Earl Demands We Switch Vets

Weight News

Yesterday when my dad showed up to take me to the doctor he said in a grave voice, "I don't want to be the bearer of bad news, but it doesn't look like the diet's working.  Randi looks bigger....quite a bit bigger."  I would have tried to cover her ears, but that would have caused muscle spasms so I crooned, "Oh Randi, he just called you fat."  No dummy, my dad responded, "No, no I didn't.  I just said she looks bigger."  I think he's right.  I think Randi is bigger, but I'm not sure what else to do about it.

In other weight news, I did a major rookie move at the doctor's yesterday.  I got on the scale and it showed quite a bit heavier.  I said, "That's not right!  Not right."  The nurse didn't really care.  Then I realized I had weighed myself wearing my purse, shoes, and heavy coat!  I was kind of loopie so I asked if I could weight my purse to see how much I really weighed.  The nurse was said no, I could take off my purse and re-weigh myself, but that seemed like a lot of work so I opted to imagine my purse weighed 8 pounds.

Randi as a bolster pillow Saturday night.

Shila in her I'm most comfortable position

Side view of the most comfortable position

What I was cleaning up when I hurt myself

I don't know how this dog could be any cuter

Proof that everyone was discombobled Sunday because normally Jessica is not a dog magnet.

How my dad did dishes yesterday

That In Which the Hapless Heroine Gets A Week Off Of Work

Last week I feeling a little overwhelmed by the fact that I was running every where and didn't have time to do anything and I haven't been home in what seemed like weeks.  It was so bad that on Wednesday, after having been up at 1:30am stressed about how I was going to get everything done, I cancelled my college class because I thought, I just can't do that today too.

Saturday I walked 8.25 miles - six minutes faster than I had a month ago.  I planted my garden (though I didn't put in the water system because I was tired) and I watched a movie and stressed out because I didn't think I'd be able to finish my book before the library was going to take it back.

Sunday morning I got up, made coffee, started a load of laundry when I noticed that suds were coming out of the washer everywhere.  I quickly grabbed a towel and got down on the floor to mop it up when my back collapsed.  That's the best word.  It went from straight to concave.  I screamed.  Randi and Earl came running.  I yelled some more.  Randi licked my face.  I tried to get up.  Earl licked my face.  I finally managed to get myself in a seated position and tried to reach for my phone, but that didn't work.  Randi and Earl continued the licking.  Eventually I was able to get up and get in a chair and I called Sara and Bill and told them that I wasn't going to be walking.  Then I hobbled to my room where I took a muscle relaxer and pain pill and called my dad and asked for some help.

My mom promptly came over and exercised her tried and true method of non-stop talking until you submit to whatever she wants.   She got my walker out of the garage so that I could at least get around some.  I couldn't even stand up without it yesterday.  I screamed and grunted every time I had to get up or out of bed.  I took more pain pills.  My mom talked about calling an ambulance.  I said, "No."  The dogs proceeded to be the four most annoying dogs in the world.  Unsure of what was going on, they paced, jumped, demanded to be outside on a rotating basis; so as soon as someone would sit down the next one would be at the door wanting out.  My mom insisted I have a babysitter while she went to dinner with her friends and Sara and Jessica came over to babysit me and then my mom came back and spent the night with me in case I fell out of the bed.  That could have been possible, but with the muscle relaxer and pain pill combo, there's no moving at all.

This morning my dad took me to the doctor, where I could at least walk around without the walker and the doctor said pretty much that the monkeys had been too active jumping on the bed and I had hurt myself.  No, duh.  I had an X-ray that showed that nothing was wrong with the gigantor pins and bolts in my back.  She gave me more pain medicine, a shot for pain and swelling, a prescription for prednisone and an off work notice for one week.

The good news is that I didn't do anything to my back and I'll definitely be home enough to finish my book before it needs to go back to the library.  No way I could drive right now.  First, I'm all doped up on pain meds and second, my back is still cramping.  I'm moving a lot better today than I was yesterday, but I still look like I belong in the geriatric wing of my house.  The bad news is, well, there's quite a bit of pain involved, but that's about all the bad I can come up with.  I'm not sad about having an unexpected guilt free week from both my jobs.  Sure, I'd rather not be grimacing in pain every time I move, but I'll take it.

Two, Deux, Dos

Last week Max turned two!  Yea Max!!  To say Max's birthday was a fucking disaster would not be exaggerating.  It was a damn miserable day.  My parents did their best and purchased everything online and at Toys R Us that was within two years of being age appropriate including but limited to:  a 4x4 truck, a basketball hoop, a bike (that they gave him a month ago because they couldn't stand it) and everything Thomas the Train available.  I didn't even want to get the Little Guy anything.  I said "Dad, it's too much."  He said, "It can never be too much."  While opening presents most of the adults in the room tried to pretend that we were having a good time, but that degenerated into hysterical screaming when my mom put the Thomas the Train cake on the table and Max couldn't have the "choo-choos."  Hysterical screaming became full-blown hysterical crying when the birthday boy accidentally stuck his fingers in his cake and scared himself during the birthday song.  After that the whole evening just degenerated into screaming.  Happy fucking Birthday.

Beep- Beep

Doing as good as the Lakers

Distraught over the cake

Happy about his Thomas the Train backpack.

With Aunt Beth who is now blond.

The second part of the birthday week was going to the train museum at Griffith park.  My dad thought it was funny, funny, funny that he was taking me to the train museum, since I have been vocal about how boring I think trains are.  At the train museum, I looked around and said, "Yup, trains are boring." While looking around I noticed that all of the visitors to the train museum happened to have a Y chromosome. One dad walked his daughter up to the model train display where the toddlers were overcome with joy at watching the model trains and said to her, "Do you want to look at the trains?"  And she yelled, "NO!" And walked away.  I thought, you go girl!  Max had a great time and learned to say "All aboard!" but I stand by my original assertion that trains are fucking boring.

All Aboard

A dog a guy tied up.  Not gonna lie, I kinda like this picture.

Choo-choo

Friendly Subterfuge

I've spent a large portion of my time the past couple of weeks doing things without people knowing.  The first was having the handymen come over and work in my parents' backyard while they were gone.  It happened like this:  I went to my mom and dad's house to spend some quality time visiting and instead what I got was a laundry list of things that had to be done in the backyard before they could put up the new pool.  This laundry list of items was interspersed with arguing, bossiness and left me feeling like, "Why did I come over here?"  I hate when my parents argue.  So I came to an executive adult decision and started asking my mother a thousand questions about what exactly she wanted done and then as soon as they left I met the handymen at the house and I said, "This is what needs to be done."  So they did it.  I had to sit at my parents' house for two and half days, but I did get the wireless on my dad's TV set up and I didn't kill myself (surprisingly) in my mother's (not) hoarder sewing room.  (Not to be confused with the quilting room, or the damn sewing corner in the living room.)  My mom has so much crap in her rooms you can't even turn around without tripping over something.  I told my dad he needs to put his foot down and institute a get one, get rid of one policy for her.

On Wednesday before I went to my meeting where I was sure I was going to need to find my happy place, Bill and I went for a five mile walk.  I had to walk five miles as part of my 1/2 marathon training, which is going pretty good, in that I've been getting up and going to the gym once a week and making sure I'm exercising and yesterday Sara and I walked 10 miles.  Anyways, we were walking and I yelled, "Bill what is that!?" and pointed and Bill turned around, looked and said matter of factly: "Yeah, that's two moth's having sex."  Right there on the trail.

Look closely.

This is the note I left my parents for a surprise.  

In between sitting at my parents' house, me and Earl did some partner yoga.

 Clark was certified by quality control.

Shila moves her bed into the hallway in her sleep

Me and my main man with the pillow Jessica made me for my birthday!

 Yesterday on our 10 mile walk Sara and I found a skeleton.  I don't know what it was.

Vacation Round Up

Here's what I got done during vacation:

• Got all of the appliqué done on the baby quilt I'm making
• Got the windows tinted in the car
• Got the oil changed in the car
• Had the roof patched on the house and roof re-established on the dog house
• Go the dog poop cleaned up
• Made initial inquiries into a chicken coop
• Visited Jack, my bestest buddy in all of Strasbourg, France et famille
• Spent quality time with the Little Guy
• Ate meatballs and spaghetti with the Big Guy and the Little Guy
• Walked 25 miles y compris two walks with Max
• Did yoga four times
• Found a hawk's nest in my parents' backyard
• Called "dibs" on the electric smoker my dad was going to yard sale

What I didn't get done:

• Get Clark's nails clipped
• Get any canine a bath
• Finish the baby quilt
• Grade any kind of anything
• Go to Costco with the Big Guy and the Little Guy

There was too much to do this vacation.  On Tuesday I called my dad and I said, "Dad!  I'm so stressed!  How am I going to get everything done?"  He said, "There's always next week."  And I yelled, "But there's not DAD.  I'm not retired like you.  I can't just 'do it next week.'"  He didn't understand what I was talking about, so much like the bounce house, we didn't have much else to say to each other.

Tuesday I took Max for a walk.  It was the first time he'd been in the stroller since he'd been to the beach and so he was convinced he was going to see a "choo-choo" and "agua."  I said, "Buddy, I'm just not sure either of those is possible."  He's eternally optimistic (and has a short attention span), so he tried chanting "choo-choo" and "agua" for the entire hour and twenty minutes we were walking hoping that that would cause a train to magically appear.  I tried to explain to him that we lived in the desert and by definition the desert meant we were not going to find a pool of "agua" as we were walking.  No matter.  He was convinced.  I'm sure it was disappointing, but luckily once we got back home he was over it.

The other thing I've done is pretty much commit to signing up for the Rock n Run San Diego 1/2 marathon in June.  I think this is a fabulous idea, but I'm coming into my training a few weeks late.  There's a time limit (four hours) and so I will have to step up my walking game if I plan on making all 13 miles in under four hours.  I've got a new training schedule.  Sara's going to do it too.  I'm hoping it will keep me motivated from eating everything in the refrigerator at 7:00 at night.  I've also taken the radical step of stocking my refrigerator with only vegetables.    

The Latest

I haven't posted anything in a long, long time.  Yesterday I thought I was going to post, but then I spent on my free time on a Justin Timberlake binge on hulu.  Having been too old to be part of the NSync craze, I've never really been all that into JT, so I can't really explain what happened yesterday.  I started watching SNL, which led to Jimmy Fallon and the next thing I knew it was time to leave for my walk and all I'd done was just watch Justin Timberlake clips.  I went ahead and made yesterday and all JT all day long day which turned out for the better because I'm now over JT and can resume spending my free time looking shit up on Pinterest.

I think I've given up on my photo project.  I say I think because I'm not quite ready to admit I'm throwing in the towel despite the fact that I haven't taken a picture in weeks.

It's been quite the few weeks over here.  The Geriatrics continue to get up at least five times a night to go outside sometimes forgetting that they were just out moments after they come back in.  (Clark)  I swear I get up more times with them than if I had a newborn.  Why don't I get a doggie door?  Excellent and logical question, but I don't want Randi and Earl to have access to the house when I'm not here and I'm pretty sure if I got a doggie door that was only big enough for the Geriatrics then I would come home to find Randi (or Earl) stuck half way through the door.  Clark has remembered how to get on the bed, which means he is once again sleeping with me and Randi and Earl.  

On Saturday I went to Walmart and bought what I thought was a Buzz Lightyear kite thinking that Max would enjoy trying to fly the kite, but it turned out to be a Buzz Lightyear glider which turned out to suck ass.  My dad had to put it together because I couldn't understand the directions in English or French.  Then it didn't want to glide in any kind of fashion.  Luckily my mom had a kite (of course she did) and me and Max (me) flew the kite in my parents backyard.  It was the best part of the whole week.

After dinner on Saturday we tried to decide what we would do for the Little Guy's birthday.  I think Max needs a bounce house.  My mom said she's not getting a bounce house.  I suggested that maybe I could get a bounce house.  And my dad said that was dumb.  We are at a bounce house stalemate.  I maintain that the bounce house is necessary to continue Max's advancement in jumping ability.  My parents maintain that children have learned to jump since the beginning of time and only recently have had the help of a bounce house.  I argue that all the other kids have bounce houses for their birthdays and so Max should have a bounce house.  My parents counter argue that that is not a valid reason for anything.  I contend that the Little Guy already has so many issues to overcome that he deserves a bounce house.  My parents say that he's just as happy to play in his cardboard house.  I'm afraid I'm going to have to filibuster in order to get a bounce house.  We also don't know what we're going to do for our birthdays.  In what has become a tradition of late, my parents aren't going to be around for my birthday.  I want to go wine tasting, but that's not something Max can participate in.  We think he might want to go to the zoo, but that takes planning.  Probably we will just end up having a quiet birthday evening for the two of us sans bounce house.

Princess and the Pea

She has to sleep like this to muffle the sounds of her own snoring.

I'm sorry, why don't you want to live in the desert?