MFA Mama

tonight is not a school night...

...which means that Bumpus is very, very happy (because he gets to sleep in Big Child's bed).

Figure One: I swear we feed him, y'all. Last time he was at the vet the vet told us he was underweight and scolded us into buying a $50 bag of dog food, which we dutifully did and started substituting for one meal per day of the BARF diet (our dogs eat twice a day), but he didn't really gain any weight. I think it's half that he's a hound and half that he runs like the wind every chance he gets. Maybe he's part Greyhound?

tidbits and pieces

*   My cold, which had been no biggie, has started to do that thing where it's 50/50-ish whether I'll end up with an ear infection. Which I obviously do not want. As much as ear infections suck, though, AT LEAST IT'S NOT THE LUNGS! Currently I'm keeping on top of my decongestant dosing, using the Neti Pot, and hoping for the best.

*   Of course, the fact that I'm working tomorrow and all weekend and have a big family outing planned for my day off on Monday virtually guarantees that this will turn ugly. As does the fact that the XY will be in attendance.

*   WHAT? Yeah, I don't entirely know how that happened either; yesterday I spoke with him for the first time since his accident and he not only didn't thank me for handling his shit for him (you know, providing the hospital with his SSN and blood type, tracking down and notifying his family members, and making sure his elderly and very ill father had his meds straight) but also went so far as to scold me for telling CATHERINE! that he'd walk away from it without so much as a broken bone (which? He did). He felt like that was insensitive of me and added to her trauma. Uhhh...yeah. So I thought about it, and ranted on the facespace, and called Dr. Redzils and shrieked at her (in typical Dr. Redzils, PhD style she pointed out that I had been a nice person about the whole thing and the XY was having a hard time wrapping his injured head around that and responding appropriately because he is NOT a nice person), and talked it over with Hotter, and finally ended up calling the XY and telling him how I felt about things (nobody thought that was a good idea, but I needed to get it off my chest for my own sake so I did it anyway). And he...apologized. And was nice. And get very emotional when (after he said he was going to try and take his weekend despite his not yet being medically cleared to drive again) I said NO WEEKEND VISITATION UNTIL THE DOCTOR SAYS IT IS OKAY (and I mean VERY emotional; I guess the concussion really did ring his bell), and the next thing I knew I'd told him he could tag along on the family outing if he promised to nice and thereby spend some time with the kids in a way that would be safe for everyone concerned.

*   I blame the cold medicine.

*   Hopefully the XY a) behaves himself as promised and b) doesn't think this means we're friends or anything, because he and CATHERINE! are NOT invited for Thanksgiving and I'm not loaning him any money or electronics or the MFA Minivan or even allowing him into my house. His behavioral history makes certain precautions to keep him out of my home and away from my stuff the only sane way of handling him no matter HOW nice he is with a head injury and on painkillers. He's excellent at hiding it but deep down at his core he is a narcissistic, amoral, reprehensible little man and not to be trusted. Honestly, I'm worried that any gestures of goodwill on my part will only lead to him overstepping, me setting limits, and him then getting pissy and causing trouble. Grrr.

*   I took comments back off moderation since there haven't been any more scary ones since the one way back in May. Plus now that I have The Precious (that's what I call my iPhone, which I lovelovelove) I can unpublish a comment any time, any place if need be. Please remember not to use my actual name in comments if you know me outside of the blog (Dr. Anon, I am looking at you--I've censored you for that twice now!), and play nice in the sandbox.

*   How are all of YOU?

the one where I make soda, Thanksgiving stalks Hotter, and someone wins some glasses

*   Tonight I bottled my first batch of water kefir! I ended up with four stopper-top bottles, two of which are sitting at room temperature with chopped ginger in (I'm hoping those will get at least a LITTLE fizzy, although they might not since I didn't brew the water kefir with a lid on; my plastic jar lids haven't arrived yet), one of which is sitting in the fridge with orange-mango juice in, and one of which had the orange-mango juice but I drank it already. 

Figure One: I made soda...I'm MAGICAL!

*   Hotter heard a knock at the back door today while I was at work and found Thanksgiving out on the porch doing this:

Figure Two: Just like Loud and Crazy the turkey does, Thanksgiving turns her back when you catch her stalking.

*   And finally before I nod off (mucho cold medicine, y'all) here is the winner of the prescription eyeglasses giveaway:

Figure Three: Congratulations, Melissa! I'll be in touch via e-mail to get your information so that Eye Buy Direct can send you your prize. Thanks for playing, everyone else :)

blah blah bullets

*   Another looooong day at the office. I have truly never worked with such a nice group of people though, to the point that it's almost creepy. I haven't seen anyone get angry or visibly frustrated, heard one word of ill out of anyone's mouth about a fellow employee, caught the rough side of anybody's temper...and that's everyone on up the foodchain, too (part of my job is to run the mailroom and deliver messages and documents, so I see everybody daily). The company even stocks a sweet basket (Tootsie Pops and miniature candybars and full-size cereal bars as well as mints and gum and jawbreakers), a salty basket (bags of various chips, packets off peanut-butter crackers, etc.), a fruit basket, and a single-dose over-the-counter medication basket for the employees! There are complimentary Torani syrups by the coffee machine in the break room and bottles of water in the fridge...hell, today someone gifted me with a large basket of fresh-dug sweet potatoes, for crying out loud. They're generous with office supplies, eager to know whether your chair is comfortable enough, nobody minds if you take your iPhone everywhere with you and listen to Pandora while you work as long as you use earbuds...I am getting a cold and three different higher-ups noticed me sniffling and urged me to take the day of tomorrow if I'm not feeling 100%. Seriously, where is the catch? And when the mothership comes to beam these benevolent aliens back up and take them back to their home planet, can I go with them?

*   I haven't heard anything from CATHERINE! today (she was supposed to be e-mailing me some pictures of the destroyed vehicle and the XY's head; the boys are anxious to see the damage) and I'm actually a little worried since she said the doctors told her the XY's concussion would get worse before it got better. Hopefully he's making a speedy recovery and has merely forbidden her to speak to me, and he'll soon be back at work earning child support money and oozing his misleading charm all over anyone who doesn't run away fast enough. I keep having to remind myself not to feel too sorry for the SOB; just because he almost succeeded in killing his damnfool self doesn't mean he isn't as evil as ever.

*   Hotter and I got to giggling last night when I said CATHERINE! sounded like she was kind of hoping we'd offer to babysit her concussed adult toddler (and his elderly and very ill father, who he's apparently been taking care of)...he was like "hey, if somebody'd pay me I'd take 'em, I've already got the boys and the dogs and the chickens, what's two more? I'd have 'em in bed by eight-thirty, too! You'd call home to check on us and I'd be like 'Hi honey, we're good LITTLE CHILD DON'T HIT YOUR GRANDFATHER! Everybody had their gruel and I'm about to turn them out into the yard for a b--XY, that's two and if you get to three your Blackberry will go in the no-no bag!'" Maybe you had to be there but I seriously about died laughing.

*   I really hope I don't wake up sick as a dog. For all that I'm hating the long days, the money really is fantastic and by not having a scheduled day off during this pay-period I'm poised to rake in some truly obscene overtime.

*   Don't forget to enter the giveaway if you wear glasses! It ends tomorrow.

*   How are all of YOU?

I'm officially over these twelve-hour days...

...especially since today's involved fifteen consecutive hours in a bra. Ouch!

   Other than that...not much exciting going on here. I changed the sugar-water my cooties are steeping in today (the cootie people tell me the first three days are a wash because the cooties have to wake up and rehydrate, so it was JUST sugar-water); in three MORE days I should have my first batch of water kefir! 

   The XY is out of the hospital already (the CT scan showed nothing broken and it turns out the breath sounds were a combination of ignorant paramedics and probably anxiety attack), having been released to the tender mercies of CATHERINE!, who seems to be thoroughly over him. She called me today to give me the update and drop several two-ton hints to the effect of "OMG TAKE HIM OFF MY HANDS, PLEASE, CAN'T YOUR HUSBAND WATCH HIM THE HEAD WOUND IS SO GROSS OMG," which I cheerfully ignored.

   Evidently the XY does have a rather serious concussion, and CATHERINE! was told to expect him to be irritable, forgetful, sleepy, impulsive, depressed and overly emotional, possibly for up to six months. "So how will you know when he's over it," I asked her. "That's exactly what I said to the doctor!" she exclaimed, "they said to bring him back to the hospital if he exhibits any really unusual behavior, but... what do I even DO with that?"

   I suggested that she call 911 if he developed a moral compass.

   How are all of YOU?

twenty-four hour, again (spoiler: yesterday was better)

Figure One: Today, * represents time spent talking to my ex-husband's girlfriend and parents.

   So my phone was blowing up at work, and I finally picked it up, irritated, to a rather hysterical CATHERINE! The XY nodded off behind the wheel of her truck this afternoon and flipped it five times a few hundred yards from her house; she was pretty convinced he was going to die.

   I told CATHERINE! not to worry, that the XY is basically a human cockroach and you can't kill the arsehole with a meat cleaver, gave her his blood type and SSN just in case and tried to get back into my data-entry groove. But I kept getting texts asking for his mother's phone number, etc. (which I couldn't look up at work because using the office computers for anything but business is a big no-no and I have all of those people blocked on the facespace), and after I spent fifteen minutes in the hallway bellowing at my ex-father-in-law (for whom English is not his first, or even his second or third language and who also sufffers from dementia) to get him to have the XY's mother (who is evil personified and still, as of this afternoon, a huge bitch) call me so that I could get her number for CATHERINE! (I didn't have it in me to give her CATHERINE'S number and therefore unleash her on the poor woman, and I know from experience that the Local Teaching Hospital ED has shitty reception anyway), I finally gave in to my coworkers' entreaties that I take the rest of the day off and went home in high dudgeon.

   The XY is going to be fine; he apparently has a huge laceration up the back of his head (which sucks for him since he rocks the totally bald look and couldn't grow enough hair to cover it if he tried), diminished breath sounds (so possible pneumo/hemothorax, I'm guessing), and a probable broken shoulder. Wah.

   Lest you think me entirely heartless, I surprised myself by actually feeling sorry for the XY, because apparently he and CATHERINE! are on the rocks and as of the last time I spoke to her, she was disgusted with him for flipping her truck and then crying about it like a big bitch-baby. I was actually kind of appalled to hear that she was leaving him in the hospital by himself because "if I keep looking at that head-wound I will THROW UP, I've already reassured him that he isn't dying, GAWD!" I mean, I know what it's like to be in the hospital alone and scared and afraid you're dying, mostly because the XY left ME in those very circumstances on several occasions (at one point actually bitching that I hadn't arranged childcare, necessitating his early departure from his workplace, and informing me that he was "out of sympathy" -- that was actually the exact moment when I stopped loving him), but still. The poor asshole's never spent the night in Club Med or even had an IV and is usually pretty much impervious to pain (physical or emotional). It made me feel bad to hear that he was crying.

   Just not bad enough to actually drive downtown and fuss over him.

   I'm really hoping that tomorrow * will represent time spent fapping or having a quickie with my husband. Or at least something that doesn't involve someone else's medical emergency. A girl can dream, right?

 

P.S. The MFA Children are fine. I brought a box of doughnuts home from work (a co-worker brought them in for everyone and there were extras that they sent me home with) and they were pretty much like "he's not dead? Okay, may we please have our doughnuts now?" They're mostly just bummed that the truck didn't burst into flames, and that they won't get their weekly fast-food fix at Daddy Dinner Visitation (I dunno if the XY will even be out of the hospital by Wednesday, much less up to taking three children anywhere).

twenty-four hour

Figure One: This represents what I've done for the past twenty-four hours, with * representing time spent figuring out how to get Hotter's seizure meds after I found out the pharmacy had closed before I was able to pick them up, because I work from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. That was a very stimulating twenty minutes! The good news is that thanks to an understanding twenty-four hour pharmacy nobody had to die tonight, either of seizures or by my hand.

I have cooties

   Look what I got in the mail today!

Figure One: Mail-order cooties! I think I'm officially a dirty hippie now.

   If you've never heard of water kefir, here is the link that I followed on the facespace (via Gwendomama) that piqued my interest. I'm a big fan of probiotics, and this seems to be the most inexpensive (and one of the most beneficial forms) probiotic "foods" you can consume. Plus you can make your own soda with it, which I think will be just the thing to help me give up diet soda (I don't drink a TON of it, but sometimes you just don't want water, y'know?). 

   Here is what the water kefir grains looked like when I opened them:

Figure Two: Dehydrated germs.

   Here is what the grains look like now that I've set them up in a jar of sugar water to ferment:

Figure Three: If you look closely, you can see the half of a blue eggshell I put in the jar for minerals. If you're going to use eggshell to make cootie-juice, make sure it's a clean pastured egg and NOT a factory-farmed one to avoid the chance of any BAD cooties. You'll also want to peel the membrane out of the inside of the shell, and personally raw eggs in any form (not to mention chickenbutt) squick me out so I also boiled this shell for a couple of minutes before using it.

   I think the water may have been a TAD bit too warm when I added the cooties, so we'll see what they're doing in a couple of days. I really hope I didn't kill them!

a new tooth, a new favorite website, and the prettiest sex toy you ever did see

*   Today I was off from work so that I could to the dentist:

Figure One: This is as close to a full face-shot of me as this blog will ever get. 

   The fiasco of That Tooth is finally over. The new crown looks great! My gums, however, do not look so great after the manhandling, so in lieu of a current picture of my front teeth just picture two perfectly ordinary front teeth like you'd expect to see if someone smiled. I couldn't be more pleased with the end result. Thanks again, Brighter!

*   This is my new favorite website. Hahahahaha!

*   I won a caption contest over at Toy With Me recently, and my prize arrived today:

Figure Two: Isn't it gorgeous? It came with a brooch. I don't usually wear brooches, but I may have to start! I haven't used the prize for its' intended purpose yet; I'm too busy admiring it. Thanks, Toy WIth Me!

*   Eyes aside, I am one very lucky girl. How are all of YOU?

who wants a free pair of glasses?

   Ooookay, so back a couple of days ago before my own eye-doctor dropped the boom on me about my vision, I was bouncing-off-the-walls kind of happy because I had arranged to bring you a truly awesome giveaway.

   As y'all know, I had to let some things slide due to finances...things like prescription eyeglasses (and of course the tooth, which is getting permanently fixed TOMORROW thanks to the wonderful people over at Brighter and my friend Morgan), and I know a lot of y'all are probably struggling, too. So when Eye Buy Direct asked me if I wanted to do a review and giveaway where I would get a free pair of eyeglasses for myself and one for a reader I was allll over that!

   I was a little curious how it would all work, but it was surprisingly simple. I got my vision checked (well okay, there was nothing simple about that for ME but chance are YOU will have better results), and had my doctor give me a copy of my prescription (which was greek to me, but I just made sure I could read all of the letters and numbers). She mentioned that when you buy eyeglasses online you often need to know your PD (pupillary distance) and had me go and get that measured by a nice lady who gave me two different numbers, but also explained that if the website I was using asked for one number I could get that by adding the two. With my prescription in-hand I went home to look at some glasses!

   The selection on the website was pretty extensive, but my biggest reservation had to do with how I would tell what would look good on my face. I've been wearing glasses since I was two, and have therefore picked out enough pairs to know that what looks good on the shelf doesn't necessarily look good on your face (in fact, sometimes it will make you look like a bug-eyed stick insect...or worse, your own elderly grandmother). This is where it got SUPER-cool, though--YOU CAN TRY THE GLASSES ON ONLINE by either capturing a picture with your webcam or uploading one that you have in digital format! I decided to use my webcam since I was already wearing glasses in all of the pictures I already had of me, and GET THIS: the website estimated my pupillary distance from the webcam capture! It wasn't exactly what the optometrist who took mine in-person got with her machine, but it was very, very close and I was impressed that the website was able to do that.

   Y'all know how I am about maintaining my pseudonymity, so I can't show you a picture of my new glasses on MY face. I did, however, find a member of the MFA Family who didn't mind modeling them:

Figure One: I thought models weren't supposed to eat??? She snarfed a TON of liversnacks during our photo-shoot. Also, apparently we have the same pupillary distance? Or else possibly the dogface threw off the program. Which means that if you're ordering glasses online for your dog you may want to have someone check that in person. Oh, god, nobody is ever going to work with me on a giveaway again, are they?

   I was going to wait until my glasses arrived to actually post this, but then I decided to see if Eye Buy Direct participated in eBates and LO! When you go on eBates' site and search for the company you can not only get 7% cashback (not that it's much, because these are incredibly cheap eyeglasses, but every little bit, right?) but ALSO 20% off your order with an eBates-only coupon code through the end of the month, and I didn't want those of y'all who don't win to miss out on that deal if you really need some new glasses! It almost made me sad that my pair was free...almost.

To enter to win a $30 gift voucher to use toward your own pair of prescription eyeglasses from Eye Buy Direct (designer eyewear and sunglasses excluded): Go and pick out a pair of frames, and EITHER visit EyeBuyDirect.com on Facebook and "like" those frames OR tweet "I love (frame name) @EyeBuyDirect.com" on the Twitter, then leave me a comment on this post saying which of those two things you did. 

Extra entries (for each extra entry, please leave me a SEPARATE comment telling me what you did):

1. ‘Like’ EyeBuyDirect.com on Facebook, become a fan.

2.  Follow EyeBuyDirect on Twitter (leave your Twitter handle in your comment).

3.  Post your "Eye Try" photo with your favorite frame to the Wall of Frame.

4.  Post a comment to the Wall of Frame - Help other visitors choose which frames suit them best!

   I'll choose a winner via random.org the evening of Wednesday, September 28th and e-mail them (so make sure you leave me a good e-mail address with your comment, because if I don't hear back from the winner within 48 hours I'll let random.org pick again). Good luck!

 

Disclosure: I received a free pair of prescription eyeglasses in exchange for including relevant SEO phrasing with links in this review, and Eye Buy Direct is providing the prize for this giveaway. I was not compensated for saying nice things about the website and as always all opinions expressed on this blog are my own and not for sale.