Category Archives: Illnesses

Pajama Jeans, Moose Mugs, and Strange Viruses

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Probably because I had So Much To Do and Remember with regards to Christmas, various school spirit days, the casino fundraiser, and other random things happening this week, I got terribly sick on Sunday.  That will teach me!  I had a strange virus that presented as severe abdominal pain and a fever, and also narcolepsy.  I was awake for perhaps four hours total on Sunday, and those “awake” hours had me lying on the couch, dozing, or crying.  My sole accomplishment was showering and putting on fresh pajamas.  Yesterday, with my husband going to work and me becoming, as usual, the Sole Responsible Adult in the house, I woke up with the hopes of just being able to do the bare minimum, i.e., making sure the kids got to school and back, and making sure they had food. 

It turns out when you set the bar really, really low, you will be amazed at even the minutest accomplishments.  I was so impressed with myself for showering and putting on what Lululemon euphemistically calls “Dance Pants”, but what are actually sweatpants, rather than pajamas that I felt like maybe I could conquor the world.  Sweatpants, or dance pants, are a step up from pajamas, even if they don’t feel any different.  I combined the sweatpants with fuzzy slippers, a long sleeved thermal t-shirt, and an enormous sweater my mother-in-law knitted for me twelve years ago.  What I lacked in style and attractiveness I gained in coziness.  Fueled by my immense accomplishment of showering and dressing, I further roused myself to do a load of laundry, and on investigation of the freezer and its lack of frozen meals, I even made my super-simple pasta sauce.  I’M KING OF THE WORLD!  Then I lay down on the couch to rest, and here’s a question: have you ever tried to watch television during the day?  It’s terrible.  I hoped for at least an episode of The Price Is Right, but no such luck.  No Plinko for me.  Thanks to my husband, who is a sports fan and so Needs Access To Many Different Stations, we have a couple hundred channels, all of which are completely useless to me.  I ended up watching an episode of MASH and falling asleep.  That BJ Honeycutt sure is dreamy.

Today I feel almost totally normal.  I even donned jeans today, albeit my oldest, softest, most broken in pair of boot cuts.  A huge step up from “dance pants”.  On days like today, I kind of wished I had Pajama Jeans, though.  Have you seen the advertisements for Pajama Jeans?  About a month ago, my husband was out of town and I was on the couch, alone with my wine.  I saw this commercial for Pajama Jeans and I became somewhat fascinated with the concept.  Jeans…that feel like pajamas!  Actually, I think they already have those: they are called maternity jeans.  I had a pair of maternity jeans that saw me through massive weight fluctuations, and that I continued to wear for a few months post partum.  They were below-the-belly style, with a giant elastic waistband, and I loved them dearly.  Here I am wearing them, and let’s just keep in mind that this is a full three months before I was actually due with Mark:

 

Three months!  I actually wore those jeans to the hospital three months later:


Not only did they last me through that pregnancy, but I wore them while pregnant and postpartum with Jake as well:

 
 
Those were some amazing jeans.  It makes me think that the Pajama Jean concept is just a rip-off of maternity jeans because hoo boy, those babies were comfortable. 
 
Anyway.  I’m feeling much better, at this rate maybe I’ll even step up to skinny jeans tomorrow.  On the bright side, it’s not the worst thing in the world to lose a few pounds before Christmas, right?  One week to go before I gorge on my mom’s chocolate Yule log.  Heh.  Yule log.  That reminds me of Christmas Vacation: “I don’t have a log.”  Which brings me to this brilliant website, featuring MOOSE MUGS:
 
 
I would buy an entire set of these for my sister-in-law if they weren’t so expensive.  $151 for a set of eight, plus shipping?  Robbery!  The thought is there, though, and that’s what counts, right? 

So bored! Send entertainment!

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Here we are now.  Entertain us.

Jake is now in Day Two of a cold.  I kept him home yesterday in hopes that it would be a quick recovery, only to have him wake up this morning, worse.  Backfire!  I’m not complaining too much; my kids are rarely sick and rarely miss school.  Even with swollen, watery eyes and a constantly dripping nose, Jake is still a chipper little guy who is currently wearing a Jedi robe and slaying invisible Sith with an invisible light saber.  But I’m getting the teensiest bit of cabin fever.  I had to cancel a few appointments yesterday, and one of those appointments had a 24 hour cancellation policy, which I obviously violated, leading to a fee.  I tried to talk my way out of it, but realized the futility of doing so with the nineteen year old receptionist.  She suggested I bring proof of my child’s sickness to get the fee waived, and I had an image of myself bringing in a giant bag of used tissues.  Here you go! I could say, Three boxes of used tissues. 

The upside of being confined indoors with a drippy seven-year-old is getting the mail.  Actually, I seem to recall getting the mail was a highlight of my day when the kids were small.  Oooh!  Stamps for Mark’s collection!  Oooh!  A magazine!  Oooh!  Flyers!  We got a Bed Bath and Beyond flyer and I don’t know about you, but I cannot even say the words Bed Bath and Beyond without getting all Old School and thinking about a “pretty nice little Saturday.  We’re going to go to Home Depot, pick out some flooring.  Maybe even go to Bed Bath and Beyond, but I don’t know.  I don’t know if we’ll have enough TIME.”

So Jake and I spent some time looking through the festive edition of the Bed Bath and Beyond (don’t know if we’ll have enough TIME) flyer, and I found a steal of a deal.  For only $299, you too could have your very Mixed Drink Maker!  I like how you could choose the “I Feel Lucky” button and get some kind of cray-cray mixed drink!  Party time!

 
48 different cocktail recipes!  Something tells me you could totally save the $299 and just randomly mix drinks yourself, but where is the fun in that?  I’m so curious as to how this thing works, that I am almost willing to actually go to Bed Bath and Beyond (but I don’t have enough TIME) and look at this for myself.
 
I never have enough TIME to go to Bed Bath and Beyond, because it is the most overwhelming store in the world, that simultaneously sickens me and also makes me wonder if I need a sno cone machine.
 
 

Speaking of things that simultaneously sicken and arouse covetous feelings, this Jezebel article about anthropologie is very amusing.  Don’t get me wrong; I am not a hater of anthropologie, although I know that it is a trendy thing to loathe these days.  I like a lot of things from that store – I like their kitchy teatowels and their cupcake aprons and I even like their owl shaped cookie jars, although I would never, ever spend $100 on one – but some of their items are truly ridiculous.  It makes me think that someone over at anthropologie is just creating things as a dare to see what they can get away with.  Do you think someone will pay $3000 for this if we call it a Holiday Hovey House?  FUCK YEAH.  We’re fucking anthropologie!  People will buy anything if we put it on our website.

And while you’re at it, put some of those motherfucking floral grandma crops on there for $138.  Bitches be wild for that shit.

Do me a favour, anyone that covets those pants – check out the Sears catalogue.  You can get that style of pants for a third of the price, with a lovely elastic waistband included. 

And now I’m off to pick up my non-sick child from school.  Having Jake home has reminded me how much simpler life is with two children at home.  “I miss Mark!” Jake said yesterday as we sat snuggled on the couch, watching six episodes of Phineas and Ferb.  “It’s like I don’t even HAVE a brother.  Just a mom.  And that’s sad.”  Why, thank you, Jake!  Last night the boys proceeded to amuse me immensely by comparing themselves to Phineas and Ferb.  “I’m like Ferb,” Mark said “And Jake is like Phineas because he talks so much!”  I hated to break it to them, but everyone talks all the time in this house.  No one is like Ferb.

Friday Fun in the Boyhouse

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Well, hello there, Friday!  It’s been a long time since I posted on a Friday evening.  Normally I’m too busy sitting on the couch making out with a bottle of wine and watching Jeopardy or reruns of 30 Rock to think about writing anything.  But lucky you, dear readers, because tonight I am sitting here making out with a bottle of wine in front of my laptop. 

Fridays are always crazy around here; crazy in a “fun, exciting” way and not in a “dress the dog up in a bumblebee outfit” way.  I won’t bore you with the details of Friday yoga practice and how it’s Primary Series day, unless you care.  Do you?  Anyway, Friday yoga practice is different from the rest of the week, and then the kids’ school has early dismissal on Fridays – at 1:10 – which means they eat lunch at the school, which normally they never do.  And – sssshhh, it’s a secret – I always have a different lunch when they are at school.  Sometimes I just eat guacamole.  Today I had crackers and a spinach smoothie.  THIS IS HOW CRAZY IT GETS AROUND HERE.  Then, of course, there is no yoga practice tomorrow, and we know what that means: I crack open the alcoholic beverages as soon as is socially acceptable.  Sometimes sooner.  Not today though; today I had to take the kids to get their hair cut at 4:30, and so I did have to wait until an actually socially acceptable time to open that bottle of Cupcake wine. 

I will tell you this: I am so thankful that, since the wet-socks-from-stepping-in-the-puddle-of-pee incident, the boys never want to play in the ballpit at Beaners. 

Today I was at the spa for a wax.  I started going to this spa ten minutes away from my house after my esthetician decided that she was quitting esthetics forever.  I tried not to take that personally, as she told me during a bikini wax and I wondered if my yeti-like condition drove her to it.  Anyway, the spa is awesome since I can get an appointment whenever I want, unlike the wheeling and dealing I had to do with my former esthetician, whose hours were varied and ever-changing (“I have an opening at 7:15 pm on Tuesday, or 2:00 pm on Friday next week…”).  It is also a full-service spa, with nice little amenities such as fluffy robes, slippers, and complimentary herbal tea and organic gingersnaps that look only the teeniest bit like dog treats.  I partake in none of those niceties because I’m just getting a wax, dammit, I want to get in and out as soon as possible.  Anyway, I was waiting in the cozy room with the lounge chairs and fireplace, waiting for the esthetician to call me, and I noticed a man.  It’s not unusual to see men in the spa, but usually they are with wives or girlfriends, getting couples’ treatments.  However, it was 10:30 on a Friday morning and this man was by himself, in the lounge chair, wearing a robe and slippers and sipping on the complimentary herbal tea.  He was also studiously reading a magazine, which, upon further examination, was O Magazine.  I found myself completely obsessed.  Was he trying to figure out how to Live his Best Life?  Was he having an Aha! Moment?  Was he disagreeing vehemently with Adam Glassman about the appropriateness of yellow skinny pants in the workplace?  Then I noticed he was near the end of the magazine.  Maybe he was finding out What I Know For Sure?  I haven’t read O Magazine in a while, so I don’t know what the latest What I Know For Sure is, but I sure am curious.

Fortunately I was called in for my appointment.  Any longer and I probably would have mentally written a novel about the Guy in the Spa Reading Oprah.

Here’s What I Know For Sure for this week:

1) If you are telling a group of people the many and convoluted ways that you stay healthy during cold and flu season, and those ways include but are not limited to excessive vitamin consumption, hand sanitizer use, and a homeopathic flu protocol, and those people are staring at you in silence, do NOT try to make things less awkward by talking MORE.  The more you talk the crazier you seem, so STOP TALKING.

2) People who look like Santa are not always nice.  I was parking my car and there was a complete asshole in the parking lot who looked exactly like Santa.

3) If you have two children who have the same sock size, buy a whole lot of the exact same socks.  That way you never have to spend time pairing and matching the socks.

I had more things to tell you about, about crazy Fridays, but I just finished my second glass of wine and I DON’T REMEMBER WHAT I WAS GOING TO SAY.  Oh yes, now I remember – apparently certain Banana Boat sunscreens are possible fire risks, because if you apply the sunscreen and then expose yourself to spark or flame prior to the sunscreen drying completely, you could set yourself on fire.  Now, I’m certainly not dismissing or belittling those who have become engulfed in flames post-sunscreen applications, but how much of a problem is this?  Who is exposing their own skin to sparks and/or flames immediately following sunscreen application?  Maybe this IS a problem, I don’t really know. 

Hey, guess what else I learned today?  Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel got married!  I thought they were married already, actually.  This was very anticlimatic information, like when I find out an elderly celebrity died who I thought had died many years ago.  Oh well.  Bringing sexy back, which for a married couple means getting into a bottle of Cupcake wine and wearing a Top Gun Halloween costume. 

Sorry, but I’m not a bodybuilder

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I am in a MOOD.



I was in a very chipper mood this morning, even though it was snowing and gusty and freezing. Part of this chipper-ness had to do with the fact that my husband is now at home and I am not the sole responsible adult around here, and part of the chipper-ness had to do with the fact that I can now breathe through my nose without sounding like I am a cocaine addict. Which is a win, as far as I can tell. But oh! That chipper mood has evaporated like a bucketful of tears left out on a hot, dry day. Not that I remember what hot, dry days feel like since it’s snowing and my dog rolled in the snow and is now soggy and filling the house with wet-dog odour.



My sour mood could have something to do with the fact that I just spent the last ninety minutes photocopying, cutting, and sorting papers for various school events and fundraisers. NINETY MINUTES. I started to lose the will to live after the first half hour. Sorting 1200 little pieces of paper into classrooms is really, really dull. At least I got to use the large-armed paper cutter, which spiced things up a little. For this I have a Master’s degree.



I am pleased my cold is nearly gone, and if I had to guess, I would say that yesterday’s Vitamin C overdose may have helped. I get sick so rarely that when I do I get hurt feelings about it; like my immune system has let me down. How could you do this to me, immunity? I give you everything you ask for. Some of this emotion may have to do with the minor high I get from cold medication. Some of that stuff, I wonder if it should be legal. Or perhaps I shouldn’t take it and then drink six cups of coffee, I don’t know. In any case, I actually slept (passed out?) yesterday morning. I walked the dog, came home, and climbed into bed.  This is so unusual I seem to have to make a note of it. 



I realized that the amount of supplements I now consume is bordering on the insane.  It started off normally, with a daily multivitamin, and now it’s just crazy.  So yesterday, with this cold, I realized that I had taken a LOT of additional vitamins, and I was eating those lozenges that are fortified with Vitamin C, so I thought I should actually read the package, lest I somehow overdose myself. The package informed me that I should limit my lozenge intake to no more than thirty a day. Thirty! Two things: a) if I am consuming thirty lozenges a day, I have larger issues than Vitamin C overdoses, and b) how much Vitamin C could possibly be in one of those lozenges if the daily maximum is thirty? I felt a little bit disappointed in the lozenge manufacturers; like how those sugar-ific “fruit” snacks say “contains real fruit!”, but the reality is that the fruit content is the equivalent of a grain of sand on a vast beach.



As a rule, I never answer the door during the day, or in the evening if I’m home alone.  I have a fear of being murdered.  I realize that might sound extreme, but something like that did actually happen not long ago.  A woman answered her door one evening, and a crazed man killed her!  In front of her children!  This is something I would like to avoid.  And so I never answer the door, unless I know for certain it isn’t some mur-diddly-urdler.  There is no downside to this, really, because mostly the only people that ring my doorbell are door-to-door salespeople, politicians, and occasionally my neighbour, looking for Beeps.  So I’m really not missing much.  However, yesterday I had to answer the door TWICE, which, along with my drippy cocaine-addict noise, was putting me in a bad mood.  First, the water-meter-reader rang my doorbell to complain that the city had not installed the kind of water-meter that can be easily read via, I don’t know, satellite, from the back alley.  The water-meter-reader, apparently, has to come INTO MY YARD to read my water-meter, which is completely inconvenient for him and ruins his day.  What I am supposed to do about this state of affairs, I am unsure.  I guess that my ownership of a bloodthirsty squirrel-bird-possibly-Beeps-killer of a dog is noted in my file and hence my wrong kind of water-meter is a danger to society, or at least to the water-meter-reader.  Keep in mind that while listening to this man, I had the boys home for lunch, the dog was frantically barking at the appearance of an unknown person at the door, and I was high on Advil Cold and Sinus.  And I had just woken up from my morning nap.  JUST TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT ME TO DO, BUDDY.  Do I need to call someone?  Stop with the long explanation already.  I do not understand your water-meter language.

Because of my excessive vitamin supplement consumption, I order all my vitamins online.  It’s way cheaper that way, and generally the box arrives the very next day.  This leads me to the second reason I had to answer the door: I could see the Canada Post man standing there.  I very reasonably thought he was unlikely to be a murderer – and he wasn’t, I’m still here to tell this tale, never fear – but you never know.  We are all, I think, familiar with the term going postal.  But in any case, the Canada Post man was very nice and I opened my giant box of online-ordered supplements.  Inside was a piece of paper informing me that my gigantic order qualified me for a free gift.  The free gift consisted of the following items:

– a cheap plastic water bottle
– a lidded cup that is apparently intended for vigourous on-the-go mixing of various bodybuilding protein shakes
– an orange-scented car air freshener in the shape of Popeye
– a “performance pill” box, also emblazoned with an image of Popeye
– a Popeye-themed lanyard
– a Popeye key chain
– a sample of a high-dose protein shake
– something called anabolic energy muscular endurance muscle fiber activation workout fuel (two servings!  Blue raspberry flavour!)
– a sample of something that promises to get me “beyond ripped” and is a subcutaneous fat-incinerator
– an enormous t-shirt with a maple leaf on it

What a generous free gift!  What to do with this?  I feel completely deflated, environmentally.  Also I am puzzled; my order was Women’s Multivitamins, Vitamin D, and Women 50+ Calcium supplements.  My order does not match this free gift.  However, if any of you want to start a new bodybuilding regimen, let me know.  I have some things for you.

Tony Romo and his huge boner

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My husband was watching Sunday NFL Countdown, when I overheard the commentator say “Tony Romo had the biggest boner in NFL history.”

Who uses the word “boner” interchangeably with “screw up” anymore? Or ever, for that matter?

In any case this, for me, surpassed the golf commentator’s use of “stroking”, the football colour commentator’s use of “penetration”, and the hockey announcer’s use of “slipped one past the goalie” as the greatest sports observation ever. I wonder if Tony Romo heard that, and I wonder if he felt a deep, misplaced sense of pride. “My boner is HUGE. Biggest in the NFL. You hear that, Ray Lewis?”

Speaking of “boners”, remember how in my last post I commented that since giving up dairy my premenstrual symptoms – sobbing uncontrollably, desire to REDRUM if certain people left their socks on the floor and/or coffee table, dead grass and leaves tracked in by the dog induced rage – had largely abated? Yes, well. Yesterday I suffered through a solid eighteen hours of screaming abdominal and lower back pain, all due to my ladies’ holiday. At one point I lay down on the couch as the children played with Jake’s brand new Jabba’s Palace made out of Lego – purchased proudly with his saved up birthday money and allowance – and, inexplicably, I fell asleep. I say inexplicably because the noise level was such that no normal person could possibly relax enough to drift off. However, drift off I did and I woke up an hour later to complete silence. That would have been unnerving years ago, but happily the children – the dear, dear children, who can leave their socks on the coffee table anytime – realized I had fallen asleep and quietly went downstairs to play on the Wii. Lego Star Wars Wii, no less.

Mothers of small children: there is hope.  One day, you too will be able to have a nap in the middle of the day and wake up to silence and not immediately assume that everyone is a) dead, b) kidnapped, or c) that the house is burning down around you and all the children are gone.  IT’S TRUE.  Someday soon you will be able to use the bathroom and the children will not clamour hysterically to get in, someday soon you will be able to serve a different dish for dinner and while they may not eat it, they won’t collapse to the floor, gagging and crying.  Someday soon – and I say this because it’s September, and it can be a tricky time of year for little ones – you will be able to leave your children at school and they won’t be sobbing with separation anxiety.

The other day I was at the school, which is nothing new. I’ve been at the school so much for the past couple of weeks with various Parent Association responsibilities – I’M THE CHAIR, ALL HAIL THE CHAIR – that a new teacher actually mistook me for someone who worked at the school.  Anyway, I was at the school and I ran into Jake’s old pre-kindergarten teacher.  “Nicole,” she said, “I’ve been telling my new parents about the goodbye routine you and Jake had.  It’s really been helping!”  I was a little surprised, being that it has been four years since Jake was in pre-kindergarten, and I didn’t think that our goodbye routine was anything out of the ordinary.

Now, you know me, people.  I do not generally give parenting advice, especially unsolicited parenting advice.  Part of that is because I think that smugly imparting advice is douchey, and part of it is because I believe strongly in karma and am superstitious.  I knew a woman who was extremely smug and boasty about her lamb of a firstborn, who was completely potty trained at eighteen months due to her superior parenting techniques.  Her second born?  A completely wild child, who was still in diapers at four.  COINCIDENCE?  It’s karma. 

But I know a few of you are suffering with your child’s separation anxiety right now, and so I will share with you the goodbye routine I had with Jake, that dried up any tears from school dropoffs, and that I kind of stole from The Kissing Hand.  As you may know, I rarely leave the house without lipstick.  When it was time to say goodbye, I would draw a circle in Jake’s hand with my finger, then I would kiss the middle of the circle, leaving a giant lipstick mark. I would then rub the lipstick into his hand, so the kiss would “stick with him” all day.  He would then do the same to me, minus the lipstick, of course.  It really worked, and we did that all through pre-kindergarten and kindergarten.  Now, of course, he doesn’t even allow me to kiss him in his lineup; instead we fist bump.  FIST BUMP, MOTHER OF GOD.  In any case, my heart goes out to you mamas dealing with school dropoff sadness; maybe my story will help, maybe not, but know that it gets better and one day you too may be fist bumping your child, and sometimes accidentally jabbing him with your rings.  Then you will only have your own sentimental tears to deal with, and to that end, I have no advice. 

Adventures in Shopping

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So far, it has been a very strange day.  I will say that, although I am very happy at the hard working contractors and their willingness to put in extra time to get the job done (GIT ER DUN), I am starting to get very TIRED of having people in the house all the time.  The noise level is high, no matter what task they are accomplishing.  Between the tile saw, regular saws, Shop Vac, hammers, floor scraper or what-have-you, and the near-constant LOUD VOICES USING THE OPPOSITE OF POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT, the noise is getting to me.  For two days, a tiler was here, and he whistled the entire time.  THE ENTIRE TIME.  He whistled little off-tune songs, and it just kept going.  Finally I thought I would turn on some music in an attempt to drown out the whistling.  This turned out to be a mistake of epic proportions.  The tiler proceeded to whistle along to the music, but NOT WELL.  By the time my husband got home from work on Friday I had already had worked my way through the beers in the fridge and was frantically opening a bottle of wine.  Then – THEN – the tiler showed up to work before eight o’clock on Saturday morning, while I was still in the shower.  Fortunately my husband was home but the tiler saw me in my robe, which is always an awkward situation.  A friend thought maybe I could write about it a la 50 Shades of Tiling but NO. 

I’m going a bit crazy here.

In any event, I have been tasked with the choosing of a mirror, light fixture, and various towel rack implements.  My job, as given to me by the head contractor, was to go to Home Depot and choose all these things, write down the SKU numbers, and then report back in order for him to purchase them.  It seems a little, I don’t know, could we cut out the middle man here, but yet I am an obedient renovator and so I do as I am told.  I headed to the Home Depot this morning – after a routinely unpleasant, but not excessively so, trip to Walmart – and I will say this: there are no adjectives to adequately express how poorly equipped I am for a solo trip to Home Depot.  For one thing, I am only recently able to go to Costco on my own without heart-pounding anxiety that I am going to die from crushing by falling warehouse objects.  For another thing, I am easily overwhelmed.  Trips to places like Bed, Bath and Beyond, for me, start off with the simple need for a toothbrush holder, and end up with me wondering if I need a three-tiered shoe rack or a Jelly Belly ice shaver/syrup set; then I get so overwhelmed by the choices and massive amount of landfill-destined items that I leave empty handed, and still in need of a toothbrush holder. 

In any case, I headed to Home Depot, assuming a confidence that I didn’t feel, and I found the department that had the bathroom fixtures.  I immediately phoned my husband at work, near tears, saying I didn’t know how I could possibly choose a mirror.  I started to unravel, like if I chose the wrong mirror the consquences would be dire indeed: the entire renovation would be for naught, all our money and time will have been wasted, and we may as well have kept our mouldy old bathroom.  He talked me off of the mirror-choosing ledge (“Sweetie, I’m going into a meeting.  Can we talk about this later?”) and then I proceeded to raise the suspicions of many, many Home Depot employees by walking around shakily photographing things on my iPhone and making notes of the SKU numbers.  “Can I HELP you?” the orange-aproned people kept asking me, to which I responded, cheerfully “No thanks!”.  They probably thought I was one of those secret shoppers, or maybe a spy from Lowe’s. 

To add to the strangeness of this day, I brought the boys home for lunch and Jake scarfed down a sandwich, a glass of milk, and then requested half of a Caramilk bar that he had been saving.  Sure!  Why not!  After he scarfed that down and I was driving them back to school, Jake mentioned, casually, that he was going to barf.  The bees are doing what now?  I pulled over and let Jake out, when he barfed in the gutter like a miniature drunk.  Meanwhile, Mark kept asking, “Are you almost done barfing?  I don’t want to be late for school.”  Points for punctuality, although maybe not for empathy.  Although I knew he wasn’t sick, he had just eaten too quickly, I of course wasn’t going to send my just-barfed kid back to school.  So I dropped Mark off after extracting promises that he would pick up Jake’s backpack and spelling homework, and took my now-fine kid home.  Even though I had plans to pick up milk and fruit, and I still needed a goddamn toothbrush holder.

I settled Jake on the couch with a blanket and the “Quackbusters” movie, when the head contractor came to talk to me.  He told me, very seriously, that they had finally removed the toilet from the upstairs bathroom and now all the contractors would have to use the downstairs bathroom.  Which is fine, of course, except that things are a little awkward when I am working on the computer and not twenty feet away from me someone is having a bowel movement.  And doesn’t use the fan.  Which is what just happened.

I’m just saying, this has been a very strange day.  And it’s only 2:30!  I can’t wait to see what the dinner hour brings. 

The fog has lifted.

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The fog has lifted, so to speak.  It turns out that I have a raging sinus infection, which certainly explains why I was just getting worse and worse and why I would sleep for ten hours a day and still be completely exhausted and why I felt like I was walking around underwater and why I sat up yesterday when the alarm went off and had to lie back down with a stabbing pain behind one eye and a dull ache in my ears and teeth.  I had a doctor’s appointment yesterday, and since this doctor is new to me, I was a bit nervous.  My old doctor always erred on the side of undermedicating, and so I mentally prepared myself to argue for some kind of medication.

Turns out, I didn’t need to argue, the doctor immediately diagnosed sinus infection and prescribed a round of antibiotics, plus an over the counter medication.  I went to fill my prescriptions, and the friendly pharmacist informed me that they did not have that over the counter medication, but I was not to worry.  It was not necessary, he said, my doctor only recommended it to help manage the pain and congestion.  Blink.  Blink blink.  “That seems pretty necessary right now,” I said, before bursting into tears.  My puffy, blotchy, sobbing ugliness spurred him into action and he found a suitable substitute. 

I feel much better today.  I can feel my old energy returning, and I also do not feel like ripping off my own head.  I have been able to accomplish some of my everyday tasks: I did the laundry without collapsing into the warm-from-the-dryer clothes, I cleaned the bathroom without crying, I walked the dog without contemplating death.  I may even bake a banana bread later today, without fear that the noise from the stand mixer will cause unspeakable anguish. 

All in all I would say that’s a good day.  Which is not to say I’m 100%, since I tried to send my husband a jokey sort of text that said “I’m sexting you!” but for some reason it came out “I’m decrying you!”.  I’m not sure how that happened.  He did not respond, probably thinking that this is my normal behaviour now.  Or maybe he thinks I’m actually crying, which is a fairly unremarkable occurrence.

A few months ago, my husband went to run an errand and came home with an iPhone for me, thereby catapulting me into the modern age.  Previously I had only a flip phone with no voice mail and I had never sent a text in my life.  Upon receipt of my iPhone, I immediately texted a friend – one who mocked me for my lack of technological savvy – saying merely “I’m texting you!”.  I was so excited.  I was less excited when my husband took my old phone to be recycled.  He went through, deleting my old information, and came upon a whole pile of texts that I had received, utterly unaware that I had received them.  One of them was from January 2011, and said “Hey Nic, so sorry but I won’t be able to make it tonight.  Call me later!”  Oops. 

All of which is to say my lack of texting and/or sexting abilities may have nothing to do with my recent illness, and more to do with the fact I listen to the kind of radio station that advertises for Grey Power Insurance.  A girlfriend sent me a message the other day, saying that she was thinking about me as she heard a Hall and Oates song on the radio.  Hall and Oates!  She knows me well indeed.