Friday, November 27, 2009

The basics

I realize that holidays are meant to be spent with family, that we all gather together and do the 'haven't seen you since last Thanksgiving' stuff. I've never been into that, and I tried for many years. Now that we live in Texas and really don't have the 'spare cash' to fly to California every year we don't have to do it anymore. I know the hubby probably regrets this (he's more of a warm fuzzy than me but he knew that long before he married me) but I am very happy to stay at home with just the 3 of us. I don't have to get up early, worry about traffic, worry about getting up to north San Diego by 2pm, eat, visit, and back into San Diego proper by 4pm to rinse and repeat with the in laws.

No, I stay at home, roll out of bed near noon, walk the dog for as long as I want. Get in the shower sometime around 1-ish, get dressed in something vaguely resembling pj's and let the hair air dry. No make up, no pretty clothes and the dog is happily sleeping on the couch. Where, you know, they aren't allowed in our house. At the 2:30 point I was ready to start cooking. Something. Yeah it occurred to me that some wives slave over their stove starting the night before only to wake at something at 5 am to start the day. Oh hells no, I am much more of a slackin' kinda wife and mother. My poor family.

No worries though, I started the turkey first and then managed to have the hubby peel me the potatoes (what, you think I was going to do the hard stuff myself? NOT) and got them done and mashed. Turkey was done at 5:30, green beans and stuffing went into the over then for 30 minutes. Gravy was heated and dinner was served at 6pm. How perfect was that?

When we sat for dinner I realized also that I make an insanely basic turkey day dinner. I've tried the fancy things before, roasted asparagus (which I love but in this house I'm the only one), a multitude of interesting and different sweet potato/yam and scalloped potato recipes, variations of desserts, but really none of them do it for us. We just like the basic mix, not even my mashed potatoes have anything creative in them. Our dessert is just pecan pie, the hubby doesn't do the pumpkin stuff. I even got whipping cream to whip and put on the pecan pie but no, he doesn't do that either.

So what am I thankful for this year? A nice simple holiday with no rush and everything done in a timely manner even with a slakin momma that holds nothing more precious than sleeping in. Hey, a woman has to have her priorities and sleep is mine.

Hope your day was pleasurable and drama free!

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Daily Corb


Consider yourselves Corbinated. The hunny B ran out of some crucial coffee components this morning so he had to go to Starbucks. I told him to put the doggie booster seat in the car and take Corbin with him to the drive thru. Corb was pleased as punch as you can tell. Poor guy tends to get mega car sick so he doesn't ride much. He managed to hold on to his cookies until they were puling into the driveway. Ah well, at least he enjoyed the ride! Just look at that dog's head, I swear it's like a bowling ball attached to an anvil.

Happy Turkey day!

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Parenthood shaves years off one's life

I went for a long walk with the dog last night. Turns out I took the easy job last night. When I got back to the house the hubby was sitting on the couch, looking confused and cross. Yes I used to word cross to describe the look in the hubby's face, if you knew him personally you'd totally get that and know the look of which I speak. He looked at me and said "I just gave myself a headache.". Not a good sign. I then asked him what she did. See now here is where I assume that my girl child set my hunny B off the deep end. Seriously folks, the only things that can make him get so upset that he flies off the deep end and gives himself a headache is either his lovely wife and his adorable daughter and I was out on a walk and I hadn't done anything in absentia that I could remember. We give him all his gray hair and all of his ulcers, his heart burn, lost sleep hours, and many a year shaved off his life. It's what we do and we're very good at it. So I waited patiently for an explanation. The last time he freaked out on the kid she had played on one of the dining room chairs one too many times and it slipped out from under her and she almost cracked her head open on the tile floor. It was not pretty. That was the one and only time I saw him lose it. Until last night.

So he goes on to explain what the kid did. He was blow drying her hair after her shower and she had some bobby pins connected on the counter top. She decided to play that they were keys and she was going to use the electrical outlet as the key hole. Oh yeah, watch the daddy flip out all friggin over the place. It must have been like 0-100 mph in negative 1 second. He yelled, lectured, ranted, smacked the backside of her head and basically broke all his rules about how to not flip out on his kid. It happens, welcome to parenthood right?

Going off the deep end at the kid tends to upset him more than anything else out there. Very much the 'This is going to hurt you more than it hurts me' thing even though it never involves a spanking, just a stern talking to. Of course, me being the usual enforcer in the family, I ask 'Did you make her cry?'. In my book it doesn't count until he makes her cry. He so much less strict with her than me that when he does lay down the law I figure it'd best count. Apparently he finally got to a point during his monologue (yes, he monologues to the kid, that's why she doesn't take him as seriously) he grabbed the bobby pins, shoves them in her hand and drags her back to the outlet and tells her to try it, and then she can see what happens. Scared her a bit at this point. Please note, I did ask him if he let her do it initially. I am from the school of hard knocks. Learning the hard way the first time sometimes works.

Also, he did mention that playing with electrical outlets is something he did a few times as a child and it hurt like hell. My response? A few times? Like it didn't take just once to figure out that it wasn't a good idea? Apparently not. You know what I told him then? That he should call his mother and apologize for all those stunts that he did as a child. And you know what, he went straight to the phone and did just that. Specifically he said sorry to her for all the times he made her heart stop as a child. She accepted the apology and told him not to worry, he didn't do it nearly as many times as his brother did. She obviously didn't catch him nearly as many times as he actually put his life in danger.

The hubby then sat down and proclaimed that, get this, he wouldn't survive having a son. I totally agree, he wouldn't. I think we should have a son so I can have a child with me when I send the hubby and daughter away for her teen years. What ya think? Good plan?

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Tis the season, can you feel it?

Not that this is going to be a surprise to any person out there who knows me but I detest the holiday season. As far as I'm concerned Halloween is the end all be all. The alpha and the omega. It's got some religious aspects but really smacks as too pagan for the bible thumpers to latch on to. It's got both young and old appeal and it doesn't matter what day of the week it falls upon, it just rocks. The rest of the holidays can blow for all I care. Dude, Columbus didn't discover America. We all know this, it was already inhabited by people when Lief Ericsson got here, that means Columbus was late for the show. So why do we give kids the day off for Columbus Day? That's just one of the many soap boxes that, surprisingly, no one seems to want to know me off of.

Easter is silly, really, zombie Jesus and a chocolate bunny? PLEASE don't get me started. I'm cool with things such as Memorial Day even though people just can not seem to differentiate it from Labor Day. 4 months different and celebrating 2 entirely different things. I mean come on peeps,one is in rememberance of those who served and the other is for people who worked. Why is that so confusing? Yeah yeah I know, it's just another day off. Why do we even bother with naming some of these holidays? 4th of July I'm on board with, I'm a closet revolutionary. Our founding fathers kicked ass.

Now this time of year we have Thanksgiving (where the Indians naively helped the white man survive only to suffer eventual genocide by their hand) and Christmas. Now Thanksgiving has still not fallen by my bad graces. This is surprising seeing as how it used to be a time of hell where, in San Diego, we'd have to drive 1+ hours north to have dinner at 2 pm with my family then hop in the car, drive back and spend the rest of the night at the hubby's aunt's house and do the same dinner all over again. Then in 2007 I woke up to make the dinner here for my little family only to have an aneurysm/stroke/emergency brain surgery. See, you'd think I wouldn't like this holiday huh? Oddly I don't have a problem with turkey day. I think it's because I like making the food so much. Yes, I make the whole dinner. Myself. And it's so dang easy I still don't understand why people make such a to do about it. It's just a big chicken and as long as I do the bag thing it's a no brainer. I've tied brining and I don't like it at all. Too salty and you lose the taste of the turkey proper. With the bag it's moist, tender, and tasty. I've even been known to make cranberry sauce. Way easy and a waste of my time since the kid loves the canned stuff so much that she'll eat the whole can if I let her. Who knew?

As a side note, this holiday no longer means we have to torture ourselves with family. My mother (the only local blood we have) now knows better than to bother us. We are still on speaking terms but it's not like she buys us Christmas presents so no, we do not share holidays. It's a long story you don't want to hear. She's not worth the blog space, trust me.

Now speaking of Christmas now here's where you're going to get an earful. And you thought you already had, pulease! I can't remember back to when I liked this holiday. I'm sure I did at one point but it must have been pretty damn early on since I remember being 5 and totally disappointed (with my mom, again, not worth the effort explaining). In our household we go with the Santa farce as long as we possibly can. This past summer when the kid went to her grandmother's in San Diego (my mil) for 3 months she lost at least 1 tooth. Here we put fairy dust (craft glitter, multicolored) in with her $1. Out there, apparently, her grandmother put cinnamon in with it. I'm not sure what made the kid ask about the validity of the Tooth Fairy but cinnamon? I myself would have called BS on that. To this day the kid recalls that story with no small amount of verbal disdain. Actually it's terribly amusing but needless to say she now knows there is no tooth fairy. She did ask about Santa at the time and we skirted the subject. Mainly, I think, because she still wants to believe and we're going with that. Does she think her parents are Santa? Probably. But we won't push the subject. She wrote her letter to Santa today and it was glaringly simple. She expects the purple iPod from us. All she put on her Santa list was Chixos (fair warning, that website has sound). That request tells me she already knows. Seriously, momma didn't rise a dummy.

Still the expectations that come with Christmas are terrible. The more kids you have the more insane it is. Not to mention all the other people one would like to buy presents for. I think, even if I did have tons of money to blow in the month of December, I would still find the holiday miserable. The traffic alone kills me. Everyone running around, stressed as all get out. Needing to get to this store or that for what not that is in stock or on sale or (lord forbid) both but only for a limited time only. GAH! The holiday parties to get to, the gifts you have to bring to said parties. Oh and the holiday things for the kids in school! Make sure not to forget the cookies to bring, the batteries in the camera/camcorder are fresh and there's a new tape in the camcorder. Care to add to the list? Have I only touched the tip of the iceberg? And good grief what if you're traveling? We moved out of state from the relatives for a reason. Do you envy us yet?

This year I am only buying presents for my child, my husband, my father, and my mother in law. As of today (Nov 15th?) I only have to pick up the thing I want to get the mil (measuring cups that match her kitchen beautifully) and some stuff for the hubby. He'll give me some sort of list and he'll get dvd's. I'll return the favor in turn. It's what we do and it works. The only adventure I'll do this year is the same one I do every year. I make my Christmas cards. And I mail them out on time. They are different every year and always lovely (or why bother right?). If you want one feel free to email me your address. The card making is a labor of love and I'll make one for anyone who wants a little hand made love this season. Seriously, it's the only think I like about Christmas. The year I had my aneurysm I managed to get out of rehab the first week of December and still made them and sent them out on time that year. Ya'll have no excuses about getting cards out on time!


If you notice the holidays I like (Halloween) and choose to enjoy/celebrate are ones I don't HAVE to spend with extended family. It tends to ruin ones day off. The hubby has tried to break me of this hang up. Sadly, taking me to all of his family's multitude of celebrations (I swear they'd celebrate Canada's Thanksgiving if they had an excuse to) has made me more stalwart in my beliefs. I think he married the wrong woman but telling him that before we got married didn't seem to work. Maybe someday I can fake my death and he can hire a stand in wife for future holidays with his family. Wouldn't that be fun? Tell me that you wouldn't love to do something like that to avoid in laws. Go ahead, lie to me, I find it entertaining.

Bah humbug, happy holidays and may none of ya'll suffer a stroke this season!

Friday, November 13, 2009

Metallurgy and allergies

This is one of those posts that probably could be classified as random blatherings but I've already used that title. I think. Well I've given you enough random blatherings that I might as well have. I'm at home sick today (no, I don't have the flu I have the hubby's bad cold) and am now bored senseless and am avoiding starting dinner. Which, btw, is going to be an artichoke heart and some sort of salted ham like meat with cheese quiche. See now you know why I'm ass dragging about getting off the couch and cook.

So I got this belly button ring a few weeks back right? And ya'll know that I'm allergic to metal? Yeah I didn't start out that way but had about 7 earring holes in jr high/high school and after awhile they were less than happy. By like the time I was 15 those holes were seriously irritated. First people told me I must be allergic to the nickle in the silver so I switched to gold. That didn't work so then I tried white gold. Then platinum, no go. After that I stopped bothering with them at all. In my first year of college I got a nose ring. I loved that nose ring, it was way cool and my button nose looked very cute with a gold ring in it. It lasted maybe 3 months, after that it was a mess. I had to take it out too, very disappointing.

This was back in the day before piercings were very popular and there were not a lot of different metals available to use in them. Please note, I don't like most piercings at all. Facial piercings especially, most hated being that cow nose ring. You know which one I'm talking about? Yeah it looks stupid. Even the side one (that I loved so much) looks bad on most white women. Sorry, it's true. Those big tall noses were not built for jewelry, why attract attention to that? Don't even talk to me about eyebrow and random in the middle of the face piercings, ew. Earring piercings are just dull, plus when my hair is long (like now) they get caught in it and it's annoying. Bet you guys never really bothered to think so much on piercings huh? Don't get me started on tattoos either, if I could tolerate the pain I'd have full sleeves. Seriously.

So now, what almost 20 years later, there are options for those of us wanting piercings with metal allergies. I opted for the only thing in the piercing shop that I most probably wouldn't react to, titanium. They had only 1, it was blue. I'm not all that into blue but as long as I didn't react to it I didn't care what color it was. Plus I could change it after 6-8 weeks. So the on line hunt for a new piece of jewelry began. Ah shopping on line, I love the options...

I found that there was something called bioplast that is basically a biologically compatible plastic like material that can be sterilized. It is flexible and is supposed to help heal the piercing faster. It's not metal so I was game. I couldn't find one that had titanium ball ends though, only bioplast and surgical steel. OK I was game but just in case I also ordered a titanium one just like the one I had but it was silver in color, not blue. Good thing too because I waited the required time and changed it to the bioplast and surgical steel one. After 10 days the skin was pissed. Not infected but definitely not healing either. It was red, inflamed and didn't let me turn without pain. Yeah, not so much. I don't like pain, it's not my thing. If it was I'd have more tattoos right?

So I made the switch to the full titanium silver colored one. The skin was happy within 30 minutes. Boy let me tell ya when I say that I'm allergic to metal I am so not kidding. Surgical steel? Man that's not good. I made sure to tell the hubby that if I'm in an accident of some sort and they need to cut me open again that he needs to remember these little allergies. Antibiotics (there's actually a list which includes all of the most oft used), latex (yeah, that means most condoms too, hence the child I have), most metals (yes, I've tried platinum too), and that really makes me high maintenance patient in a hospital right? Filling out the paperwork takes awhile. I used to have a medical bracelet but you know those things are metal right? See the problem? Yeah, reduncuous isn't it?

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

On that note....

So that you know that just because you got vaccinated doesn't mean you can't catch something else, the hubby is sick as a dog right now. No fever, chills, or body aches so we're pretty sure he doesn't have the flu. The doctor agrees. Why did he see the doctor? Well he txt me around 11 am to let me know he thought he may have a sinus infection. 5 minutes later I was on the phone making an appointment at our doctor's office to be seen. At 4:45. I love offices that can get you an appointment same day, it really helps in times like these.

So the verdict is sinusitis and bronchitis. Lucky boy got a steroid shot prescriptions for Robutusson with codine, prednisone, and amoxicilin. Fabulous no? I'm thinking his system is just blown from the Hepatitis B vaccine (1st week in October), regular flu vaccine (2nd week), and H1N1 (4th week). So by the time this cold virus was introduced to his system he didn't have any white blood cells left and said fuck it, have at the system. Really, can you blame it?

So now the poor man is suffering valiantly through it, doing very well too might I add. Men are normally known for tolerating illnesses very badly but he's trudging right through it. I suspect the drugs and the next 2 days off (work told him to go home and stay there) will help him tons. I am getting him all of his favorite foods to eat when sick because I know when I have a cold I eat less. I don't think that helps me to get better and I need him better. He does all the dishes and the laundry and I don't want to be doing those things myself ya know? Yeah, priorities, I have them.

Monday, November 9, 2009

Flu vaccines, are you a believer?

I'm not big on vaccines in general. I don't get them every year for my dogs, the kid is the only one we keep up to date and she has to be on a modified schedule because she had a reaction. Not a bad reaction but full body hives tend to freak a parent out and so we no longer give her the 5 in 1 shot. I don't believe the body has a good response to vaccines when inundated with that many all at once anyway but she still gets her vaccines. I'm not that much of a hippie ya know. I don't think we need to get measles mumps or rubella running rampant across the nation anymore than the next person. The dogs? Please, they have had so many vaccines in their life they have the antibody. I just get them rabies because rabies is required by law.

I know the vaccine debate amongst parents is a fiasco and lets face it, extremists on either end are just extremists, doesn't make much sense to me once you go that far off the deep end. The flu vaccine is a whole different animal of debate though so once you add the piggy pandemic well, lets face it, there will be a debate.

We (as in my little family of 3) had the flu vaccine before. Once. And only because we have a neighbor that happens to be an MD and he brought home 3 nasal vaccines for us. Yes he's a doctor and he believes in the flu vaccine. We don't get sick often, the kid has the occasional sniffles but she's in elementary school. I think there's a law somewhere stating that they must be in a perpetual state of sniffles between the grades of kinder through 5th. The hubby is asthmatic and while he should have a some sort of immuno-compromise because of it he doesn't seem to do so bad. Me, I am randomly sick but really not that often and not normally bad either.

This year we made the decision to all get the flu shot. And the H1N1 shot. Oh yeah, we were going for gold this year. Wanna know something too? We lived through it. Wanna know something else? We found the H1N1 shot available. Apparently there's been a problem with that. CNN had an article about a clinic in Sunnyvale CA that had lines that wrapped around the building. Mind you there were only 1000 shots available and the line had thousands of people in it. Yeah, plural. I don't know if the country really understood how serious people were going to take this pandemic thing. Too bad they don't have much vaccine available. I know we had it here at our clinic and the CPA's daughter drove down from Austin to get it here since she couldn't find it in Austin. You know, our state capitol. Makes sense huh? Panic the people and then make the solution unattainable? Gotta love the US gov.

Now might I mention that when we got our first round of the H1N1 at work it was only like 100 doses. The priority for these vaccines read something like younger than 5 yrs, older than 65 yrs, pregnant women, and health care workers. I'm pretty sure they sent that first round so that the health care workers (you know, us) could get it before all the sick people came in and we spread it along our other clients. Makes sense? Yeah unfortunately our clinic is ass backwards and they said that the vaccines are only for our patients. Which you know, they need but really, there's a reason that health care workers are at the top of the list. We already had 1 provider get it and who knows how many she infected because she worked right on through it. BTW, I hate people that do that. If you're sick get the hell out. I don't want your disease. Novel huh?

So did I get my H1N1 vaccine from my work? No of course not. I had to bail sometime in the middle of the day when I found it at an urgent care clinic half way across town. Fortunately they also had the nasal version so I pulled my kid out of school and got it for her too. See the logic there? Don't vaccinate your workers, they get sick, or they have to take time off to get the vaccine somewhere else. The morons in charge here, I swear.

We did get a second round of H1N1 in though and the hubby came in and got it too. Of course he managed to get a sore throat 3 days later, maybe a mild form of the flu. The vaccine is not an end all be all. I haven't had any issues with it and the kid hasn't either. Both the hubby and I got the injectible version and that is a killed virus. The kid got the live nasal and she is good too. Of course she's younger than 9 so she needs to get a booster in 4 weeks. Do you think they will have a dose available in 4 weeks? Who knows. I'm not sure the booster is all that big of a deal anyway so if she doesn't get it I won't fall apart. Unlike some parents will I'm sure. If they remember....

So how about ya'll? Neurotic about flu vaccines? Pro or con? Are they from the devil? Conspiracy theory anyone? Did you already get it? Were you able to even find the H1N1? FYI, the real reason that I made the whole family get both the regular and H1N1 vaccines is because we are trying to get pregnant and I do not want to get the flu in my house if I get pregnant. That would just make me all kinds of nervous and you're only paranoid if they're not out to get you.

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Doc had a meme

And because I'm a sucker for them (and have yet to post this season it seems) you get a meme today. How's that for original! Yeah ok, not so much, such is life.


1. What was your favorite subject in high school? I was a geek, I liked a lot of subjects but I had one fabulous European History teacher that was all that and then some. Funny, my most hated course was adv chemistry. And now I LOVE my work as an analytical chemist. I should go back and apologize to my teacher.

2. Do you watch reality shows? Which ones? Nope, they're stupid

3. What’s your favorite all time reality show? OK I watched them way back in the day when MTV played videos and they had one that was funny. Real World? I forget what it was called but they put a bunch of odd balls in the same house together and taped how well they didn't get along. I was young and easy to please I suppose.

4. Do you feel “reality” shows are real or are they faked? Who cares, they suck.

5. What did you look like when you were a teenager? I was a goth for most of it, seriously.

6. Whose advice do you listen to? My own and on rare occasion the hubby's. Oh and also one of my bosses at work, Joseph is a hoot but he's trustworthy.

7. How often are you sick? Maybe 2-3 times a year

8. Do you like or dislike change? I don't mind change at all. I can get set in my ways and that's a bad thing.

9. How many times in your life have you had a broken heart? Only once but I got him back 10 years later. He's a good sport though, does all the dishes and the laundry and takes care of the kid. See? Revenge best served cold....