shoesonwrong

Day Nine: Happy Birthday, Mom

For some reason, I always end up on an impromptu road trip with my mother on her birthday. This time, she roped me into looking for real estate with her in North Carolina and Tennessee.

I don't want to paint an entire region with too broad of a brush here, but today I saw three toilets sitting outside of house trailers, which is three more toilets than I have ever seen sitting outside of any type of housing prior to this point in my life. One of these toilets was sitting outside a double wide trailer that was several hundred feet from a hundred thousand dollar piece of property and a two-hundred and fifty thousand dollar home. This might be the WASP in me talking, but I just don't want to look out the window of my quarter million dollar home and see a commode.

In all fairness, the area in general is quite pretty and most of the houses don't have outdoor porcelain thrones. I fear, though, that it's all lost on me. My mother keeps asking me whether I thought property A was better than property B or did I happen to think property C was prettier? And I general reply with, Well, they all have trees. And I like how the sky is up above and the ground is down below. And there's no toilets on any of them. Can we just decide and go take a nap at the hotel, please?

Day Eight: Y'all, It Turns Out Cincinnati Does NOT Look Like New York

Captain's log: missed posting yesterday, but will make it up. Have been in car with mother for six hour and not resorted to cannibalism. Despite sleeping in a hatchback like a transient and the prospect of not being able to shower for another twenty four hours, my spirits remain high.

Day Six: I Will Not Be Going To Dollywood

On Saturday, I am embarking on a road trip with my mother to Tennessee to go real estate hunting. Well, technically, she's real estate hunting and I'm just going along for the ride because I haven't seen a blade of grass or leaf of tree in months. Also because going anywhere with my mother is hilarious. While extolling the virtues of the upcoming road trip, she excitedly told me how much she loves driving through Cinncinnati at nighttime because it looks just like New York City.

I don't ever have to make up things that my mother says because they're gems of absurdity all on their own.

Day Five: My Favorite Five Jokes

I am kind of popular on Twitter. Because I'm under the weather today and because, let's face it, I laugh loudest at my own jokes, here are my five favorite jokes I've made on Twitter.

1. I had to act out "NPR" in charades the other day. So I pretended to listen to the radio, fall asleep, and drive off the road. #
2. For me, the real sign that Cap'n Crunch isn't an official maritime officer is that his eyebrows are on his hat. #
3. I just got a random gift of enormous, ugly candlesticks. Great, now I can kill Colonel Mustard in the conservatory. #
4. Sometimes, when I feel sad, I just stop feeding the cats until one or both of them pretends to like me for awhile. #
5. If you think threatening to pull down your pants in a store in order to get your way is something kids outgrow, I just proved you wrong. #

Day Four: The Vote Has Been Baracked

On the way to vote this morning, I was sexually harassed by this guy:

I was waiting for the People Mover to come (we took the People Mover because I'm still all puny and infected from my (marginally better) ear) and I was photographing downtown while I waited. This dude was in front of the library and kept grabbing his crotch, thrusting at me, and then doing that "I'm watching you" gesture. He was also wearing a tie, which somehow made it worse. Like, you took the time to do a Windsor knot and now you're making vulgar gestures at me? Seriously?

After that, though, the voting process went very smooth and no one else thrust their penis towards me. We arrived at the church where we were voting and they said it would be an hour's wait at the most (it was more like thirty minutes), and then we sat in the pews of a beautiful church while a woman played old show tunes on the piano and someone else kept offering us coffee or a roast beef sandwich.

Our actual voting booths were wobbly and we had to go old school and bubble in the circles with old bic pens. Everyone was really happy to be there, though, and all the people staffing the voting station were super helpful. A middle aged woman walked me through how to fill out the ballot (I haven't voted before and was worried about doing it wrong.) and then an elderly man showed me how to feed my ballot into the machine. Then he gave me two stickers and called me "Honey-Chile."

Right now, of course, Detroit is freaking out. It's even louder than when the Wings won the cup -- which is saying a lot. It all seems good-natured but it's wild enough that my window panes rattled at one point.

I think this will be one of my favorite memories of living in Detroit.

Day Three: These Painkillers Have Reduced My Urge To Scratch My Ear Off My Head

Well, I sucked it up and went to the doctor today because my ear was nearly swelled shut this morning. The doctor was a fresh-faced young man who was so adorable he had to have bunny rabbit somewhere in his lineage. He took a look at me and said, "You don't look very good." When I explained the ear problem, he said that he would be gentle examining it, then pointed to his doctor's coat that said he was both a general medicine doctor as well as a pediatrician as proof that he could perform ouchie-less exams. Letting me know he was a pediatrician was a big mistake, however, because I refused to let the exam proceed until I received a lollipop. (At first he thought I was kidding.) After a very thorough examination, he promptly said, "It's just as I thought. You have an earache." I was less than amused because I still didn't have my lollipop.

He sent me home with super strong antibiotics and painkillers as well as instructions to call back no later than Thursday morning if I have ANY ear pain left. I very nearly cried with relief and booped him on his bunny nose because I was so happy to have a doctor spend more than a cursory five minutes with me.

Ryan has the day off tomorrow because even though he works for a software company, he is currently contracted out to one of The Big Three, and apparently they have a long-standing history of giving employees election day off. (The UAW wants to make sure their guys and gals get out there and vote blue, I suppose.)

"Once again, Unkle Wicket wants to remind you to vote and mebbe pick him up some canned food on the way home because he hardly ever gets that stuff."

Day Two: At Least I Remembered To Post Before 11:55

That ear infection I was treated for a few weeks back has returned. Well, it never went away, actually, it just lessened. I've been trying to do some home remedies for an ear infection to avoid going back to the doctor because I'm already being crushed under a mountain of medical bills as it is. I think I'm going to have to suck it up and go back because I'm running a fever, can't even touch my ear because it hurts so badly, and as of today my hearing is muffled.

The only thing in my house that will knock the pain out is the few Tylenol-3 I have left in my medicine cabinet, and as a result, I am hoarding them and counting them repeatedly like a junkie. Oh, and I'm snorting them like a junkie, too. And considering prostitution.

(Note, I wrote and attempted to post this at 11:25, but TypePad freaked out and wouldn't do it but whatever I'm still timestamping it at 11:25.)

I am doing NaBloPoMo again this year. Gird your loins.

Almost forgot to post today, though, so I'm off to a smashing good start. Who posts on the weekends? I do exciting things on the weekends, like play video games and sleep in.

It's Better Than Voting At Crack Cocaine HQ, I guess

This medication is knocking me pretty flat, currently. Every time I start to get used to the dosage, the dosage gets upped (the plan is to build to 3600mg/day, and I started at 300mg) and then I feel tired and a little unsteady all over again. Apparently the side effects will diminish once I stabilize my dose (and that seems to be the case so far), but until then I'm sleepy and a little clumsy.

Then there is the overall loopiness. Once, Ryan called me and I forgot to say hello -- I just answered the phone and sat there breathing, like a midnight pervert caller. Eventually, of course, Ryan goes, "Hello?" and I responded with a slightly confused, "Yes?" But let's face it, the phone confuses me in the best of times.

All that aside, the election is less than a week away. To remind me of this, a postcard with the date and polling location. I was excited about voting until I saw where I would be voting.

Uh, due to unfortunate abbreviation, does it look to anyone else like I'm voting at Detroit's Meth Headquarters? Because I'm not comfortable with that. Not at all.

No matter who you vote for make sure you get out and vote! (On a personal note, Barack The Vote.) Even Wicket wants you to vote.

"Unkle Wicket wunts you to get out an vote, wutever that meens."

I'll Say It: I'm Disappointed In Him

Does anyone remember when my cat got all internet famous and uppity? First he was on cute overload, and then he was turned into a LOL cat. Frankly, I think he peaked then and stopped trying. It's all been downhill since. (Sort of like when you give your dad a #1 Dad mug and he just starts phoning it in from there on out.)

Well, I hate to think of how big his ego will get after he sees this:

Yep, that's Momo on an ad for Jones Soda (You might need to click on the picture to see a bigger version to really see him.). He came super close to making it onto the limited edition labels but at the last second he was cut. Oh well, at least I got a free case of Jones with him on the labels as a consolation prize. (I didn't give him anything. We don't encourage losers in this house. We plan on standing at our kids soccer games one day with signs that say "WIN OR DON'T COME HOME.")

See, look how he's already just coasting on his fame:

Based on current behavior, another side effect is eating pepperoni right from the bag

Monday, I went to a specialist who gave me a flu shot, signed me up for physical therapy, and got me started on a pill the size of my fist. When I swallow it, you can watch the lump as it slides down my throat. This drug is used to treat:

• epilepsy
• neuropathic pain (a chronic pain due to nerves misfiring constantly)
• chronic migraines
• bipolar disorder
• anxiety
• social anxiety
• obsessive-compulsive disorder
• pain associated with MS (multiple sclerosis, not Microsoft, but I can see how you would get confused)
• treatment of methamphetamine, cocaine, and alcohol addiction
• insomnia
• that annoying paint that is flaking off the roof of your car but nowhere else on your car*
• partially-inflated basketballs*
• the ebola virus*

*I assume, anyway.

I'm going to leave you to guess amongst yourselves about which of these conditions I'm being treated for. (Hint: There is no way I'm giving up my crystal meth, so it's not for addiction treatment.)

The possible side effects include drowsiness, dizziness, unsteadiness, weight gain, and constipation as well as swelling of the limbs. LUCKILY, my doctor also put me on a higher dose of a medication I'm already on to treat my diabetes, and the side effects of that are diarrhea and weight loss. So here's hoping some thing cancel themselves out and I'm just left exhausted, dizzy, and clumsy with big puffy limbs. Keep your fingers crossed for me because mine will have swelled to the size of sausages.

Frankly, so far, the worst part of the visit has been the flu shot. I have that nasty post-flu shot cold and I keep babying my arm where they put the needle in. Now, I am not one to prone to dramatics, so you know that when I grab my arm and keen loudly that it hurts so bad, and the needle was three feet long, I am telling the truth.

Topics not related to my crappy health.

The IMAX theater at the Henry Ford is offering tickets for five dollars until November sixth, so Ryan and I are seeing a lot of shows there. One day soon, I will be brave enough to see the dinosaur one (THEY HAVE SUCH BIG TEETH).

My vacuum cleaner smells like parmesan cheese when I turn it on. I haven't vacuumed up parmesan cheese in three years.

I'm nearing in on a decision regarding grad school. Stay tuned for further updates.

Oh Monsters, Why Did I Create You?

DEAR. LORD. Thank goodness we go to pick up Wicket later today because Momo? Has been driving me absolutely nuts. Sad crying all night. Constantly trying to sit on my shoulder like a parrot. And this morning, we started a new thing where he yells and screams at every closed door he finds until I come over and open it for him, allowing him to look in briefly and appease himself that Wicket isn't hiding in my bedroom (which the cats are closed off from becuase I don't want their disgusting litter mitter feet all over my bedding).

Other places that Wicket isn't hiding but Momo has checked:

• The refrigerator
• Under the bathroom sink
• The closet
• The other closet
• That kitchen cupboard next to the oven
• A large box of Q-Tips

Momo is too aflutter to even bother enjoying getting into places he's not allowed to normally go. The door opens, he races in and checks every corner, then he's back out again and looking for Wicket somewhere else. Why do I bother to open doors for my deranged cat, you ask? Because those three seconds of reprieve I get from him doing that cat-howl are worth it.

Balls!

TypePad ate my first version of this post, leaving me nearly apoplectic. IF I SINK ENTIRE MINUTES INTO POSTING ABOUT MY CAT'S NADS, I WANT IT TO SHOW UP.

Tomorrow, Wicket loses these:

I only post a picture of these testicles because they are, and I can say this with absolute certainty, the most troublesome testicles I have ever encountered. They are definitely the only testicles someone has ever threatened to sue me over.

To backtrack a bit: we got Wicket from the MHS (Michigan Humane Society). Part of the adoption agreement is that you will have the animal sterilized, usually within a certain amount of time (I can't remember what it is for sure, a couple months?). We signed the agreement with the full intention of getting him fixed soon. Our options were to let the MHS do it for free or our own vet to do it for super-cheap. (Truly. I have enough fingers and toes to count the number of dollars our vet charges to lop off the balls of a kitten.) After seeing how many animals are constantly shuffled through the MHS (a lot) and being treated badly by every single staff member we encountered, we decided to stick with our own vet, whom we adore.

The catch was that our vet wouldn't sterilize Wicket until he was six months old. I checked with the MHS to see if this was acceptable, and they grudgingly agreed it was. I got a letter once or twice asking if he was still fertile, and I called them both times to remind them of the plan -- both times they said it was okay. As far as I knew, everything was fine up until the time that we got a letter threatening to start legal action to remove Wicket from our care and take a bundle of money from us if he wasn't fixed yet. Luckily, his appointment to turn him into a eunuch was a week and a half away, and my vet (very kindly) offered to personally call the MHS and explain the situation to them. The MHS (again) grudgingly agreed and then huffed and puffed for awhile about checking back, oh they would be checking back -- they would check back like no one had ever checked back before, and by God, that kitten had better be ball-less.

Long story short: apparently, my cat's balls are a big deal.

(A serious sidenote: I would strongly reccommend avoiding the MHS, or at least the Rochester branch. They are hard to deal with, seem far more concerned with following rules and doing paperwork than caring for animals, and will hound you for donations until the day you die. Plus, when we adopted Wicket, we had to pay extra for several tests (including feline leukemia virus) to make sure he was healthy. That seems weird to me, that they didn't test for FeLV to begin with. The podunky little shelter we got Momo from tested for FeLV, vaccinated against it (including a whole host of other vaccinations), and cost far less to adopt from than the MHS.)

Still Alive?

I got two (2) emails that basically said, "Hey, are you dead yet?" It occurs me that after my last post that went something like, "THE PAIN THE UNBEARABLE PAIN MAKE IT END OR I WILL SHUFFLE OFF THIS MORTAL COIL," I went silent and hadn't blogged again. Instead of making good on my threat and offing myself, I just started reading a lot of books. I made it through six this week.

But anyway, yes, I am still numbered among the living. My brain didn't explode out of my ear, and I didn't accidentally do myself in with a makeshift ear-scratcher made from a coat hanger. I do appreciate, though, that two (2) people on the internet cared enough to inquire after my current state of livingness. I also appreciate all the advice left for me in the comments. It did help reduce the pressure; the raging infection had already set in of course, so it didn't do anything for that, but I am now armed with ways to stave off a future infection.

A note about Detroit: The city is doing its best to bring back the downtown area, and it's going pretty well. I go out at night with no qualms, there's a nice park with fountains downtown, etc. But there is zero useful shopping nearby. I'm swimming in wig shops but there's no grocery store for miles. Frankly, I've become rather attached to food and toilet paper, though, so we have to head to the suburbs to shop. Here's the thing: I hate suburbs. Haaaaaaaaaate with a passion that burns like that rash you got from that dirty frat boy one semester in college. There's too many cars all crammed in together, which is ironic given that at least 73% of any given suburb is a giant parking lot. There's too many Wal-Mart stores. EVERYTHING is a drive through (drive-thru). The suburbs are that wasteland I pass through when going from city to country and the place I grudgingly go to buy sustinence and butt paper.

The point of that suburban rant is this: could you remind me to buy the following

• Vacuum bags
• A new, mold-free shower curtain
• Toilet paper
• Scotch tape

Because we need that stuff, like, way bad.

I can't get no satisfaction

The pain has decreased from want-to-claw-my-face-off nine to want-to-claw-my-ear-off seven. I know it's only been two days, but normally antibiotics knock the pain out in 12-24 hours. Also, there is a lot of trapped fluid still sloshing around in my ear -- painfully sloshing trapped fluid. Would this still be happening if my eardrum had burst? Is it possible that my eardrum hasn't burst and I have fluid stuck in there that needs to be drained? How long will it take for the antibiotics to work? HELP ME INTERNETS.

See, my current doctor is a horrid, seemingly incompetent woman who doesn't listen. I'm in the process of finding a different doctor, but because I am partially deaf and falling all over the place because of my messed up equilibrium, I wasn't really in a great position to drive to a new doctor. So I just sucked it up and went to the crappy doctor within walking distance against my better judgment. Now, however, I am regretting that and am THISCLOSE to jamming a fork in my ear.

There's a reason I never experimented with illegal drugs

As a child, I got two or three ear infections every year. Once I hit eighteen, the infections slowed down to once a year -- normally just a mild case of swimmer's ear that would clear itself up after a few days. Every few years, though, I get an ear infection to end all ear infections. Two years ago, my ear was swelled so far shut that the doctor couldn't get his pointy little orifice-light into it. This year, my inner ear got infected, filled with liquid evil, and burst my eardrum. I'm partially deaf and half of my head feels like it's on fire.

Well, half my head felt like it was on fire. Around ten last night, I finally cried uncle and Ryan called the on-call doctor for me to have him phone in a prescription at the local pharmacy. I told him I only needed a day or two's worth, but now I'm swimming in Tylenol #3. Given that I am a delicate flower who gets loopy off of even a strong beam of sunshine, the Tylenol #3 knocks me right over.

I am MESSED UP here, people.

Two pills and suddenly it's midnight, I sit bolt upright in bed and start frantically digging at my pillows. I get my arm wedged in between the bed and the wall and there's a can of coke (we'll get to that in a minute) stuck in my armpit.It's then that I  start shrieking, "I AM FREAKING OUT. FREAKING OUT!" While Ryan keeps asking me what I'm doing. I holler, "I AM FREAKING OUT, RYAN!" Then I lay back down and fall asleep.

According to Ryan, I was quite an avid sleep talker last night. I kept talking about how my feet were floating and the flowers felt so nice on my skin.

(The can of coke was my makeshift icepack that I held to my ear to numb the area. Whenever one can would get warm, I would pad out to the kitchen and get another. Eventually, I was in bed, surrounded by warm cans of coke.)

I think his offical title is Head Super Nerd in Charge of... I don't know. I haven't been paying attention.

Ryan is having a bit of a lie down currently because apparently being a geek for pay is exhausting during the day. All those bits and bytes get heavy. It's hard to be THAT NERDY all the livelong day.

He really seems to enjoy his job, though, which is almost as good as the fact he gets a paycheck. (We buy food! And pay our bills! It's crazy.) In all honesty, though, his job sounds to me as though it is a mind-numbing study in tedious precision. Sometimes, I try to be a good wife and ask him what he's doing at work. Then he gleefully launches into a ten minute monologue about tables and committing changes to a server until I'm all Dear God please stop. I thought I could do it to be a good wife but no. Just no. Being supportive is not worth this.

He loves his job and I love not having to hear the specifics of it. It's win-win, really.

We'll be entertaining visitors in the parlor today

Ryan's childhood friend, Justin, is coming to visit us this evening. Justin and Ryan met in high school and have been friends for ten years. When Ryan went away to college, Justin joined the army and Ryan ended up rooming with Jason, Justin's brother.

I've only met Justin once, but if he's anything like Jason -- who I have hung out with a lot -- then he'll show up here three hours late with a note pinned to his shirt that says, "Here is money for Justin to eat with this weekend." And there won't be any money because he spent it all on girlie magazines and pop rocks. Also, his car may have exploded somewhere along the way.

Jason and Justin's family are notoriously bad drivers. The first time I ever rode with Jason, it was the middle of winter and the hilly town we lived in was covered with ice. He made sure my seat belt was extra tight and then said with a big-brotherly authority, "You shouldn't drive like this, Annie. It's not safe." What followed was fifteen of the most terror-filled minutes I have ever experienced in my life. I wouldn't be surprised if my claw marks were still embedded in the armrests of his car.

Another family trait we enjoy ridiculing them for is their cheapness and enormous appetites. One day I saw Jason sneak into the dorm cafeteria without using a swipe off his meal card, and I think he cried a little. He still crows about that free meal, 3 years later, as if sticking it to the man by loading up on flavorless, starchy food for free was the pinnacle of his thrifty little life. When he moved to Milwaukee a few years ago and began saving up the majority of his savings in the bank, we joked that he was only able to do so by eating at soup kitchens. When he heard our soup kitchen joke, he gave a shifty, nervous laugh that I still suspect means we were right

So, uh, that's what I've been doing. You?

I have been bathing regularly, which is shocking given that I spend most of my waking hours hunched over a book lately. I used to be a voracious reader, usually polishing off seven to ten books per week. Then I went to college, and that thing happened where academia takes a book-lover's ravenous desire to read and just kicks it in the nads over and over again until it's almost dead. I had to read so much for school that I ended up being down to a measly seven to ten books per year.

Then, I graduated and became giddy at the prospect of being able to read things other than dusty old mathematics texts or essays from radical thought leaders of the sixties. As a result, I have eschewed all classical literature this year and read absolutely nothing that could in any way make me smarter, more thoughtful, or a better human being. It's been dozens of easy readers type stuff -- memoirs of crackheads, magical romances, fairy tales retold, etc. (See for yourself: a list of all books I have read this year, not including books I have re-read.)

Ryan got me hooked on the Inheritance books by Christopher Paolini, which is weird because I don't generally like fantasy, find epic tales of determination like Lord of the Rings overwrought, and would rather poke my eyes out than read about a dragon of all things. But I have gobbled up those epic fantasies about dragons like candy. The latest book in the series, Brisingr, came out this past weekend and, um, we bought it at midnight. In a clever move, Ryan also grabbed a used copy of Water for Elephants and chucked it at me, thus distracting me and allowing him to get away with Brisingr. (Water for Elephants was a fun and quick read, by the way. Sort of Big Fish meets The Time Traveler's Wife, only a bit more lighthearted.)

Shampoo burns me like sunlight

I realized today that I hadn't washed my hair in three and a half days. Somehow, I was getting in the shower everyday and forgetting to use shampoo. I only finally realized it when Ryan asked if I was feeling okay, prompting me to look in the mirror. My hair was the texture of cold french fries and, oddly enough, seemed to smell like them too. In addition to not being washed it hadn't been brushed either, so I looked like I had been dragged through a hedge backwards.

When Ryan encouraged me to "Take a week off," To recoup from being out of town and not getting the job before I get back into grad school preparations, I don't think he meant "Turn feral and unwashed."

Adventures In Housesitting

It's been six days since I posted because I spent six days at my parent's house, pet-sitting for them while they went capering off on another whirlwind vacation. Apparently taking care of dogs is nothing whatsoever like riding a bike because we've been without Cassie for around five months and I've lost the ability to remember to let the dogs outside at regular intervals.

My parent's older dog, Shelly, is seventeen (eighteen? We've lost count.) and completely deaf, mostly blind, and more than a little bit cranky. I felt like I was visiting a relative I barely like in the nursing home most of the time I was there; I mostly just left her alone except for when I had to scream at her to communicate. I felt bad just hollering into her face like she was the clown at a fast food joint, but anything less than a good bellow went completely unheard.

I used the time up there to get a lot of reading in and visit some old friends. Also, I went to see Burn After Reading. It was okay, but I had been prepared for something else. It would have been like seeing Fargo and expecting it to be a lighthearted comedy.

By the time I went home, I had used all the clean towels, Cassie got muddy and then slept on my parent's bed without me realizing it until I was heading out the door, and I had subsisted on mostly reheated pizza and candy corn for nearly a week. So, if you're looking for someone to mess up your home and forget to take care of your pets, I am available for hire.

Negatory

I didn't get the job. It's not that upsetting, I guess -- mostly just frustrating. I waited for a couple weeks, constantly being promised that I would be called back within a day or two. It made me a nervous wreck. A nervous wreck for nothing, apparently. The job wasn't even something I was totally gung-ho about; I lacked any experience in the field and was sort of nervous about that. The MONEY was something I was gung-ho about, however, so I was willing to try my hardest and do my best at the job. You know, make no experience by being overly enthusiastic and hope nobody noticed. The recruiting guy from this company said he would keep in touch and hopefully find something for me in the future. Either I'm just a gullible numpty, or there might be a chance for working for this company at some point. (Do you have any snake oil I could buy? Yes, I WOULD be highly interested in purchasing your Florida swampland!) I had reservations about the job and we don't need the money, so it's not the end of the world. I'm fine. I need a frozen pizza. And some ice cream. THEY WILL REGRET NOT HIRING ME WHEN I WEIGH EIGHT THOUSAND POUNDS.

Helen

Ryan and I were talking about cassette tapes earlier, specifically how they completely confused me. Records, I get. CDs, mp3s, or other digital forms of sound, I get. But cassette tapes are this unholy union between the two that utterly baffle me. Plus, they have to be rewound unless the recording was on both sides of the tape. Sure, most fancy people could use the tape deck they used for playing to also rewind (or, I hear, even fast-forward!), but there were other, more archaic and physically taxing methods of moving the tape from spool to spool that only the unlucky few got to undertake. Some of us got the privlege of doing it by hand, using a little crank that fit into the holes on the cassette. My old babysitter, Helen, used to have a device like that.

Helen looked after me off and on for a few years whenever my parents both happened to be indisposed at the same time. Helen was a kind, amusing woman who was (as near as I could ever figure) eight million years old. She sucked her dentures unnervingly between every sentence and her entire house was permeated with that special old lady scent that can only created after years of never allowing fresh air into a house filled with afghans and at-home permenant kits.

When I would go to Helen's, she would try to think of ways to entertain me, so she'd sit me down in front of a three-hour Benny Hinn special and make me rewind her cassettes by hand. Her reward for doing this was letting me eat as may M&Ms as I wanted from her candy dish. The M&Ms were older than I was and were left uncovered most of the time. Once, I saw her dusting them with a damp cloth. She never seemed to understand why I didn't ever choke down more than two or three during my visits with her.

Neither her (nine million year old) husband or her ankle biter dog seemed to care for children, so they napped on the other side of the house whenever I came around. I suspect they actually napped about 23 hours out of the day no matter who was visiting, but couldn't prove it. I saw Ernie (her husband) so little, that I completely forgot about him, and when he passed away, I remember saying (too loudly, as I was prone to doing as a child, and, uh, now) "He's still alive?!"

A few years later, Helen suffered a stroke and lost the ability to talk. It nearly killed her, not being able to regale the world with stories of her children or her childhood. Her favorite story to tell me was how her father was a manager at Faygo when Helen was a little girl, and she would pilfer bottles of pop right off the line. When I knew her -- nearly seven million years later -- she still didn't like to drink cold soda because she got used to drinking it lukewarm in the factory. She would pour herself a cup of warm soda and bring me one too. At first, I would tell her that I didn't like mine warm and she would tell me she was sorry and would remember next time, but after awhile I figured out that she remembered how I liked my soda and she was just going to bring it to me warm anyway.

Twitch, twitch

This week, I have been on pins and needles, waiting to hear back about the job I interviewed for eight and a half days ago (but who's counting). I got a call today, and they haven't made their final decisions yet. So no news is good news, right? I guess? SOMEONE TELL ME LIES TO MAKE ME FEEL BETTER.

There's a chance they will decide today, but it's likely I will have to wait over the weekend and my hair will fall out.

Year Six: He runs over me for posting his vehicular failings online

Ryan and I have known each other for five years as of last-yester-next-tomorrowday. We can't really remember exactly when we met (though we remember how we met), and as a result we're approaching our five-ish years together. We've also been married for just over four years. And both of us are under twenty-five.

I like to mark the years we've known each other with the various accidents he's had involving motor vehicles.

Year One: He backed my car into a lamp pole in the Taco Bell parking lot. Spent five minutes circling the car, fretting that my parents would hate him if he left a single mark on my car while I catterwalled from passenger seat about how I was hungry and sick and that's why he was driving anyway, remember? So just man up and drive me back to my dorm room, you can't hurt this car anyway -- it's like a tank.

Year Two: He slid at about two miles an hour through the five-way intersection outside of our apartment building because of ice on the road and lodged our car in a snowbank.

Year Three: We argued about whether or not he could fit into a parking space. He said yes, I said no. Back and forth we went as he slowly nosed into the space, then he gave a triumphant shout of victory because the space was wide enough. Unfortunately, he was too busy gloating to avoid running (slowly) straight into the wall at the end of the parking spot.

Year Four: Tapped bumpers while parking behind someone parked in our usual spot outside the apartment building. When asked why he didn't just park one spot over, he gave me a puzzled look and said, "But that's not my parking spot," and shook his head as if he was wondering how he got such a dense wife.

Year Five: This year was very similar to year three, except that I was right this time -- the parking spot was too narrow. He refused to believe me until the mirror on my side of the car folded in from brushing against a truck's bumper. I don't know how he thought I was going to get out of the car. The moon roof?

Through a combination of Ryan's snail-like driving speeds and always driving Volvos (you can't die in a Volvo. It's a FACT. They used science to prove it. SCIENCE.), he has never dented or scraped our or any other vehicle, which he brings up ever time I start a story with, "Remember the time you hit..."

Shoo

Since I graduated less than four months ago, I've gotten two emails, one phone call, and a letter asking me to donate to the university I graduated from. Personally, I would think it impolite to stop and ask someone for bus fare after you've already spent four years beating on them and taking all their money, but I guess the university feels differently.

What I love most about these pleas for money is the total about face. When you're in college, the university pretends to be so awesome. They're like, Look at our famous guest speakers! Look at our pretty new buildings! We won all these trophies! Don't you think I'm pretty -- WATCH ME DO A CARTWHEEL! But once you're out, they're asking you for money on the street corner like a homeless drunkard, talking about how rough they have it and how much they love their family and then maybe crying a little bit.

Geez Mom & Dad, why not just go out and get a bouncy castle while you're buying things I always wanted

Today, my parents bought a new car. Well, it's not brand new, but it was definitely manufactured during the second term of Bush's presidency.

My parents do not buy new cars. At least the people who raised me and taught me to call them my parents do not buy new cars. My parents are, and I am trying to not understate this here, the cheapest people in the world. It's not that they're stingy or anything -- they like to have fun and I know they would always help me out if it needed it. But my mother can pinch a penny until it is screaming and begging for mercy. They heat their (not small) house using wood. My mother once bought a turkey that turned out to be weird on the inside and she was so incensed that she dragged it into the supermarket, still in her serving dish, because they refused to give her back her ten dollars otherwise. She dragged that bird in there, half-crazed at the notion that not only was she not eating turkey like she wanted to, she was also not holding ten dollars in her petite hand and she flopped that inedible turkey up onto the customer service counter while I cringed and tried to pretend like her? Oh, I don't know her. I just caught a ride with her when I was hitchhiking. I don't know why she keeps talking to me.

When I moved away from home to go to college, my parents bought a hot tub. When I got married and had no chance of moving back into their house, they got a pool. The house I grew up in was ramshackle and in a decade-long process of "being restored." Then I moved out, they finished renovating, and now it looks like a woodland paradise.

And now they have bought a new car. A new car. A car that doesn't backfire or sound like a gimpy asthmatic rhino charging you. A car that is not held together primarily with rust and hope and the force of my teenage embarrassment.

Oh dear God. I bet they're going to buy a pony next, now that I'm not around to ride it around the house.

On second thought, I'm not sure why fancy underpants were necessary

I had my first-ever real job interview the other day. Prior to this, I have interviewed with two places: Michigan Tech's Summer Youth Program wherein the interviewer told me they were "desperate for people" and "hiring almost anyone," then I threw up mid-interview because I had the flu, and Hardee's, where the hardest question they asked me was, "Do you think you are capable of taking orders and pushing the correct buttons?" (Sidenote: turns out that this question was actually pretty relevant, as the cash registers at Hardee's were missing half the labels and still had buttons for peach cobbler -- which they stopped selling 13 years ago.)

So I bought a suit and some nice shoes, gussied up and walked to my interview, complaining internally the whole way about how shoes hurt my feet and why do all fancy underwear ride straight up my butt. During the walk, the adrenaline kicked in and by time I got to the interview, I was almost vibrating out of my skin. Turns out that I managed to finesse my squirrel-jacked-up-on-diet-pills energy into extreme enthusiasm because the interviewer was way energized by the end and said he liked my positive energy. Which almost made me piddle, but I didn't tell him that.

I'm a little nervous about the position I'm interviewing for because I've never done it and have zero experience with it. But what I'm really excited about is the company itself -- it's a great place with good benefits and great corporate ethics. Health insurance, vacation time, and something called a four-oh-wunk. Supposedly there's a chocolate river and a meadow filled with unicorns in the basement, even. Plus, they would apparently give me money every two weeks. CRAZY TALK. It's a pretty obscene amount of money, too, given the relative ease of the position.

I have a second interview on Wednesday. That's a good sign, right?

When you're running short on time, the internet loves it when you throw cats at them

We've had him for almost three months, and the kitten is just not getting any smarter, he's just getting bigger. It's a great combination, let me assure you. He's knocking stuff over and falling off things and letting his mouth hang open. Sometimes he grabs onto his own tail so hard he rolls himself over.

He does, however, keep Momo from walking around constantly moaning. Now instead, Momo spends his time alternating between bathing Wicket and hiding from Wicket in the bathtub. Sometimes, I'll see Wicket walking around and meowing, then I go into the bathroom and Momo is looking up from the tub where he's pressed to the floor and giving me a look that says, "Tell him where I'm at and I chew off your hair tonight."

That is Momo and his feather. His PRECIOUS, PRECIOUS, PRECIOUSSSSSS feather. Wicket likes whatever Momo likes, so he also loves the feather. Momo is not exactly a good sharer, so he usually pushes the feather into a pile and then sits on top of it while Wicket circles him and cries.

Ultimately, the real difference between the two cats is that Wicket spends his life trying to intimidate Momo and Momo spends his life trying to intimidate the vacuum cleaner.

But I can think of about 10 other words to describe it

Me: Sometimes I wake up and we're in the middle of a conversation even though we were sleeping.

Him: Huh. I wonder what we were talking about? Wouldn't it be neat if someone filmed us while we slept?

Me: No. It would not be neat.

Flux capcacitor is fluxing

Here's what you do with an hour of your morning when you're sick and exhausted from a weekend with your in-laws and you wonder what you would look like if you traveled through time.

I compiled the pictures from yearbookyourself.com. The afro in 1978 is my personal favorite. I'm thinking about growing one. Also, I didn't know that wearing a sombrero-shaped wig in 1982 was all the rage.

[via kottke]

Friends, Romans, Blog Readers

Because it occurs to me that this blog is also semi-autobiographical as well as being a place where I weave amusing stories out of the crap pile of my daily endeavors, here's what's been up with me the past few months.

In May, both Ryan and I (finally) graduated -- with honors, no less. The school awarded me an actual degree in mathematics despite my inability to do basic arithmetic. At least it looks real -- it's made of super thick, cream-colored paper that's absolutely perfect for writing WILL WORK FOR FOOD on the back. All the other bums on the street corner are jealous.

Luckily we don't have to depend solely on my questionable math skills for income. Ryan got a job with a great (and shall remain nameless) firm in Detroit. He's been there for just over two months, and he really loves his job so far. The best part is the stellar health insurance; now I can get that new leg I've always wanted and Ryan can finally get a liver.

In order to be close to Ryan's job and save on gas money, we moved to downtown Detroit. In the process, we had to give Cassie away to my parents, which was hard. Downtown Detroit is no place for a dog who likes wide open space and dislikes noise, people, and concrete. Because Momo, taking after me, dislikes change, he walked around the house screaming and clinging to us after we moved until we decided to go out and get him a kitten to focus his nervous anxiety and energy on. Enter Wicket, the dumbest kitten in the entire world. He's afraid of us half the day and cozies up to us the other half, occasionally pulls on his own tail hard enough to knock himself over, and will startle himself when he meows. However, Momo loves him and instantly took to being a mother cat, so even though Wicket is clearly mentally retarded, Momo loves him anyway.

Downtown Detroit isn't as bad as everyone says. There are sketchy areas of Detroit, for sure, but where we live is safe and well lit, fenced in by skyscrapers and tourist attractions. There's always something going on, and the city is beautiful at night. Just make sure you give the mayor a wide berth.

I'm in a bit of a transitional period, which is a fancy way of saying that I'm not sure what I'm going to do with my life. Grad school or law school are currently at the top of my list, but I have become very fond of using money for things like paying bills and buying food, so I wouldn't turn down a paying job, either.

Who lives in a pineapple and drives me crazy?

It turns out that I am, uh, not good with children or teenagers. Well, that's not exactly true. Toddlers love me, but that's because I swing them around by their feet. Infants don't seem to care for that, and anything bigger than a toddler I cannot manhandle due to my upper body strength being equivalent to that of a kitten's.

My brother and sister in law are visiting Ryan and I for the weekend, and I have to entertain them alone until Ryan gets out of work at five. They are fourteen and thirteen years old and, apparently, highly trained in the art of soul-crushing apathy. Everything I suggested we do has been met with blank stares that quickly shift back to watching Sponge Bob.

(If I have a facial tick by the end of this weekend, it will be because of that spongy abomination.)

I think we're either going to go shopping, to the zoo, or to a museum this afternoon. My backup plan if things get awkward is to leave them at a gas station, just like my parents used to do to me.

I think I'm on some sort of hospital watch list now

Today was the day that I had to have an upper GI endoscopy to see if I'm rotting from the inside out. The actual endoscopy took fifteen minutes but I was in the hospital for over four hours before the procedure and about an hour afterward. Those four hours prior were brutal and entailed a series of what I can only assume were trick questions. I can't fathom why else they would need to ask me if I have heart disease, asthma, or denture that many times. It was getting to the point where I was worried I was giving the wrong answer. "Uh... I don't have asthma, but I could try if it would help."

They asked me so many times if I had dentures that I apparently said while under anesthesia, "These are my real teeth!" several times. My Pavlovian response when I see a medical professional is to blurt out, "I don't have dentures!'

The other, more noteworthy, thing I said while sedated was, "I didn't kill him, I just watched him die." When I came to, all the nurses were avoiding me and the doctor's assistant was laughing. I tried to make some joke about apparently having a repressed memory, but it ended with me telling the assistant that he was pretty.

I pwned Monday

I hadn't worked out in a couple of weeks, and I did today. Sweating is still disgusting, it turns out. I've turned to the Dark Side, though, and actually enjoy exercising. Or at least the way that my body feels all warm and tingly afterward. Plus, as you can see, working out is really taking its toll.

Then, I sent my newly polished up resume to a couple different companies and non-profits while looking into grad school and emailing my old professors with messages like, "Could you please write me a letter of recommendation for grad school? I have no options in life. If you don't help me gain entrance to an establishment of higher learning I will probably never be gainfully employed and thus end up wandering the streets wearing Hot Pockets boxes for shoes."

I've heard back from two professors (both of whom agreed to write letters for me) and have one interview with a non-profit a few miles north on Wednesday. That means that I have no excuse to avoid grad school stuff any longer and I have to practice my interviewing skills. Right now, my interviewing skills consist of sitting on a chair, twitching with the effort used to keep from babbling, making my eyes the size of dinner plates, and generally acting like I'm jacked up on diet pills.

Chirp, Chirp

Uh, hallo? The statcounter says there's about 80 of you a day reading this blog but no one is commenting. I'm used to lurkers, but this is ridiculous. As is the fact that I had to let spell check teach me how to spell ridiculous just now.

Is it just too boring for you guys? I have been considering either having a baby or developing a serious heroin addiction -- maybe that would spice it up? Mommybloggers are so hot these days.

Talk about a rocking Friday night

When did I become such a lightweight?

Ryan and I went to a late showing of a movie in Dearborn, and on the drive back, I started complaining about how many street lights were on. Hundreds of zillions of street lights, to be precise. Why would anyone need all these street lights at two in the morning, I'm thinking. It's wasteful and no one is awake this time of day.

Then, to my horror, I see that there are people. Everywhere. They're streaming out of clubs, they're walking hand in hand, they're in bars, and -- worse yet -- they are all WIDE AWAKE. My eyelids are being held up by toothpicks, but apparently everyone in Detroit can still go out and party after they've worked hard all day long. Hey, I worked hard, too. I took that nap. And then talked on the phone to my mother. Whew, I need to lie down even just typing it.

The real insult cherry on the top of my you're-getting-old-you-big-pansy sundae was when we passed by a restaurant on Lafayette street that was teeming with people and sitting at the tiny table in the center of the big window at the front of the restaurant was a really, really old couple holding hands and eating. They could not have been a day less than 85, and they were just eating their disgusting chili cheese fries, looking fresh as daisies, not even noticing the sleepy old hag driving by in her car.

We got back to our building and I was exhausted enough that I held the door open for a homeless person, thinking it was just Crazy Old Lady Hutchins from the 17th floor who always wears that old dirty housecoat. Then the building security had to shoo the poor homeless person out and I got a foul look from the doorman.

Real mature

All I can think when I see these styrafoam houses...

Is "Heh. Boobs."

[via Pink Tentacle]

Maybe tomorrow, we can pick out what to bury her in

In the past year, my mother had at least four conversations with me about how and where her body will be disposed when she dies. It's this long, drawn out process where she lists all the options to me and then presses me to tell her what I want to do with her corpse. Is it important to me to have her ashes? Do I want her buried in the ground? Should she donate her body to science? And I'm all, "Geez mom, I don't know." I'm secretly hoping she just falls into the ocean or burns to death so I don't have to decide this. She started it again today when she was here visiting, and it went like this:

Her: So, I've been thinking about dying.

Me: Why do we always have to have this conversation?

Her: Now, what do YOU want to do with my body when I'm gone? Because I don't want to cause any trouble or stress on you once I'm gone.

Me: Do we seriously have to talk about what to do with your lifeless body, years down the road, right now?

Her: Yes.

Well, I don't think it had much to do with my threat to bomb Jeff Bezos' house

We ordered a new monitor from Amazon on Monday to replace the 15 inch one we have been using since, um, my senior year of high school. I was shocked to see that they come in both color AND bigger sizes now. The monitor was backordered and wasn't supposed to ship until next week. We used the free two-day shipping, so we didn't think we would get the monitor until the end of next week.

The monitor arrived on Tuesday. Unfortunately, it had a couple of dead pixels off near the bottom corner of the screen. We contacted the manufacturer about it, but they gave us the usual, "Unless the pixels are in the middle of the screen and there's more than four dead ones per million, we aren't replacing it." We used Amazon's call me feature tonight, and within 5 minutes a rep had talked to us and told us that they would ship out a new monitor ASAP with an expected delivery date of July 29th. An hour later, we got an email that said the monitor had shipped and would be arriving tomorrow.

That is some fast customer service. I don't think it has anything to do with my threat to bomb Jeff Bezos' house.

Which reminds me, I have some AWESOME stories about my mother

I like to think that I bring something to the internet. Maybe a little humor, a few quips about marriage, and possibly extensive knowledge about the size, color, consistency, and odor of house pet excrement. I'm not necessarily proud of my internet contributions, but I know they are there, and I am willing to own up to them, perhaps even throw down if need be. Like, you think you've had dog poop problems? Oh, well, have you ever stood, shivering in the November rain begging your dog to poop because she doesn't want to poop due to the rain the hideous hideous rain that burns her flesh? And then have you ever had to insert a glycerin suppository into her butt because it's been three days and you're starting to worry? Did the neighbors ever come running to their windows because your constipated dog is braying like a donkey giving birth on account of you sticking a waxy plug up her butt? No? Well, then, I think I win.

The point is, I bring a little something to the internet. Yesterday, the first search engine hit I got was:

My genital warts are really big and I have lots.

That is not my corner of the internet, friend. That is way, way, way on the other side of the internet. It's on the side with the weird fetish sites and places that sell hand sewn maxi pads. It's a bus, a train, and a three day boat trip to that side of the internet.

Over here on this side of the internet, we're more about the cute pictures of animals with maybe some irreverent marriage humor and embarrassing stories thrown in. And drug humor. We're all about the drug humor. But mostly, we're about pictures like this:

His precious

Momo chewed off a small chunk of my hair when I was hold it out twirling it between my fingers as I watched TV. I'm kind of afraid to take it back from him because he's sitting in the corner grooming it with big, wild eyes. I'll try to vacuum it up tomorrow, on the down low

Boobs

So at this site I visit frequently, there's a bra debate raging. Some poor girl with 36DDDD boobs is having a problem where her bra wires poke out and wear on her shirt. Most of the responses told her that she was wearing the wrong size (right) and should go up a band size (wrong). A few told her that in order to fit her "unique body type" she would have to get custom made bras or sew them herself.

First of all, the "unique body type" thing reminds me of The Simpsons when the morbidly obese Comic Book Guy sews maternity panels into his Star Wars pants to "fit his unique body type." So I'm immediately imagining this unfortunate woman wearing, like, a storm trooper suit with giant spandex panels sewn in over her boobage.

Second, I am almost positive those comments suggesting she sew her own bra were made by flat chested women. Or men. I wear a 34*mumblemumble high letter in the alphabet mumblemumble* and sew my own bra? Uh, sure. Let me go get my MAGIC SEWING KIT AND I'LL WHIP THAT RIGHT UP FOR YOU. Maybe my enchanted mice could do it for me. Leave the sewin' to the women, I'll go get some trimmin' and they'll make a lovely bra for Annibellini!

Uh, no. She just needs to find a good fitting bra using European sizes rather than the stupid American sizing, and she needs to get fitted in some old dusty shop with a batty old woman who is some sort of boob savant. It's a lot like the place where Harry Potter buys his wands -- she'll dodder around for awhile making you try different ones out and then when you find one that makes all the boxes fall off the shelves you've got the right one.

It's true. I read every single text. Except the long ones.

[we're watching a movie and some plot point involves one character listening to another character's voicemail]

Me: He's just really lucky she even listens to her voicemail.

Him: Yeah... Wait, what? You don't listen to my voicemails?!

Me: I was hoping you wouldn't notice I accidentally inferred that.

Him: I can't believe you don't listen to my voicemails!

Me: I do! Some of them! I only don't listen to them when I cal