MFA Mama

OH (the "only at my house" edition)

Hotter (bringing in a tray of seedlings): These look like mushrooms!
MFA Mama (turning to look): Which?
Hotter: These. The tall ones (jiggles the tray so that some canteloupe sprouts that are getting leggy wave back and forth).
MFA Mama: I...they're green. I don't see how those look ANYTHING like mushrooms.
Hotter: They're tall and skinny! Like straw mushrooms, you know, tall and skinny with weird little heads?
MFA Mama: Ohhhh like Chris Brown's dick! 
Hotter: WHAT!
MFA Mama: You haven't seen that picture of him, on the innernet? It's all long and skinny...with a weird little head.
Hotter: How is it that there are genitals on the innernet that you've seen and I haven't? He's not even your type!
MFA Mama: Eh. That's what happens when you remodel a Soulless Corporate Megalith store on the graveyard shift. Everybody gets tired and someone compares a long, skinny shelf bracket that just hit someone to Chris Brown's dick and everyone but you laughs and then they're all shocked you haven't seen it and tell you to go home and Google it.
Hotter: Huh. I guess you learn something new every day. 

poverty shaming, the 261-calorie lunch, and Hotter has oral surgery

I.   So I think maybe I'm still a little raw from the incident with the Old Biddy Neighbor. Today I am off work, because I had to go to traffic court over one of the expired registration tickets I got when I couldn't afford to update the MFA Minivan's registration and got ticketed (the case was dismissed when I showed the judge my registration and I was out the door in ten minutes), and also Hotter had oral surgery (which I scheduled for a day I knew I'd have to miss work anyway, because I am efficient like that) and I had to drive him to and from that and take care of him afterward. I was also thinking that maybe if Hotter was feeling up to it, we could use a movie ticket voucher I've had kicking around for a while and go to see The Hunger Games. Here is an update I wrote on the Facespace earlier today:

Figure One: Yeah, I didn't match the shade on the name-text very well, but use your imaginations.

   Here is the comment addendum I added to the first status (I had already covered this on the Twitter, then forgot I hadn't told the facespace about the ticket voucher and panicked a little), and what a couple of friends had to say about it:

Figure Two: This time I didn't even try. Y'all can tell which one I am, right?

   And now it is kind of bothering me because I wonder if I'm not being a jerk here. My friends are easier on me than I am about pretty much everything, I think out of affection, but...am I being a jerk? Goodness knows I am against poverty-shaming. Poor folks have enough to worry about without judgment from others, and I hate to read about this kind of thing, because I've been judged in the grocery line before and it doesn't feel good (like okay, with Food Stamps? They give you WAY MORE to spend on food each month than I do when I am buying our groceries out of pocket, and when my family received Food Stamps I often used to buy fresh organic berries with them because fresh berries used to be one of the only things Little Child would eat by mouth and with the way he used to be allergic to so many things I wanted to make sure he didn't react to some pesticide or herbicide on the berries and cause us to think he couldn't have the berries themSELVES...more than once I had a cashier look at me like "SERIOUSLY?" and it's not like the g-tube showed when Little Child had clothes on)...but then I see some folks talking about how poor they are but going out to eat frequently, going on vacations where they spend a lot on travel costs and hotel rooms, seeing movies several times per month, and it irks me. Because while I don't doubt that those people FEEL like they're poor, in my reality if I did those things we'd have to go without something really important, like my health insurance coverage (the MFA Children are on the XY's policy), or car insurance (which we did go without for a while, and which I got roasted for openly in the comments one time and remedied as soon as I was able to), or, you know, FOOD or MEDICINE or something. It's been over a year since I saw a movie in the theater. The last time I went on vacation was BlogHer '10 and we've NEVER been on a family vacation. We don't eat out, PERIOD (I think the last time we ate out as a family was Big Child's birthday last year, and when we did that it was because a generous friend had given us a gift card to Red Robin...and Big Child's birthday is coming up AGAIN in a week and a half,* so...yeah. It's been a while. The last time before THAT was over a year previous, too.). Maybe our definition of "poor" and other people's definition of "poor" differ? Or maybe I should feel badly for the folks who are crying poor and still doing all of those things, because maybe it indicates an inability to be realistic about their situation and make smart choices? I don't know. I might be wired a little different in that I've NEVER really had the money to do those kinds of things, and therefore don't miss them--maybe some folks really DO feel like life isn't worth living without seeing movies, eating out, and going on trips (although personally I think if I was feeling that way I'd be more tempted to break the bank on a co-payment to talk to my psychiatrist about it, if anything)? Something about this whole thing isn't sitting right with me, and I can't quite put my finger on it. Ideas?

II. I mentioned on the Twitter that I'd made myself a 261-calorie lunch and it was delicious and filled my belly, and someone asked me to blog about it, so here goes. You will need:

a pat of butter
a splash of milk
five eggs
1 ounce Trader Joe's light feta cheese (most "light" cheese isn't worth eating, but this stuff is a delightful exception--I actually prefer it to the regular variety taste-wise!) 
2 cups baby spinach
a slice of onion
Texas Pete
salt and pepper to taste 

   Dice the onion up and saute it in the butter. Break the eggs into a bowl, separating out all but one of the yolks (discard the four other yolks, or feed them to your pets, or whatever), then add the splash of milk, a few sprinkles of Texas Pete (which adds an excellent flavor and also colors the egg so that it doesn't have that unappetizing white-y look you get when using just or mostly eggwhites), and your spices. Whisk it together. When the onions have clarified, add the spinach, and when the spinach has wilted, add the egg mixture to the pan. Cook until the eggs are the way you like them (I like mine hard-cooked, because runny eggs squick me out). Dish that up, crumble the feta on top, and enjoy. According to Myfitnesspal this has 261 calories.

III. Hotter had oral surgery today. Our dentist did it in his office, but it was kind of gory (Hotter had a tooth that was broken off below the gumline except for one lone splinter that stuck up a little...I couldn't even look at it without gagging and don't know how he stood it, although he said it didn't really bother him). While we were there I went ahead and scheduled the next round of work for the end of May (when my NEXT traffic court date for the expired registration is) (that's the last one though!)...it will be $360. I don't know how I am going to pay for that, but I said that about this month's work and last month's, and I guess I'll think of something. I will be SO GLAD when every month doesn't include a bunch of dental work for Hotter, y'all, you don't even KNOW. In the post-op instructions they said Hotter wasn't allowed to suck on anything because it could cause dry sockets. I turned to him and said "WELL THAT IS JUST GREAT, HOW ARE YOU GOING TO RAISE THE MONEY TO PAY ME BACK NOW?" because I am awesome like that. Also, here are some things I tweeted while I was waiting that people seemed to find amusing:

Figure Three: He doesn't actually have a third nipple. But then I DO NOT ACTUALLY FART IN MY SLEEP, so we're even!

*   And I don't EVEN want to think about it, because a) I haven't gotten him anything and b) he has mentioned several times that he wants to go to Red Robin again this year because he enjoyed it so much last year, but um, NOT GONNA HAPPEN. Crap. 

daily reminder: don't be a jerk

   I am LIVID, so please excuse any typos.

   My old biddy neighbor (yes, the same one who called our landlord and complained about the length of our lawn a couple of summers ago while Hotter was in Club Med fighting for his life) just called me over to the fence between our yards to give me a ration of shit because she wants us to buy a trashcan that matches hers.

   I'll give you a moment to let that sink in.

   Now, I realize that letting a garbage bag sit in the side-yard now and again until I can take it to the nearest unguarded dumpster is not ideal, and that you can pay companies to come and take your garbage away on a weekly basis, but here is the thing: we're poor. We're not the only ones, either. A lot of folks are struggling right now and currently something like half the children in America (my own included) have received Food Stamps at some point in their lives (we do not currently qualify because I "make too much money," although "too much money" evaporates with a quickness when you're buying transplant meds and trying to get dental work done on your transplant-recipient spouse to keep him from developing a life-threatening infection before Something Happens to your job). Nobody talks about it, because it's Not Nice, but you know what? Maybe more of us should.

   So I stood up straight, looked her in the eye, and said "Mrs. Neighbor, we are out of bread, milk, and butter, we have $0.21 in the bank right now, and I don't get paid until Tuesday. Therefore I. Am. Not. Worrying. About. A. Trashcan."

   Go easy on your fellow humans, y'all. If their lawn is unsightly, maybe they have a loved one in the hospital and can't afford gas for the mower. And maybe if they're not worrying about their trashcan matching yours, it's because they're about to go and make some biscuits with coconut oil despite the one child hating the flavor and try to make their kids think that Everything Is Just Fine. Sure, maybe it's just that they're a lazy slob, but give them the benefit of the doubt, okay?

a partial list of reasons why I pretty much quit life

*   I am having a full-blown autoimmune flare, which sucks immeasurably. I've been limping around in denial for a couple of days, but had to admit today that my SI joint is in open rebellion. The funny thing is, I actually sat there all confused for a minute when it dawned on me that this was autoimmune in nature. "How odd," I though. "I haven't been under any extraordinary stress recentl--oh." While I was not, at any point, even when he was screaming his head off and frantic in the ER, concerned for Middly's life or long-term wellbeing, spending the night at St. Somebody's where most of Little Child's scariest hospitalizations took place...well, I think it broke my psyche to the point that I honestly blocked it out until I took a moment to think about what in my life might've stressed me out to the point that my body turned on me.

*   Dr. Plastic Fantastic's office e-mailed me an estimate for the procedure for Jank Jaw:

Figure One: Today I balanced the checkbook, and we have $1.26 to get us through until Tuesday, so. Yeah. Not doing THIS any time soon...

*   Apparently, Bayer doesn't feel like honeybees are going extinct fast enough. Dick move, Bayer. I will never buy your brand of 81-mg aspirin for Hotter again, or anything else you make (we use mostly generics here at Casa MFA, so this won't hurt TOO much, although we do use Advantage on the dogs...it's not the only spot-treatment for flea and tick control though!).

*   One of my children is going through a period of OCD-like behaviors and germaphobia that is...well. Let's just say that said child finding an aphid on a leaf of lettuce in their salad bowl tonight ruined dinner for EVERYONE. It was so ridiculous that halfway through the fit I plucked the offending lettuce leaf out of the child's hand and ATE IT, APHID AND ALL just to prove that that isn't something that'll kill you. Yeah, I ate a bug. At the dinner table. IT'S COME TO THAT.

*   And then I went outside to grab some seedlings that I bring in at night and stepped down barefoot on a huge, juicy slug. *GAG*

*   And how are all of YOU?

by popular demand...

...the story of how I gave up shampoo, probably forever!

   Going no-shampoo is apparently quite A Thing lately. Like as in all the cool kids are trying it! When I decided to give it a whirl I wasn't thinking "trendy" though so much as "green" and more importantly "cheap." We already make our own laundry detergent, and have even started making our own automatic dishwasher detergent (I'm still tweaking the recipe on that), but in my quest to shrink our household's carbon footprint (and hopefully grow our bank account), one of the very LAST things I considered going dirty-hippie with was hair product. Because, see, here is the thing: I am super-vain about my hair. It's stupid-long, and I love it, and my husband loves it, and I am guilty of spending upward of twenty bucks per bottle on things to wash, condition, and gloss it with, but clearly that had to stop with our finances being what they are.

   So I Googled around, and landed on A Sonoma Garden, and pretty much did exactly what she said. A tablespoon of baking soda to a cup of water, and let it age a bit before using (two weeks seems to be the magic number--I put a batch of baking soda and water in a Mason jar to sit while I finished the shampoo I was using, then rinsed the bottle out and poured my baking soda-water into that) (and once I saw the kind of results I get from this stuff I refilled the Mason jar so I'd have more when I finished what was in the bottle). After I've wet my hair through I shake the bottle vigorously and squeeze a generous amount onto the top of my head, then massage it in really well, using my fingertips to scrub my scalp. Then I rinse, use a TINY bit of conditioner (seriously, the baking soda mixture doesn't strip your hair the way shampoo does so you don't need as much), rinse again, and dry (by which I mean towel-turban that shit up, then use a little glossing cream and a wide-toothed comb and let it air-dry the rest of the way, although if you want to fry your hair with a blowdryer then by all means). That's it, y'all. 

   As to the results...well. Hotter read on here that I was going to give the shampoo-free thing a whirl and tried to dissuade me. "I don't like the smell of dirty hairrrr..." he whined. Hotter is very sensitive to smells. He's like a hormonal pregnant woman, except his belly is from peritoneal dialysis instead of a baby and he has boy-junk. But other than that EXACTLY THE SAME. "Okay honey," I said, "I don't have to give up shampoo."

   And then I did it anyway and just didn't tell him. I think it helped that I kept my mixture in a shampoo bottle (Hotter uses manly shampoo from a different bottle). In any case, I never had a "greasy phase" or anything; the mixture worked like a charm and my hair actually looks BETTER than it did when I was paying through the nose to strip it with toxic chemicals. I finally fessed up a couple of weeks into the experiment after Hotter complimented me on my hair looking especially nice (which? It really really does--it's soft and shiny and has more body than it did before!), and he laughed and said he hadn't noticed anything amiss. WIN!

Figure One: Do not adjust your monitors; I actually *am* that pale. But look how shiny my hair is! Incidentally if you ever want to a) look absolutely douche-tastic and b) reduce yourself to tears over the wrinkled state of your forehead, try taking a picture of your hair without any of the rest of your face in it sometime and have a gander at the outtakes. You see what I put myself through for you people?!?

oral surgeon, etc.

*   I have lived in MFA Town for nearly thirty-three years of my thirty-three and change and managed to make it until yesterday without ever knowing there was a cookie-cutter office complex off Main Rural Drag with at least eleventy-five hundred oral surgeons', dentists', and maxillofacial surgeons' offices. AT LEAST. And they all had the same tooth-with-roots cutout on the side of their building, and the same three signs reading "ORAL SURGEON," "DENTIST," and "MAXILLOFACIAL SURGEON." And the same color and font used to paint their names on their office doors (the only variation in these offices was the names--I didn't even see any damn address numbers). After I found the office I was meant to go to I got out of the MFA Minivan and kissed the ground on my hands and knees, giving thanks for small favors like only seeing THIS place once in my life to date. Although I am sure it will be appearing in my anxiety dreams FROM NOW ON.

*   The oral surgeon seemed very smart and was quite engaging, which...well. I instantly wonder about him, because men who are people-persons usually lead me to make stupid decisions. Be that as it may, since he did have an advanced degree and years of surgical experience, plus the personal recommendation of Dr. JewishName, I heard him out on his interpretation of my Jank Jaw.

*   Jank jaw is jank, y'all.

*   Dr. PlasticFantastic thinks the next (and also, in my case, the LAST, on which more in a moment) step would be arthrocentesis of the temporomandibular joint.

*   Arthrocentesis (go ahead, Google Image that shit, I'll wait) may or may not work. My insurance company may or may not agree to cover it. It may or may not be a good idea for various reasons inherent to both general risks and specific physical oddities of mine. If it doesn't work, though, I either have to figure out how to live with the symptoms (which currently I do) or pursue pain management as an ongoing part of my permanent medical "team." Which? Barf. But my connective tissue disease (which I had stupidly neglected to put on my intake paperwork because seriously what would that have to do with my clenching and grinding my jaw? OH EVERYTHING APPARENTLY IN THAT AN ENTRAPPED PIECE OF DETACHED CARTILAGE IS BEHIND THIS BULLSHIT) makes any kind of open joint surgery (YES HE MENTIONED THAT) dumb(er even than for the general population--joints are like engine cases, people, you open them and it voids the warranty no matter how skillful you are about it). Bottom line is, my body is going to do what it's going to do, and any attempts to stop it will be temporary at best and crippling at worst. 

*   So I have to decide whether I want to pursue arthrocentesis (in theory--in reality I don't know for certain how I will feed everyone for the next six days and surgery? OH HAHA, YOU SILLY GOOSE!), which may relieve current symptoms, most likely on a temporary basis, or just shrug and choose to live with this evenifIcouldaffordtofixit.

*   Hotter's computer is totally dead. Like, giant lovingly hand-built paperweight attached to desk-sized monitor dead. He is very sad about that. And bitter. By which I mean prone to sniping at loved ones. But he's so upset I don't even really want to call him on much, so I'm gardening tons. "That's fine for you," he groused at me yesterday, "but what about MY rage and anxiety?" Implication being that I should come the fuck inside and keep him company. "I can't address YOUR rage and anxiety," I said, "I can barely handle my own." And I kept on digging, so. Yeah.

*   My health, aside from the various ongoing TMJ/ENT/Asthma clusterfucks and despite my major "diet/lifestyle/headspace adjustment," is not what I would like for it to be. I am retaining a TON of water right now (by which I mean more than ten pounds' worth that appeared literally overnight), which is uncomfortable, unsightly, and unsettling. I am starting to fear that my autoimmune bullshit is waking and stretching preparatory to looking for a nice snack. I don't want to talk about my health. If you asked me to describe it in one word I'd hiss at you like a cat.

*   So things are...not good here. At all. How are YOU?

ENT

*   The ENT office was huge and cushy and efficient, and ran on-time. The very nice ENT, Dr. JewishName,** first came in to meet me and have a cursory look into both ears/tap around on my face and head. He pronounced my GP to have "dropped the ball" and Bad Ear's eardrum to be "not as awful as I'd expected," and sent me for an immediate hearing/audiology workup. My hearing in Bad Ear is diminished, but I didn't TOTALLY bomb the hearing part of the test. The sucky-puff thingy to check eardrum flexibility showed a diminished range of movement on Bad Ear's side, but apparently only to the degree that's to be expected in a recently-ruptured eardrum, not to the point that it's not moving because it's stretched tightly outward with fluid or infection. It's just stiff and creaky like everything else on my body right now. "You should have come and seen me a month ago," said the nice ENT. "I would have been a hero. I could've relieved all of your discomfort and speeded your healing by popping a tube in that sucker," said the ENT indignantly, while pinching and manhandling the area around the former pustule (it drained en route to the appointment, apparently, and is still a little sore but Dr. JewishName felt no tract or swelling of the underlying tissues and said to just keep using hot compresses and topical stuff on it unless I spike a temp/grow a horn). "Open and close your mouth a couple of times, please...ohhhh. Yep. I think this is coming from your temporomandibular joint. Are you under any extraordinary stress?"

*   Dr. JewishName then took me to a "procedure room" and had me lie down. He crawled Bad Ear with a microscope, then torqued my head and neck around some thoughtfully. "How's THAT?" he asked, digging the tip of his thumb into my head directly in front of my tragus. "GAHHHH!" I yelled. "Uh huh. Yep. There's nothing I can do for this. I treat it sometimes with steroids, but if those haven't helped and you haven't developed a fever it's most likely not autoimmune or infectious, and I'm going to say it's PROBABLY musculoskeletal, which is usually stress-related. You're going to have to see an oral surgeon about this. All I can do is give you some pain relief you can safely take before a potential surgery...NSAIDs...mishegas!"

*   So, you know, the appointment wasn't a waste of time. I both showed up and walked away with a plan to see a specialist who should hopefully FIX ME, yes, but at least now I have something to take at night when I am not working or driving or doing homework or kicking the garden's ass. 

*   I am VERY IMPRESSED that I cleared the residual resistant bugs from Bad Ear with nothing but my native immune system, Ciprodex drops, regular neti pot rinses and everything-the-innernet-said-to-try-that-didn't-sound-dangerous. GO, ME! It's nice to feel like I had something to do with that what with all of the positive dietary and lifestyle changes I've been working on making. Over all this is FABULOUS NEWS, not only in that I went into this appointment with all of my pills, my mouthguard, and a spare pair of panties in my purse (because I was so sure I'd end up either in Club Med for IV antibiotics or having surgery) and was able to then leave the office and meet my kids coming off the schoolbus and hug my husband, but also in that MY IMMUNE SYSTEM DID ITS JOB FOR A CHANGE!

*   I am less excited by the news that this is most likely a result of chronic known issues, and there's no five-minute fix to the discomfort to be had, but oh well. I have an appointment April third with the oral surgeon Dr. JewishName recommends, and in the meantime I am doing all I can to keep my stress levels down. 

*   The fact that Hotter adjusted the "new" fridge shortly after I replaced as much of the spoiled food as I could afford to and froze it all solid (exploding a glass water kefir bottle and all of the eggs in the process)...well, shit happens. We'll figure something out. 

*   The way Pfeffer escaped from her hutch and climbed onto and devoured much of what was on my seedling and cutting propagation table...well, I can't kick her ass over it but SERIOUSLY OMG IT WAS LIKE FLUFFY WHITE GODZILLA. Still. Calm blue oceans. Noooo stressss...

*   One more day of steroid tapering. Zen. Thoughts.

*   And how are all of YOU?

 

**   I don't know what it makes me that I was so relieved when I found out the ENT I would be seeing had a very Jewish last name. I felt like one of the little old ladies from my granny's Jewish Old Folks' Home who would reportedly roll into the ER and screech "GET ME A JEW!" But I found it immensely reassuring, and did the equivalent of throwing Ashkenazic gang signs by putting part of my oral history into Yiddish, and at that point the doctor did slow down and seem to become even more compassionate and attentive so GO TEAM ABRAHAM!

So. Much. Rage.

*   Today I had The Rage. I keep trying to tell myself it is just the steroids, but you know what? While I am sure they are not helping, and also that I am overreacting to at least a CERTAIN extent, there is also a lot of really infuriating shit going on.

*   To wit: my ex. I don't know if CATHERINE! stopped putting out, or he needs his psych meds adjusted, or he has some kind of post-concussion psychotic break happening or WHAT his deal is, but he has sunk to new lows of sucking at life (which is REALLY SAYING SOMETHING) and also general interpersonal offensiveness. If I told you what he recently did in relation to my children, and the bullshit he threw out to try and deflect my righteous outrage, you would bang your jaw on the floor. It's ridiculous! But I probably shouldn't go into specifics! Even though I'd love to, because even Hotter and I have to laugh at this shit so you would just DIE!

*   Yesterday's work-drama. Oh my word, y'all. It is over with, dead and buried, forgotten, and business as usual except one person CANNOT seem to let go of it. And that person? Is typing this. It's not so much the drama itself as the fact that it clued me in to a certain naivete I had been guilty of when it came to PseudoCorp. And this is so dumb, but see, I had kind of lionized the corporation as a whole and built it up in my mind to the point that finding out it had feet of clay all along is breaking my heart a little. Probably it's for the best that I figured that out or else I would have been devastated not to be hired on permanently, but...well. It's kind of like how the therapist of my formative years used to pry and poke and prod as to why I always defended my father (who was no angel, really, in fact not even remotely CLOSE), until one day two years in I looked at her and my chin started to wobble and I bleated "because SOMEone has to be good in all of this!" And she sighed and said "no, not really, although it's very human to WANT to see it that way."

*   The Twitter. I have put myself in a time-out on there, and haven't even corrected my last (misspelled) tweet. Ordinarily I love the Twitter with every fiber of my social-media-addicted, ADD-riddled being but...lately, dating back to BEFORE the steroids but oh boy, right now ESPECIALLY? Well. It's just a steady stream of 140-character long reasons why a lot of people need to SHUT THEIR HOLES ABOUT THEIR FIRST-WORLD PROBLEMS FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND DECENT. I spent a large portion of my lunch chatting with a very understanding friend, and listing all of our mutual friends who need to shut up and why they needed to shut up and how one in particular needed to shut up and then maybe go and hang themself in a closet and then she, as one of very few people who could say such a thing to me (especially right now) and have me not only not tell HER to shut up but also listen, suggested that I take a break from the Twitter until I was less ragey. And she is right. Because if I do not then I am in serious danger of being abhorrently unkind to a number of mostly-undeserving people, and I am doing an absolutely MISERABLE job of following my self-proclaimed motto of Plato's "be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle" inside my head, and I am kind of starting to horrify myself. I don't even like admitting this. But I figured I would, because a lot of the time people are all "OMG I NEED TO TAKE A BREAK FROM TWITTER AND THE DRAMA" and I am all "seriously? TWITTER is stressing you out? Pansy!" If anyone knows how many calories are in one's own unspoken words, let me know so I can plug that into MyFitnessPal, mmmkay? There's no drama with anyone on there, though. I just need to take a powder, possibly until the steroids are out of my system.

*   And finally, and this is probably what's driving all of the above EXCEPT for the mishegas with my ex (who just sucks objectively speaking no matter what is or isn't wrong with me or society as a whole): I am just so VERY goddamn angry about my health right now. A few weeks ago I felt like I was on the way to being healthier than I have ever in my life been, nothing was wrong with me that wasn't being controlled nicely with maintenance meds (except for my eyes but, well, those at least do not HURT), and now? Well, as much as I whine on here about my health, there is plenty that I do NOT go into (largely because my ex has attempted to use my health against me in a court of law and Stalky used to go on and on accusing me of making my medical history UP, which damn, I am NOT THAT IMAGINATIVE OF A WRITER...but also because it's fucking depressing and at one point in my life I laid down in that and wallowed for a bit and it wasn't a good look so I try not to dwell on it), and as of today there are, in addition to the ENT clusterfuck y'all know about, not one but TWO (completely UNrelated, either to the ENT situation or each other) additional issues that surgeons ideally ought to address in the very near future and seriously WHAT THE EVERLOVING FUCK? I am SO MAD. Even if I had the money to just have this all of this taken care of in an expedient and minimally-painful manner by competent medical professionals like some kind of fancy person it would involve AT LEAST THREE OPERATIONS, one of which would temporarily have a major impact on my motherfucking MOBILITY and I am THE BREADWINNER IN MY FAMILY and can barely make my HEALTH INSURANCE premiums, nevermind afford the 20% coinsurance I'd have to pay to get this shit fixed!

*   I think the above would be enough to give just about anybody The Rage, but as is so often the case, down at the bottom of all The Rage is The Fear. Because all of the last bullet point is just logistics. There is also, time and money and pain and fury aside, the fact that of all the times--and there have been more than I can count on one hand--I have gone under the knife it has NEVER ONCE GONE ACCORDING TO PLAN. There has ALWAYS been AT LEAST one hideous complication, and most of the time it isn't even anybody's fault, and rather something no one present could have predicted or has ever even SEEN, but at the end of the day I end up going in with one problem and coming out with bone sticking out where it doesn't belong, or MRSA sepsis, or a piece of gauze erupting from my scar, or hemorrhaging, or a nearly-lethal drug reaction, or SOME GODDAMN THING to the point that it is like I am CURSED, and while I want as much as anyone in their right mind would to have these things that are currently wrong with me fixed because they hurt and also because intellectually I know that the various situations are untenable in that they will cripple me or cause me ever-increasing pain or rob me of one of my senses or possibly even my LIFE if left unaddressed IT SCARES THE HELL OUT OF ME TO CONTEMPLATE SIGNING ON FOR ANYONE TO HAVE ANOTHER GO AT ME BECAUSE MY MOTHERFUCKING LUCK SUCH AS IT IS IS SURE TO RUN OUT EVENTUALLY.

*   I don't know, y'all. The only other time in my life that I have felt so helpless, and angry, and scared, and dangerously close to straightjacket-crazy was when Little Child was a tiny baby in the hospital for weeks on end and nobody could figure out what was wrong with him. It started to mess with my mind. I started to tell myself lies like "they are only running all of these tests and doing all of these procedures because I told them he did x, y, and z and I will just TAKE IT ALL BACK and tell them I was wrong or hell that I just LIED and they will leave him ALONE!" I literally had to put poor Little Child down in the hospital crib wailing at one point and take a step back, because I wanted so badly to grab my baby and run out of there. But this time it's me. I was talking to Hotter today and saying that maybe I'd just cancel that ENT appointment Monday since I felt a LITTLE bit better and it's not like anybody with a medical license had looked in my ear so maybe I was MISTAKEN about the eardrum and Dr. Anonymous was reacting to my IMAGININGS and...he very kindly said it was up to me, which forced me to admit that that was a bad plan, but my point is that sometimes in a situation like this the ONLY way to not do something utterly stupid is to take a step back, but I can't exactly take a step back from mySELF. 

*   FuckshitcocksuckingsonofawhoregodDAMN!

*   Plus also? Steroids! LET'S GO LIFT HEAVY THINGS AND THROW THEM AT PEOPLE! WHO IS WITH ME?

when it rains, it pours...sometimes down the side of your neck

*  Shortly after I posted about how well Neuro and Transplant had gone, Hotter's transplant coordinator called me and let me know that his blood levels of his very most expensive medication were lower than they liked to see. So they're doubling the dose. BALLLLLS. I have no idea how that'll fit into our budget--NONE.

*   This morning Bad Ear woke me at four a.m. hurting like a total bitch so I went in and got an early start at the office. Considering I couldn't get to sleep until midnight I'd planned to go in at seven as usual and make tomorrow and Friday early days as a little gift to myself, but we need every hour in next week's paycheck anyway.

*   There was Drama At Work. STUPID drama. Drama so ridiculous that I am tempted to break the cardinal rule of blogging and talk about work in detail just so that you can all laugh because it is THAT FUNNY, but...huh. Look at that, up until just then I would have sworn I had lost every shred of my mind and yet I'm not going to share the drama. Sorry. Just trust me it was so ludicrous an example of Human Misbehavior that it should be a sitcom episode. During Sweeps Week.

*   Totally unrelated to said drama, I absolutely humiliated myself in front of my boss today. I only THOUGHT I humiliated myself yesterday, y'all. See, today, I went into a one-on-one meeting with my boss, who is a Very Nice Man and asked me how I was today, and I had PLANNED FOR THIS and GIVEN MYSELF A PEPTALK and EVERYTHING. I had told myself that in my thrice-steroidal (inhaled, nasal, and pill-form, in addition to yesterday's shot in the arse) state, given how godawful Things are and the amount of pain I was in, it was Perfectly Acceptable and in fact A Good Idea to redirect conversation if asked how I was/what was wrong, since I probably couldn't pull of fine/nothing (yeahhhh I woke up with both eyes swollen almost shut due to my sinuses, and am sporting purple bags you could practically fit a credit card and keys in under each eye. I kind of look like I've been crying for the past two days, following being punched in the face, plus I have to blow my nose every couple of minutes). So when my boss asked me How I Was I tried for a reassuring smile and a breezy "let's not dwell on that, haha!" Unfortunately, Nice Boss was undeterred. "Well is everything okay? Talk to me," he urged, doggedly. "If I talk about it I will cry so really, please let's not," I said. And then burst into tears. Awesome. Nice Boss apologized and said we could reschedule, and beat a hasty retreat, and I sent a damage-controlling e-mail saying "what time is best for you, as long as you don't ask how I am I think I can maintain my composure. Sorry about that, a combination of bad news from yesterday's appointments and high-dose steroids for that ENT thing that made me miss a day the week before last have rendered me less capable than usual in that regard," and he said no apologies needed, and we met after lunch and it went fine and actually he was quite impressed with the work I've been doing. But still. Gah.

*   Re: ENT stuff. Everyone and their sister-in-law's hairstylist's college roommate, as it turns out, knows somebody who knew someone who had THE SAME THING and DIED, and all crabbing on my part aside the people who care about me most were collectively urging me to Go See A Specialist, God Dammit, And Worry About Paying For It Later. And in my experience no matter how little you want to do something, if more than three of the people you love and trust the most are saying you simply must then generally they are right and it would behoove you to listen to them. So I called the ENT who did my tonsils, but I haven't seen him since 2008 so would be a new patient, and therefore a doctor had to call to make an appointment for me because he's the Grand Poobah of ENT Surgery at Local Teaching Hospital. I called my GP's office and told them I'd decided to go with their recommendation to see a specialist after all and damn the torpedoes, and gave them the relevant information, and they said they'd pass it on to my doctor. Then they called back and asked if it HAD to be The Grand Poobah, or would I be willing to see another doctor, and I said I'd follow my GP's recommendation but would PREFER The Grand Poobah. They called back and said they'd got me an appointment with some non-Grand-Poobah ENT on the thirtieth. I asked if my doctor was sure it was okay to wait that long, given that the guy yesterday made it sound like I was in some danger from this, and I only had enough steroids for a week anyway plus the situation was getting steadily worse and also could they please tell her I'd like some help with pain management, be that in the form of more steroids, an antibiotic anyway just for the hell of it, or pain medication of some kind. They called back and said they'd gotten me in with ANOTHER ENT Monday, and that I simply hadn't given the steroids enough time to work. I then went and had a little cry in the ladies' room because my goddamn ear hurt so much but I didn't want to bother the doctor's office again, and when I came out a very wise friend observed that she thought maybe my own neglect as a child had taught me to be okay with having my needs ignored to the point that I failed to advocate for myself when appropriate, and suggested I think of this in the context of What Would You Do If It Was One Of Your Children? Well I'd raise hell, I said, and not LET them ignore this! Go get 'em tiger, said my friend, and I called the doctor's office back and said look I hate to be a pest but would you please tell the doctor that the pain is really pretty unbearable and I am asking for her to come up with a plan for how to handle that until the steroids do their job. I then went and quickly humiliated myself in front of my boss, which freed me up to answer the phone when the doctor's office called BACK, and said...that the doctor had said that I needed to give the steroids at least another day. So I took an early lunch and went back to the ladies' room and quietly sobbed in a stall for a few minutes, and was honestly considering the emergency room because I was hurting so badly when...POP!

*   Oh yeah. It ruptured. And drained all down my neck. I'm really glad that didn't happen in front of anyone. Bad Ear immediately became Quiet Ear, but the pain went from a high eight or possibly a nine on the much-vaunted pain scale down to a four at the most, and I think most of that is referred pain from my cheekbone. So I mopped my face off and my neck up and ate my peanut butter sandwich and got back to work, ignoring Dr. Anonymous's entreaties to Go To The God Damned ER Already.

*   At the rescheduled meeting, Nice Boss gave me a tentative end date for my projects at PseudoCorp. Which...well. I really didn't have any reason to expect they'd hire me, but so many people have been so impressed with my work that I'd foolishly gotten my hopes up. God damn it. Don't anyone crap on Nice Boss, by the way; at least he was decent enough to give me a heads-up. That's more than I can say for pretty much ANYONE I've worked for in my time as a temp (except, oddly, Soulless Corporate Megalith) and I don't even think the client is supposed to do that, but I appreciate that he did. He even offered to be a reference for me. Still...

*   I got home mere moments before some rednecks with a new-to-us second-hand refrigerator. And while "climb behind defunct appliances with a dustmop" is probably not what ANYONE meant by "relax and avoid dust," at least we have a refrigerator again. Of course, we don't really have much to put IN it and I have NO fucking idea how I'll feed us all for the next two weeks, but...well, I'm out of tears or else my tearducts are swollen shut at this point (distinctly possible given the state of my eyes at the moment) so whatever. No, we do not have renter's insurance. It lapsed two months ago due to nonpayment.

*   All in all I'm trying to focus on the positive. I ought to have at least a FEW more paychecks, my pain level is manageable enough that I won't be tempted to take any forbidden NSAIDs (probably for the best as I have reason to believe I might be having ENT surgery in the not-too-distant future, and the ENT region is vascular as all HELL) and MAYBE I can avoid or at least put OFF said surgery since Quiet Ear went ahead and vented itself, and I don't even strictly speaking NEED to go to the ER since I have topical antibiotics for use in the inner ear at home already because two of my kids have tubes (Dr. Anon reluctantly got on-board with this plan given that I have access to the antibiotic drops, although she really doesn't like that putting them in hurt like an absolute motherfucker because that apparently indicates a largish tear in the eardrum...me, I'm just happy because I hear the brain itself lacks sensation so hey, the hole isn't THAT deep!). And the rest I'll worry about when I'm capable of crying again, I guess.

*   I'm closing comments on this one like an absolute asshole. I know this sucks. I know it's not fair. But unless one of you is secretly Bill Gates there really ISN'T anything you can do that I would ask of you, and the more people are nice to me right now the more I feel like bawling and the more pressure builds up behind my eyes, and if anyone was an asshole today I think that might just break me. So.

plantorexia

*   I love my GP, y'all. Yesterday I started to panic about going into the weekend with my lungs sucking as badly as they have been (yeah, I haven't said much on here but...it's gotten bad, like "wake up in the middle of the night to use the nebulizer" bad, and asthma is an asshole, GAWD), and called to see if she or any of her partners could see me. They could not, but she had the front desk call me back and read me a note from her saying that if I was willing to come in it MUST be bad, she was leaving me a sample of Symbicort at the front desk, and we both knew that if that and albuterol nebs weren't helping then I needed the ER. LOVE. HER.

*   Yesterday I was able to do my run without having an asthma attack, which was a major victory.

*   After my run yesterday afternoon I planted ten feet of beets and ten feet of turnips. Whoo, root vegetables! Also a bed of beans.

*   Today? Oh my lands, y'all, today I planted fifty-three strawberry plants and many borage seeds before breakfast, then dug up a row, dug and hauled two loads of compost, planted my fertilized row with onions and bush beans, dug two wheelbarrows full of crabgrass from the front walk and garden, planted leeks, fennel, two kinds of shallots, horseradish, moonvines, and a triamble squash seedling, and my lungs finally let me know that they were DONE but holy cow I am pleased with the day!

*   There's also this:

Figure One: Tonight Hotter and I are grilling a couple of porterhouses and I am having some hard cider, and I am not going to feel even a LITTLE bit bad about that!

*   Speaking of weight and calories and things, MyFitnessPal is A-MA-ZING (you can SCAN BARCODES OF FOODS to enter them!), I am updating the weight ticker again, and I think the reason it's moving so slowly is that I'm building muscle like crazy as I lose fat, so that's all good!

*   Funny story: I am using kelp meal as fertilizer for the first time this year, because I have heard wonderful things about it. It has a tendency to make the yard smell like a fishmarket though, especially when I water things I've used it on. Hotter and I were standing outside on the porch and I remarked that the kelp meal sure was stinky in the manner of yucko rotten fish and he said "OH THANK GOD, I THOUGHT...well, you're really working up a sweat and...I didn't realize the kelp stuff...well. You just saved us a VERY awkward conversation, the end." So I punched him in the face.

*   How are all of YOU?