Here I am, totally dog bound under three Basset Hounds. The one in the middle, Annabelle, was adopted last week. The one kissing me is Carmen, and she will probably never get adopted, as she makes the worst first impression ever. and the one closest to the camera is Banjo. The dog that everyone loves. The Paul Sorvino of dogs. He's the best dog ever, according to Buddy, who regularly pulls his ears, scrambles his brain and pets his fur in the opposite direction.

We now have Simon to replace Annabelle. He's skinny, young and active. He also follows me around where ever I go, including in the shower. He's not allowed in the bathroom when I'm showering anymore.

Censorship and homophobia

There is a book, based on a true story about two chinstrap penguins, both male, that hatched and raised the chick together.

Not surprisingly, some backwater redneck homophobes demanded that the book be pulled from a school library in Virginia because of the "homosexual agenda" that the book supposedly purports.

It's a book. About two penguins. Two male penguins that do what male penguins do, they hatched a chick. It really happened. It's a cute story. I don't think that the penguins attended a lot of Gay Pride parades. I'm pretty sure that they aren't members of the ACLU. I don't think that they sat down with their agents demanding that one be seen as more flamboyant and the other as more of a masculine penguin.

The sad and sick thing is that adults get these ideas and project their fears, their biases, their bigotry, upon things that are nothing more than simple stories. The adults that called for the removal of the book are the ones with the "agenda". How sad that the school district caved.

I've never understood why people take such offense and get so upset about homosexuality. It makes no difference to me who someone loves, or how they love them. As long as they are both consenting adults, and they've found true love, who am I to judge them?

You love who you love. Good for you if you're one of the lucky ones who has found a true soulmate, someone who loves you for who you are, warts and all.

This is one of those things I digress from the Evil Rethuglican party line about. Gay rights and legalization of drugs. Regulate it, and tax it I say!

ahhhhh...... let the angry troll comments come rolling in now!

Sick kids......ugh

So, Buddy has some sort of coughing, sniffling, sneezing hacking virus. He actually took a nap yesterday, and fell asleep before midnight too.

But some time during the night, I felt him climb over my body and flop in between Super G and me. He then snuggled up close to me. And closer, and closer, until I was riding the edge and teetering.

I put on some clothes and went downstairs to sleep on the couch. At some point I heard him crying and then he was standing beside the couch, coughing, snotting and generally miserable.

He climbed on top of me, and we slept that way for about three hours, with him flipping and flopping on top of me, until I was certain my ribs were going to break under the weight of his little head. I slithered out from under him and went back to bed.

And sure enough, an hour later, here he comes. Now he's awake and playing like he got a full night's rest and I'm draggin' ass, not wanting to start working because I'm falling asleep just sitting here in this chair.

Sick kids suck!

More Medical Bullshit.

Ay yi yi where to begin.

I was on the phone Wednesday with my grandfather, trying to tell him of my latest medical mishap, but I kept getting interrupted.

"Amy, I need you to wipe my butt" Said Whitey, the recently potty trained. This is great, because that kid can crap like no other. Huge, monster poops that fill and overflow a diaper. Adult-sized crap out of a pint sized package. Since he now poops in the potty, I just have a one swipe cleanup, although it still smells worse than anything Super-G has put out.

I say three words to Grandpa then I get Bug screaming down the stairs...."mommy!!! I need wipies!!!" So up the stairs I go, she is sitting upon the throne, with a fresh roll of toilet paper at the ready, but ever since my mother-in-law introduced Huggies Clean to Bug, she cannot possibly wipe her ass with anything other than the softest, moistest of scatological cleansing supplies. However, being the mean mom that I am, I purchased a competing brand, the Kan-Doo wipes from Pampers, because they were on sale.

So I guess I can forgive her inability to see the full box of wipes sitting on the counter, directly north of the pristine yet unsatisfactory toilet paper, as the box is different. I get to the bathroom and ask "What, you need to pull it out for you?" She looks at me and says "It's a really big one, I know I won't be able to get it all"

By now my poor Grandfather has still not heard about my medical issues, but knows that all I do all day long it wipe butts. I return to my office, sit down and start to tell him about my doctor's appointment when Buddy starts crying and Bug yells down "Mommy, help! Buddy pooped in his pants!"

Back up the stairs. Sure enough, he is standing in front of the toilet, pants at his knees and two HUGE logs nestled gently in his pants. He is going through this phase where he doesn't want to poop because he is afraid it might hurt. So he waits until the last possible minute, or in this case, the minute after the last possible minute. Using the aforementioned wipes, I plucked the two very impressive turds from his pants, (and yeah, something that big coming out of that little butt, I suppose it would hurt!), clean him off and get him some new pants.

My Grandfather, having heard all of this, is now laughing so hard he can't catch his breath. In a span of 5 minutes, I've dealt with three different types of poo. That is my day. What I didn't tell him is that later in the day I had an appointment to take the Australian Shepherd to the vet to get her anal glands expressed, they were impacted and she was butt scootin' and smellin' rather rank.

Wednesday was a day that I'd rather forget.

But here is the medical bullshit.

Friday the 8th, at about 4pm, my kidney started to burn and flare up in moments of agonizing pain. I thought that perhaps this was a stone trying to pass, so I tried to ride it out. Saturday at 3pm, after Bug made a 3 point shot in her basketball game (if they were keeping score that is) the burning became so vicious, I became nauseated and we went to the ER.

A CT scan revealed no stones blocking the ureter, but some dilation, and several rounds of dilaudid and phenergan did nothing to ease the pain and nausea. I was admitted overnight. At some point during the night I was given Zofran for nausea, and now I must add that to the growing list of medicines I'm allergic to. Can honestly say I've had better nights.

The next day I spoke with the doctor on call who admitted me. He was a very nice internist who had kidney stones in the past. He sent me home with oral dilaudid, which takes care of the pain quite well. The urologist came in to tell me about the dilation, and she let me go home. The only problem was the way I was going to get home.

Super G had gone to pick up a special piece of flooring that we had ordered for the great laminate flooring project. On his way back from Lumber Liquidators to the hospital, he found himself boxed into a lane on the interstate with a street sign blown down in the road in front of him. He had no choice but to drive over it. Everything seemed fine until he went to leave with the kids (I had not yet been discharged and was vomiting still) He had two flat tired on our SUV. It was 30 degrees outside with a 40 mph wind, i.e. very cold, especially to a guy with no protective hair covering his head.

So for the next two and a half hours, while Super G struggled to change the one tire and used Fix-A-Flat on the other one, I entertained two very bored and LOUD children in the hospital. Then we had to go to the mall, because Sears is always at the mall, to get our tires fixed. I got to sit in the play area, with my greasy hair, two day no-showers smell and hospital band waiting for our tires to get fixed. Yup, it was a GREAT weekend.

Then Wednesday, prior to the massive pooping, the doors on the Hulking Mini-Van of Death were frozen shut, so all the kids had to climb through the front doors, including me who had to get to the back row to fasten Whitey's harness, and then snap in Buddy and Bug, and head over to the other side of town where I got a very nice girl (sucker) to watch all three of them while I went to see the Pain Management Dr.

But wait, you say, isn't Wednesday a school day? In normal states, it is, but in Central Ohio, notsomuch.

You see there was cold precipitation on Monday, causing a two hour delay. Then on Tuesday there was two inches of snow on the ground, causing school to be canceled. Tuesday night came the freezing rain, and thus school was canceled again. If they canceled school in Nebraska because of cold temps or a couple of inches of snow or ice, no one would go to school for the entire first quarter of each year!!!!

ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!

So the pain Dr. was nice, but didn't know how she could help me, because I really didn't have anything they could treat with methods other than narcotics. Then she got ahold of a copy of an MRI report done in May of '07.

Here is verbatim what the findings on my lumbar MRI:

There is moderately severe facet and ligamentous hypertrophy and facet arthropathy. At L5-S1 there is a minimal disk bulge. At L4-L5 there is a minimal disk bulge.

My PCP said that I had normal degeneration that would improve with weight loss. This Dr is saying that I have arthritis in my lower spine! Ack!

So I'm having steroids injected into the facets this coming Wednesday. Not exactly excited about this, but perhaps it will help me out a bit. I'm still dealing with quite a bit of kidney pain, and am trying to get in with a nephrologist for a second opinion. Even the on-call Dr at the hospital said that stones can hurt just sitting in the kidney.

So that is my life. Up to my armpits in poop and falling apart at the spine. Oh well, could be worse, I could be Hillary Clinton.

Remember, people: Bros before Hoes!!!!!

Don't wanna work, can't make me

Working from home is a curse. Yes it has it's blessings, but mainly, it's frustrating. I don't even want to start working. So there, you benefit.

Super G's car wouldn't start yesterday. Major bummer. So it got towed away to a dealership. I suppose on Monday we'll discover how much our auto-rape will damage us. Serves us right for sending in that last payment.

So we are down to my car, the hulking MiniVan of Death. With all of her 197,000 miles on it. It's a Chevy too, isn't that scary, depending on a high mileage Chevy as your sole means of transport? I like to live dangerously though, and the thrilling invigoration of knowing that each drive out could be my last is such a rush....it's almost like drugs.

Actually, I saw an article about a guy who is about to roll over 1 million miles on his Chevy Silverado, and now I have a mission.

Two weeks ago when the dealer suggested that I just park my lovely van in the lawn and declare it a piece of art, as opposed to fixing it's ills, I began searching for the next Hulking MiniVan of Death. I mean, the current HMVofD was paid off last year, and on the day I got the death sentence from the nice guys at Bobb Chevrolet we had just mailed off the last payment on Super G's ride, so we were car payment free. As any red blooded American knows, this is just one step from carrying your Pinko-Commie membership card!

But now, I have a mission, a goal. HMVofD must make it to 1 million miles. She must. I'd like to get her window fixed, so I don't have to pull it up with my hands anymore, and probably that thing about the wheel mounts and tie rod ends.....it would suck to be driving along and suddenly lose a wheel. And the catalytic converter......unless someone can tell me how you can just rip that thing off....I mean really, I'm an evil Rethuglican, we don't care about pollution or the environment, right? Emit away, dear HMVofD, chug out that Carbon Monoxide, to hell with the ozone layer, you know that we're colonizing on the moon anyway......

okay, the kids have fed their breakfast to the dogs, guess it is time to get busy......

Out of the mouths of Bugs

So, it seems that I've not been posting regularly, sorry. This thing called life gets in the way sometimes, and more importantly, I'm lazy. Always have been, always will be.

Sunday, Bug approaches Super G, the following conversation ensues.

Bug: Daddy, does Mommy have any eggs left?

SG: a few I suppose

Bug: And do you have any of those seeds left?

SG: oh yeah, billions of them!

Bug: Well, can you guys do that thing you do? I want a baby sister.

He explained to her that you never know what you're going to get, you can't put in an order for a girl.

Two days later, in the car, she asks me

"Mommy, are you sure you're not having a baby?"

Positive

"Well, have you and daddy done that thing to make a baby? I'd like a sister."

ugh, so much for being honest and informing. Buddy will search pumpkin patches for little siblings when he reaches that age.

Then last night, we were at the store and I looked at the new Zyrtec display when she yells out "Hey! Claritin Clear!"

Me, "yup, it sure is"

She grabs a box and chucks it into the cart. I pick it up and put it back. "You don't need that"

She stomps her foot, "Yes I do! I don't want to go through the day in a fog!"

Me, "You don't take allergy meds, you don't have allergies, you don't go through the day in an antihistamine fog!"

And thus, I AM the meanest mother in the world