The boys got a crash course in animal reproduction this past weekend. We were driving and it always seems as though all important conversations happen in the car when you can't see the expressions on their faces. I think they do this on purpose. I'm not sure how the topic turned to the mating practices of canines, but it did. My oldest was concerned that even though our dog has been spayed, more importantly, because she was not married it was inconceivable to him that she could become impregnated. Now Lee and I are pretty conservative, but practical. While we won't be advocating teen pregnancy in our home, the whole "wait until you are married" concept, though in a perfect world would be ideal, might be impossible to enforce. And we already know plenty of people who have conceived/had their kids outside of the "marriage bed", so to speak. So, thinking that the whole idea of tolerance is more important than idealism, I decide that 290 west is the optimal location to disspell the myth of not only dog matrimony, but matrimony as a prerequisite to childbearing in general.
"Son, dogs can't really get married."
"But then how do they have babies?" he asks, bewildered.
Thus, the sex education lesson begins. Already they are well versed in the correct terminology of male and female anatomical parts, so I explain that the male dog's penis goes into the female dog's vagina. Lee expounds and decides to make it relateable, "You know how it feels good to touch your penis and it can get hard? Well a dog's penis can get hard too." I remind them of the times that they have seen a dog's penis which leads them to recollect all the different times that they have seen various animal's genitalia. Collectively, the two of them can remember a fair number of animal gaint-testicle sitings. After the digression, my younger son wants to know about the mechanics of the whole encounter. He is puzzled as to how exactly a dog's penis can fit into another dog's vagina. The two parts just don't seem to fit. Then I explain "humping." This is a term that is not in their vocabulary, so I clarify things for them.
"Well, they can't lay down together, so the male dog kind of pounces on the female dog from behind and his penis can go into her vagina", I offer to them.
Since we've gone this far, Lee figures we might as well go all the way with our lesson and starts in on embryology. "The testicles have sperm in them, which are like little seeds and these seeds go out thru the penis into the girl dog's vagina. The girl dog also has a little seed inside of her and it's called an egg and the sperm and the egg join together and puppies grow from this. It's the same thing for humans. This is how they have babies too."
My oldest, Mr Concrete, dumbfounded, exclaims, "No way, the girls have eggs inside of them? How did they get in there?"
So, Lee backtracks and explains the difference between the eggs that are seen in a cardboard dozen and the eggs in a woman's body. The oldest seems satisfied with our lesson and is quietly pondering these things in his mind, though the concept of canine promiscuity is rattling his sense of right and wrong. I know he is still thinking, "Surely, they must get married before they have babies. Who would take care of the puppies? Just the mom?" He does't realize, in the animal kingdom, there is not an equal division of labor, with dad taking the pups to soccer practice so mom can make dinner.
Our younger boy gets it right away (mercifully, our daughter who is far more savvy than both of her brothers combined, is asleep in her car seat). In the rear view mirror I can see his wheels spinning and putting all the pieces of the puzzle together. Boy dog's penis in girl dog's vagina. Boy dog pounces on girl dog. Boy dog's seed and girl dog's egg combine and make a baby. And this is the same as humans! I can see the moment his little mind is screaming, "Eureka!" and with an impish look on his face and a glimmer in his eye, he raises his eyebrows and says to Lee, "So dad, is that what you did to mom? Did you pounce on her?"
I'm sure that we will have this conversation (or versions there of) time and time again, but I don't think that Lee and I will laugh as hard as we did on this occasion, with tears streaming down our faces and urine soiling our underpants. Hands down, that was one of the top ten moments of parenthood. I don't see how people can avoid talking to their kids about "sensitive subjects". They (kids) are so damn smart that you really aren't sparing them from anything and you, as the parent, are, at the least, withholding some really funny stuff from yourself. Child-rearing, no matter how exhausting it may be, is awesome!
Monday, February 23, 2009
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Addictions and Missions
Our dog, Star, has a fondness for small stuffed creatures. Either the furry creatures that populate our daughter's room (more accurately, the four corners of our home) are little known canine delicacies or upon seeing them she enters into some sort of predatory mode and is simply protecting us all from the dangers of Beanie Babies and Webkins. My desk has become a make-shift stuffed toy infirmary. Cuddly dogs and cats, bears and wombats are lined up next to the computer, some with simple lacerations and others destined to be amputees. When my daughter sees one of her stuffed animals in the dog's mouth she feels betrayed by the dog. Like she, the dog, had promised my daughter that she would end her addiction, but then she is caught red-handed (or red-snouted to be precise). The look in my daughter's face is one of disgust and deep sorrow because she knows that she can't trust the one that she loves.
Speaking of addictions, my middle son has developed a fetish of sorts with temporary tattoos. I blame my aunt and uncle who sent him a book of over 500 temporary tattoos. Even though he is not quite 7 years old, his arms, neck and chest resemble those of a 42 year old biker. All he is missing is the motorcycle, leather apparel, long white beard and the bandana. His father and I are hoping that he gets the need to have body art out of his system while he can still remove them with a little soap and water. His addiction is like any other; it's done in secret and he is somewhat ashamed by it. We find wet papertowels and washclothes in unseeming places, evidence that he has been feeding his habit. Later, he wants us to remove them or he covers them with shirtsleeves. He is horribly fearful of having his classmates see them. If he weren't too young to understand the tenets of a 12 step program we might have to consider finding one is some church basement or school cafeteria. Either that or hide the book of tattoos.
I have much more to write, particularly about my soul-searching mission I just completed. Well, maybe I didn't complete it, but I did start it. Rather than journeying to the far east, I went southwest to Laredo, TX. If you can believe it, this trip to a border town was the trip of a lifetime. I credit God and my husband for forcing me to go on this pilgrimage. I must admit at first I was somewhat reluctant. More than anything, it gave me the opportunity to ask really difficult questions. But after I started talking, I realized the questions weren't all that hard to ask, they weren't all that taboo and most people wanted to (or were at least willig to) talk about the topics I proposed. Talk about clearing up a lifetime of misconceptions! Had I had these conversations 20 years ago I could have saved myself a hell of lot of time and money in therapy. But it was probably all those hours over all those years sitting in that chair that enabled me to get to the point where I was ready and preparred to ask the questions without judgment, anger or fear. It encourages me to tell others to do the same. Don't wait to ask the questions or have the conversations. You'll be suprised at what you may learn and mostly, even if it's not what you expect, it's all good.
Speaking of addictions, my middle son has developed a fetish of sorts with temporary tattoos. I blame my aunt and uncle who sent him a book of over 500 temporary tattoos. Even though he is not quite 7 years old, his arms, neck and chest resemble those of a 42 year old biker. All he is missing is the motorcycle, leather apparel, long white beard and the bandana. His father and I are hoping that he gets the need to have body art out of his system while he can still remove them with a little soap and water. His addiction is like any other; it's done in secret and he is somewhat ashamed by it. We find wet papertowels and washclothes in unseeming places, evidence that he has been feeding his habit. Later, he wants us to remove them or he covers them with shirtsleeves. He is horribly fearful of having his classmates see them. If he weren't too young to understand the tenets of a 12 step program we might have to consider finding one is some church basement or school cafeteria. Either that or hide the book of tattoos.
I have much more to write, particularly about my soul-searching mission I just completed. Well, maybe I didn't complete it, but I did start it. Rather than journeying to the far east, I went southwest to Laredo, TX. If you can believe it, this trip to a border town was the trip of a lifetime. I credit God and my husband for forcing me to go on this pilgrimage. I must admit at first I was somewhat reluctant. More than anything, it gave me the opportunity to ask really difficult questions. But after I started talking, I realized the questions weren't all that hard to ask, they weren't all that taboo and most people wanted to (or were at least willig to) talk about the topics I proposed. Talk about clearing up a lifetime of misconceptions! Had I had these conversations 20 years ago I could have saved myself a hell of lot of time and money in therapy. But it was probably all those hours over all those years sitting in that chair that enabled me to get to the point where I was ready and preparred to ask the questions without judgment, anger or fear. It encourages me to tell others to do the same. Don't wait to ask the questions or have the conversations. You'll be suprised at what you may learn and mostly, even if it's not what you expect, it's all good.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Just Another Day at the Office
I am sick. That is not meant as a judgement of myself, rather it is an actual physical description. My office mate told me that I sound like Brenda Vaccaro. I'm not sure who she is, but if she sounds like she's been a smoker for the past 60 years, then I sound like her. I have not been able to breathe out of either nostril in days and I bark like a seal when I cough. The reason I had been feeling like I couldn't breathe is because my body was getting ready to mount this assault on me with this horrific cold. Basically, I'm miserable and I want the whole world to know. I laid in bed for almost 3 entire days. The good news is that I finally got to watch "The Millionairre Matchmaker" on Bravo.
Despite my fragile state, ever the martyr, I went in to work today. The first part of the day was spent lying on a nogahide couch in the resident's lounge in the back of the ER. Every time the residents or students had a patient to discuss they would tiptoe back to where I was napping and gently rouse me out of my misery. They could have ordered an open-heart biopsy to be performed right there in the ER (just like they do everything in the ER on the show ER) and I would have agreed to it. After lunch I decided that I had better make an appearance and actually see a few patients. This was a critical error in judgment.
Mostly, I really like the ER. It is a fun, strange, surreal, crazy, hectic, humbling place to practice medicine. Occassionally you have to deal with the scourge of the earth and you want them to crawl back under the rock from whence they came. Today was one of those days. Maybe it was because I felt so shitty. Regardless, after my interaction with one of the patients I found myself wondering why I hadn't bothered calling in sick today. The man wanted cough syrup; prescription cough syrup. Well, no one gets a prescription for cough syrup with codeine from the ER. It just doesn't happen. Besides, I didn't hear him cough one time the entire 15 minutes I spent interviewing and examining him. His lungs were crystal clear and he was finishing a course of antibiotics his primary care doctor had prescribed for him. When I told him that I could give him a prescription strength cough drop, otherwise he'd have to buy over the counter cough syrup, he went ape-shit on me. He pulled out the race card. I had not seen this coming. He told me that I wasn't giving him prescription cough syrup because he was black and all white doctors thought that black patients "just wanted the syrup and they were all drug heads!"
His tactic backfired. It was all intimidation. He thought he could intimidate me into prescribing him narcotics by calling me a racist. This was not the most well thought out plan. After my initial desire to tell him to shut the f-ck up while biting my tongue so as not to call him a f---ing, sh-thead, a--hole and curbing my urge to spit in his face, I took a deep breath (through my mouth b/c, unlike my patient, I actually could not breathe out of my nose) and told him (with the utmost professionalism, of course) that he could not speak to me in that manner and if he continued to speak to me in the tone that he was using (by the way, when he told me I was racist, he was yelling at me and in my face) that I would be happy to call security to escort him out of the hospital. He didn't like this plan so he decided that he would leave on his own. Right then and there. I didn't go running after him, I'm not that much of a martyr, but I did offer, one last time, to give him the cough drops that he didn't want. He declined, though not politely.
I was hopping mad after that little interaction. I was like Deputy Dawg mumbling all sorts of things under my breath, "Sassen frassen...Scourge of the earth...syrup!...hah!...sassen frassen..." It took about 2 to 3 more patients for me to completely pipe down, but by the time the HIV positive lady asked me to look at her "27 vaginal warts", I was as cool as a cucumber. I guess it's just all in a day's work...
Despite my fragile state, ever the martyr, I went in to work today. The first part of the day was spent lying on a nogahide couch in the resident's lounge in the back of the ER. Every time the residents or students had a patient to discuss they would tiptoe back to where I was napping and gently rouse me out of my misery. They could have ordered an open-heart biopsy to be performed right there in the ER (just like they do everything in the ER on the show ER) and I would have agreed to it. After lunch I decided that I had better make an appearance and actually see a few patients. This was a critical error in judgment.
Mostly, I really like the ER. It is a fun, strange, surreal, crazy, hectic, humbling place to practice medicine. Occassionally you have to deal with the scourge of the earth and you want them to crawl back under the rock from whence they came. Today was one of those days. Maybe it was because I felt so shitty. Regardless, after my interaction with one of the patients I found myself wondering why I hadn't bothered calling in sick today. The man wanted cough syrup; prescription cough syrup. Well, no one gets a prescription for cough syrup with codeine from the ER. It just doesn't happen. Besides, I didn't hear him cough one time the entire 15 minutes I spent interviewing and examining him. His lungs were crystal clear and he was finishing a course of antibiotics his primary care doctor had prescribed for him. When I told him that I could give him a prescription strength cough drop, otherwise he'd have to buy over the counter cough syrup, he went ape-shit on me. He pulled out the race card. I had not seen this coming. He told me that I wasn't giving him prescription cough syrup because he was black and all white doctors thought that black patients "just wanted the syrup and they were all drug heads!"
His tactic backfired. It was all intimidation. He thought he could intimidate me into prescribing him narcotics by calling me a racist. This was not the most well thought out plan. After my initial desire to tell him to shut the f-ck up while biting my tongue so as not to call him a f---ing, sh-thead, a--hole and curbing my urge to spit in his face, I took a deep breath (through my mouth b/c, unlike my patient, I actually could not breathe out of my nose) and told him (with the utmost professionalism, of course) that he could not speak to me in that manner and if he continued to speak to me in the tone that he was using (by the way, when he told me I was racist, he was yelling at me and in my face) that I would be happy to call security to escort him out of the hospital. He didn't like this plan so he decided that he would leave on his own. Right then and there. I didn't go running after him, I'm not that much of a martyr, but I did offer, one last time, to give him the cough drops that he didn't want. He declined, though not politely.
I was hopping mad after that little interaction. I was like Deputy Dawg mumbling all sorts of things under my breath, "Sassen frassen...Scourge of the earth...syrup!...hah!...sassen frassen..." It took about 2 to 3 more patients for me to completely pipe down, but by the time the HIV positive lady asked me to look at her "27 vaginal warts", I was as cool as a cucumber. I guess it's just all in a day's work...
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Alicia Keyes Listen to This: "I am NOT Superwoman."
I've been especially neurotic lately. At least I can identify it now. When I get anxious I get ailments. Most recently, I have chosen to highlight my respiratory system. Last week, while Lee and I were lying in bed, suddenly I felt like I couldn't breathe. I made Lee go out to the car and pull his nasty public hospital stethescope out of his doctor coat and listen to my lungs. You know, I really want to be tough all of the time but I simply cannot. Lee is priviledged to witness my weaknesses and frailties. He and my housekeeper. But mostly Lee. It must be burdensome. However, I am the one that needs reassurance, so I have him listen a second and third time and assure me that my lungs aren't filled with fluid or riddled with metastatic disease.
Two girls that I know, friends, have been diagnosed with breast cancer since my diagnosis. They are both in their 30's and they both have 3 kids, 8 and younger. Being a good, supportive friend in this situation is not complication-free. As much as I want to be objective, I can't completely extract my own story from their situations. I don't think that it is just about reliving my own circumstances. Rather, I have not yet come to peace with my whole scenario. I guess it is a little bit like picking a scab off of a wound when it is almost healed. But I don't know if this sore ever completely heals. If I isolated myself I don't think that the rawness of it would go away. I'd just be by myself with this exposed nerve and I'd still be getting zapped. I guess I just need to come to terms with the notion that no one is expecting me to be the expert in 'how to be a breast cancer patient'. No one needs me to write the manual with the '10 simple steps to achieving breast cancer survival nirvana'.
Validation-it boils down to this. Somehow by helping these girls, coaching them along, it validates the year I spent wrestling with the breast cancer demons. It puts all that time to good use. In my mind, somewhere deep in my psyche, I can think, "It was all worthwhile. It was purpseful. I can recycle it and use it for something better." That is the type of girl that I am; never sitting still. I need to allow that year, 2007 and the whole frightening ride that it was, to just be. It happened and it happened to me and my family and it was unfortunate, but it is okay now. God or Lee or my parents or my family or my friends are not expecting me to make something profound and useful out of the experience. I'm doing that to myself. My only job is to be me.
Their experience, now, sends me back to those places that I did not like; the dark corners of uncertainty. I have no more control over my destiny now than I did a year and a half ago. And, I have no control over their destinies. It's between them and God, just like everyone else's life is between them and their maker. So, when my friend has to have a mastectomy and reconstruction and her 3 kids have to wait for months to hug their mother, I can cry for her. I can remember my surgery and my recovery and not sugar-coat it. It was hard for everyone. We made it through, but I can still cry for me too. Not because I am feeling sorry for myself, but because I can just let it out. I should not, nor could not, hold this sadness inside anymore than I should or could hold in a sneeze or a hiccup. Because my other friend has finished her treatment and is scared because there is no longer a battle plan and she feels helpless and out of control, I can understand her fear. I still feel her fear. I know the terror of waiting for test results because you think you have some new complication. I can tell her, "I know you are scared. I've been scared too. Whatever it is, it is going to be okay. I am here for you no matter what." I don't have to try to explain away her fears. Acknowledging them is enough.
I am not Superwoman. No one thought I was. There wasn't even a job vacancy. I made myself put on the tight, constricting costume. This is why I couldn't breathe. It was my own anxiety. This is a journey and I can simply join my friends. I don't have to lead the way and sometimes I can fall behind. As I wrote on my friend's poster to hang in her hospital room, in the word of Robert Earl Keen, "The Road Goes on Forever and the party never ends..."
Two girls that I know, friends, have been diagnosed with breast cancer since my diagnosis. They are both in their 30's and they both have 3 kids, 8 and younger. Being a good, supportive friend in this situation is not complication-free. As much as I want to be objective, I can't completely extract my own story from their situations. I don't think that it is just about reliving my own circumstances. Rather, I have not yet come to peace with my whole scenario. I guess it is a little bit like picking a scab off of a wound when it is almost healed. But I don't know if this sore ever completely heals. If I isolated myself I don't think that the rawness of it would go away. I'd just be by myself with this exposed nerve and I'd still be getting zapped. I guess I just need to come to terms with the notion that no one is expecting me to be the expert in 'how to be a breast cancer patient'. No one needs me to write the manual with the '10 simple steps to achieving breast cancer survival nirvana'.
Validation-it boils down to this. Somehow by helping these girls, coaching them along, it validates the year I spent wrestling with the breast cancer demons. It puts all that time to good use. In my mind, somewhere deep in my psyche, I can think, "It was all worthwhile. It was purpseful. I can recycle it and use it for something better." That is the type of girl that I am; never sitting still. I need to allow that year, 2007 and the whole frightening ride that it was, to just be. It happened and it happened to me and my family and it was unfortunate, but it is okay now. God or Lee or my parents or my family or my friends are not expecting me to make something profound and useful out of the experience. I'm doing that to myself. My only job is to be me.
Their experience, now, sends me back to those places that I did not like; the dark corners of uncertainty. I have no more control over my destiny now than I did a year and a half ago. And, I have no control over their destinies. It's between them and God, just like everyone else's life is between them and their maker. So, when my friend has to have a mastectomy and reconstruction and her 3 kids have to wait for months to hug their mother, I can cry for her. I can remember my surgery and my recovery and not sugar-coat it. It was hard for everyone. We made it through, but I can still cry for me too. Not because I am feeling sorry for myself, but because I can just let it out. I should not, nor could not, hold this sadness inside anymore than I should or could hold in a sneeze or a hiccup. Because my other friend has finished her treatment and is scared because there is no longer a battle plan and she feels helpless and out of control, I can understand her fear. I still feel her fear. I know the terror of waiting for test results because you think you have some new complication. I can tell her, "I know you are scared. I've been scared too. Whatever it is, it is going to be okay. I am here for you no matter what." I don't have to try to explain away her fears. Acknowledging them is enough.
I am not Superwoman. No one thought I was. There wasn't even a job vacancy. I made myself put on the tight, constricting costume. This is why I couldn't breathe. It was my own anxiety. This is a journey and I can simply join my friends. I don't have to lead the way and sometimes I can fall behind. As I wrote on my friend's poster to hang in her hospital room, in the word of Robert Earl Keen, "The Road Goes on Forever and the party never ends..."
Friday, January 23, 2009
Fillin My Nights With Song
Before I go to bed, I want to share an observation I made regarding the differences between boys and girls...Girls like musicals and boys don't. I think you can draw a line in the sand and have boys stand on one side and girls on the other when it comes to this critical issue. I chose the movie tonite for me, my 3 kids and my nephew. My daughter is 5, my sons are 6 & 8 and my nephew is 7. I told them my kingdom is a dictatorship and they had to watch what I wanted to watch or go to bed. There was lots of R rated stuff that I could have picked out, but I didn't want to spend the whole movie explaining inappropriate stuff to the 4 kids, so I settled for a PG-13, Mamma Mia!
All of the boys' choices were immediately vetoed. As we left Blockbuster they hung their heads in defeat. We started the movie soon after we arrived home. My daughter was immediately enraptured. The singing, the dancing, the costumes, the love story...it was all too good to be true. She sat next to me on the couch, snuggling close and smiling from ear to ear. I could tell what she was thinking; "Where has this genre of movie been hiding for all these years?" She wanted to know all about the girl and the wedding and the dress and the traditions. Who was going to walk her down the aisle? How old would she be when she got married? In her mind, it was all good. And suddenly I had a new partner with whom I could watch chick flicks!
At the same time my daughter was experiencing nirvana, the boys were somewhere in between complete and utter disgust and bewildered resignation. My nephew could not sit still. He stood up. He sat down. He bounced to the left. He crawled across the back of the sofa. He crawled under the sofa. He crawled under the coffee table. He stood up. He sat down. He bounced to the right...About half way through the movie, he turns to me, completely befuddled and with the utmost sincerety and asks, "Why do the keep speaking out in song?" And that will be the same question that he and other men will continue to ask for the rest of their lives. Some day, 30 year from now, he will be sitting in a theater with his wife, having just paid top dollar to see Chicago or something like it and he will turn to his wife and say, "I don't get it. Why do they keep breaking out into song? When are they gonna kill somebody?" That was the question that my 6 year old had for me. "When is there gonna be some action?" As if watching Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan proclaim their unrequited love via a ballad wasn't action enough. My 5 year old daughter got it. As the credits roled, I know she would have sat there through another viewing while the boys were wondering how the could have been duped so easily. That was an hour and forty five minutes of their lives that they would never get back that they could have used playing video games or watching Sponge Bob. While I don't think I could ever get my 8 year old to admit that he liked the movie, I do think that there was some morbid curiosity on his part (like watching the monkeys mate at the zoo).
I know they will never trust me again. I don't see how they can. It was a complete abuse of my power and I know it. I subjected them to a musical without a grown man nearby to come to their defense. I suppose if I allow them to use the Play Station 2 for 4-6 consecutive hours tomorrow, I may be able to atone for my sins. But, I'm not too worried about it because I have my new ally and tomorrow she and I will probably watch the movie another time or two or at least till we know all the songs by heart!
All of the boys' choices were immediately vetoed. As we left Blockbuster they hung their heads in defeat. We started the movie soon after we arrived home. My daughter was immediately enraptured. The singing, the dancing, the costumes, the love story...it was all too good to be true. She sat next to me on the couch, snuggling close and smiling from ear to ear. I could tell what she was thinking; "Where has this genre of movie been hiding for all these years?" She wanted to know all about the girl and the wedding and the dress and the traditions. Who was going to walk her down the aisle? How old would she be when she got married? In her mind, it was all good. And suddenly I had a new partner with whom I could watch chick flicks!
At the same time my daughter was experiencing nirvana, the boys were somewhere in between complete and utter disgust and bewildered resignation. My nephew could not sit still. He stood up. He sat down. He bounced to the left. He crawled across the back of the sofa. He crawled under the sofa. He crawled under the coffee table. He stood up. He sat down. He bounced to the right...About half way through the movie, he turns to me, completely befuddled and with the utmost sincerety and asks, "Why do the keep speaking out in song?" And that will be the same question that he and other men will continue to ask for the rest of their lives. Some day, 30 year from now, he will be sitting in a theater with his wife, having just paid top dollar to see Chicago or something like it and he will turn to his wife and say, "I don't get it. Why do they keep breaking out into song? When are they gonna kill somebody?" That was the question that my 6 year old had for me. "When is there gonna be some action?" As if watching Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan proclaim their unrequited love via a ballad wasn't action enough. My 5 year old daughter got it. As the credits roled, I know she would have sat there through another viewing while the boys were wondering how the could have been duped so easily. That was an hour and forty five minutes of their lives that they would never get back that they could have used playing video games or watching Sponge Bob. While I don't think I could ever get my 8 year old to admit that he liked the movie, I do think that there was some morbid curiosity on his part (like watching the monkeys mate at the zoo).
I know they will never trust me again. I don't see how they can. It was a complete abuse of my power and I know it. I subjected them to a musical without a grown man nearby to come to their defense. I suppose if I allow them to use the Play Station 2 for 4-6 consecutive hours tomorrow, I may be able to atone for my sins. But, I'm not too worried about it because I have my new ally and tomorrow she and I will probably watch the movie another time or two or at least till we know all the songs by heart!
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Farewell Sweet Piggy...Farewell
I read a quote recently about blogging; "Never has so much been written about nothing by so many people and read by so little." Pretty much sums it up. But, as long as I realize that I am doing this for me and my kids and not to get discovered by Oprah, then who cares, right?
It's a lazy day today and as usual, I am putting housecleaning at the bottom of my priority list. The amount that needs to be cleaned is overwhelming and I'd rather sit my butt down in front of the computer and waste time. Speaking about wasting time in front of the computer. I joined Facebook recently. There is absolutely nothing redeeming about the time spent on Facebook; very little return for the investment you make. But...it is addictive. People that I haven't even thought about in 20 years-now all of the sudden I know when they are going to go to the bathroom or have their dog groomed. I wonder what it says about us as a society that we'd rather electronically peer into obscure acquaintances' lives than have a conversation with your own family who is sitting in the same room with you or the neighbors that live next door. I'm not proud of this fact, but I have hushed and shooed away my children because I was busy reading Facebook. Not only is that downright pathetic, it's extremely pathetic. I'm 40 years old. I should be busy doing something worthwhile. Sadly, I don't think I am going to quit anytime soon. Like any addiction, it is feeding some deep seated need that I have. I'm not sure what that need may be, but I am feeding it nonetheless.
Piggy, our black and white mouse, died yesterday. I was very flummoxed as to how I was going to break the sad news to our kids. It's not like they haven't experienced loss (in the form of pet death) before. They are actually veterans at this point. After I allowed myself a moment of sadness and reflection, I decided to wait until this morning to tell them. Lee is the one who noticed that she was dead. Earlier in the day one of the neighbor boys asked if she was dead, but I was preoccupied and wasn't really paying attention, so I answered, "No, she's just sleeping." I never went and actually checked Piggy out myself. I went back to whatever I was doing and forgot about it. Later in the evening when Lee told me that she was dead, I thought he was lying. We joke about killing the mice and have fantasies of their demise all of the time. They stink and we are the only people who clean out their cage (except for our housekeeper when she can't stand the stench any longer and she does it herself).
Earlier this week we thought Piggy was on her way out and I actually took the damn thing up to the vet. "Get her here right away!" the vet receptionist instructed me, with alarm in her voice. I immediately jumped in the car (after strapping the cage into the seatbelt) and raced up to the vet's office just to be told, mockingly, that there was nothing wrong with Piggy. "I don't really know that much about 'rodent care'" he told me (and still had the nerve to charge me the $9 office fee). "They can get something called wet tail and you have to get them to me right away so I can give them a shot of antibiotics. But your mouse's bottom looks clean. Sometimes they can get tooth abscesses, b/c their teeth grow continuously. You can just get a pair of nail clippers and clip off the end of their teeth. Just do that and watch for signs of diarrhea."
I gazed at him like he was stoned. "Do you really expect me to be vigilant about my mouse's anal and dental care?" I asked him. He just shrugged and looked at me like I was a fool (which I suppose I was. If wasn't in this pseudo-housewife role, would I have the time to take a mouse to the vet?). I took my mice and left.
For the next couple of days Piggy was fine. She rebounded from whatever mouse ailment from whence she suffered and resumed her role as the less dominant mouse in hers and Snowflake's relationship. She gathered seeds, tended to the mouse dome and occasionally took a foray around the cage...until last night. Last night was the last time that she would climb to the top of the waterbottle to better search for nuggets of food.
Lee banged on the cage. "See, she's not moving." Sure enough, Piggy lay there, amidst the blue shavings, rotting. God only knows how long she had been dead. As I mentioned, I was slightly sad. As much as we joke about it, I could never actually bring harm to the damn things. Even after I threatened to euthenize them earlier this week. After confirming her demise we debated about the best way to rid of her corpse. I thought we should put it outside in a plastic bag and let it freeze (it's been near freezing here) and then take it to the vet to incinerate. Lee didn't like this idea. He scooped it out of the cage with a couple of plastic bags and threw it in the garbage can outside. He said he didn't really care if it decomposed in the garbage can and stunk up the whole neighborhood. He just knew there was no way he was taking the mouse up to the vet. Remind me to make sure I have some plans written down somewhere so he doesn't just put me in a plastic bag and throw me in the garbage for Thursday trash pick up.
The next morning I decided to tell the kids after ruling out my other options; a) get a replacement mouse (been there, done that) or b) lying to them. I'm not opposed to the latter-I lie to my kids quite frequently, especially when it makes my life more convenient. But I decided that it was too much work to make up some elaborate lie about how the mouse escaped, etc...All 3 of them were sitting on the couch with the boys' friend who had spent the nite. The boys were playing with their hand held electronic games, so their noses were buried deep in the screen.
"Kid's I have some sad news. Piggy died." I told them in my most solemn tone. I waited for a second thinking that the wailing and gnashing of teeth would begin at any moment. Complete silence as the boys are trying to navigate thru the 8th level of whatever particular game they had been playing. I add, "She died peacefully and she's in mouse heaven now. She didn't suffer."
"I told you she was dead!" the boys' friend proclaims triumphantly. "So where is she rotting?"
"Daddy put her in the garbage can last nite."
"Oooh! Cool! Can we go see?" the friend wants to know. Obviously he does not appreciate the delicateness with which we need to approach the situation.
"Where was she?" my middle son wants to know. "In the cage." I answer. "No, I mean was she in a corner or in the middle of the cage? Because Sally [9 yr old next door neighbor who the boys worship-name changed to protect anonymity] said that mice only die in the corner of the cage. If they are lying in the middle of the cage they are just sleeping." he explains to me.
"No, she was definitely dead" I assure them. "Dad checked her to make sure."
"How, how did he check her?" This is the oldest who never ceases to ask questions. I begin to explain, but notice that neither of the boys have stopped playing their games since I began the conversation. I decide to just leave it at "She wasn't breathing and he's a doctor, so he knows."
"Yeah, but he's not a vet." He says this with complete seriousness, still playing the handheld game.
"She's definitley dead" I told him.
Meanwhile, my daughter is busy flirting with the neighbor boy. It's more important to remain cute in the face of tragedy, she decides. Later when we are by ourselves, she expresses sorrow. I tell her that the mouse had fulfilled her destiny on earth and now she is in mouse heaven with all of our other deceased pets. She's okay with this for now....Until another one meets his or her untimely death!
It's a lazy day today and as usual, I am putting housecleaning at the bottom of my priority list. The amount that needs to be cleaned is overwhelming and I'd rather sit my butt down in front of the computer and waste time. Speaking about wasting time in front of the computer. I joined Facebook recently. There is absolutely nothing redeeming about the time spent on Facebook; very little return for the investment you make. But...it is addictive. People that I haven't even thought about in 20 years-now all of the sudden I know when they are going to go to the bathroom or have their dog groomed. I wonder what it says about us as a society that we'd rather electronically peer into obscure acquaintances' lives than have a conversation with your own family who is sitting in the same room with you or the neighbors that live next door. I'm not proud of this fact, but I have hushed and shooed away my children because I was busy reading Facebook. Not only is that downright pathetic, it's extremely pathetic. I'm 40 years old. I should be busy doing something worthwhile. Sadly, I don't think I am going to quit anytime soon. Like any addiction, it is feeding some deep seated need that I have. I'm not sure what that need may be, but I am feeding it nonetheless.
Piggy, our black and white mouse, died yesterday. I was very flummoxed as to how I was going to break the sad news to our kids. It's not like they haven't experienced loss (in the form of pet death) before. They are actually veterans at this point. After I allowed myself a moment of sadness and reflection, I decided to wait until this morning to tell them. Lee is the one who noticed that she was dead. Earlier in the day one of the neighbor boys asked if she was dead, but I was preoccupied and wasn't really paying attention, so I answered, "No, she's just sleeping." I never went and actually checked Piggy out myself. I went back to whatever I was doing and forgot about it. Later in the evening when Lee told me that she was dead, I thought he was lying. We joke about killing the mice and have fantasies of their demise all of the time. They stink and we are the only people who clean out their cage (except for our housekeeper when she can't stand the stench any longer and she does it herself).
Earlier this week we thought Piggy was on her way out and I actually took the damn thing up to the vet. "Get her here right away!" the vet receptionist instructed me, with alarm in her voice. I immediately jumped in the car (after strapping the cage into the seatbelt) and raced up to the vet's office just to be told, mockingly, that there was nothing wrong with Piggy. "I don't really know that much about 'rodent care'" he told me (and still had the nerve to charge me the $9 office fee). "They can get something called wet tail and you have to get them to me right away so I can give them a shot of antibiotics. But your mouse's bottom looks clean. Sometimes they can get tooth abscesses, b/c their teeth grow continuously. You can just get a pair of nail clippers and clip off the end of their teeth. Just do that and watch for signs of diarrhea."
I gazed at him like he was stoned. "Do you really expect me to be vigilant about my mouse's anal and dental care?" I asked him. He just shrugged and looked at me like I was a fool (which I suppose I was. If wasn't in this pseudo-housewife role, would I have the time to take a mouse to the vet?). I took my mice and left.
For the next couple of days Piggy was fine. She rebounded from whatever mouse ailment from whence she suffered and resumed her role as the less dominant mouse in hers and Snowflake's relationship. She gathered seeds, tended to the mouse dome and occasionally took a foray around the cage...until last night. Last night was the last time that she would climb to the top of the waterbottle to better search for nuggets of food.
Lee banged on the cage. "See, she's not moving." Sure enough, Piggy lay there, amidst the blue shavings, rotting. God only knows how long she had been dead. As I mentioned, I was slightly sad. As much as we joke about it, I could never actually bring harm to the damn things. Even after I threatened to euthenize them earlier this week. After confirming her demise we debated about the best way to rid of her corpse. I thought we should put it outside in a plastic bag and let it freeze (it's been near freezing here) and then take it to the vet to incinerate. Lee didn't like this idea. He scooped it out of the cage with a couple of plastic bags and threw it in the garbage can outside. He said he didn't really care if it decomposed in the garbage can and stunk up the whole neighborhood. He just knew there was no way he was taking the mouse up to the vet. Remind me to make sure I have some plans written down somewhere so he doesn't just put me in a plastic bag and throw me in the garbage for Thursday trash pick up.
The next morning I decided to tell the kids after ruling out my other options; a) get a replacement mouse (been there, done that) or b) lying to them. I'm not opposed to the latter-I lie to my kids quite frequently, especially when it makes my life more convenient. But I decided that it was too much work to make up some elaborate lie about how the mouse escaped, etc...All 3 of them were sitting on the couch with the boys' friend who had spent the nite. The boys were playing with their hand held electronic games, so their noses were buried deep in the screen.
"Kid's I have some sad news. Piggy died." I told them in my most solemn tone. I waited for a second thinking that the wailing and gnashing of teeth would begin at any moment. Complete silence as the boys are trying to navigate thru the 8th level of whatever particular game they had been playing. I add, "She died peacefully and she's in mouse heaven now. She didn't suffer."
"I told you she was dead!" the boys' friend proclaims triumphantly. "So where is she rotting?"
"Daddy put her in the garbage can last nite."
"Oooh! Cool! Can we go see?" the friend wants to know. Obviously he does not appreciate the delicateness with which we need to approach the situation.
"Where was she?" my middle son wants to know. "In the cage." I answer. "No, I mean was she in a corner or in the middle of the cage? Because Sally [9 yr old next door neighbor who the boys worship-name changed to protect anonymity] said that mice only die in the corner of the cage. If they are lying in the middle of the cage they are just sleeping." he explains to me.
"No, she was definitely dead" I assure them. "Dad checked her to make sure."
"How, how did he check her?" This is the oldest who never ceases to ask questions. I begin to explain, but notice that neither of the boys have stopped playing their games since I began the conversation. I decide to just leave it at "She wasn't breathing and he's a doctor, so he knows."
"Yeah, but he's not a vet." He says this with complete seriousness, still playing the handheld game.
"She's definitley dead" I told him.
Meanwhile, my daughter is busy flirting with the neighbor boy. It's more important to remain cute in the face of tragedy, she decides. Later when we are by ourselves, she expresses sorrow. I tell her that the mouse had fulfilled her destiny on earth and now she is in mouse heaven with all of our other deceased pets. She's okay with this for now....Until another one meets his or her untimely death!
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Kids, Don't Try This At Home
New year, new blog...The Hollerin Chef was going to be the name of mine and Lee's cooking show, but we could never get beyond the conceptualization phase so this idea fell into the same pile as the idea for the restaurant for dogs.
Lee and I are getting old. I can't believe it has actually happened, but when we weren't looking, we both turned 40+. Now more friends than not have some kind of diagnosis and, sadly, many of our friends have either buried parents, or they have parents who have become ill. The fifteen years between 25 and 40 flew by at light speed and now I find myself in this demographic and I'm not sure I am preparred to be in it. Five years ago everyone was having babies. That time between having babies and becoming middle-aged was condensed in our generation because we all waited so damn long to have kids. Anyway, I digress...
I think everyone agrees that an unwritten, but understood part of every longterm relationship is patrol of the other person's unwanted hair growth. Making sure that there aren't unsightly hairs growing out of your partner in unorthodox body parts is part compassion and part self-serving. To forego this critical duty is not only careless and thoughtless, it is grounds for reconsideration of the whole partnership. If you can't rely on your mate to tell you when you aren't properly groomed, you are operating at a level beneath primates. I tell Lee when his ear and back hairs are reaching maximum density and he tell me when I've forgotten to pluck a stray chin hair or upper lip whisker. Imagine my horror and dismay when I realized I had been walking around all day with a long, white hair sticking out of my nose. With every word I spoke or breath I breathed, it danced in the wind, but I didn't know this until after I had been to the bathroom and reported back to him that I had just encountered the most unsightly hair protruding out of my left nostril. Instead of faking like he didn't know that it had been there, he said, "Oh yeah, I saw that this morning and forgot to say something to you." As if that one incident wasn't bad enough, while putting lotion on my legs this morning I noticed pubic-like hair on the back of my right mid thigh. It was a small patch, but it was there, beneath the level of most shorts and certainly visible to the naked eye. Hair grows back differently after chemotherapy. It crops up in strange locations and with different textures. I'm not sure which was worse, letting me walk around with nose whiskers or short curlies on my thigh, but we had a "come to Jesus" after that and he knows that unless he wants small birds nesting in his ears, he's got to improve his surveillance skills...
Which brings me to my last insight for the day...Don't ever try on your dog's choker collar. The choker collar has spikes directed into the neck so your dog won't go nuts when she sees other dogs/squirrels/cats while you are taking her for a walk. If the dog starts to chase or run after something, the spikes dig into her neck-it gently reminds her to stay in-line. Well, Lee and I decided it would be a good idea to try on Star's choker collar ourselves. Lee's neck was too big for the collar, but guess what, my neck was just right! Yup, we snapped that baby on and it was much easier to put on than it was to remove...I have about a dozen spike marks in my neck to prove it. So, even though we are both old, we are still stupid.
Lee and I are getting old. I can't believe it has actually happened, but when we weren't looking, we both turned 40+. Now more friends than not have some kind of diagnosis and, sadly, many of our friends have either buried parents, or they have parents who have become ill. The fifteen years between 25 and 40 flew by at light speed and now I find myself in this demographic and I'm not sure I am preparred to be in it. Five years ago everyone was having babies. That time between having babies and becoming middle-aged was condensed in our generation because we all waited so damn long to have kids. Anyway, I digress...
I think everyone agrees that an unwritten, but understood part of every longterm relationship is patrol of the other person's unwanted hair growth. Making sure that there aren't unsightly hairs growing out of your partner in unorthodox body parts is part compassion and part self-serving. To forego this critical duty is not only careless and thoughtless, it is grounds for reconsideration of the whole partnership. If you can't rely on your mate to tell you when you aren't properly groomed, you are operating at a level beneath primates. I tell Lee when his ear and back hairs are reaching maximum density and he tell me when I've forgotten to pluck a stray chin hair or upper lip whisker. Imagine my horror and dismay when I realized I had been walking around all day with a long, white hair sticking out of my nose. With every word I spoke or breath I breathed, it danced in the wind, but I didn't know this until after I had been to the bathroom and reported back to him that I had just encountered the most unsightly hair protruding out of my left nostril. Instead of faking like he didn't know that it had been there, he said, "Oh yeah, I saw that this morning and forgot to say something to you." As if that one incident wasn't bad enough, while putting lotion on my legs this morning I noticed pubic-like hair on the back of my right mid thigh. It was a small patch, but it was there, beneath the level of most shorts and certainly visible to the naked eye. Hair grows back differently after chemotherapy. It crops up in strange locations and with different textures. I'm not sure which was worse, letting me walk around with nose whiskers or short curlies on my thigh, but we had a "come to Jesus" after that and he knows that unless he wants small birds nesting in his ears, he's got to improve his surveillance skills...
Which brings me to my last insight for the day...Don't ever try on your dog's choker collar. The choker collar has spikes directed into the neck so your dog won't go nuts when she sees other dogs/squirrels/cats while you are taking her for a walk. If the dog starts to chase or run after something, the spikes dig into her neck-it gently reminds her to stay in-line. Well, Lee and I decided it would be a good idea to try on Star's choker collar ourselves. Lee's neck was too big for the collar, but guess what, my neck was just right! Yup, we snapped that baby on and it was much easier to put on than it was to remove...I have about a dozen spike marks in my neck to prove it. So, even though we are both old, we are still stupid.
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