MFA Mama

mixed bag

*   I called Anthem and spoke with a very nice rep and if I pay tomorrow that's okay with them. So hopefully if I enter the payment online tomorrow the XY will pay the child support before it hits the bank account. Hopefully. Fingers crossed.

*   My mouth still hurts. Maybe I burned it on a cup of ramen at work? That's uh, my dirty little secret by the way. Synthetic EVERYTHING, preservatives out the salty arse and it comes in a styrofoam cup wrapped in plastic...it's basically a fuck you to my body, the environment, and my every sensibility all at once but fifty-seven cents buys two of them and...I could stop any time I wanted, okay?

*   One of the turkeys rattled its bones at me today. It's not very impressive yet but OMG IT TOTALLY ACTED LIKE A TURKEY!

*   MFA Mechanic said to check the oil in the MFA Minivan every time I buy gas and it's time to buy gas on the way to work tonight and that means I have to check the oil and I'm skeert.

*   Little Child has been eating more every day, and I am kind of burying this under a heap of bad news because a) I'm trying to end this post on a good note and b) I am not at ALL superstitious about it, and I certainly haven't been avoiding my monthly Hopeful Parents post out of fear of jinxing it or anything, nope nope nope so just a). But it's literally been years since he's taken so much by mouth and THIS. IS. EXCITING. Naturally Hotter takes all of the credit.

*   I can't sleep. This is total bullshit. I didn't wake up until the last three hours at work. Figures. How are all of YOU?

pissing and moaning

*   I slept for almost twelve hours but I still can't wake the fuck up. Like, to the point that if my caffeine doesn't kick in soon I may not make it to work TONIGHT because I won't be cool to drive. It's not mental or fine-motor (I'm typing this, obviously) so much as it is "dead arms and a bad case of the stumblies." Like, y'know how your arms are kinda half-paralyzed for a few when you wake up from a nightmare or just a really hard sleep? And if you get up to go to the bathroom or grab a ringing phone or whatever you're liable to bash into the side of the first doorway you try to lurch through? That.

*   I just opened the "we will CANCEL YOUR COVERAGE as of the last day of this month!" letter from Anthem. Sigh. Thanks to the MFA Minivan and the fact that the XY's recent surliness (he's blaming his lack of weekend visitation on me) (yes, this is due to his own poor parenting and life choices but try convincing HIM of his culpability--he seriously thinks he's perfect and unassailably RIGHT at all times--clearly it's MY doing!) has manifested as "paying the child support just a TIDGE late, not late enough to officially Get In Trouble but late enough to make MFA Mama's bills late" I don't quite think I'll be able to save the policy and DAMN IT TO HELL. Just when I'd gotten the dental stuff to the sweet spot but before I was able to make the tooth repair happen. BALLS.

*   Also my mouth hurts. Not from anything dental, but y'know how your tongue feels in the aftermath of when you take a sip of WAY TOO HOT coffee? That. For like, several days and it is the most ANNOYING THING. My lips too, and really, what the hell? I guess maybe I drank hot coffee at some point and have forgotten about it due to sleep deprivation? This isn't misery-making exactly, I mean, it's seriously minor, no doubt about it, but it's certainly ANNOYING as all hell.

*   If the title gave you pause and you're wondering what I meant by it, that's what my dad used to call it when you were kvetching about That Which Doesn't Kill You. I feel pretty lame for being so disgusted with life over this random assortment of non-emergent things, especially in light of the fact that nobody has had a grand mal seizure, the MFA Minivan hasn't frozen up and refused to budge, and my back and lungs have mostly sorted themselves out for the moment, but there you have it: death by a thousand cuts.

*   How are all of YOU?

the one where I freak out a lot (don't read this if you're looking for the cheerful)

   Oh, y'all.

   I'm having myself a little freakout over here, because I don't see how I'm going to pay all of the bills that I need to pay in the next week and dammit, dammit, DAMMIT, why does Hotter have to go and be sick NOW?

   Coming up I have the rent, my health insurance (which I was going to let lapse, but now that the dental kicked in that would mean forfeiting the $425 they'll throw in toward fixing That Fucking Tooth and anything else dental that pops up in the next eighteen months, so eff, can't do THAT), the electric bill (which if I'm late with it they'd boot us off the budget plan and we'd have to pay everything we've saved by being on that in the past year, and that's...a lot), and all of those things together are about $150 more than I've got coming in...and that's without factoring in food and gas and assuming the MFA Minivan can hold its shit together and that nobody needs any expensive prescriptions filled (hahahahaHAohgod).

   I should have called around the temp agencies until I found something and worked this past weekend instead of taking everyone on that EFFING picnic. I should have told Hotter to eff off with his guilt trip about how the children never see me. And hell, while we're playing Revisionist History, The Home Game I shouldn't have gone to grad school, because then I wouldn't have so many EFFING student loans and we would have gotten our tax refund instead of the Department of Education...crap.

   Why the hell is it that every time I think I'm going to dig us out of the pit and start making some good progress toward financial solvency, something horrible happens and then like, two or three more somethings? I'm getting awfully sick of working my ass off and still not even being able to pay our bills. This sucks, and I know that some of the current angst is the lack of sleep talking, but I think this sucks objectively as well. 

   Tell me a funny?

y'know, just once I'd like to go like, a whole week without a catastrophe

   Hotter is sick. 

   How sick?

   Well, he asked me to call off of work tonight so I could deal with the children today, knowing full well that Soulless Corporate Megalith has a "three strikes you're out" policy.

   I was absent once when I was sick my own self and once when the MFA Minivan shit the bed and tried to die.

   So I'm thinking it's deal with the kids, put them to bed, go to work on the "go forty-eight hours without sleep and hope nobody dies, either by my hand directly or when I accidentally drop building debris on their head" plan UNLESS someone ups and has a fucking seizure or something (fevers lower seizure threshold and Hotter doesn't look so good).

   If he has a seizure I'm going to nutpunch him.

less depressing

*   I SLEPT!!! Here is my actual Facespace update from yesterday, to give you an ideo of how grim the sleep-deprivation had gotten, between Hotter looking for reasons to wake me up and my waking up on my own with angst, asthma, and wretched headaches:

MFA Mama
plans to sleep tonight, for a change, and has put her husband on notice that if he knocks on the door and doesn't have a dying child in his arms that she needs to rush to the hospital (not an ALREADY DEAD one--at this point if anyone in the house is ALREADY DEAD they will STILL BE THAT WAY IN THE MORNING) he'll be relieved of every appendage longer than his nose. SLOWLY. 

*   My dental insurance kicked in! WHOOOO! There was some doubt about this as a result of the insurance shuffle of six months ago (where Anthem canceled my insurance because the rates changed and I'd been paying the OLD amount), because the dental insurance I have only covers cleanings and checkups for the first eighteen months and I wasn't sure whether I had to start over with that, but apparently NOT and it has now been eighteen months, which means that my out-of-pocket to fix the mostly-missing front tooth is only (hahahaONLY) $375, as opposed to $800. That's still not going to be doable any time soon thanks to the EFFING minivan, but it's nice to know that I've got coverage should the thing go bad and my face suddenly swell up (I've had a tooth pulled without anesthetic before due to finances, and it is something I am VERY EAGER to NEVER, EVER DO AGAIN).

*   I went outside this morning to collect produce and check on the poultry and found--SURPRISE!--a zucchini as long as my forearm. I just looked at the zucchini bushes yesterday and saw nothing larger than my thumb! It's been a while since I grew zucchini and I forgot how comically rapid their growth can be.

*   The MFA Children have all thanked me several times over for yesterday's picnic; they really had fun and I'm so glad. Everyone's favorite part was feeding the giant koi (some of which were nearly the size of Little Child).

*   Hotter is being lovely and funny and kind, which is his USUAL state of being, but hadn't been for a few days and so it's wonderful to see that he hasn't, say, grown a brain tumor that killed that entirely or something. Aside from the fact that nobody likes an asshole, I have extensive baggage to do with being married to an asshole and Hotter's recent assholery was taking a terrible toll on my mental health.

*   Today I got an e-mail from one of you that made me feel a lot less alone-against-the-universe and like somebody's got my back in life, after all. It was nice. When it's not on the rag (ahem, STALKY) the innernet is kind of like the extended family I don't have offline, and that's awesome. Sloppy half-toothless kisses to everyone reading this who isn't, you know, an actual stalker.

*   How are all of YOU?

I feel like I should PayPal her the cost of a 50-minute hour

*   I feel like I should PayPal her the cost of a 50-minute hour. Ginny summed up a lot of Hotter's side of the fuckwittage nicely. Unfortunately for Hotter (well, and my mental health), after I wrote yesterday's post he said something much worse, as in "so bad that because I'll most likely end up forgiving him, I'm not recording it for posterity lest y'all all judge me for the fact that he still draws breath." Dammit, Hotter.

*   Despite the above, and a night of next to no sleep (because apparently at two in the morning Isis was whimpering for me so Hotter came and knocked on the bedroom door and WOKE ME UP, AND OH MY GOD WHAT THE FUCK WITH THE ALWAYS WAKING ME UP LATELY, GOD DAMMIT MAN???), I set out early to the grocery store and bought peanut butter and bread and strawberries and chips and cookies and drink pouches and took everyone to the park for a picnic. Because my kids haven't seen me not-working-or-sleeping in weeks, and it's when you feel the least like doing these things that other people generally most need you to do them (dammit some more). Hotter came too, despite my telling the boys that he wanted a break from us all, because they begged him to (and because of course the moment I was so disgusted as to want to forcibly GIVE him one, or possibly one in each LEG, he no longer wanted a break in the slightest), and it was fine. We all had a good time. We petted goats and fed bread to giant koi in a beautiful garden and admired ancient stonework and smelled flowers. The children rolled down a giant hill and nobody puked or got stung by a bee or skinned their knee or had an allergy attack (my lungs even behaved admirably, despite there being a lot of hill-climbing involved, and even some hill climbing avec five-year-old-on-shoulders on the way back to the MFA Minivan, which obligingly did not overheat). It's like even the fucking piece of shit van KNEW that the next one to look at me cockeyed would die with the asinine look still on their face. 

*   While we were gone, we missed a text from SOMEone in Arctic Tundra State where all of my in-laws live, saying "Im in ur neighborhood!!!!!" The moment I read it to Hotter (he can't see the screen of his phone well in daylight) we each went and locked a door. Haha. Hotter went and called his son, who said it wasn't him, and we still have no idea who sent the text (it may have even been a wrong number). I'm slightly disappointed, as in-laws (while well-intentioned, certainly) are EXPENDABLE and I think I'm going to need to kick SOMEone's arse before the weekend is up.

*   How are all of YOU?

 

[insert witty title here]

   So the MFA Minivan is all effed up. I dragged out of bed and went straight to MFA Mechanic's shop; they said when I called that they could give me a ride home, but then they were crazy-busy and asked me if I could hang out, and then the parts guy sent the wrong part for one of the repairs and ultimately I was gone for about five hours, most of which I spent re-reading the same issue of Better Homes And Gardens from 2004.

   The good news is, by not driving the thing to work last night I saved my engine. The bad news is pretty much everything else in my life right now. Today's repairs cost $300 and it needs another $400 in work ASAP (when I asked him to rate the work I couldn't afford to get done today on a scale of one to ten in terms of how important it was, MFA Mechanic said "six, maybe seven"). So there went the money I'd set aside to reinstate our car insurance, and now I'm going to have to let my health insurance lapse.

   But hey, at least the XY was here and Hotter was furious with me when I got home! The XY was taking the kids for an extra dinner-visit. Hotter accused me of deliberately timing my arrival so that they'd be leaving (???) and proceeded to hold me accountable for the lack of a spare guy to give me a ride home, MFA Mechanic's failing to offer a payment plan, and the children being unhappy about "never seeing" me. "What am I supposed to do when they say 'we miss Mommy, we wish she didn't have to work third shift?' When was the last time you spent a day with YOUR CHILDREN? Or ME," he wanted to know.

   I feel like I just can't win. I'm neglecting my health to keep the minivan running so I can go to work so my husband can resent the living shit out of me and we can STILL be broke! I...don't have a graceful ending to this post. That's all, really.

bzzz

   That, in case you were wondering, is the sound of me literally vibrating with angst.

   Large doses of albuterol make me ring like a damned tuning fork.

   I'm worried about the van. I'm worried about my health. I'm worried, period.

   Last night since I couldn't go to work and was angsty, I suggested to Hotter that we take the dogs for a walk. It was night-time, and so not AS hot and humid, and a walk along the edge of the road for the width of our front yard (as far as we are comfortable going from the house full of sleeping children with the window propped open) seemed like a reasonable undertaking.

   Except I don't think my lungs and I saw eye-to-eye on that, because I woke at 3:30 a.m. with what I suspect may be a CO2 headache and a deep, rattling wheeze that wouldn't fuck the fuck off. I decided to eat a little something with some fat and protein in it to protect my stomach and hopefully keep my blood sugar from bottoming out if I slept for a while as a result of the Benadryl, take a whopper-dose of that to address any potential allergic phenomenon in action, some store-brand "Excedrin" to address the headache as best I can and also because the caffeine might help the lungs, do a nebulizer treatment, and hopefully get back to sleep, so that I'm awake tomorrow while the children are and also because Hotter was Very Annoyed with me for being up and told (!!!) me twice to go back to sleep.

   I guess maybe he's starting to resent my odd sleeping hours, but those are a result of my job and not something I can change at the moment. Also I didn't mention it last night but I think Hotter was at least PARTLY annoyed with me for turning back from the service station instead of going on in to work and keeping an eye on the temperature gauge. But the coolant was really low too (I forgot to mention that because the oil freaked me out so much but, well...yeah) and my AAA membership is lapsed and if the van dies that is GAME OVER...

   Of course, even if the MFA Minivan is fine, that does us absolutely no good if my lungs continue to shit the bed this way.

   It's possible that wouldn't be an issue, incidentally, if I had the money to have my actual DOCTOR manage the asthma, but I haven't seen her since well before the ER trip in April (yes, I was supposed to follow up with her after that, but I didn't have the money). I don't know if that's a big deal or not because thanks to the kindness of friends I have access to a nebulizer and the meds for it and that might be all she'd be able to do for me right now anyway (besides try to prescribe an inhaled steroid that I a) couldn't afford and b) would have serious reservations about using due to my body's effed up physical and mental reactions to steroids, even in tiny quantities, and I can fret about that right now without the actual prescription in-hand for FREE). It might be that she could figure out some kind of fix for the current monumental suckitude of my respiratory status, but I can't afford to sink any money into that until a) I determine what the minivan needs and b) I earn said money and if the van is dead then I have to keep on ignoring this for now and would rather not think about it, but oh look, too late. 

   I really hope I am not permanently harming my lungs by not having medical professionals handle their care and feeding right now.

   I guess you could also say that I'm worried about my marriage, although Hotter is not CURRENTLY being an ass (I mean the TELLING me to go back to sleep was a little bit assy, but he was half-awake and he didn't bellow or anything--Hotter is very sensitive to me "making the innernet hate him" so I thought I'd throw that out there), a month ago I wouldn't have hesitated to wake him and ask him to keep me company until the worst of the jitters from the nebs have passed and try to help me take my mind off the pain in my head. Now, however, I'm mostly just hoping I don't wake him by accident, because I'm worried that he'd be irritated with me, either because of the lost sleep or because he thought I should be able to ignore all of this and go to sleep myself so as to be up helping him with the house and the yard and the kids tomorrow, or...I dunno. Maybe I'm being unfair with him and he'd be wonderful and make me laugh and say all of the right things, but I am feeling a little too close to the end of my chain to take the chance he'd be pissy, and that makes me sad.

   Someone tell me a funny. Please?

I already dread the boys' teen years if this is what teenagers are like

   At the turn onto the major highway down the road from my house, the MFA Minivan suddenly sounded kind of rough to me. I needed gas anyway and pulled into the first place, set the pump to fill the tank, and checked the oil, and...there was none. It had heated up a lot more than would be usual but it's also really hot outside...I dunno. I'm trying to be optimistic, I really am. But my AAA membership lapsed when things got bad and I don't know anyone local I could call in the middle of the night for a ride and/or tow except the XY (oh yes, he owns a trailer big enough to tote the MFA Minivan; he's done it before) (many years ago, obviously--we bought the thing when I was pregnant with Middly, who OMG is seven).

   The MFA Minivan is thirteen now, and acting every bit the rebellious teen.

   Plus okay I'm SLIGHTLY superstitious about elderly vehicles, and the day before yesterday I FINALLY got the thing street-legal and it had a full-to-the-brim tank when I left it hushed in grim repose in the driveway over a cardboard box (that oil dripped onto), and therefore clearly the MFA Minivan is doomed. 

   Just when I'd kind of pulled our collective financial heads above-ground, now we might be back into the pit. 

   Damn it.

blah blah bullets

*   Little Child's g-tube button got partially yanked the other morning while he was wrestling with his brothers, resulting in unholy screaming that roused me. I calmly and quickly grabbed a spare and a syringe full of water, deflated the old button the rest of the way, and replaced it with a new one. Believe it or not this is only the second time in over five years of Little Child's having a g-tube that something like this has happened (the other time it was a faulty balloon that emptied all the way spontaneously, causing the button to just FALL OUT). Hotter was dancing around in the background as I worked, holding a spare one of everything I was using and chanting "I'mSOgladyou'rehomeI'mSOgladyou'rehome!" Heh. Poor Little Child was so traumatized by the whole thing (it was probably pretty ouchy, but I think it mostly just freaked him the eff out, y'know?) that I came up with a new ritual on the spot: I buy Little Child's used tubes off him for a buck (my kids will do chores for nickels and dimes, so a whole buck at once is a BIG HAIRY DEAL). The other two MFA Children were jealous and wanted to know what I'd buy of of them. "Y'all don't have tubes. Nothing to buy," I said. "YEAH!" Little Child gloated. "NO FAIR!" the older two whined. "Life's not fair, boys," I noted. Oy.

*   I lost fifteen bucks in cash at Soulless Corporate Megalith; it was in my pocket and I got bumped by a co-worker and then it was gone. I know who it was, but what am I going to do, accuse them? Probably there was a camera on us at the time but mehhh. I kind of had to laugh a little, because it's only like, THIS WEEK that that fifteen bucks won't break us (don't get me wrong, I'm bummed, but WOW how lucky with the timing and hey look we're not killing chickens anymore because there are groceries! WHOO!).

*   The turkeys are getting BIG. I had to clip their wings again because one of them kept getting out somehow and the only spot it could have fit OUT of was at the top of the roof of that enclosure. There's one I'm SURE is a tom (ugh) and one that I'm SURE is a girl-turkey (hen?) and one that is either a very small, effeminate tom (???) or a very large, butch girl-turkey (hen, I'm just going to call them hens unless one of y'all knows a breed-specific term I'm unaware of?). I guess we'll find out eventually!

*   Oh, some things we call the poultry, in no particular order, because we're silly people: 

Chuzzards - full-grown chickens, from chicken + buzzard. Because they love meat, duh.
Chuzz-nuggets - juvenile chickens
Chic-tacs - the silver-laced Wyandottes, because they're extra-tiny
The Turducken Collective - Hotter noted that he felt it was important we use inclusive language to acknowledge the turkeys' poultryhood, or something. I think he's getting mushy over those stupid turkeys. We're totally eating at least ONE of them mofos, Hotter!

*   Hotter woke me up well before I needed to be awake (think four hours), allegedly because he NEEDED a prescription and wanted to make sure the pharmacy wasn't closed. "At five p.m.?" I asked. "It's a weekday." "I COULDN'T TAKE A CHANCE!" he insisted. "Why, what drug am I picking up," I asked, feeling around for my keys in a half-stupor and also confused because I thought he had full bottles of both immunosuppressants and his seizure pills. "Nexium." I stopped and goggled at him. "BLEEDING ULCERS, I'LL GET BLEEDING ULCERS, AND MY PEE WILL TURN RED FROM THE BLOOD AND DR. KIDNEY WILL PUT ME IN THE HOSPITAL," he said, histrionically. "THAT DOESN'T EVEN MAKE SENSE, DUDE, WHAT THE HELL?" And y'all, he looked at me with pity and asked me where pee came from. "Your kidney," I replied. "Yes, and before that? Where does the stuff you DRINK come from," he continued, as if he was being very patient with someone very simpled-minded. "Most liquid is absorbed through the large intestine?" "WHATEVER, THAT'S ATTACHED TO THE STOMACH, RIGHT?" And then my head exploded. 

*   Yes, he probably WAS screwing with me (I HOPE) but now we're back to "woke me up way early because he was lonely" which, while sweet, OMG I NEEDED THAT SLEEP and work is going to suuuuck tonight. Wahhh...how are all of YOU?