The Good, the Bad, and the Unbelievable
Happiness is:
- snuggling with both (happy) children in bed this morning before getting up
- a trip to Target
- finding really nice “not recognized by system” sheets that should’ve been salvaged and getting them for $7.49
- getting some fresh air
- having the energetic, limber, 14-year-old sitter come by to run the childred ragged while I take a nap
- someone from church calling to say they have some meals to drop off for me and the kids.
Happiness is not:
- nerves deciding to start regenerating in places that still hurt
- pushing two kids in a grocery cart, even if only for 20 minutes
- having a small boy pounce on me from behind and then declare, “Why you owing? That’s your back, not your belly!”
- another migraine
- realizing the coffee I had with my migraine medicine was rather too close to the proposed naptime.
Huge happiness mixed with incredulity is:
- following the incredible saga of a long-time internet friend (who is going to kill me when she reads this) who appeared to be suffering from a mysterious disease for the last few months and did, in fact, give birth to a perfectly healthy baby boy a couple of days ago and didn’t know she was pregnant until a couple of hours before he was born.
Karma smiles a little… on my butt
My doctor called me as soon as she was out of surgery. I described my symptoms and she said (wait for it…):
“Well that sounds awful. You shouldn’t use that patch!”
Thanks, Sherlock.
So I am now wearing a new, progestin-free, estrogen-only patch on my hiney. It is not the Vivelle Dot, so it is approximately the diameter of a softball, but fortunately 1) my buttocks are quite ample enough to accommodate and 2) no one sees it but me (right now; probably for the forseeable future; okay I have to stop thinking about this now before I cry). Should this patch give the desired result, when I go for my post-op appointment I’ll ask for the reduced acreage of the Vivelle Dot. Also I will ask why she prescribed me something that specifically stated it was not appropriate for my condition.
But today, I was all about thank you and you’re so great, because I wanted a new patch before I killed someone. Answers will have to wait. For now. Follow-up report on my level of seasickness to come in a few days….
And that’s why it’s important to floss
I used to go to the dentist every six months like clockwork. I was never afraid of going; I enjoyed the feeling of squeaky-clean teeth and never had a cavity and found the whole process rather soothing. (I had years of orthodonture, you know. You never escape one of those visits without something being twisted, tightened, or otherwise painful. Bi-yearly cleanings are a cakewalk.)
Then in grad school I started falling off the dental hygiene bandwagon… no time, no money, my teeth look fine, I brush twice a day…. Then at some point the ex more or less got up one morning declaring that we must go to the dentist! and before I knew it, we had back-to-back appointments at a local office.
Dr. Braces (I do not remember his real name, but I do remember that he had a mouthful of braces) was young and enthusiastic. Emphasis on young. It is my firm belief that no medical professional should ever be younger than myself. And this incident was ten years ago, which puts me in my early 20s, so imagine my panic. What, is this Doogie Dentist, D.D.S.? And he wants to put sharp pointy things in my mouth? I tried to soothe myself with the knowledge that surely Dr. Braces was older than he looked (please, God). And I tried not to be creeped out by how excited he seemed about my teeth. And I let him clean my teeth and poke around in my mouth.
Well, Dr. Braces had some bad news for me. “You see, Mir,” he explained, barely able to contain his excitement, “years of using hard-bristle toothbrushes is starting to wear down the enamel on your teeth and cause your gums to recede just a bit.” He paused for me to soak in this information, but then rushed on with great glee, “I think we need to have you come in for a deep sub-gum cleaning! The receptionist will make your appointment!” Then he danced around the room a little while explaining that he would numb my gums and then peel them back a bit and clean deep at the base of my teeth.
Maybe I was on drugs. I’m not clear. I returned for the deep cleaning, marvelled over how I truly couldn’t feel a thing, and went home. About an hour later the novocaine wore off and it felt like someone had hit me in the mouth with a sledgehammer. For about a week.
I had the predicted mature adult reaction to this train of events: I stopped going to the dentist–any dentist.
Fast forward to last week. The ex called to ask me to meet him at the dentist’s office with the children on his assigned afternoon. The kids had appointments and it made his life easier to meet there rather than for me to bring them to his place and then him drive to the office with them. No problem. (Yes, the children go to the dentist regularly. What sort of mom do you think I am?) Then the ex said, “You know, they’re really super nice and very gentle at this office. You should make yourself an appointment while you’re there. You’ll like them.”
My ex is funny that way. For the better part of three years I was more or less either invisible or infuriating, to him, and here he is concerned about my teeth. Genuinely concerned. And urging me to go in because I need to, and it’s free (on the dental insurance he carries for me). He is nothing if not weird.
Anyway, I thought about what he said. I was still thinking about it when we got there (my dad had to drive since I was still only a week post-op). I asked how far out they were scheduling introductory appointments and after a glance at the computer screen the lady behind the counter said “probably six to eight months.” Perfect! Plenty of time for me to cancel! I started filling out my paperwork. I flinched a little when I filled in “1994” as “date of my last dental visit.”
Imagine my shock when I turned in my paperwork and was happily informed that they’d just had a cancellation; how about next week? OH GOD NO! my brain screamed. “Sure, that sounds great,” my traitor mouth replied. Crap. Crap crap crap crap. I do not WANT to go to the dentist!!
Well next week was, in fact, today. I have this theory, and it’s a completely stupid theory, but it goes something like this because I am a very slow learner: When life is feeling kinda gross and sucky, why not do yet another gross and sucky thing in an effort to distract oneself from the original suckitude?? (See how that makes no sense whatsoever?) It’s okay that I have to go to the dentist! I told myself. It will keep my mind off the nausea and hot flashes! Yay!
Yes, my first post-surgical stint behind the wheel of my car was to the dentist. How pitiful is that? (Yes, I remembered how to drive, and the car started.)
A Happy Hygienist got me started, and she was sooooo happy I wanted to slap her, but I didn’t, because I am a wonderful person. Also, she took me to a machine which takes a panoramic x-ray of your jaw that wasn’t entirely unlike a mini-MRI tube for your head, and I was afraid that if she smelled my fear she would leave me in the machine to die. She managed to maintain her joyful happiness through the entire appointment, even when I confessed that “1994” was in fact the correct date and no, I don’t ever floss.
“You must floss sometimes!” she chirped.
“No, I mustn’t,” I replied. “I brush. Often. But I do not floss.”
“Why not?”
“It hurts.”
“It shouldn’t!” she cried in horror.
“That’s what I thought, too. So I don’t do it any more.”
You could tell she thought I was quite the enigma. Oh dear.
So. She scraped some stuff off my teeth, continually telling me how for ten long years of accumulation this really wasn’t bad at all, and then she polished me up with cherry-flavored gunk, and then made me hold the mirror and watch while she flossed my teeth.
“See all that blood?” I said. “That’s why I don’t floss. Ow.”
“If you flossed regularly you wouldn’t bleed!” (Ya know, they always say that. I think it’s a scam, myself.)
Then Happy Hygienist took the little measuring tool and measured my gum loss in several places. Which seemed bad. And was, as it turns out.
Dr. Serious came in, then, to look over my teeth and talk to me About My Dental Health. He declared two cavities in need of filling. When I was visibly bothered by that, he rushed to assure me that only two cavities at my age is not that big of a deal, they’re both small, and they’re both in molars I’ve had for over 20 years. He then examined one tooth extensively and announced that he was going to refer me to a periodontist for the gum loss along this particular tooth, because it may well be in need of repair. I asked how such a thing is repaired (I’m new to this, remember; I used to think all the dentist did was make your teeth shiny). He said there are “a variety of available methods” but that his guess is that it will require a “graft of some sort.”
That’s when I fell out of the chair.
Well, no, I didn’t, but I probably would’ve if I hadn’t been lying down, already. I also resisted the urge to stick my fingers in my ears and cry, “I just had surgery and you can’t make me and I can’t heeeeeeear you, LALALALALA!” He then went on to ask me if I ever clench or grind my teeth. I said, “I have two small children, what do you think?” Dr. Serious–being a serious sort–didn’t seem to find that very amusing. But then he went on to say that depending on what the periodontist says/finds/does I may need some sort of nighttime mouthguard to prevent further gum loss due to excessive jaw-clenching.
The moral of my cautionary tale? Don’t go to the dentist. Floss your teeth every day.
Craptastic II (That Sinking Feeling)
At 9:00 sharp I called my doctor’s office… and found out that my doctor is in surgery all day. (I should have known this; Monday is her day in the OR–and the day I had my surgery–and yesterday was a holiday.) The chirpy woman on the phone assured me, as my voice rose in pitch and leaked desperation across the phone line, that she would give my message to “someone.” Yes, someone.
In the meantime, late last night I experienced the joy of my first hot flash. It was… sweaty. And this morning I have an inexplicable desire to kill kill kill but lucky for my children, this overriding feeling of being hung over (no, I have not been drinking) will render me too slow and crabby to act on it.
“This just in on Newscenter 5… we are receiving reports of a woman in a small New Hampshire town walking into a Target pharmacy and holding the pharmacist at gunpoint… no, wait… not gunpoint… witnesses are reporting a complicated small utility weapon resembling the Rocky Canyon Rescue Hero grappling hook… anyway… she has taken the pharmacist hostage and is said to be screaming something about hand over the estrogen and nobody gets hurt…. Tune in later for the complete story at 11!”
Craptastic!
So, you know that fabulous hormone patch that I’ve just been raving about? The one that is causing me to lurch about my house as if I was on the deck of a ship caught in a tsunami? The one that has caused me to offer my soul to the devil, pleasepleaseplease if I just go ahead and vomit will you then stop making the house spin and move so, because there is only so much more I can take??
While laying crosswise on my bed and attempting not to regurgitate my breakfast, this morning, I decided to have a little gander at the information leaflet.
“CombiPatch is meant to be used only by women who still have a uterus (who have not had a complete hysterectomy).”
Next: put pamphlet down. Check hysterectomy scar. Check discharge paperwork. Note cartoon question marks and exclamation points that are now floating above my head.
Suffice it to say I’m not feeling huge waves of confidence and warmth towards my doctor at the moment.
The Sound of Squeaky-Clean Silence
Hear that? Neither do I.
I’m alone, for the next 24 hours or so. Ordinarily a busy mom lucky enough to have a day of silence will barely be able to contain her glee, and I am usually no exception. Today, however, marked the end of a week of having my father and stepmother and kids all here together. Prior to that, I hadn’t seen the kids for over a week, and hadn’t seen my folks for several months.
And now it’s Sunday night; my least favorite day ever of the week. Grandma and Grandpa hit the road ’round lunchtime to a high-pitched chorus of “byebyeweloveyou!”s at the door. The kids headed off with their dad to see fireworks tonight and spend his day off tomorrow milking the Fun Daddy Entertainment Machine (patent pending) for the Bestest Fun Ever. (Good thing I’m so unbothered by that, wouldn’t you agree?) And then there’s me. I’m alone in a very empty house. I am also exhausted from the odd fusion of Second Post-Surgical Week with Blissful Week, and so will probably just spend most of my liberated hours sleeping, but right now… I’m gonna sit here for a bit and try to stare down the aloneness of my home.
My father gets very uncomfortable when people “notice” him here on my blog. He once commented on a post and someone commented on his comment and he called me up all weirdly kinda-sorta-not-exactly perturbed about it (and has not commented, since). This post is going to make him famous, and grumpy. Sorry, Dad!
I have to point out that my father is perhaps my biggest fan; not only supporting me in every choice I’ve made in my life (good and highly questionable alike), but in reading my blog faithfully and more or less telling everyone with whom he comes into contact to read it, too. I’m at a point in my life where I feel like I have screwed up one thing after another and he is still so proud of me, it’s just plain embarrassing. But, okay; I have half his DNA. Then there’s my stepmom. A part of our lives for the last ten years or so, no obligations to me or my children whatsoever, and I am hard-pressed to remember a time when she wasn’t around. It would have been quite enough if she just made my dad happy (she does) and nothing more, but she’s enveloped my little family in such genuine love and kindness (particularly when times were hard) that if my father is ever dumb enough to screw things up with her, I might have to hurt him.
So, why am I telling you this? Without this exposition, my readers would surely believe this next bit was fiction, or at the very least, highly embellished. I swear on my children’s heads that the following is 100% true.
This week:
I didn’t wash a single dish. I didn’t cook a single meal. We ate like royalty and the kitchen was always clean. My children had the time of their lives even though I felt like crap. I never shopped for groceries. I napped whenever I wanted to (well, ‘cept that time we were taking Chickadee to a doctor’s appointment and I was really wishing for a nap in the waiting room…). Instead of hearing “But Mama, why can’t you?” I heard “I’m gonna go get Grandpa!” or “Grandma is going to do this with me!” My lawn was mowed. My flower beds were weeded. The hedges were trimmed. All of the laundry is done. My refrigerator and freezer and basement freezer are full of prepared foods. I was reminded to take my medicine. I was sent to my room to rest (and it didn’t bother me one bit). I had adult companionship when I wanted it and a Get Out of Socializing Free card for when I didn’t feel up to it.
Chirping smoke alarm? No problem. A bag of fresh 9-volt batteries appeared as if by magic, because after all, if one is chirping we may as well tend to all of them. (Yes, for a brief and greedy moment I’d wished a big hunk of paint had fallen off one of the walls… that might’ve been interesting.)
Also? Before they left? They cleaned my house. Now, I consider this a huge thing under any circumstance. But as my stepmom put it, she has a “high tolerance for mess.” They have someone clean for them at home and so don’t have to do this stuff very often. Don’t you think that if you never even cleaned in your own house you sure as heck wouldn’t be looking for other people’s houses to clean? I wouldn’t. Heck, I’d be all, “Well it was lovely being your personal slave for the week and everything, but I have to leave now and I put my towels in the hamper. Seeya!” But no. When they were finishing up and getting ready to leave, I was running around the house between the two of them trying to get them to stop cleaning.
“No, don’t vacuum there!” I pounced on my father. “That’s… uhhh… the wrong attachment for that carpet. Plus we never use this room.”
“No, don’t bother dusting,” I answered when my stepmom offered. “I dusted right before I went in for surgery, and since I normally only do it every 6 months or so, really, don’t worry about it.”
Because you know, all of this, it makes a person uncomfortable. Either I’m in the presence of people a whole lot nicer than me (likely, but disconcerting) or I’m dying (less likely, but even scarier), no? I felt like I had to try to stop them, or at least slow them down.
I wandered from project to project–vascillating between wonderment and guilt and extreme joy–as my floors began to shine, the bathrooms sparkled and fairly oozed fresh un-bathroom-y scent, and the dishdrain in my kitchen which has been full of miscellaneous tupperware-type and other unidentifiable plastic things since 2001 was emptied. Did you know that if it’s empty, you can in fact put things in the dishdrain and in a little while they will be dry? And then later, you can put those things away somewhere?? Neither did I!
But the proverbial cherry on top… I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I tell you. If I hadn’t walked in on this project already underway, I would’ve attempted to throw myself down as a human shield and prevent its execution purely to save face. (What face I had left to save after a week of excellent imitation of a large human slug I’m not sure, but anyway.)
My stepmom cleaned my fridge.
I don’t mean she wiped down the outside or even that she wiped down a couple of shelves inside. I mean she took. everything. out. With bleach or sheer willpower (I’m unclear which) she cleared all surfaces of that gunk that you never know what it is but oh my God shove the 10-year-old nearly-empty pickle jar back into that corner and cover it up before it spreads! This woman was undeterred by my penicillin collection. She barely batted an eyelash over my fossilized guess-whether-it-used-to-be-a-fruit-or-a-veggie assortment in the crisper drawers. All I know is, there was a flurry of activity, and at the end? Cleaner than when it came from Sears. And we don’t share genetic material or anything! That is LOVE, people!!
So I may sit here tonight in an empty house, feeling a few woulda-coulda-shoulda pangs trying to creep in, but on the whole I’m feeling pretty darn warm and fuzzy. And you have to be a special kind of talented to feel even warmer and fuzzier each time you open the door to the fridge and stand there being chilled to the bone and yet so deliriously elated because it’s so pretty inside you are afraid to touch anything.
If you have a drink nearby, please raise a toast to my dad and stepmom. Short of, you know, not having had my body sawed open the prior week, nothing could have made this week better. I am humbled by and grateful for the blessing of these two in my life. I love you both and thank you from the bottom of my heart for everything. (I am also feeling like a serious wussy for not having followed through on my threat of stealing a sparkplug so you couldn’t leave.) Your delightful presence would’ve been enough without all of the work you did, but that you’re so darn fun to be around and you think of (and then do) everything? Unbelievable. Thank you.
The Sound of Squeaky-Clean Silence
Happy Aidan Day!
Happy Independence Day, my fellow Americans, and Happy Aidan Day to the Genuine Clan on the holiday birth of their third Genuine Kid. This news is so fresh, Gen hasn’t even posted yet (I found out from the proud auntie)!
Welcome to the world, little one.
That blogroll meme thingie
Is it contagious? Apparently, yes. Seen at Genuine, Zoot’s, and Mindy’s… among others.
There are TWO rules when answering these questions:
1) Only ONE answer to each. Of course its tough – thats the point!
2) Each blog/blogger may only be used ONCE
What blogger inspired you to FINALLY start a blog?
Kym
What blog do you visit the most often everday?
The Zero Boss, probably because he posts like 5 times a day.
What blogger do you think you have the most in common with?
Kira
Which blog can you be sure will make you pee a little you laugh so hard?
Miss Doxie
Which blogger leaves you the best/funniest comments?
Genuine
What blogger do you wish would update more often?
Jill, although I think we may have recently shamed her into doing so. Yay!
Which blog do you wish more people would read?
papernapkin
Which blog do you learn the most from?
Bakerina
What blog is your newest addition?
So The Fish Said
Who has been on your blogroll the longest?
Other than Kym, whom I’m not allowed to name again? Michele, I think.
Whose blogroll would you LOVE find yourself on?
Finslippy‘s, but I’m pretty sure she doesn’t know/care that I exist.
Whose blogroll were you the happiest to find yourself on?
Lee‘s, and I haikued my little heart out to get there! (And if we’re not talking about times that I shamelessly whored myself through Japanese verse and generally made myself an incredible pain in the ass until I was added, that would have to be Martha‘s.)
If you could write like any blogger, who would it be?
Amalah
What blogger are you the happiest you’ve “met?”
Miiiiiiiindy!
Which blog do you recommend the most?
ZOOT ZOOT (probably because I haven’t let that stupid saying-her-name-twice thing die a natural death…)
Who is the next person you’ll add to your blogroll?
Lauren
Who is the blogger you hope to meet in “real” life?
All of them. I can’t pick just one, and you can’t make me. So there.
Which blogger you admire the most?
Snowball, because she lets her ex live and if our situations were reversed he would be dead. Long dead.
Who would you trust with your blog while you were away?
During my surgery I turned the keys over to Mindy and Jill. Though there are certainly others I would trust as well.
Which blog has your favorite design?
Philip
How many blogs are on your blogroll(s)?
27 at the moment.
Oh, it’s Saturday?
Poor Sheryl thinks I’m writing this from inside of the safe that fell on my head, because I didn’t post again yesterday. It’s okay, Sheryl! I’m here! Nothing fell on me! I slept most of the day. Boy, that sounds pitiful. Okay, yes, it’s true; someone dropped an anvil on my head and I am bravely typing from the ICU….
I only got one Friday Facts and Fiction question, and continued to feel pretty gross yesterday, so I didn’t feel in a huge need to come post. But to answer your question, Kym is the reason I started blogging. I’ve known Kym for years as part of a parenting after infertility/adoption group, and after I read her blog a few times I decided I wanted to be one of the cool kids, too (heh). When I “retired” from engineering back when Monkey was a baby, I did nothing but care for the kids for the first year. Then I realized that without something that was just mine, it was likely my brain would melt. I then spent about a year trying to launch a freelance writing career… which was starting to pick up momentum when my ex started falling apart.
It was a brief and not very illustrious run.
After reading Kym for a while, I realized I could use this as a way to get myself writing again (it’s like exercise; I’d been away so long, I didn’t even want to start, but it felt sooooo good once I got back into it). Unfortunately, life circumstances being what they are, I’ll be heading back to a Real (Boring) Job in a couple of months as I’ve yet to have anyone offer me a multi-million-dollar book deal, but it’s been a great outlet in the meantime.
In other news: Chickadee’s first grade class assignment came in the mail yesterday. She’s been put with a teacher with a name that clearly dictates that the kids will be calling her Mrs. Last Initial (one of those names that looks like many of the vowels were stolen by rogues). Despite a few frantic phone calls to check with friends who are still in town on a holiday weekend, we so far haven’t tracked down any friends in the same class. (Though we did hear several thumbs-up reports on Mrs. Last Initial as being an excellent teacher.) And I think I managed to distract Chickadee from the stress of not knowing if a friend would be in her class with extended hoopla over the supply list and bus instructions.
Unrelated (switch gears with me, won’t you?): Leave it to me to decide at 5:04 on the Friday of a holiday weekend that I need to get off this satanic hormone patch immediately, if not sooner. Bah. I’ll be clinging to sanity and dry land until the office reopens on Tuesday; then I’ll be relating my tales of seasickness and woe with as much pitifulness as is necessary to get my doctor to try me on something else.
And now… just for Sheryl: a brief warning that I only have about 24 hours left to go before my folks leave, and as such I may not be posting again until after they go. Do not panic!