Packing, trying to finish up last bits of work, cleaning the kitchen, and whatever else seemed important at the time.
Licorice leapt onto our bed and curled up on Otto’s pillow, worriedly watching him as he finished packing his suitcase.
The truth is that Licorice has been freaked out even since the first suitcase came out of the attic, which was about a week ago. The suitcases came out; Licorice turned back into the sweet but clingy dog she’d been when she arrived at our house back in the Fall.
And lo, it was pitiful. read more…
You wanted more beets, right?
My my my. Y’all had a lot to say about beets. Some of your comments made me laugh out loud. It appears that no one is neutral on beets; they’re one of those love-em-or-hate-em foods for most of you. Interesting.
Naturally, I took this as a sign that you wanted a whole ‘nother post mostly about beets, so that’s what I did over at Five Full Plates. Feel the love! Or revulsion! Your choice!
What, you don’t like beets? Okay, how about a peek at this year’s garden?
MAH BABIES! MAH BABY SQUASHES! read more…
Bad mood, dude
Today we went back to Emory for the second time, to talk about Chickadee’s mystery skin condition. (Pretend that I linked back to the previous relevant posts on this subject. That will also require pretending I am not typing this in the car on my teeny tiny piece of crap netbook, and also that I’m a lot more organized than I actually am. And also that I’m in a better mood, which I’m not, which is also sort of the point here.) You may recall—and we’re pretending I linked to the post about—they’d put her on a new medication and I thought it was working right up until she busted out in a fantastic rash (right on schedule!) and she had to go back on Prednisone.
So today we farmed Monkey out to some friends and Otto drove us into Atlanta because I HATE driving in Atlanta and we spent a couple of hours with our friendly neighborhood pediatric dermatological specialists, and they had some really interesting things to tell us now that they’ve had some time to think it all over.
And we’re looking for some ANSWERS here, preferably, so I was READY. For ANSWERS. So it was all very exciting. read more…
Beet it
Friends, Romans, fellow Farmer’s Market nerds: I need your input.
One of the things we do when we go camping is prepare a bunch of food ahead to make meal prep in the wilderness as easy as possible. So—just for example—the second time I attempted falafel, it was delicious and I froze half the (cooked) batch and then we threw it in a pan and heated it up in our wee little camper oven for dinner one night. Easy peasy.
Also, I made a trip to the Farmer’s Market before we left and got some beautiful beets, which I roasted and made into this amazing salad concoction with caramelized sweet onions, feta cheese and a balsamic glaze. Otto and I both love it. And both children… refused to touch it. Even after I (encouragingly) promised them that it would turn their pee a very festive color.
Now; these are kids who eat broccoli, asparagus, eggplant… it’s not that they don’t like veggies. Me, I never ate a beet until I was an adult, and then my first brush was PICKLED beets (which are vile and disgusting), so for years I believed I hated beets. So I ALMOST understand, but not quite.
So, tell me: Beets, yay or nay?
Mother of the Year
In the following picture, I am to be commended for my excellent parenting because:
A) A storm is about to roll in and douse us all.
B) I’ve thrown my children 40 feet out of the boat, attached to us only by a fraying rope.
C) I’m sitting there watching them hold on for dear life and telling Boatguy “FASTER, THEY WANT TO GO FASTER!”
D) I smiled and waved from my position of safety as both kids were eventually (through a series of zigzags through the boat’s wake) hurled from the tube like ragdolls.
E) All of the above. The children are now referring to him as “Uncle Boatguy.”
P.S. Boatguy is forgiven, natch. Also? It’s okay, because I took my lumps as well. Turns out I’m not any better at hanging on through the turns than the kids. (Ow.)
A tale of two traumas
So things have been pretty uneventful for the last 24 hours.
HAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAA! I am funny!
When we last left off, we were busy packing up to head to South Carolina, gosh darnit, sickness and goopy eyes be damned. There was just one thing we had to take care of before we left, and that was an exterminator visit. It took a few days to schedule, but Licorice continued to be haunted by the mystery creature under the house even though Otto thought he’d sealed up all access to the crawlspace, and I remained convinced that there was a very crafty possum, and possibly crafty possum offspring, down there. So we waited for the Proper Authorities to come and say, “Yes ma’am, we’ll just set this humane live trap and get your visitor out of here.”
It was such a good plan, too.
The good news is that the nice young exterminator man was friendly and polite and extremely apologetic. read more…
Defiling nature
I would just like to apologize proactively to… uhhhh… well, I guess the entire state of South Carolina. I’m sorry.
But maybe that’s the wrong place to start. Where I should start is with this: Hey, for MONTHS we’ve been looking forward to this weekend’s camping trip! Yay! We load up approximately enough food, clothing and sundries to last us for a month in the desert, and then we drive a while and set up in the wilderness and then… sit around and read. (When Nerds Camp: The Boringness, coming soon to a really crappy theater near you!) But, see, camping is DIFFERENT than being at home, because it involves a lot of fresh air, and also popsicles. So you can see why it’s so exciting.
Plus we pack a couple of new toys for the dog, you know. So there’s that.
But this camping trip is destined to be a Very Special Event, because right now we’re really not fit for public consumption, and we’re going anyway, BY GOD. read more…
Cruel to be kind
Sometimes I wonder if Licorice feels like she has a pretty good life with us, or if she lies awake at night planning to kill us in our sleep. I mean, I think we’re providing her more or less a puppy nirvana, but what do I know? I’m just a stupid human. And at around twelve pounds, that makes her brain… what… maybe the size of a ping pong ball, if that? It’s hard to know what’s going on in there.
For example: The mystery animal under the house. Otto went under there and sealed up the access points, but whatever it is got back in again the next day, so now we’re waiting for the Unwanted Critters Wrangler to come and set a trap. In the meantime, Licorice remains convinced that the bathroom in my office contains a veritable carnival of doggie treats and wonder to which I am heartlessly denying her access. She continues to spend the bulk of her busy schedule lying prostrate at the door, snout tucked under the corner, waiting for her very own possum to spring forth with rawhides in one paw and a kitten in another. I mean, I assume, anyway.
This, of course, is an Unusual Cruelty. There are plenty of Regular Cruelties happening all the time. read more…
This month’s IBTC meeting
This meeting will now come to order. Order, please. Everyone please take your coffee and your gluten-free cookies [hey, it’s my meeting; I made cookies I can eat] and find a seat. Great, thank you.
This meeting of the local chapter of the Itty Bitty Titty Committee is now in session. Welcome back, veterans, and greetings to those of you who are new this time. Whether you’ve just discovered us—possibly after trying on swimsuits and wondering if you should invite a friend to share the top with you or just stuff some extra socks in there—or are just now finding yourself ready to join, say, after having weaned that last baby and discovering the deleterious deflation effects therein, we’re happy to have you here.
We have just a few items on the agenda to discuss today, and then we’ll open up the floor to new business. read more…
Mental
I’m really starting to feel bad for Licorice.
Look; it’s not her fault that three of us are on Prednisone. Otto and I are barely sleeping, though at the same time we’re too tired to be coherent, and as a result we’re perhaps not giving her the quality time she deserves. Chickadee isn’t quite as irritable as I remember her being from the steroids in the past, and of course her sudden appetite increase is working out well for the dog, so I guess that’s good. (“Can I have an apple? Can I have another apple? Can I give the dog a piece of this apple?”) And the fact that Monkey woke up this morning with conjunctivitis was just the icing on the crap cake for the REST of us, but when he went to pet the dog and I yelled at him to GO WASH HIS HANDS, FOR THE LOVAGOD, Licorice seemed kind of bewildered.
But none of that is actually why I feel bad for the dog.
I feel bad for the dog because she’s COMPLETELY LOST HER MIND. read more…