Getting my rocks off

I've had to take time out from recanting stories about my older child, because...dudes! I have been so sick since I posted last!

I was SO sick. How sick was I?

• I missed the Big BobNoxious Birthday Lake Bash on Saturday night;
• I missed Toya's birthday/Karla's going-away bruncheon at Threadgill's on Sunday morning;
• I could not sit up for approximately 24 hours; but instead had to lie on my back, in the dark, with my eyes closed;
  

and, to rub salt in the wound,

• I was EVEN completely unable to read the new Harry Potter book, because the words swam around so much on the page that I had to go throw up every time I tried!

In a nutshell, I was totally fine until about three o'clock on Saturday. I was happily making seven-layer dip for the big party, and I was just about to get out the sour cream, when - BAM - double vision, nausea, and big-time vertigo just slapped me across the face. I crumpled to the couch, and then to the bed, where I stayed except for periodic trips to the bathroom to vomit, hold my swimming head, moan, and then vomit again.

And, what was it? Flu, maybe, or a bad bug? Perhaps an underdone bit of potato? No, silly, it was ear rocks, of course! Otherwise known as "Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo," - although I fail to see how something can at once be simultaneously "benign" and "paroxysmal" - this apparently common phenomenon occurs when these little bits of particulate matter, which normally float around in your inner ear, get dislodged from their proper floaty position, and start bumping up against the little hairs that help you stay balanced. The result, as my doctor told me, is like "being on a really really fast, intense, merry-go-round. Except it doesn't stop." (He's a really cheerful man. He then just as cheerfully told me that "It'll probably get better in a few days. If it doesn't, come back to see me so we can make sure it wasn't a stroke.")

So, to treat this - it hasn't gone away, mind you, although I'm not vomiting anymore - I take motion-sickness drugs, and have to do some sort of head-positioning exercises to move my little rocks back around where they should be.

The stupid crap that happens to your body as you get older, I tell you. (I also pulled a muscle the other day...in my TONGUE. While YAWNING.)

A True Story, Part One

It all began when she was a baby, about two months old.

She was born healthy and strong. She nursed like a champ, and almost instantly had those gorgeous, enormous breast-milk thighs, like Virginia hams. From the get-go, she was as powerful as her red hair and her regal name would suggest. Her eyes, bright and clever, surveyed everything in the room, and all five senses were completely alive, so quickly, and so acutely.

One little, tiny thing, though; she couldn't sit still in a restaurant, like all those other babies, resting placidly by the side of the table in their little buckets. Even as a two-month-old, she cried and fussed if left sitting, unstimulated, even for a few minutes. When picked up, she wiggled and squirmed until one of us picked her up and carried her around the restaurant or outside, bouncing her on our shoulders, singing, and talking. We joked that Lee would never get to sit through a meal again, but figured, hey - that's what babies are.

As she grew, and learned to crawl, then walk, her need for movement was shifted, naturally, to her own motor skills. Not just in restaurants, now, but everywhere, it was noticeable that she was different from even other very young children in this respect. She demanded interaction with others at all times. She could not sit for more than a minute or two at a time without jumping up to run around. She was bigger, louder, and more forceful than most children, and as a result, began to sort of mow them down (unintentionally) when interacting with them. In a nutshell, she just moved more than they did.

And, with us, she demanded that we be there, always. Our bedtime ritual, for example, always resulted in our holding her, in a tight bear hug, until that rigid little body softened, finally, into relaxation. (Thankfully, that's never taken very long; something about racing at 60 mph all day long makes a body tired at night, apparently.)

Her clear intelligence was startling. As a barely two-year-old child, she walked around the world pointing out hexagons, pentagons, octagons, and quatrefoils. Also at two, she knew all of her letters on sight, after I showed them to her on her alphabet puzzle maybe twice. She wrote her name right after her third birthday (I still have it, with the date).

However, there was a significant downside to this combination of intelligence and freakish energy; the tantrums. When events did not work out to her expectations - no matter how well spelled-out beforehand - she would engage in the most violent meltdowns that you have ever seen. As a baby, her fists and feet would fly, to the point that I had to physically restrain her. (And, as a two-year-old, she was the height and weight of an average four or five-year-old, and a wall of sheer, aerobically-exercised muscle to boot.)

Thankfully, the physical part of her tantrums didn't last much past the age of two. The last time I restrained her - I've had multiple hours of training in how to do this safely; don't try it at home if you're not - I was murmuring, as I always did, "I'm only controlling your body until you can control it yourself." She then looked me dead in the eye and said, "Don't under control me anymore." I said "OK, then, we're done." She's never hit or kicked since.

But oh, though, she had hundreds of meltdowns. You could see them coming. That wild-eyed energy, building up until she was too loud or ran around or grabbed something or knocked a kid down, or whatever, until one of us decided to step in and remove her. Then, there was screaming and sobbing, resulting in carrying or dragging out (it's hard to carry or drag a forty-pound three-year-old when you're pregnant, as it turns out,) and then a lengthy battle of enforcing a "time-out" with an enormously strong banshee who is flinging herself at her bedroom door.

Now, in the interests of full disclosure, I know something about child development and behavioral intervention. I know a great deal about it, actually. However, putting the wealth of behavioral theory that I knew into actual action was proving more difficult than I would have expected. It was about that time, right before the birth of YG, when OG had just turned four, that I figured I needed to start finding out what we were doing wrong.

So, I started reading, and began talking to my then-incredible-pediatrician, who had been observing her behavior in his quiet, inimitable way, for quite some time. We suspected sensory integration disorder, perhaps high-functioning autism. But most of all, clearly, she had severe ADHD. And, oddly enough, she began complaining of violent itching in her genital and anal area, and she started squinting when she watched television or movies. Dermatalogical and opthamalogical exams revealed no physical or vision problems whatsoever. The opthamologist, however, took one look at her and said "She has tics."

The birth of the younger girl temporarily took precedence over the pursuit of diagnoses or solutions for my dear OG. But not for long.

The YG arrived - also healthy, also strong, not as big, also with red hair - in April of 2004. Almost immediately, she was worlds apart from her older sister. This one WAS one of those babies who sat placidly in their buckets at a restaurant! She COULD sit and play by herself, and for hours at a time! She sang to her toys, cuddled her dolls, and put herself to sleep at night. And - oddly enough - we weren't raising her any differently than the other child.

So, maybe, just maybe, it wasn't all our fault.

And maybe there was a pill, or combination of pills, that could fix this.

Summer Niii---hiiiights!

(What, you say? Tell you more, tell you more?)

Erm, actually, not much to tell. The Mags family gets themselves into quite the piggish summer vacation lazies every year. We stay up way too late watching old movies and various HBO programming*, and then all sleep in until 9:00 (me) and 10:00 (the children, and lately, the husband). And, thus, as OG is hard to get started on the best of days, we don't physically MOVE from the house until about noon, when, of course, it is already time for lunch.

Today, we JUST made it to the free Alamo Drafthouse kids' movie showing at 11:00 - and that was with a significant amount of cajoling and threatening. (It's "The Iron Giant" this week, which I had forgotten was really good. It was Brad Bird's first big animated feature, and it deserved way more press than it got. I also forgot that it made me cry when I first saw it, and thus will always make me cry, even in public movie theaters, much to the embarrassment of my oldest child.)

After that, there was...well, home time, more movies and computer games, and then a brief jaunt off to the neighborhood pool before dinner, which was thrown together hastily, as I had my eyes on the bigger prize - a HUGE vat of homemade salsa, from my garden tomato-and-jalapeno haul.

I hadn't ever made salsa before, really - no, wait, I have made tomatillo salsa several times, and lots of Hatch chile enchilada sauce, but every time I've tried making just straight-up red salsa, it hasn't come out very good. Usually, it's really watery, and not a lot of flavor compared to the bottled ones.

But, this time, I took the time to roast, peel, and seed the jalapenos beforehand, and I also blanched the tomatoes to get the skins off correctly. Since that seemed to work out well, I briefly parboiled the red onions and a serious mess o' garlic, too. Then I just threw it all into the food processor with some lime juice, salt, pepper, and oregano, and after it was nearly pureed, I threw in a bunch of cilantro.

And, children - it was GOOD this time. There are three largish ziplock bags in my freezer that I shall look forward to thawing for quite some time.

So, the sum total of activity for my day was: waking up, driving to and summarily watching a movie, idly picking random objects up around the house while my children played video games and/or watched another movie, walking to the pool and briefly standing around therein, and then making salsa. And now, I blog.

Goddamn, I love summer.
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*So, is anyone else besides me really into "Big Love?" And, if you are, do you feel as conflicted as I do about liking it? Because you KNOW in your heart that it's a really unrealistic, sanitized view of polygamy, which is REALLY a horrible practice that victimizes and infantilizes women, and yet THIS SHOW makes you kinda, sorta, want a sister-wife or two to babysit the kids and cook dinner for you when you get home, and have kinky sex with your husband when you're just not in the mood?

Seriously. I'm half-shopping for one.

This one goes to eleven!

Hey now, there, y'all, it's been almost a week since I've been here. I believe I have been actually, for reals, busy for several days.

Oddly, though, now that I'm sitting down at Ms. HotSexyNew iMac to write...suddenly, I cannot remember one thing that I've done recently. Age? Writer's block? Cheap Merlot? You decide.

I think I must list. Perhaps I will also cluster. It's my only hope. (Warning, I sense exclamation points ahead. I cannot summon the words to express myself tonight, so thus I shall rely upon punctuation marks to convey my meaning. OK!! Yeah!!)

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1) Baby! Erin had her baby, three and a half weeks early...and...it's a boy! His name is Dean, an homage to both Ben's middle name and the Rat Pack. (Had I known, I would have sent them lil' sippy martini cups.)

I have not seen photographic evidence of this baby thus far, but I see no reason to doubt her story. Mom and baby are reportedly well - no word on how Ben is doing; I'm suspecting either "giddy" or "stupefied" - and hopefully all are home by this evening.

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2) Schlitterbahn! We went to Schlitterbahn on Sunday! Opened it and closed it, even; 10:00 AM to 9:00 PM. Both girls went with, as did our good friends Eric and Christie, who had never been.

A time was had, my friends, a time was had. It was the perfect day: coolish (for July in Texas,) slightly overcast, rainy early in the morning so many folks were scared off. During the day, it only rained lightly for about half an hour, and that was timed nicely right at the dinner hour. OG and Eric were their energetic selves and rode everything. Even YG, formerly assumed to be a complete pantywaist, rode some pretty hardcore slides. (She also proudly displayed her new "dunk her head underwater" skills, newly learned in swim lessons, about 50 times throughout the day, causing me to fear for her brain cells by a certain point.)

There are many things about Schlitterbahn that make it way cooler than other water parks, first and foremost being the use of real (and cold as fuck) Comal river water in the rides in the older section, and the several tube chutes that just dump your ass into the actual river. But, also great is the fact that they let you bring in coolers, so you aren't forced to spend scads of money on shitty hamburgers and funnel cakes.

But, this time, I finally got to do the coolest thing at Schlitterbahn...the Master Blaster! ('Cause, see, someone chose the perfect day to go, when the lines for it weren't four hours long! Wait, who was that brilliant person? Oh, yes, it was ME!) For those who have not tasted the joy, the Master Blaster is an uphill, water, roller coaster. It's fuckin' sweet. And, I'm glad I finally got to do it, because I am absolutely unwilling to wait in the ungodly lines for it on a typical day.

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3) IKEA! I hate IKEA! Did I ever say that I loved IKEA? I don't! I absolutely fucking loathe them!

See, I bought this bookshelf there a few weeks ago. (Note: It is not actually a cheap piece of crap from IKEA, it is a reasonably expensive piece of crap from IKEA. This fact will come into importance later in the story.) I don't have a truck, so I got Cristen to watch the kids, took out the carseats, folded all the seats flat in the Pussy Wagon, and drove 20 minutes up the highway to get there.

It lay around my house tripping us, in its ginormous boxes, for about two weeks, but I finally got to work on it and finished it a few days ago. It was not mentally challenging - assembling IKEA furniture isn't, generally - but it was time-consuming, and did involve another slog back up there to get a missing bolty thing.

This thing, by the way, not being a cheap piece of crap from IKEA, is actually pretty solid, and pretty heavy. Though I put it together myself, I did some back hurting picking some of the pieces up, and it took two of us working substantially to lift it up to the wall after I was finished.

So, I'm up on the ladder, just about to fasten it to the wall - last step, you know - when The Man comes through, points to the side panel, and says, "Did you know this is cracked?"

Herm?

No, goddamn it, I did NOT know it was cracked, splintered, right down the middle of the wood, with no relation to any screw or anything that I had done during the assembly. Fucking fuck.

But, you know, I can handle defective merchandise. What, as it turns out, I CANNOT handle, is IKEA's return policy. It spaketh thus: You may pick up this extremely heavy fucking thing and put it back on the ground, turn it back upside down, disassemble three quarters of the entire bloody thing so that you may bring in a SIDE PANEL TO A BOOKSHELF, and bring that one piece in to be replaced. Or, you may disassemble the ENTIRE THING and return it to us IN ITS ORIGINAL PACKAGING, to return it to us. (Which was already cut up in the recycling pile, because we are GOOD ANAL RETENTIVE LIBERALS.)

And do you know what they do to those folks who send bitchy e-mails about this policy? They send them auto replies! Several!

The upshot of all this is that I am in no way, shape, or form, disassembling this stupid thing. So, tonight, we lay it back on my floor, and I attempted to wood-glue the crack into stubborn submission...and of COURSE, I rubbed my index finger along the crack to schmear the glue in, and of COURSE I ripped an inch-long gash in it on the razor-sharp splinter.

I tell you, folks, I've decided IKEA is not worth the hassle. For a few dollars more, I could have driven two minutes away to about twenty good furniture places near to my neighborhood and had a nice bookshelf delivered and installed for me. AND, I'm guessing, if a big crack developed down the side of said bookshelf, someone might, just might, have said, oh, "Sorry?" Or, "Hey, you get a new one, since that one's broken! And we'll bring it out to you!"

For the moment, I'm swearing off IKEA, 59-cent stoneware bowls or not.

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4) I saw the new Harry Potter movie at a sneak preview on Monday! It was...pretty good! The kids have all learned to act, and their real-life friendship is apparent. All the supporting cast is as fantastic as usual...god, I love Alan Rickman, as previously noted, and Imelda Staunton as Delores Umbridge was an inspired bit of casting. But, the plot of the movies is getting pretty familiar by now, and this one didn't have the wonderous imagery that Alfonso Cuaron put into the third one, or the character development that Mike Newell put into the last one. And, it seemed woefully abridged - that's probably to be expected, as it was an 800-page book - but some major plot points were left out.

However, I did enjoy it. I'm certain that you will, as well.
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5) Give yourself over to absolute pleasure, bitches...it's your lucky bun day!

It's Spinal Tap, at Live Earth, and....the Army of Bass Players...O.M.F....G.
No words. No words at all. Can describe. How cool. THIS IS.



Stonehenge was pretty effing funny, too...




Yes. You're welcome.

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6) Your Simpsons Self! You should, by all means, go to the Simpsons Movie Website and create your own Simpsons Avatar, like THIS ONE:


...and you should then thus post them on your blog. Or send them to me.*

Because they are awesome.

(As is John, yet again a source of all things cool.)

*I couldn't save mine to my computer, for some reason. I had to print it out and then scan it.

A sucky Fourth

Dang, the Fourth of July cake was kind of a bust. The icing was awesome and it looked very pretty, but the cake itself was dry. I don't know how that's possible, as it had half a pound of butter and a cup of sour cream in it, but dry it was.

Maybe a better baker than I has a suggestion on what may have happened, or how to improve it? Maybe I should have added some milk or buttermilk or something? The batter looked good, and it wasn't burned or anything like that.

All around, this is not turning out to be the holiday that I had planned. The cake was underwhelming, our planned annual trip to Schlitterbahn today is officially rained out, and - while not actually raining at present - it's just too damned gloomy outside to muster up the energy to do much else besides hoist the coffee cup to the lips and watch "Spongebob" with the kids.

Bleah. You?
___________________________
The upside of the rain:


Look at my grass! And it's JULY!

And, the downside:


There are little fungi growing on my back porch.

Fourth of July Flag Cake!

Oh, my god, people, you need to go make this cake RIGHT. NOW.

Don't worry yourself about the four sticks of butter and the three boxes of cream cheese that goes into the icing! Or about the half-pound of butter and cup of sour cream that goes into the cake! That's not important! Because you'll burn calories just picking this fucker up after you're done with it, as it weighs about 50 pounds!

Mine doesn't look as good as the one on the recipe, of course, because I'm not all that patient, and raspberries were too expensive. But it's going to taste INCREDIBLE.

What Kind of Liberal are You?

I'm a hippie. Go figure.

My Liberal Identity:

You are a Peace Patroller, also known as an anti-war liberal or hippie. You believe in stopping American imperial conquest and supporting our troops by bringing them home.

Take the quiz at www.FightConservatives.com

Stolen from John

It's the Dramatic Chipmunk, which is really a groundhog.

(Go on, click it, it's only five seconds long.)



I've clicked this about 25 times this morning.

Declassified

So much in the newspaper this week has made me splutter with outrage. I don't know where to begin...Cheney's decided he's not in the executive branch (and is instead some sort of imperial-Sith-lord entity unto himself)? Insane Ann Coulter is still making headlines for saying asinine things? These so-called "tough on crime" Republicans are screaming for the pardon of Scooter Libby? Someone continues to find "B.C." funny?

Perhaps angering me most of all this week was this declassification of the CIA materials known as the "Family Jewels," wherein it is now finally revealed that yes, the CIA did spy on journalists, students, musicians, actors, and people whose opinions did not jibe with the status quo. They tapped phones, sat in unmarked cars outside of houses taking photographs, and even drugged people with LSD without their knowledge. They planned assassinations, and carried some out. And, when Nixon was in office, they completed these acts under the direction of the commander-in-chief. And they're still not all declassified...pages and pages are blacked out, that they still can't fess up to.

See, what you may, or may not know about me, is that since I was born, I have been hearing ALL about these activities from my mother. ALL THE TIME. To the point where my eyes glazed over.

I never doubted - most of the time - that she was probably correct. But, when she or my sister or myself told others, they so often told us point-blank or insinuated that we were a bunch of paranoid conspiracy kooks. Of course our government wouldn't spy on us! That would be crazy!

What think you now, o ye complacent folks of yesteryear, now that you see for yourself that she was right, way back then? And have you learned anything? Do you remain complacent now, with Bush, Gonzalez and Cheney insisting that they have the right to tap your phone, imprison people indefinitely, and torture you if they decide they want to?

Do you still believe them? Have they suckered you into caring more about Paris Hilton than the desecration of our Constitution?

Now is the time for a revolution, folks. What say we rise up, and impeach these fuckers now? Who's with me?

(And, just in case, any CIA spook who reads this and doesn't care for my tone can suck on it.)

Bad Ass Day

No, no, not a badass day; I mean a BAD ASS day. Like a bad hair day.

Today my ass was particularly big, which was unfortunate, as I was wanting to buy a new dress at Target. (They're cute right now, seriously! Really fun and flowy!) I first tried on this retro Isacc Mizrahi pink dot dress:

...which made me look like a couch. A large, overstuffed, pink couch that you might find at your grandmother's house, if your grandmother lived in a trailer in Appalachia. (Actually, it's not even all that flattering on the skinny model that they paid to put this on, so maybe I don't feel that bad.)

Next, I tried on this little kicky satin sundress:
I'm usually good in dresses of this shape, but this was not it for me. First of all, horizontal stripes, duh. The skirt was so much poufier than the waist that it made my hips look freakishly exaggerated, which was I'm guessing NOT what they intended. Plus, the top was clearly intended to be worn with no bra whatsoever - not even a strapless - and - well, how can I put this delicately? There was nowhere for my girls to go.

Finally, I tried this one on, which I did not expect to like, much less buy:
I did, in fact, buy it, as it was by far the least couch-reminiscent of the three upon my body. But, I felt strange purchasing it. It is very unlike me to buy anything with a) stripes, b) diagonal stripes at that, and c) some of them are coral, for Christ's sake.

When I got it home, I tried it on for The Man. (Note: This is usually how I get away with buying new clothes. I try on the sexiest thing I've purchased and parade it in front of him. When he emits a guttural growl, I feel certain that he won't ask how much it cost.)

This time, though, I got a strange reaction. This was our conversation:

Me: "Do you like it?"

TM: (reflexively) "Yeah! It looks good!" (No guttural growl. He stops, and tilts his head sideways.)

Me: "You're tilting your head. Does it not look good?"

TM: "No, it looks good...it just doesn't look like anything you'd wear. It's very...bright." (continues to tilt head and look at me strangely)

Me: "So...it doesn't look good."

TM: "No, I mean it, it looks good on you...it's just very...retro? It's kind of a seventies print."

Me: "Um...so, is that good or bad? I was going to wear it to (TM's cousin's) wedding, and to work."

TM: "No, it doesn't look like a work dress. It's a party dress. I just mean, you should wear it for very specific events."

Me: "Such as?"

TM: "Uh...seventies events, I guess!"


So...anyone wanna have a key party?

From over t' John-n-Inga's blog...

Pictures of disturbing inflatable playground toys (from which children spill, naturally:)




I particularly like the enormous monkey balls/vulva combination.

What Went Wrong

These are photos of a young baby Mags, at my house with my grandmother:


Mmmkay, so it was just FINE to give the baby the icing beaters back then!

Jeez, my kids didn't get any refined sugar until their first birthday - well, OK, the FIRST one didn't - but here I am, what, maybe, six months old, tops, sucking down what is likely my grandma's homemade cinnamon roll icing STRAIGHT off of the beaters, like a junkie looking for a fix. (Seriously, look at my eyes in that second picture. I'm saying "You take this beater, you lose a hand. Hear?")

(Mmmm...Grandma's homemade cinnamon rolls...but I digress.)

I believe that I can see the beginnings of the lifelong weight problem ROTCHHERE.

Now excuse me while I go rip open a bag of chocolate chips.
______________________________
Mags Summer Obsession List Part II:

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 8 - the comic book series authored by...dum da dum!...Joss Whedon himself. They're awesome. I'm all aflutter.
• Drinking delicious Sidecars (thanks, Badger of the New York Times!)
• 80's funk/R&B (e.g. Cameo, the Dazz Band)
• the song "Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk" by Rufus Wainwright
• the new season of "Big Love"
• yummy crusty sourdough bread, toasted, with butter (NO! NO! BAD MAGS! *rubs nose in the carbs*)

June 20, 1998

It was nine years ago today; the hottest June ever in Austin.

100 degrees, and not even July yet. An evening wedding seemed like a good idea at the time, but we hadn't taken into consideration that an earlier wedding would suck every bit of air conditioning out of the Caswell House. At 5:00, it was probably 85 degrees on the second floor, and me in a whalebone corset and no food since toast at breakfast. It's a wonder I was even conscious.

Happily, though, it went down. And so did I, later that night. (KIDDING! I was too pissed at the downtown Sheraton for that, as they had A.C. issues of their own. I think The Man made me slam two G&T's in the hotel bar just so I would be remotely compliant for anything salacious that night.)

This evening, to celebrate, I made a nice anniversary dinner of two lovely and expensive pan-seared yellowfin tuna steaks with an herb-and-sea-salt rub and roasted garlic butter, roasted asparagus and garlic, and sourdough crostini with olive oil. Dessert was a plate with two kinds of cheese (a Manchego and a bleu,) dark chocolate, English toffee, and strawberries. We had an interesting German white semi-sparkling wine from Central Market - a "Gruner Veltliner" - very tasty. Fresh, citrusy, good mouthfeel. It was way better than its price tag suggested, and it had a bottle top, to boot!

The whole thing might have been very romantic if we had not had a three-year-old sandwiched between us commenting on the yuckiness of the tuna and asparagus, and suggesting that fish sticks might be a better choice.

Happy A-Day, honey. Best. Marriage. Ever!

(And, if you like, you may check out my darling husband's drunken assertions of love over t' his blog. Yes, honey, I looooove you too. Now shuffle off to bed, and don't vomit.)

ACL Fest Schedule Posted

...and single-day passes are on sale. Anyone want to go?

I'm torn, though. Crowded House, the Kaiser Chiefs, and the Killers are on Friday night, but my girl Amy Winehouse and the Arctic Monkeys are on Saturday. (As are the Indigo Girls! Wow! I didn't know they were still around!) Even Sunday looks pretty good...Robert Earl Keen, Wilco, The Decemberists.

I haven't done more than a single day in several years, but I'd do one if I had a date (who is most decidedly not The Man; he's sworn off all outdoor music festivals in the summer in Austin. What he thinking, I ask.)

Anyone? Anyone?

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I know you've heard "Rehab," but if you haven't heard more of Amy, you're missing out.

Quiet times in the Mags household

The OG has gone to visit her grandparents, for a week. She is slated to attend golf camp for an hour and a half every day, and then will assumedly be just hanging out with them at the pool for the rest of it.

I had thought I would be glad for the relative silence, but I am feeling so anxious about how she will do with them that I am actually completely on edge. Seriously, she can be great, but she can also be mind-bogglingly hyperactive and stressful.

I feel like we've come to a good place around here, but it takes daily vigilance, with both of us constantly checking and rechecking our actions. We work at this very hard, this family does. And I get nervous when I leave her with people who may not have the most recent knowledge that we've acquired about Tourette's...no matter how well they may know her.*

I guess I have no choice but to hope that she's finally gained the ability to generalize the skills she's learned here to other situations outside of this house and this family. As we are constantly reminding ourselves; progress, not perfection.

Jesus, it is so quiet over here, though. It's kind of spooky. I can literally hear crickets.
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* I did mention that she's been diagnosed with Tourette's, didn't I?

Well, she has. First by a neurologist, and then confirmed by the wacky autism doctor. (He's not really wacky; however, I am still unsold on the clinic, though I am giving some of the supplements a try. I figure DHA, Vitamin B, and acidophilus isn't going to hurt anyone.)

Yeah, Tourette's. I thought it was strange at first, but now that I've learned more about it, I am convinced they are right. There is clearly, unquestionably Tourette's on both my side and on The Man's. It is very comorbid with anxiety disorder and ADHD, along with the cognitive inflexibility that the girl has in spades. Her tics, always present, have morphed and gotten worse as she gets older, and she is completely unable to stop herself from doing them.

There's medications that can help the tics, but they are serious business...Risperdal and Abilify and Seroquel, things like those. Bad side effects, like massive weight gain. And, emotional-wise, I am totally leery of even the small dose of Zoloft that she's on. Kids kill themselves on that shit sometimes, you know? And, of course, there are many ADHD medications, but a lot of those exacerbate tic and anxiety disorders, so you have to be careful there...we're on Straterra at the moment, which is not a stimulant.

So, I shit you not, right this second, OG is taking, per day:

1 Straterra (that might go to two small doses)
1 Zoloft (small dosage)
1 Diflucan (an antifungal for itching; this is temporary)
2 acidophilus (chewables, made of strawberry yogurt, basically)
4 DHA capsules (which are HUGE; I cannot believe that she can swallow them)
1 multivitamin
1 B-complex vitamin
(Yes, I know, this looks entirely insane. Consider, though, that the vast majority of these pills don't actually do anything. I've become one of those suckers that is so desperate they'll try anything; charlatans of the world, prepare for my pocketbook to be emptied into your coffers.)

Anyway, I encourage all of you to do a cursory read-up on Tourette's. It's underdiagnosed, and really misunderstood.
------------------------------------
Mags summer obsessions, part 1:

• The Amy Winehouse CD
• Get Some Zzzs Tea from The Republic of Tea
• Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser
• Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations on the Travel Channel
• my fresh tomatoes, ending up so far in: several meals of poached eggs and tomatoes in olive oil and garlic, one fabulous italian baguette sandwich (along with my fresh basil-pecan pesto, salami, capiciolla, and dijon mustard,) and many, many salads and sandwiches
• iPhone lust (I jones for iPhones)
• Friar, Friar, Pants on Fire toenail polish from OPI
• Shi-Tzu abuse:

"No, Mama! Not the pink bow! I didn't mean to poop over there! Or over there!"

The Vacation: A Recap

Picture 1: The Man and I at a brewpub in Parkville, MO, just prior to the big reunion.

I had brought several dresses to KC, not knowing what a) would be appropriate and b) would fit over my hips on that particular day. (Eating at the parents' for 10 days = 5 pound Mags weight gain, on average.)

The invitation stated that the attire would be "business casual." Not believing that in the slightest, I brought many of my nice to fancy-ish dresses. There was the purple linen, the red linen, two clingy black ones, the brown and black patterned sleeveless dress, the feisty aqua party dress with the 50's print. Just as a lark, I threw in the lined pink taffeta dress that I bought last year for $9 at Ross.

I also brought both pairs of cowboy boots, and also some new Clark Artisan sandals that I had just bought. They're not formal, but they are damned near comfortable. Thus, I declare that these will be THE HEELS THAT I HAVE TILL I DIE. (You know your mother has a pair. Come on now, she does!)

Anyway, up until the evening of, I had anticipated wearing either the purple linen or the brown and black dress; maybe the red linen with the teal and red cowboy boots just to shake things up a bit. I couldn't settle on one, maybe due to the gaping maw of apprehension that was suddenly festering in my belly.

And then, it occured to me: Pink. Taffeta. With my favorite necklace and earrings - my grandmother's sparkly beveled plastic beads - ironically, worn many times when I was in high school. It. Could. Work.

Voila! Instant suck-it-uppage. I suddenly had the strength to attend this thing.

It's very different from anything I would have worn in high school - not a big wearer of the pink, me, then or now - but, at the same time, reflects that some things haven't changed.

Picture 2: Erin, me, and Wanda, an old friend (in the "it's been a long time" sense) that I had not seen since high school.


Erin (who, as you can tell from her picture, has clearly been busy lately) flew in from Philly; Wanda from Little Rock, I think mostly to see Erin. We all had a great conversation at the brew pub. I remembered immediately why I had always liked Wanda. And both are clearly still as lovely as ever. Damn them.

This was the best time of the evening; no question. The reunion itself was...actually, it was OK. It was way better than the 10-year, as it had awards and yearbooks and a genuinely sweet slideshow, that sort of stuff. And, it had a live 80's cover band with two soccer-moms-in-fishnets lead singers, singing all your favorites...yes, "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" and "You Shook Me All Night Long" were played, as was, I daresay, "Love Shack!"

But, perhaps most importantly, it had free booze, to which your humble narrator always says "fuck, yes," and at which I partook until they ran out of white wine. They offered the pink zin, saying, "This looks white," but I declined. (That's a Kansas City sommelier for you.) Probably fortuitous, that; I had a lovely buzz, but didn't crash over the edge. But, I did have enough to cut loose on the dance floor with The Man most of the evening...I even closed down the party that I swore I would cut out early on.

(Note: Big snaps to The Man. He was the coolest spouse there. Not only did he dance with me all night, to music that does not involve two-stepping, but he ALSO made sparkling conversation with anyone he met. Seriously, you should have seen the pickle pusses on some of these husbands and wives. I'm a very lucky woman.)

I enjoyed speaking to many people, and the general consensus was that I haven't changed since high school. Good to know. Truth be told, the women all looked fantastic. ("Business Casual?" Sheeright! I'm relatively certain that few of them wear sequins and four-inch heels to their "business," or, if they do, they didn't share that particular detail.)

Many of the men were showing their age. (My age? No, seriously, it can't be. Some of these fuckers were bald and had gray hair.) But, those that I noticed as handsome back then? I still noticed as handsome. Strange.

Weirdly, so many of the people there had four kids. Wanda and Erin decided that four must be the new two. Four! One had FIVE! Many were divorced now. Also, many still lived in the general KC perimeter. However, that could be because that they are the ones that showed up. Most people I know that moved away didn't show. (They were missed, too.) Also sadly underrepresented was the misanthropic theater kids clique; I really could have stood to have seen some more of them.

All in all, though, not too bad. I may actually keep in touch with more people this time.

Or not.

Pictures 3 and 4: Worlds of Fun, in the rain



Oh, sure, I got tons of other, more typical, WOF pics, but I think these are great. This is my archetypal memory of Worlds of Fun when I was a kid. Trapped under some funnel cake stand awning in the rain, freezing my ass off on what was, just minutes before, a sweltering day. (It was pretty awesome, though; I don't ever remember getting hailed on there before.)

OG and I rode the Mamba, a rollercoaster that has a first drop that is so precipitous that it is religion-inducing, and then goes right back up and does the same goddamn thing again. OG liked it, but didn't want to ride it again.

Oh, a bit of hilarious conversation from that ride, as it was pulling into the station:

OG: "OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD!" (Looks over at me) "Oh, um...can I say 'oh god?;"

Me: (having had this conversation many times) "Well...not usually, of course, but, hey, on a rollercoaster, it's probably appropriate."

OG: "Oh god, that ride shook the hell out of me!"

We also rode the Detonator a couple of times, one of those things that shoots you straight into the air really really fast. I kind of hate it and love it. It's ever so briefly shit-your-pants terrifying, and then suddenly kind of pleasant.

YG, on the other hand? COMPLETE PANSY. The rides at the SNOOPY PARK were too scary for her, for the love of god! We finally got her to ride the train, and some cars that you just sit in and ride around in circles. She made me sit on a BENCH on the MERRY-GO-ROUND, for cripes' sake! Seriously, who is this child?


Picture 5: OG's first catch


OG wanted so badly to learn to fish. My mother dredged up a rod and some line from somewhere - one my nephews from Boston use when they come to visit - and, though the line was all tangled up and the reel wasn't winding properly, she and OG went down to the dock and just tossed the lure into the water. And, as my mother went to pull it up, there was a fish on it!

OG was, frankly, kind of stunned. And, when it turned out that the poor thing had swallowed the hook and was thusly a goner, I think she was kind of freaked out.

Gamely, The Man chopped off its head and my mother threw it into a saucepan, though I don't think either were very well versed in this sort of thing at all. I instilled upon OG that she should eat some of it, as she caught it, and it gave its life for her and all. (What can I say? I was visiting home. It rubs off.) She choked down a bit, good girl that she is.

However, she did not express any desire whatsoever to go fishing again.

Picture 6: Random Cowgirl Cuties

For no reason whatsoever.

---------------------------------------

So, I leave for 10 days, and when I get back, it is HOT AS FUCK.

Summer hits this town like a freight train, don't it?

Back

I'm back!

I'm back from ten days in Kansas City!

I'm back from...

• 12 hours crammed into a compact car - each way - with a husband, two children, a puppy, and an ailing (but better) cat;
• my 20-year high school reunion;
• visiting my mother, sister, and (genuinely) ailing father;
• hanging with Erin and Tricia at an actual great bar in Kansas City (who knew?);
• oohing and ahhing over cute baby shmoopums at Erin's baby shower;
• eating my weight in Arthur Bryant's Barbecue and LC's Hamburgers,
• taking my girls to Worlds of Fun, the amusement park of my youth;
  
• just missing the grand opening of the fab and critically acclaimed new section of the Nelson Art Gallery (which does, yes, on the outside, look like storage lockers to me; but I am a clueless rube)
• attempting to swim in my parents' lake, but mostly just shivering, because it was in the 70's most of the time we were there

And, there were various and sundry other activities, but I am too goddamned brain dead right now to think of them. (Did I mention the 12 hours in the car? Did I mention it was all in one day? And that it was today? And that there was a cat on my foot and a dog in my lap?)

But, you say, you want to know of the reunion?

I shall post of it, and of the drinking of the wine and the wearing of the pink taffeta, tomorrow.

Hiatus

Hey all,

I'm taking a spring hiatus to deal with this here class reunion thingy.

Lengthy posts to follow...

The 1980's High School Geek: A Schemata

The topic of the high school reunion has been broached.

Thus, it is endemic upon me to SHARE with you WHY exactly these years are so very painful to reminisce about. And, words just cannot do justice to the pain of the high school geek.

You must see the painful reality for yourself.

What, you don't want to? You're frightened? TOO BAD.

Sadly, though, I have very little in the way of high school memorabilia in my house in Austin. Whatever I have left in the way of high school stuff is still at my parents' house. And I'll be damned if I'm going to schlep it all back here, as, you know, more STUFF crammed into my small house is not exactly high on my list of priorities.

So, this is what I have:

First, a casual shot, of a typical daily Mags look, circa 1987:

1. You will notice the hair, straight off the curling iron; no need to brush those suckers out! Just let 'em sit there like blonde sausages!

2) Oversized hand-me-down (from my sister) dyed pink paisley shirt, buttoned all the way to the collar, accessorized by flea market rhinestone earrings and brooch.

I wore this shirt or my Iggy Pop t-shirt (also courtesy of my sister) every week during my senior year. And I always wore rhinestones.

3) Highlights/hair color courtesy of one friend or another...it was something you used a brush to paint on? What was that crap called? I can't remember.

Next, the Formal Senior Portrait:

1) I've worked on this hair...it is poufier and shellacky!
There's clearly a lot of product in it. I might have been sophisticated enough by that point to have been using Paul Mitchell (awapuhi! awapuhi!) but this was in the dark, pre-Aveda days. It's uncharacteristically brown. Must not have had friends around willing to paint my hair that summer.

But no, look closer! It's really a NEW WAVE hairdo, in disguise! See? It's spiked up on the right side and flipped over to the left! I WAS SO VERY ALTERNATIVE!

2) I, for some reason, must have decided to PREP UP for this day! When, exactly, did I wear fuschia shirts with erect collars and black button earrings? Um...that day! (Someone must have dressed me. This outfit does not smack of something that I could have come up with on my own.)

3) I bet, if you looked closely, that eye shadow might have been purple and sparkly.

4) I used to think that this was a good picture of me, but now I can see that I'm totally gritting my teeth in it. I was probably asphyxiating from the hairspray.

Oh, wait, here's one more, of me and Jimmy, BFFs before BFFs were cool:


I'm so snarly! Aren't I punk?
------------------------------
Anyways, internets, I never got the hang of the "Forenza sweater with an add-a-bead necklace and Guess jeans" thing that everyone else seemed to be able to do. The hair was never feathered when it was supposed to be feathered, or poufed to the nth degree when it was supposed to be large.

Of course, this is all good now. Clearly, it is with the geeks and outsiders that I stand, now and forever. As it turns out, they're nice, kind, smart, and funny.

In fact, now that I think about it, perhaps I'm being too hard on high school me.

Mags from the past: I take it back. You're all right by me. You go on and let your freak paisley shirt flag fly.

(With that in mind, maybe I just will wear my cowboy boots to the reunion.)

Twelve Days And Counting

OK, people, we have a situation. It's twelve days until my high school reunion.

And I have very mixed emotions about attending it.

And I have not yet lost that 20 pounds that I had planned to.

And it cost me $120 just for the tickets.

And I don't know what to wear.

Musings on this to follow...

Cheezburger!

Oh, fuck, this site is funny.

(If you like pictures of cats with hysterical pidgin captions on them, that is.)

(Which I do.)

I'm so going to make my own later.

Thanks for the heads up, KM!

My word!

The other day, in a meme from Bookhart, there was the question, if I were a word, what word would I be? I responded "fuck."

Now that I think about it, though I do dearly love that word, it's probably not really emblematic of me. I like to put myself out there as all harsh and punk and sharp edges - and YES, I DO TOO pull that off, shut up! - but I'm really probably not as all bad as "fuck."

A better word to describe me? Hmm...how about "quiescently?"

I don't really know what it means, except that it has some connection to popsicles. But it sounds like it could be an adverb that perfectly describes me, doesn't it? You know, something like, "'Of course I'll take the one with the sequins,' she laughed quiescently."

---------------------------------------
The other day, I posted the video for "Indian Drum" by The Kids in the Hall, one of my favorite bits of complete randomness. That day, I watched it a couple of times, and suddenly it occurred to me that this would be right up OG's humor alley.

Sure enough, I bet she has watched that clip about twenty times since then.

We walk around the house just looking at each other, giggling, and going, "Drum lost!" "Drum fooound!"

It feels really, really good to laugh with her.

And I can't believe what a geek she's going to turn into.

In Praise of Teachers

Three days left; three short days that OG has to go in this, her first-grade year.

I can't praise her teachers, last year and this year, enough. I know, I just KNOW, that she is more challenging than they let on. But, they've never called me, never gotten her in trouble. (The only school area that OG has ever had difficulty in is music, and even then, it's been fairly minor, and pretty rare.)

This being the end of school, I send a tribute to them, and to all teachers:

Ladies, and gentlemen, of the profession; you have earned my respect.

I've been one of you. I taught for seven years in the public schools. My mother was one of you, but better than I; she lasted for 35 years. And, I continue to count many, many of you amongst my friends.

You hold up, don't you? You show up every year, ready to form twenty-two (or vastly more) wayward minds into some semblance of a civilized human being. In the best-case scenario, you have raw materials that are fed, rested, and parented by concerned individuals, and 185 days, to get this accomplished.

Most of you do not have the best-case scenario. Many of you have the worst-case scenario. If you've been in the profession for longer than a year, you have heard stories that make you shudder. If you've been in it for longer than three years, you have heard stories that have made you cry.

And, what do we hear in the papers about you? Sex scandals! No Child Left Behind! Everything, it seems, is printed to ensure that the American public becomes more and more distrustful of you. You are portrayed essentially as either child molesters or slackers, or people who weren't smart enough to make it in the business world.

All of you out there - teachers, people who had good teachers, people whose parents were teachers, people whose children have good teachers - FIGHT THIS PERCEPTION.

I have known hundreds of teachers in my life. Some were incredibly excellent; most were good to really good. Some, yes, were mediocre, or even poor to really crappy. But they were a SLIM minority. (Sadly, they stand out, even in my memory.)

Undeniably, like in any profession, some are gifted, and others are absolutely not. What's important to realize is is that vast majority of teachers are, at the very least, dedicated and caring professionals who work very, very hard, constantly, to become better at what they do. And buying into the media perception - and yes, that of this anti-education administration - degrades and diminishes them.

I think Taylor Mali says it best, in three minutes:



Send this to a teacher you know, and love.

And, happy summer, y'all.

My Secret Fantasy

(There, let's see if that title brings my Google hits up...)

Now that I've been an official blogger for nearly a year now (it'll be a year on Thursday, I believe,) it has struck me how frequently the paths of my mind intersect with those of the friends and bloggers that I usually read. I can't tell you how many times I've started to formulate in my mind a blog entry about a particular topic, only to check out one of my friends' blogs to find out that they've beat me to it. (And they're usually better written, or funnier, than mine would have been. Damn them. DAMN THEM ALL TO HELL!)

So, the other night, while watching the season finale of Reno 911! - frigging hilarious, by the way, if you haven't seen it - it struck me how much I love and am fascinated by improv/sketch comedy. I was just starting to consider what sort of blog entry it would make when - lo, I check out Badger yesterday, and she has BEATEN ME TO IT.

I swear, I was already going to write it! I'm not copying! I mean, I do copy from her ALL THE TIME, but I'm not doing it now!

So, sadly, and as an also-ran, here it is:

I guess it started in college with The Kids in the Hall (and our old home-grown comedy troupe from Columbia, Missouri, the Monkey Wrench Gang - eh? eh? Trish? You were so good at it!) After that, I got into The State on MTV - who morphed later into the cast of Reno 911! - The Upright Citizen's Brigade, and the British version of "Whose Line is it Anyway." (The American version sucked, but I do have a kind of secret admiration for Wayne Brady...especially after I saw him on "Chappelle's Show" mocking his image. Come on, is Wayne Brady going to have to choke a bitch?)

Anyway, I think that part of my appreciation for improv is because, when I watch it, I am totally consumed by wondering how I would do, up there on the stage, in an improv comedy setting. See, I'll never find out, because I am far too frightened to ever try it for reals.

I suspect I wouldn't be good at it. I'm a writer, always more comfortable with the words in front of me; I'm not the best extemporaneous speaker. The nerves get in the way.

But, oh, how I wish that I could just stand up and be funny, off the cuff, all the time.

--------------------------------------
Awesome bits of awesomeness, just on comedy in general:

Wayne Brady on Chappelle:


The Kids in the Hall: I've Lost My Indian Drum!


TKITH: The Daves I Know


The State: Kill Tim


and of course the grandfathers of all excellent sketch comedy:

Meme stolen from Bookhart

If I were an hour of the day... I would be 10:00 P.M.
If I were a planet... I would be Venus. (It's cloudy, and mysterious; and HOT. And a bit gassy.)
If I were a direction... I would be West.
If I were a piece of furniture... I would be a pillowtop mattress.
If I were a liquid... I would be a pina colada. With a sparkler and a gardenia in it.
If I were a sin... I would be jealousy.
If I were a rock... I would be mica.
If I were a tree... I would be a palm.
If I were a fruit... I would be a pineapple.
If I were a flower... I would be a hibiscus. (Damn, this pattern of responding is suggesting that maybe I need a beach trip!)
If I were a climate... I would be - what Bookhart said; mid-80's to 90 during the day, 60 at night
If I were a musical instrument... I would be a piano
If I were an element... I would be water
If I were a color... I would be red
If I were an animal... I would be a cat
If I were a sound... I would be "Shave and a haircut, two bits"
If I were music... I would be loud.
If I were a music style... I would be jangly white-boy alternative
If I were a feeling... I would be pleasure
If I were a book... I would be Le Morte d'Arthur
If I were a food... I would be cheese
If I were a place... I would be Bora Bora
If I were a flavor... I would be almond
If I were a scent... I would be vanilla
If I were a word... I would be "fuck"
If I were a verb... I would be "fuck"
If I were an object... I would be a book
If I were a part of the body... I would be the naughty bits
If I were a facial expression... I would be a stoned smile
If I were a cartoon character... I would be Wonder Woman/Diana Prince
If I were a movie... I would be Clue.
If I were a shape... I would be a circle.
If I were a number... I would be 69. Haw!
If I were a season... I would be summer
If I was a sentence... I would be "Holy Christ, I'm tired."

The sum of a cat's life

This is the "Harper's Index" of the summation of the soap opera "Finding Molly" that has occupied me, day and night, during the past week:

Late-night Saturday night animal emergency room visit and 36-hour ER stay: $500

24-hour stay (Monday morning thru Tuesday morning) at the regular vet's office: $75

Tuesday all-day observation and treatment by veterinary specialists and opthamologists at a specialty clinic in South Austin, plus medications: roughly $600

Cost of a cat CT scan that was proposed to me (I declined) - $800-$1000

Projected veterinary visits: possibly many

Number of medications that Molly is currently on: four; two eye drops, and two pills

Number of times per day that I must administer the two different types of eye drops ALONE: four

Diagnosis: Herpes infection in eye and mouth, retinal atrophy (possibly causing disorientation, probably contributing to her getting lost in the first place,) weight loss and dehydration due to being gone so long without food or water. Happily, no kidney or liver failure, though.

Prognosis: She'll lose her eyesight within a year or two, and she may be getting senile. But, she's eaten well since she's been home, and shown every sign of being bloody well relieved that we saved her.

So: in summation; though this has been an enormous friggin' ordeal, I am so glad she's back. And, though I'm shocked beyond reason that saving her cost such an enormous sum of money, I can't think of how I could have not paid it, you know? I take the sucker badge willingly, I suppose.
-------------------------------------
On another topic...there are exactly six days of school left.

I have such mixed emotions about this...there's unbridled joy on my part, as my work allows me to follow a school calendar, more or less. (It is my opinion that EVERYONE needs to do this by the way. I believe that the right to a two-month long summer vacation should be written into the constitution.)

But, yes, as always, there is trepidation; what, oh what, will we all do together, all effing summer long?

The summer that OG turned three was such an eye-opener for me. I had so looked forward to spending that summer taking her to the park, to swim lessons, Symphony Square, the library, etc. And, yes, we did all of those things, but in my memory, each event was punctuated by a nightmarish temper tantrum. It was that summer that I really thought that one of us was NOT GOING TO MAKE IT.

YG is three, now. I don't think we'll have quite the same difficulty. Though she is a whining machine, she's not so much for the "throw yourself on the floor and cry" scheme of temper tantrums.

So far, we have a few camps lined up, and are looking for the library and Alamo Drafthouse kids movie schedules. There's swim lessons, of course, and a couple of trips here and there. I'm sure we'll end up at Deep Eddy more often than not.

Yourselves? What are you doing with your children? Anyone got a sweatshop going ?

------------------------
OK, my eyes were closed and my head just dipped down a little as I typed this. I think that's a sign.

Stop the Presses!

Molly has been found! And she's alive!

Last night, after a nice gathering over at Clark and Milena's house, The Man and I were just retiring when I thought to look at the answering machine. And, lo, due to OG's signs that I dutifully went with her to hang up (though privately did not feel would help,) there was a phone message sayin that she has been in a backyard, a few houses down.

The Man and I wasted no time in running over there, and when there was no answer to my tentative tapping at the door, I went around to their back fence, as nobody appeared to be home. And, when I heard Molly meow feebly back to me, I totally trespassed and barged into their backyard. (And, that's when I found out that they WERE home. And very nice, thankfully.)

I will not lie to you; she did not look good. She had clearly not eaten or drank anything in four days, and flies had laid eggs in her fur. I rushed her up to the emergency room - and waited for a good hour in a room that was conservatively, oh, 55 degrees - and left her there overnight after they evaluated her.

The good news is that the fly eggs hadn't hatched yet - oh, and can I just say, EWWWWWW? - but, they were JUST about to. They shaved all of those off, and gave her a pill to kill anything else.

The report this morning is that she's eaten a little bit, and is more or less stable, but still needs a lot of care.

Wow; who would have thunk it possible? I must give OG big snaps when she wakes up.

For the record, it's 6:30 A.M. right now, thanks to being woken up by the idiot puppy; I made it home at 2:30 last night. But, despite the lack of sleep, and still more or less unfavorable prognosis for my cat, OG gave me a good gift.

Happy Mother's Day, y'all.

Molly, April, 1994- May, 2007

I'm calling it. 72 hours gone is long enough.

I think she saw the cat carrier, and said, finally, fuck you, I'm not going back to the doctor. I can't believe it took her this long, actually.

Well, Molly...Dizzy got one, so here is yours:

I've had you since you were a week old, and found in a shed outside my work, while I was in graduate school. I've known you longer than almost anyone here; longer than the kids, longer than The Man, even. Since I found you so young, you had not resolved the need to nurse, and you nursed into blankets, cloths, and my shirt your entire life. (Might have caused some of those major neuroses, too, come to think of it.)

Nobody liked you but us. Perhaps it was your vicious, murderous hatred for all of them; we'll never know. But we knew you were deeply sweet inside, and loved nothing in the world more than me. (And kibble.)

I'll miss your grumpy self, sweetie. Karla May, I may finally buy that book.

Sad

My cat, Molly, has been pretty ill for some time, really since about December.

She had a horrible paw infection right before Christmas. After that, she got a lengthy respiratory infection. This was immediately followed by mouth sores that made it difficult to eat, and then an eye infection that would not leave. (My good veterinarian, Dr. Jacob at Brykerwoods, discovered that she had a feline herpes virus, probably contracted at birth, which was causing all of this later stuff.)

Through all of this, Molly has spent many, many nights at the vet's office, hooked up to IV fluids and antibiotics. When she's been home, I've been hitting her at least twice daily with oral antibiotics and eye drops, sometimes more than that.

And - and I cannot stress this enough - she HATED EVERY FUCKING SECOND of all of this. They had to sedate her every time the vet or vet techs wanted to even put their hands in her cage, because she would sooner rip your finger off than let you touch her. And, she would get so depressed, being away from home, that I would generally come get her out a day or so before they wanted me to, just because I didn't want her to give up.

Well, today, I had made an appointment for yet another vet appointment, this time to a veterinary opthamologist, who would hopefully be able to address this nagging eye problem. I didn't feel really optimistic. She's lost a lot of weight, and she was starting to smell a certain way that suggested that there were things wrong inside.

But, sadly, I let Molly outside to sit in the sun yesterday morning. And she - she, who has never left the porch or the back yard, not once, not in thirteen years - has not returned.

I cannot decide whether I should be grieving right now or totally pissed off at her.

By default, I'm grieving.

Warning: NOT for the squeamish!

We have ants. Lots and lots of little, tiny sugar ants, and they are on my bathroom sink.

And I don't know how to get rid of them.

You see, in spite of the fact that I regularly pay incredible sums for Aveda haircare products, I generally subscribe to the hippie-earthy sensibility. I'm an Al Gore devotee, a recycler, a composter. I subdue my convertible dreams so that I may drive a low gas-mileage mom car. (Admittedly, I do harbor a white-hot hatred for buses, but I am working on it. It's not the bus, it's the people that inevitably must sit next to me and talk to me. And the fact that, though I know Capital Metro is generally well-run and on-time, for some reason whenever I have to ride it, it is twenty to thirty minutes late. Twiddling my thumbs at a bus stop, being late for what I want to attend, and knowing I have to ride a bus in order to GET to be LATE there...that is nothing short of a small death to me. But, I digress.)

Thus, I am loath to spray poison all over my house. I have two young children, one of whom may have problems from environmental toxins (I've been listening to the voodoo folk from the HaHaSucker Clinic in West Austin,) plus I have a puppy that does NOT need to lose any of the few brain cells that it currently has.

We have had bugs before. It's an old house; we get silverfish a lot, and about once a year, we do get a couple of trails of sugar ants. I used to call ChemFree, the organic pest control company. They were always very nice, but kind of pricey, and I was never really convinced they were doing anything for the bugs other than giving them a nice herbal spa treatment. Usually, I could get rid of the ants with a couple of bait trays, and that would be the end of it.

But, this year, we apparently have been invaded by hyperintelligent ants, ones that recognize my bait trays, and say to their workers "Comrades, avoid the running dog plastic trays; they are a capitalist tool meant to oppress the masses." I put them down over a week ago, and, as far as I can tell, not one of them has been visited, and the ants keep coming.

So, I went back to the store to see what other sort of non-toxic toxin I could lay down on the little fuckers. I found this stuff:


It's this liquid, see, and it's ostensibly "for sweet-loving ants." (That's what mine are, apparently; one night I came upon a carelessly overlooked dab of toothpaste that had become a scene that was absolutely disgusting. And kind of interesting. I found myself watching them for a long time, actually.) But I digress again.) You squeeze a drop of it onto a piece of cardboard, helpfully provided for you on the back of the box, and set it down in the path of the ants.

So...it's been a week now since I put this crap down. This, friends, was what I saw when I woke up this morning:


GAAAAH! I dutifully put down my little droplets, they guzzle the shit up, and then...they DON'T die, they just come back for more, like it's some big fucking kegger!

I am starting to BREAK DOWN. The box on this Terro stuff says that it may take two weeks to take effect. I'm not sure I can wait that long.

Earth: Consider yourself warned. You have exactly one more week to kill these bastards before I pull out the Agent Orange.

I'm totally serious!

Show of hands:

Who, out there, spent every Saturday morning, between about fourth and sixth grade, at the roller skating rink?

Who, when certain songs come on (e.g. "Bad Girls," "You Make Me Feel Like Dancing" "Babe,") will immediately, and forever, think "skating song?"

Who's with me?

OK, you guys? You are my target audience here. You, skating geeks, are hereby directed to go rent this movie:


(Yes, I KNOW it has Bow Wow in it. I don't care. He's really good, as it turns out. And I'm not even defensive.

Mick turned this movie on for me the other night, and man, is it cute! The story's nothing much - it' s the 70's, a roller rink on the south side of Chicago shuts down, and the gang of roller-skating kids has to take the bus to another part of town if they want to skate. WHICH, of course, they do. There's a badass skater at that rink (who is very hilarious, BTW,) and there's a big skate-off, of course.

But...the skating! Is so awesome! And the soundtrack...which is sadly not available in a package, but should absolutely be assembled on iTunes:

"Flashlight" - Parliament
"Bounce, Rock, Skate, Roll" - Vaughan Mason & Crew
"I Wanna Know Your Name" - Keith Sweat
"Lovely Day" - Bill Withers
"Emotion" - Barry Gibb and Robin Gibb
"Love to Love You Baby" - Donna Summer
"Superman Lover" - Johnny "Guitar" Watson
"I'll Keep Loving You" - Carl Douglas
"Barracuda" - Heart
"Rock the Boat" - Hues Corporation
"Baby Hold On" - Eddie Money
"Kung Fu Fighting" = Carl Douglas
"I'm Your Boogie Man" - K.C. & The Sunshine Band
"Pure Gold" - Earth, Wind & Fire
"Let's Roll" - Chaka Khan
"Easy" - The Commodores
"For All We Know" - Donny Hathaway
"Boogie Fever" - The Sylvers
"Pick Up the Pieces" - The Average White Band
"Le Freak" - Chic
"Hollywood Swinging" - Kool & The Gang
"Get Off" - Foxy
"He's the Greatest Dancer" - Sister Sledge
"Boogie Oogie Oogie" - Taste of Honey

Anyhoo, I can promise you that, while nowhere near a really good movie, it is very enjoyable, and has RAD skating scenes. Plus, if you're bored with the storyline, you can amuse yourself by picking out the cameos (Look! It's Tim Kasurinsky! And Wayne Brady!)
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I'm home, in my nice soft bed, while The Man indulges OG in her biannual desperate desire to go camping.

I really do appreciate that, as, though I like many of the trappings of camping (e.g. hiking, swimming, cooking outside,) I really do not enjoy sleeping outside, particularly not in hot, sweaty Austin.

I probably owe him something. (And, I'm certain that he can come up with some way to repay him.)

Bwah-ha-ha!!!

A totally not-made-up headline that was sent to me by The Man:

Royals To Get A Taste Of Angels' Colon

(Sports Network) - Bartolo Colon attempts to win his third consecutive start off the disabled list tonight for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, who will be aiming to continue their recent dominance of the Kansas City Royals.


Seriously. I shit you not.

http://www.wsoctv.com/mlb/13222064/detail.html

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On a related note, GOD how I love the wireless, as I post this from a workshop (that is indeed interesting, but hey, I'm ADHD).