We're busy entertaining some of our bestest buddies, Todd and Aimee, this weekend.
There's parties afoot (in celebration of Aimee's Ph.D. graduation) and a margarita machine on my back porch, so I will clearly be out of pocket for a few days. And, if I do post, it will be a B.W.I.-type post, and probably hurriedly deleted the next day. ("Scho. Do yawanna know what I HATE? I HATE FLAN. And war. Thatsch what I hate.")
Thus, in lieu of posting something meaningful, I shall bestow upon you this week's coolest website, courtesy of Todd.
It is: the Baby Name Wizard. No, seriously, it is addictive. Try it. You type in your name, and it pulls up a graph of how well your name has fared over the last hundred years or so. (Or any name you want, of course.)
Mine peaked around 1920, sadly. But, on the bright side, it's fared better than, say, Beulah. (And Gladys! And Esther!)
Go here and vote for your favorite. Come back here and report. (He's mine. Sorry, girls.)
(Hysterically enough, I've actually purchased one of these albums - the odd-looking Russian one towards the end. It was a birthday present for Trish, a.k.a. the only person I know that would have such an item...um, on her AMAZON WISH LIST.)
My apologies for not posting anything substantive as of late.
For the life of me, I cannot come up with anything to write that is not obsessively reflective of my current mental state, which is basically that of a shut-in. I'm stuck to this couch, nauseated from the Darvocet but unable to completely quit it just yet, and in an increasingly foul temper because I cannot clean my house for our much-beloved houseguests that will be arriving this week.
And I'm just getting fat again, because clearly I'm not exercising, and feeling sorry for oneself is not particularly conducive to staying on one's diet.
Blargh.
So, just to bring my outlook up a tince - and on the occasion of this, my own day - I am hereby forcing myself to say five positive and/or relatively cheerful things. Here goes:
1) The Man cooked me a nice Mother's Day dinner tonight; halibut topped with crab meat sauteed in garlic butter, asparagus, and crusty bread, with Amy's Ice Cream for dessert. Flowers, too. Thanks, honey; just when I had my pity party on in full, you go and bring me out of it.
2) I finally watched the two Netflix movies that have been sitting on my television since - um, before Christmas. (The Departed and Children of Men. Both good, and situationally suited to my circumstances; when better to watch two really depressing movies than when you're already depressed, I ask you?) I also watched Waitress last night with Cristen, who came over to babysit me. It was very cute. Made me want pie.)
3) The Man and I have upcoming romantic (read: child-free!) getaway plans in San Antonio for our 10th anniversary, including a weekend at La Mansion on the Riverwalk and tickets to see Spamalot at the Majestic. It ain't much in the way of travel - go here if you'd like to read about people who go REAL places - but, hell, I'll take it.
4) Best TV line of the night...from King of the Hill: Peggy: "When did young girls start dressing like tramps?" Nancy: "Mmm-hmm. They call 'em prosti-tots."
5) At one point this weekend, the OG became this, after a Coke and a bag of Skittles:
Now, the OG is hyperactive a lot of the time, but most people have never seen her in full-on Cornholio mode. When this happens, it is awe-inspiring. And hysterical.
Did you know that there are only 22 days of school left? DID YOU KNOW?
And did you know that my daughter will be HALFWAY DONE with elementary school at the end of this year?
And are you horrified by this?
We haven't decided what to do on the cat yet. We did decide to get the shoulder biopsied, to determine exactly what we are looking at. If it's treatable - and restricted to the shoulder, as opposed to something systemic like lymphoma - we may end up doing the amputation, as a) my vet said he could do it for less than half what the specialist was going to charge, and b) my mother said that she would help out. (I didn't ask, for the record; it was a happy (?) coincidence that she paid to save my sister's dog from a grand mal seizure a couple of weeks ago, and I think she was looking to be equitable on my end. And, I suppose I'd rather have Patsy than a contribution to a big-screen TV. I'm...just totally sure about that.)
My ankle surgery will be Wednesday*. All ye beware; there be bitchin' to come.
*It's arthroscopic and not a big deal. I have something called osteochondritis dissicans. Amusingly enough, when you Google it, lots of pages about Labrador Retrievers pop up. My symptoms are totally bearable; it's just the slobbery mouth and the overwhelming desire to catch tennis balls that I can't handle. (Oh! The comedy of me!)
This Wednesday was the second grade parents' turn to host "Teacher Appreciation" day for the OG's school. Dutiful mom that I am, I signed up to bring brownies.
So.
I decide, hey, these are really good teachers, it's a sucky time of the year (Wednesday was TAKS day, even,) and they deserve better than a mix, they deserve THESE brownies. Which are incredible, what with the boiled fudge icing and the real buttermilk and the two whole sticks of butter and the extra-dark Hershey's cocoa. (And then, dang it, you have all this buttermilk left over, and so you HAVE to make homemade buttermilk biscuits. Fuck. No wonder I'm fat.)
Anyway, the brownies were done, and as I pulled them out of the oven, they slipped out of the hot pad. I had about a nanosecond to decide; do I let them fall to the floor, thus forcing me to start over and make a whole new pan, OR do I catch them in my free hand, thereby searing my flesh horribly with the white-hot pan?
I shall let the picture reveal my choice:
That's a big - about an inch long- blister on my thumb, and a big burn mark above the wrist.
Yeah, you knew it all along. When forced to choose between sloth or safety, I'm always going to favor sloth.
Good brownies, though.
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I have a dilemma.
The veteriniary $pecialist thinks that my cat Patsy has bone cancer in her shoulder. He says that there is a pretty good survival rate for the type of cancer he thinks she has - about 80%, actually.
But, the catch is, she'll have to have her whole front leg amputated. And, it'll cost between $1800-$2000 dollars.
And she's 15 years old.
So...let her go? In pain? Maybe a lot of pain? Or put two more grand on my credit card - because in no way can I pay this outright - so it can happily join the car repair debt from a month ago? For a cat that is - despite being fairly spry - OLD?
Somehow, the disturbed and twisted person I am (and have always been) has ended up to be a sickeningly happy wife, professional, and mother of two.
How can I be true to my dark, goth heart, in the face of this horrible irony?
