Thursday, July 23, 2009

One little plague joke and this is what I get.

A few days ago Eric and I were talking to a friends of ours about how I got my nickname and I made a joke about being a purveyor of the plague. Flash forward to yesterday and I have some kind of wicked infection that may actually be the plague. Ok - so that is a bit melodramatic - but, I did see something on Discovery channel last night stating that doctors actually diagnose about 3,000 cases of the plague each year. THAT'S comforting, right?!

Anyway, the nickname...When Eric and I met he was living in a house with a couple of guys and they all pretty much worked from home. I was the only person that came and went with any regularity and I was living in a house with friends that had small kids. It seemed like the three guys were constantly getting sick even though I never did. After the second or third time one of them got a cold after not having left the house for an embarrassing amount of time I got fingered as the carrier monkey. It didn't take long before carrier monkey became Carrier Monkey and then just Monkey. To this day, I am Monkey as far as Eric and his friends are concerned. I suppose it could be worse...we currently have friends with the following nicknames: Moose, Shack and Sperm. I'll take Monkey, thanks.

My current ailment is an infection in my face. The beginning of this week I woke up and my lower molars on the right side were hurting. I thought I was probably clenching my teeth in my sleep, so I took some Advil and went about my day. The next day it was the same thing again - back molar hurt, gums swollen - so more Advil and it went away. Wednesday I woke up and not only did my teeth hurt and my gums were swollen, but my jaw line hurt and my lymph nodes on that side were swollen. At first I didn't think much of it, but by mid-afternoon I was really starting to hurt. My jaw hurt and my ear was hurting. I felt feverish and decided I had better go see the doctor because I might actually be dying. Slowly. With whining.

I want to interject at this point with a strongly worded blog paragraph about how ridiculous doctor offices are. I called at 3:30 to see if they could fit me in. "Sure. Can you be here at 4?" said the somewhat surly receptionist. I replied that I normally leave work on Wednesday at 4:15 and it would be ok to come over at that time to avoid having to take off work. "No," she adamantly replied. "The doctor is only available at 4 so you have to be here right at 4." Fine. I'll be there at 4 and I'll even be nice about it even though you are clearly incapable of anything by disdain for people so you should really work in fast food.

I go explain to my boss and leave in time to be there at 4. I showed up at 3:59 according to the clock on my phone. FORTY MINUTES LATER I finally see the doctor. So I ask: If it was so frickity-fracken important to be there at 4 precisely, then why didn't the doctor see me at 4? Really? What? They needed someone to hold down that horribly uncomfortable chair in the exam room? Or did they need someone to review the incredibly outdated magazine collection for quality?

Seriously? Where else can you go and be left waiting for that long and let them get away with it? We should all really stage a coup and put a stop to it...taking advantage of miserable sick people like that...they should be ashamed!

BAH...

Today finds me miserable and tired and grumpy. I have sat in this stinkin' recliner all day. ALL DAY. I did get up and load the dishwasher at one point, but that is it. The doctor instructed me to stay home today and when I argued she gave me the best one-liner EVER...

"You have an infection. In. Your. Head."

Kind of hard to argue with her at that point. I guess infections in your head can get bad fast so you are supposed to be really good about rest and lots of fluids.

So I sit. I drink. I complain.

Such is the life.

Sunday, July 12, 2009

I didn't expect the Animal Kingdom.

What a weekend! It was slightly productive and incredibly lazy. I channeled all my powers of procrastination and successfully avoided doing all kinds of things I should have done. Whee!!

On Saturday we weren't too lazy. We tackled some yard work BEFORE sitting in front of the television for hours on end. Oh, and I learned a valuable lesson about yard work.

The last couple of months we have been working our tails off to get our yard in order. We now have a front yard that looks spectacular. However, we have a backyard that looks like we selected "overgrown and dead" as our landscape theme.

So, after a couple of hours of front yard maintenance we decided to work on the back. This is where the lesson learning part comes in:

Don't let your backyard weeds grow to epic proportions because you shall have unexpected interaction with wildlife.

Namely, mice and snakes.

I reached down and pulled a rather large weed next to the house and a field mouse jumped out at me. I am not sure who was more startled. All I know is my scream was louder. We found its home and decided to leave it alone. It was actually kind of a cute mouse.

Not 10 minutes later I pulled another large weed around the corner from the mouse house and a snake jumped out. The snake wasn't as cute as the mouse. Eric caught it and put it through the fence into the backyard of a neighboring house. I am trying to figure out if that is good karma or bad karma. Either way, I am certain it is only a matter of time before we see the snake again.

That was pretty much the end of my willingness to pull weeds. I was afraid I was going to find Jimmy Hoffa's body. The rest of the weekend has been spent sitting on my butt watching television. I like watching television. There are fewer creatures jumping out at me.

Unless you count Drew, of course.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

I am tired; therefore, I rant. Enjoy.

In yet another demonstration of my poor decision-making abilities, I stayed up way too late last night. I wish I could say that I stayed up saving the world from foriegn attack like a middle-aged, over-weight superhero, but alas, I wasn't. No. I actually stayed up until after 1:00 a.m. watching Mighty Ducks 3.

Yes. That is correct. Mighty Ducks 3. It was awful -- and I. Couldn't. Stop. Watching. The best part? Joshua Jackson, aka Pacey, with the world's most horrific haircut and no acting skill. Eric and I laid in bed making fun of plot holes, bad acting, poor hockey form, the unbelievability of the entire premise of the film and predicting what would happen next. Then at the end, Joshua Jackson's character and Emilio Estevez's character high-fived and fireworks came out of their hands. Seriously, right?! I couldn't make shit up that has more comedy fodder than this!

Comedy fodder aside. Now I am tired. And a little grumpy. It doesn't help that I have had to listen to the Canadian National Anthem about 25 times in the last hour and a half. On repeat. At full volume. I went on a fruitless search for something long enough to gouge my eardrums out, but have now resorted to plotting ways to irreparably damage my cube neighbor's speakers. Or kill him. All I need is a paperclip, chewed bubble gum and a toothpick and I could turn it into a bomb set to explode the next time the volume crosses into "the office across the hall really, really likes this song and wants to hear it" territory. I could do it, too. I learned it watching MacGyver.

Actually, I have to make a disclaimer here that I would not, in fact, blow up my cube neighbor. I actually like him quite a bit. It's his music I hate. In the time it has taken me to type this the music has switched from the Canadian National Anthem to some folksy, country-type music. I never thought I would say this, but I actually miss the anthem. It didn't engage my gag-reflex quite so much.

**SIGH**

To keep the grumpy rant going I must comment on drivers. I know. I know. AGAIN? You ask. Yes. Again. I can post whatever I like, mister, and you are darn well going to like it.

I just don't understand why people don't drive the speed limit. I mean, I get the fact that a large portion of the population in this part of the state is concerned about deportation, but I've said it once and I'll say it a million more times, THEY DON'T DEPORT YOU FOR DRIVING THE SPEED LIMIT! It's that whole "illegal alien" thing they get a teensy bit miffed about! The kicker is that even those people who don't need to worry about the pesky INS agents can't seem to drive the speed limit. Everyone around here drives 5 miles under the speed limit. On a sunny day. In the summer. In front of me. Really? Snow. Ice. Rain. Those things warrant slow driving. You being an idiot? No excuse.

Not only that, but they can't even drive a consistent number of miles under. Speed up. Slow down. Speed up. It's like one giant idiot parade. Only with no mini-cars or pageant queens. I have visions of buying one of those Mad Max style cars with the giant bumper on the front and just pushing the morons out of the way. Either that or I could install a giant boxing glove that punches them each time I hit the horn. Talk about a stress reliever.

Hmmmm...what to talk about...

OH! I just thought of something awesome! Drew has his very first loose tooth! Teeth, actually. The two bottom front are both loose and it is very exciting, but also a little sad. I don't think there is a parent out there who doesn't wake up one day and wonder who the large child is that suddenly replaced their infant. It just all goes by so fast.

Eric and I are still having the baby debate. At one point I thought we had it all settled and were going to go for it. However, we have changed our minds. I know! Shocker!! I just don't know if I want to go through it all again. I have learned to appreciate having clothes without vomit on the shoulders and I really, really like not living in a house that always smells like baby poop no matter how much you clean and spray air freshener. More than anything else, I like sleeping through the night -- an activity you don't fully appreciate until you have an infant in the house.

I like the fact that Drew is almost completely self-sufficient yet still cuddly. I am really enjoying this time in our lives and the relationship we have with Drew. He is such a cool kid and we are this really cool little unit. I don't want to ruin it.

Aren't life decisions FUN?!!!