MFA Mama

crowdsourcing, because I really don't even know what to do with this

   So. I didn"t go to work, which should tell you everything you need to know about how my back is. I got up when the alarm went off, and shuffled to the bathroom, holding onto the hallway wall all the way, and then in transferring into the bathroom, proper, almost fell flat because my right leg twitched out and then buckled at the knee. I caught myself on the vanity (my arms are okay--it hurts to move them, but only because that pulls on my trunk; whatever this is is down at L5, which I know because that is where I broke my back and it is ALWAYS L5), and took a moment to get my shit together and think. Seeing as it's my right leg that's the most wonky (and given that I have nerve damage in my left leg from the break twenty-one years ago that alone is pretty alarming), that was one strike against going to work anyway. Because that's my pedal-pushing leg, obviously, and while the MFA Minivan has cruise control, braking in a timely manner is essential to safe driving. The whole "not able to walk/balance worth a shit without holding onto things" scenario was strike two, obviously. I mean, I do possess a Rollator, but all concerns of personal dignity aside (I pretty much got over those when I had to use the thing to get around for months and months a few years ago), the idea of lifting it in and out of the MFA Minivan seemed tremendously optimistic at best (and downright idiotic at worst) (in the Rollator's defense it is VERY lightweight, but it weighs more than string cheese. So). Strike three was the fact that I had an hour-long anxiety attack* in the wee hours of the morning after sternly telling myself I NEEDED to sleep to go to work and that it was mind over motherfucking matter, and I looked and felt like someone operating on three hours' nightmare-riddled sleep following an hour's helpless tears.

   I so totally can't even afford this, y'all.

   But since my body doesn't seem to give a shit about what I can and cannot afford or tolerate, I have to decide what to do about this, and since I cannot, even with unpacking and examining my reasons for liking or disliking any one option, discern what the best way to handle this would be, I'm crowdsourcing it and giving y'all a chance to weigh in.

Option One: Do nothing, by which I mean continue to take NSAIDs and Tylenol-laced narcotics, ice my lower back, and move as little as possible up until VERY CAREFULLY stretching, applying heat, and gradually ramping my level of activity back up is feasible. This is what I've been doing so far. Pros include not costing anything, not having to leave the house, and the fact that historically this always turns out to have been the wisest course of action in cases like this. Cons include possibly running out of leftover dentist pills before the pain is less terrifying, the possibility of overlooking something like a disc issue, and the fact that seeking some medical attention MIGHT have me back in fighting (or at least white-collar working) form sooner than this.

Option Two: Drag my sorry ass to Urgent Care (my GP, in addition to being on my shit list, doesn't have an x-ray suite in her office). Pros include ruling disc issues in or out via x-ray and neuro exam, documentation to show my boss (who doesn't care about such things and kind of rolls his eyes when I present him with doctor's notes after absences, but I like to demonstrate accountability), and possibly obtaining better pain relief in the form of steroids and/or more narcotics. Cons include costing money,having to leave the house, and  the fact that realistically and based on precedent this won't actually make me feel any better any sooner than waiting it out.

   What say ye? At this point I could argue either side, and Hotter is the KING of "whatever you want to do about it, baby," so I'm interested to see what other people think.

 

*   Which...what the fuck? All self-deprecating hyperbole aside, I haven't had a genuine anxiety attack like that in YEARS, like, probably at least three of them. And yet there I was having a conversation with myself in the wee hours that went something like "There is absolutely no reason to hurt yourself rolling over to make sure nobody is standing at the end of the bed, because the dogs would've gone nuts if someone had broken in and ZOMBIES ARE NOT REAL YOU ARE JUST BEING STUPID ABOUT THE ZOMBIES, THIS IS NOT AT ALL LIKE YOU WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK, ANYWAY I MEAN ZOMBIES, SERIOUSLY???" And then I finally went to sleep and had nightmares about my maternal progenitor until the alarm went off.

because I need some garden porn

   I...am still down in the dumps, fighting another sinus/ear infection (it's not bad enough that I'm ready to throw in the towel and take antibiotics yet, I mean, in theory half of ear infections resolve on their own, right?), my eyes are bothering me (but I don't want to talk about it), and work is very work-y (I am solely in charge of completing a Very Big Project, which everyone seems to think I'm doing a great job of, and I am, but it's giving me agida because we have a deadline and I can't do the WHOLE thing without other people's participation and I haven't specifically asked but probably PseudoCorp would frown on it if I roamed the cubicles on my floor with a stick prodding people who aren't getting back to me) (yes, I can be a TEENY bit goal-obsessed when I am working on something big).

   I need some garden porn to cheer me up. 

   I don't think I ever specifically mentioned it to y'all en masse (although I've talked about it with some of you), but LeaseGate 2012 reached a peaceful conclusion involving the magical cooperation of my landlord and my ex-husband BOTH at the SAME TIME. I know, I'm shocked too! The key to handling the XY, maddeningly enough, was for me to remove myself from the communication process and have Hotter be the MFA Mouthpiece. See, the XY is one of those narcissists who have a desperate need to be widely-liked, and only shits on people who know him intimately, and while I no longer think that applies to me, apparently I've been grandfathered or something because he will still nut up and scream at me and be utterly horrid. With Hotter, however, he's still trying to do that thing he often did with great success during our marriage, namely to convince the third party he's just the nicest guy alive and I am some kind of crazypants whackjob for thinking ill of him because LOOK HOW NICE, SEE HIM SMILING AND OFFERING TO HELP YOU MOVE? Of course Hotter knows this is bullshit, and dislikes the XY thoroughly, but if HE flat-out asks the XY to do something like pay the child support, or make a pharmacy run for a sick child while I am at work, or keep his word on the extra $50 a month to let us stay in this house, it's all "of COURSE! GLADLY! You look fabulous, have you been working out?" Barf.

   The upshot of the ludicrous mindfuck of that whole paragraph up there is that we're not moving, and I have a garden to plan! I ALMOST bought seeds and stuff the day before Leasegate 2012 erupted, and am kind of glad I didn't because I don't just want to grow whatever is the seed catalog with the best sale. I want to grow FABULOUS THINGS! To that end, if you grow vegetables, what are your favorite varieties and why? What is a fabulous producer/super-cool looking/damn-near-impossible-to-kill? I am intrigued by Novella Carpenter's Triamble squash...has anyone ever grown those? Last year I did Royalty Purple Pod string beans and they were good but not the best producers...what bush beans have y'all planted with good results? Tell me your gardening stories!

   And now I have to go and eat something and get ready for an early bedtime, because I am working New Weekend Warrior Job tomorrow at an obscenely early hour. Ole!

the one where I get MRSA but feel pretty damned lucky anyway

   Last night my right fuck-you finger started hurting; it felt like maybe I had a splinter but the skin was intact, there was no redness or anything, and even checking it out with a bright light and the iPhone's zoom (which is damn-near as good as a microscope) showed nothing so I shrugged it off and went to bed. This morning I woke feeling rested, albeit extraordinarily achy, and for the first time in ages my teeth didn't hurt (I squeezed in a trip to the dentist before the fair and he fixed my nightguard, which hadn't wanted to play well with the new front tooth). My co-workers were happy to see me and said they'd missed me on my day off (seriously LOVE those people!), and I was fully prepared to call today a good day except that my finger now felt like I'd burned it. Around nine in the morning I posted the following photo and caption on the facespace:

Okay Dr. Facebook, let's play "Spider Bite or Burgeoning MRSA," the home game! Sudden onset yesterday, stupidly painful, no visible break in the skin, hot to the touch: go!

   My friends had variously helpful things to say, and it was kind of funny in that the people who only know me offline (yeah, I'm not "out" as a blogger on the facespace) were all "what is MRSA? Why would it be MRSA? Don't be a pessimist!" and the people who have known me online for years were all "it's MRSA cellulitis, go to the doctor, do not pass GO, do not collect $200." I was disinclined to do that, because I am currently making a REDONKULOUS sum per hour and while it hurt quite a bit, on a scale of 1-10 where 1 is a papercut and 10 is a gallstone I would only have given it a 4-5 at that point. 

   A couple of hours later it started swelling:

Oh goody, it's getting bigger!

   I still wouldn't have rated the pain as greater than five, although it was sobering when one facespace friend cut and pasted the symptoms of cellulitis per the NIH and I had all of them except for fever (which I pointed out, upon which said friend provided anecdotal experience wherein a family member of hers had cellulitis withOUT the fever). People started trying to reason with me all sneaky-like, as in "oh just go to the doctor, it might not be MRSA!" I pointed out that while the rule on House is "it's never Lupus," the rule of MFA Mama is "it's always MRSA," but at that point I was still hoping it was a spider bite. Dr. Anon flat-out stated that unless I was allergic to spider venom she really thought I ought to seek medical attention. I am allergic to spider venom, though, so I continued to hold out hope this would be nothing requiring antibiotics but compromised with my friends list: I would draw a line around the margins of the thing and if it crossed it by four o'clock I'd leave early and go to Urgent Care in time to get a script filled.

   Shortly after that, the finger started to itch a bit and I happily declared it to be a spider bite after all and left work at the usual time, stopped at Target to get a pair of dice and a bag of Smarties, both of which various MFA Children needed for homework assignments (the hell?), came home and ate dinner with the family (they'd already eaten since I work 7-7, but they all sat with me bickering for my undivided attention anyway), and then went and took a shower.

   Something about the hot water seemed to aggravate things, because the finger then increased in size by another 20% or so and turned black in the center, with some other SLIGHTLY less-alarming colors in various other spots, none of which were the color a finger ought to be. 

   Hotter took one look and pointed sternly at the door saying "GO!" and I realized I was being an asshole about it and went.

   At Urgent Care the doctor poked and pressed on my poor sad finger, looked at it up close with bright lights, and had me move it in various ways, then pronounced it to DEFINITELY be infected with "what looks to me exactly like MRSA, although with your history of MRSA septicemia after an aggressive culture you couldn't pay me to lance that thing, so we're just going to assume the worst and treat you for MRSA."

   Ugh. Also? How sad is it when the local Urgent Care doc knows your medical history?

    

    So I went and filled my five (yes, FIVE antibiotics, antifungals for after the antibiotics, antiemetics to keep the antibiotics down, and something for pain since at this point that was creeping up the scale toward a six) prescriptions at the all-night pharmacy and headed home, but you know what?

   I feel really freaking fortunate. Don't get me wrong, cellulitis sucks and MRSA scares the pants off me, but all day long I was enveloped with the concern of friends and coworkers and lovingly nagged as needed by various parties to do what I needed to do about the situation, I went home to a husband who was concerned and didn't complain about doing the bedtime routine alone so I could get to Urgent Care before they closed, I got prompt and compassionate medical care, and then I didn't have to prioritize which prescriptions to fill based on cost and necessity but just sighed ruefully and filled them all. Coming from a place where I didn't have any of the above just a few short years ago (and where as recently as last month the money part would have been harrowing at best) I feel like one lucky person, black finger and all.

   Although I still reserve the right to bitch and whine if the finger falls off or even if I just spike a temp and end up needing IV drugs :)

   How are all of YOU?

the one where I crowdsource my outrage

   Forgive me for this post; it's not very amusing but I need y'all's expertise.

   I texted Hotter from work to ask how the MFA Childrens' first day of the schoolyear went, having decided that asking for the day off was probably silly given that my current job is VERY easy money that we sorely need and Hotter was capable of handling things. His reply gutted me and I spent nearly an hour bawling at my current workplace (fortunately this job is VERY easy and provides me with lots of downtime alone, which allowed for me to compose myself before anyone needed me to DO anything): Middle Child had a horrible first day of school because Tuesday is library day for his class and he was only permitted to choose from a very small pile of damaged books at the kindergarten level because of the library situation of last year.

   I forget if I wrote about it on here or just on the Twitter, but in essence Middly was not permitted to borrow books for the latter part of his kindergarten year due to an overdue book, which I found while cleaning out the older boys' room and returned when I went to the school to register Little Child for kindergarten, but which the school librarian CLAIMED was still missing, resulting in his not being permitted to borrow books for most of his first-grade year (largely because we were very poor that year and I couldn't afford the exhorbitant price the librarian alleged it would cost to replace the book, which was some three times what said book would likely garner on the open market). That year (last year) I called the vice principal and raised hell, and she promised me she would Handle The Situation.

   Apparently either a) the bitchy school librarian went rogue, because she's obsessed with the notion that that book wasn't returned EVEN THOUGH IT WAS or because I embarrassed her at this year's open house by dragging my terrified kid in and making her promise she'd be nice to him this year (Middly is now afraid of libraries and especially this school librarian, who I would give the benefit of the doubt and maybe say that she just LOST the returned book or reshelved it somewhere it wasn't immediately findable, except that she evidently yelled at my kid AND BOTH HIS BROTHERS and therefore doesn't particularly deserve a head on top of her fat shoulders as far as I'm concerned) or b) the vice principal's idea of Handling The Situation included treating a seven-year-old like a second-class citizen, and since neither of those options is acceptable to me I need y'all's help.

   Do any of you know whose call it is to hire/fire school librarians and/or vice principals? What is the smartest way to approach this (my mind is only yielding things like "ASK THE LIBRARIAN IF SHE WAS DROPPED ON HER HEAD AS A CHILD," "pull everyone out of this GODDAMN school and homeschool them," "pick Middly up every Tuesday and take him to the public library next to the school," etc. and therefore I have reason to suspect I am not being very logical about this whole debacle)? Please bear in mind that I can't afford a lawyer. Who do I talk to next, and what do I say?

   I kind of doubt at this point that even paying the ridiculous sum the librarian asked me for in order to replace the book would get her off my kid's back, even if I HADN'T already returned the FUCKING book. Which isn't to say that I won't pawn something and TRY throwing money at the situation; I'm not ruling that out. I've decided to sleep on it before doing ANYthing, though.

   What would YOU do? Are any of you lawyers, or librarians, or even teachers or schoolboard members who could maybe clue me in on who's in charge of this nasty woman's job? I intend to first ensure that it was the librarian's call and THEN take action of SOME sort. If it wasn't her call (and I'm betting it was, but I want to make SURE), then she's off the hook and I need to know what to do if the vice principal is behind this. I wouldn't be so upset, except that DAMN IT my poor Middle Child can't catch a break. I got him out of a bad situation with his father, bad things happened to him that necessitated CPS involvement (CPS did SQUAT, incidentally), he already HAS an inferiority complex fer fuck's sake...I just can't deal with the fact that someone at that school (which is rated #1 in the district)  is crushing his spirit over a BOOK. Especially when it's a freaking miracle he's learned how to read in the first place given all that he's had to overcome to get to where he is. Maybe the school just sees this as another Special Ed. student being a space cadet and the parent failing to let their special precious snowflake be held accountable, or maybe because Middly can mostly "pass" and is mainstreamed they just think he's a naughty little boy who needs to learn a lesson, hell, I don't know, but I need to fix this.

   Your thoughts?

tell me about your crockpots

   I don't have a whole lot to say, because I am still at the tail-end of the autoimmune "bleh." I woke up, however, to Hotter cupping my cheek and smiling and saying he wasn't pissed, so that was nice. It was also more than a little confusing, given the events of yesterday, but we talked and he explained that it was more the situation that had pissed him off, and I can certainly understand that. If I wasn't a mostly angerless robot I'd probably be pretty pissed off, myself, but it takes a lot for me to get angry, nevermind realize that I've gotten angry. Sometimes I think that's a superior way to be and other times not so much, because I tend to take a lot more shit than the average person. I dunno. I also tend to dish OUT a lot LESS shit than the average person, which I suppose is good, but not particularly fair in that being a nice person and five dollars will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks and not much else in life.

***
   I'm going to do a batch of Shebangarang barbecue sauce tomorrow to get an idea of quantities in order to post the recipe (I'm one of those cooks who does it all by eyeballs and intuition, which works beautifully for ME but isn't much help when someone wants the recipe for something I've made). Don't forget to enter the spice giveaway! If you've already entered you can always get another entry by tweeting about it and leaving a second comment with the link to your tweet.

***
   This isn't much by way of a segue or ending, but I also have to replace our crockpot, which came to grief by Hotter's hand (and yes, if you are keeping score at home this is the SECOND one he's killed since we've been married--perhaps as a chef slow-cookers threaten him?). Do any of you have one you are particularly in love with and would recommend? I was awfully fond of the last one, which was a Hamilton Beach, but since I'm having to buy another one and y'all always have such good input for me I figured I'd see what you thought.

scarface

   So remember the co-worker who I mentioned hating? Well, it's totally mutual, because last night at work she threatened to cut me. And since we have no history and you couldn't pay me enough to take her job or her man (who also works at Soulless Corporate Megalith), it appears that we are dealing with a case of The Crazy.

   The Crazy is just about my very least-favorite thing to deal with in life.

   So yes, I told Management there was a problem, and they have said that they will Handle It, but I dunno how much stock to put in that given that she works for their company and I don't. I mean, if they'll employ people with rebel flags tattooed across the backs of their necks, probably The Crazy isn't a major issue in an employee from where they stand. Plus honestly? If these people were good problem-solvers they wouldn't be working at SCM.

   I never thought I'd be so grateful to have about ten different cameras on me at all times while on the job (normally they annoy me, because how the hell is one supposed to correct a wedgie and then look Security in the eye ever again?) (one goes into either the bathroom or the fitting room, in case you ever run into that little dilemma--you're welcome). That said, lack of concern for Repercussions, Comma, Future is kind of a signature trait amongst The Crazy, so I don't know how reassured I should actually be by those cameras and am questioning the wisdom of going back to work tonight.

   On one hand, I hate this job on a good day, there's less than a full week of work left, and I kind of like that out of Scarface and me, only one of us is currently sporting a slashmark across our entire face. On the other hand, I'd lose hours, all hands are needed on-deck and therefore my bailing would probably piss Soulless Corporate Megalith off enough that they'd complain to Temp Agency #1, and I would be ineligible for unemployment benefits if I voluntarily quit (I hope not to need those, because I hope to move on to another project before they would even kick in, but you never know, especially in this economy).

   Hotter thinks I ought to try and out-crazy Scarface by nutting up at work tonight complete with visible tics and threatening to cut her right back and leave an X on her face. I think Hotter gives horrible advice. What do YOU think I should do?

whatever

*   Apparently the XY got today's pediatrician to tell Big Child that ear candling was beneficial if done right (*headdesk*), which means that I probably ought to make a phone call and ask said pediatrician just what exactly he DID say before asking whether he's taken leave of his good sense, but I lack the ability to bug him during business hours and I'm kind of out of fight. I dunno. 

*   Money...gawd. What little stability we'd created the frail illusion of has utterly disintegrated thanks to my stupid effing ER trip and the resulting prescriptions. I literally do not have three damn dollars for a class field trip, and just had to tell the XY as much. That was fun.

*   Lungs still sucking; tolerating the steroid taper okay but I have a feeling I'm only one forgotten antihistamine or night of lost sleep or puff of blown pollen away from catastrophe, and that is...not pleasant. What the fuck, y'all? I had asthma as a kid, outgrew it and never even kept an inhaler about, then caught RSV with Little Child when he was a newborn and haven't been the same from a respiratory standpoint since. I do not WANT Asthma With A Big A, as in the kind that sends grown-ass adults to the ER unexpectedly. Do. Not. Want.

*   Hotter's sick. I mean, of course he is. Something GI, as usual. Maddeningly, he JUST SAW the GI specialist, who thought everything was fine.

*   We got the baby turkeys (I went in early today so I could pick them up after work), and five minutes after I brought them home the heater for the tank died. I made an emergent Southern States run (that cost us the last fifteen bucks in the account) for a heat lamp, and so far they look mostly-dead. Or maybe that's just how baby turkeys look? I dunno, they're either sleeping a lot or in the early stages of death, which is apparently normal for turkey poults up to six months of age. Sigh. 

*   Maybe the steroids are making me depressed? I thought they were supposed to be like uppers. Or maybe it's just my life. Either way, this kinda blows. And it's 6:30. And no one has started dinner. Guess I'm it. 

what would YOU do? (click through to vote in embedded poll)

   Okay, friends, I have a dilemma and I'm not sure what to do here, so I thought I'd just take a poll. Here's the deal:

   As y'all know, I had a freak dental accident on the way to a job interview about a week ago. This happened once before, about a year ago (I can't find it in my archives to save my life, but oh well) with the same (fake) tooth, and my dentist was able to glue it back together with some kind of dental-grade superglue. That cost about sixty bucks and was well worth it.

   Currently, thanks to a friend bailing us out in a big (at least to me!) way, I have enough in the bank to get my antidepressants refilled and have my dentist fix the tooth again (assuming it's the same fix for the same kind of money), BUT I don't know how we're going to cover rent and health insurance and prescription drugs next month (not to mention food) so I don't know if it's very smart to lay out the money for something as non-life-threatening as this tooth. It's a pain, yes (literally in that the exposed stump of the original tooth is very sensitive and figuratively in that I have to keep my mouthguard in 24/7 to prevent further damage plus OMG MY TOOTH GAHHHH), but it's not going to kill me. To further complicate things, I have a one-hour freelance-y gig in my professional field on Thursday that fell into my lap out of the blue and nothing says "dumb, unprofessional white trash" like a partially-missing front tooth (the freelance-y gig will not pay enough to cover the repair; it's worth slightly less than half, but I'm not turning down ANY work right now, for obvious reasons).

   So I'm debating whether to lay out the $60 that I don't really have on this tooth in order to not look like a damned hick on Thursday (and end the discomfort, not to mention that Things Dental skeeve me out to no end so this is pretty demoralizing, and also I can't properly kiss my husband or do anything ELSE to him involving my mouth while this thing is like this) and worry about the rest of it later or just suck it up, try not to smile on Thursday, and see whether we survive the month of April before I worry about my stupid tooth.

   Here, for reference purposes, is what the damage actually looks like:

Figure One: I know, probably not as bad as you were picturing, but this makes me very unhappy.

skip this one if you don't want to come to my pity party

   I keep trying not to write about this, because nobody likes a whiner, but it's not going away. It being the question of what the hell we're going to do about the month of April.

   I sort of mentioned this a little while ago; the orginal three Bad Things. One I already told y'all about. The second I wrote about on Hopeful Parents. The third has to do with Hotter's side of the ledger and isn't mine to talk about, but it reduced our income by somewhere between things the first and second and, well, crap. I mean, any ONE of these things would have been bad, but we could have tightened our belts and been okay. Any two of them would have been pretty effing alarming but ultimately surmountable. All three though, not so much, and then...well, then came thing the fourth. Which I don't mind telling you has to do with my bastardous exhusband (who owes me a LOT of money, like we're talking the upper four figures, from marital assets he seized and liquidated in the early days of our separation and then got an extension on paying off in the finalization of our divorce) declaring bankruptcy. Domestic obligations (which this debt evidently falls under) are "protected debt," and when I spoke to the XY's bankruptcy attorney she told me I'd still get the money, just not on the schedule in the court order. The XY has since informed me that he just refuses to pay it on the schedule his attorney promised, and yes, this is enforceable BUT ONLY IF I take him to court, which I can't afford (the way our case is set up, I have to have an attorney file things for me; I can't just go as a citizen and file a damned thing on my own). So uh...yeah. Kiss THAT goodbye.

   I am at a loss here. Hotter's disability and the child support will cover rent, electricity, and either my health insurance, my prescription drugs, OR groceries, but not more than one of those three things. If I don't have the prescriptions, my health will go downhill rapidly. If I don't have the insurance, I can't afford the prescriptions. And food...well, obviously that's non-negotiable as well. I've been working odd jobs, and am scheduled to work for twelve hours tomorrow, which is awesome. The second place I'll be getting odd jobs from doesn't have anything until April fifteenth, which isn't going to help us survive the first part of the month. The freelance-y thing petered out, although I've put out more feelers. And finally, while I've applied to every single job I am even REMOTELY qualified for in the local "help wanteds" and online via various jobsearch sites, I keep either getting form rejections right off the bat or interviews that end in my being told I'm overqualified based on my education.

   That is really demoralizing.

   Morale aside, though, we've passed the point where if I got a job RIGHTNOW the first paycheck would come in time to save our arses in the first part of April. We've downsized everywhere we can, saved money every way we can think of (ordering from Angel Food Ministries, etc.)...hell, the last time Hotter and I ate out it was because I won a Burger King gift card from this blog-giveaway thingy. We don't see movies in the theater, we don't have cable, my kids don't participate in any extra-curricular activities...this is all fine with me, it just peeves me that it's not enough to be REALLY REALLY frugal and apply for every job in the classifieds.

   I don't mind living very simply, but I do mind what this situation is turning me into. I hate that I cringe when my kids come home excited about a new field trip their class is going on and am jealous of people who are eligible for unemployment. I'm becoming a bitter freaking downer; a friend posted something about this family who were living on unemployment and fighting to keep their home on Facebook and mentioned that she'd gotten their mailing information if anyone else wanted to help out a couple of weeks ago, and I said something bitter about not being particularly moved because these people were better off than my family, then erased it because nobody wants to see that, but at the same time, in the past month I have had my car insurance canceled, my innernet shut off (which made me late in getting a sponsored post up and threw me into an utter panic because for most of the jobs I've applied for I put e-mail as my preferred method of contact), I'm driving around in a car with one headlight, and I'm typing this on a laptop that'll die if the cord comes unplugged because the battery is dead. Currently we're making do without a working vacuum cleaner because SOMEthing happened to the power cord and I can't afford a roll of electric tape and a utility knife. It's hard not to talk about something that colors your life to this extent. Today my kids had a "Jammies for Japan" event at their school where they got to wear pajamas if they brought in at least a dollar for the Red Cross. I sent them each in with a dollar, and I am proud to say that they all emptied their piggy banks as well; I'm not proud to say that I begrudged the victims of the Japan disaster that three dollars out of my wallet (which represented thirty percent of what we have to get to the end of the month) and inwardly cursed because I'd been planning to raid those piggy-banks for milk money next week.

   I'm not telling y'all this for any reason other than I am tired of dancing around it. Please don't feel like I'm asking you to get involved in any way, because I'm not. It's just what's on my mind right now. I'm going to go on down to the local Social Services office on Monday and see if there's anything they can do, and hopefully they can help because my kids are starting to worry and I'm out of other ideas. If y'all have any ideas for ways to get work that I might not have thought of already, I'm all ears. I know that this too shall pass (slow and painful, like a kidney stone); I should have a lot more work starting next month as wedding and graduation celebrations ramp up and our garden will start to yield some produce. I'm just not sure how we'll get from here to there.

 

P.S. I'm sticking comments back on moderation for a bit (yeah, I took them off again earlier today before I decided to write this post) because if Stalky wants to carry on about how this is all my fault and richly deserved, she has Twitter for that. I'm sorry, I know that's annoying. I DID turn off word verification, though. You're welcome!

highlights and lowlights

*   This morning, on the way to my job interview, my front (fake, dead, root-canaled all to HELL and back) tooth kind of exploded. I don't know if I was gritting my teeth in traffic (doubtful; usually I clench in my sleep and so I wear a mouthguard for that but I have been under a wee smidge more than usual of stress) or whether, as one of y'all suggested on the Twitter, someone (or several someones?) has an MFA Mama voodoo doll or...well who knows. I don't guess in matters. It sucks.

*   I felt like a total jerk for having a hissy fit in my minivan over my stupid tooth (thank you to those of you who offered sympathy on the Twitter, by the way) when I arrived at my interview and found that the lady interviewing me had apparently been burned over most of her body at some point in time; every visible inch of her was scarred. She was awesome though; we chatted for quite a while over this and that and laughed a lot and I got the job. First paid gig for THIS employer will be Tax Day. Boo to nothing sooner! Also, I have to locate a tuxedo shirt (a white button-down will not do) that will fit across my tits, preferably for less than I'll make my first night working. Ideas?

*   I worked at the Hippie Food Coop for a bit today since they are located within three miles of the place where I had the job interview, and that was a lot of fun. I did two signs for them (one in dry-erase markers, one in liquid chalk), with some silly little drawings folks there seemed to think were a hoot. Yay! I'm always in a better mood for having spent some time at the Hippie Food Coop, and I returned home with some cosmetically-challenged organic potatoes, spaghetti and butternut squashes, turnips, and apples.

*   I made cheesy garlic-mashed potatoes and turnips, enough to have twice, and froze half. I also made an apple pie and have enough cut, sugared, and spiced apples for another in a Mason jar in the fridge, because today was VERY humid and horrid weather to roll pie crust in.

*   DUCKLINGS!

*   So tired...I feel like there's more I should be telling y'all, but...meh. Good night :)