Category Archives: random ramblings

truthfully

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Truthfully…

I know the expectation in polite society is that when someone asks, “How are you?” the reply should always be “I’m fine, thank you.” even if that isn’t the truth. You might be feeling sick to your stomach or like your sinuses are ready to explode. Perhaps you have a pounding headache that is jack-hammering your brain or you might have a a blister on the heel of your foot thanks to those cruel shoes you insist on wearing because they make your legs look hot. Or maybe you are so overwhelmed with the worries of your life that you feel there will be no relief…ever. Still when someone asks how you are doing you are expected to smile and tell them that you are fine. Oh, and don’t forget to ask them how they are doing too. Don’t worry, they won’t dump even more burdens, pains and woes upon you. They will smile back and tell you that, yes, they are fine as well.

It is all so pleasant.

Except when it isn’t really.

Don’t worry. I am doing okay…mostly. I don’t believe in wearing shoes that hurt so my feet are just fine. I’m just not okay. Thank goodness for my circus act who adores me…even when I am a naggy, raging, tearful bitch. And thank you that I can easily run 3-5 miles because some days that is truly what keeps me going. Still the reality is I am overwhelmed more than usual with the burdens and worries that is this life of mine. It comes and goes; but lately it has been coming more than going. So right now if you were to ask me I would have to say that actually I am not okay or fine because it is lately so hard to pretend that I am.

No, you can’t fix any of it. I don’t expect you to. Just sit with me, hug me and please, dear god don’t tell me that you know exactly how I feel because truthfully you don’t.

Thank you for letting me be truthful right now.

too much

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Good God! Am I really starting off the new year with nothing to blog about? It would seem that this is the case. Actually there has much too much on my mind just swirling around in there. Pick a topic? It was overwhelming to me…almost as overwhelming as it is to pack up all these holiday decorations. But yes, much has been on my mind and I did want to sit down an write about it but what to write about? Where to start?

  • The Iowa Caucus and just how relevant is it really…I mean does the election results of a state that is only barely 1% of the US population really reflect the rest of the country? I think I might agree with Professor Stephen Bloom’s observations.
  • Then again with only eight votes separating Romney from Santorum again we are reminded about the idea that yes, every vote does count.
  • Karma. You know how when bad things happen to you or people say bad things directed to you or those you love or you just see people get away with doing bad things you are reminded that what goes around will eventually come around. I’ve seen that times three this week and surprisingly it isn’t as satisfying as I might have thought it would be.
  • my amazing “baby-whisperer” skills or how I can soothe a colicky six week-old baby. What, like it’s hard? I can soothe and get a drug-exposed baby weaning off the drugs to fall asleep.
  • the fact that yes, Fallon is SIX WEEKS OLD now!

  • When tragedy strikes, why do some people tweet or post it on their Facebook…and why do people get so damn judge-y when they do? Yes, I have done this…live tweet or post on Facebook…I’d do it again too because when you are helplessly watching something horrible happen to you that you can do nothing about…like watching your child nearly die…you sometimes cope that way. Thank God for those who reach back and hold you up too!
  • When people reach out to support, help or lend a hand to those who lose much again why do people get all judge-y…of the givers and of the recipients?
  • How can your darling husband sleep so soundly when punk-assed vandals loudly dump old, dead Christmas trees against your front door at 11:15 at night?
  • When a friend suggest to let the dogs loose does she mean on the punk-assed vandals or does she mean on the sleeping husband?
  • Ending the holidays or starting off the new year sick with the barfies is no fun at all.
  • Almost as much as running, I am finding quinoa to be quite satisfying and addicting.

You see? Too much. Just like the holiday decorations that are still hanging around here under the Big Top. At least our trees are down and packed away for another year. The old, dead Christmas trees piled up against our front door are hauled away too. And this blog post is done.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll get more done.

random, bullety goodness at o’dark thirty

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  • It’s 3:30 AM as I begin this post. I was sent home early from work for the second night in a row thanks to a drop in census, the boss being on duty, and being the lowly per-diem (slacker) nurse on duty/
  • Works for me!
  • Recovering from the the flu earlier this month and trying to resume training for a half marathon that I’m running in a month, I find myself pretty wiped out when I add working to the mix…Yes, I’m a wimp and a slacker.
  • To my dear friend who changed her mind about going home, I hope it works for you. Thanks. Love you. Hugging you all the way here back at the Big Top.
  • Speaking of bosses and running…yes, it is an awkward segue but it is o’ dark thirty AM. Don’t judge. But back on topic. When your boss shares a book with you that she just finished and lends it to you, read it. I know I am. In all seriousness, I am honored and a lot humbled that she thought of me when she was reading the book she has lent me telling me that I have inspired her. I joke with her that it is all part of my evil plan to get everyone in the NICU running with me. I joke just a little. Especially because I know there are several who have signed on to this cult of Shredheads and runners…FTW! I’ll share more later but first let me finish the book.
  • And while I am talking about a book my boss has lent to me, is is okay to read it on downtime during work hours since the boss loaned it to me to read? Yeah, I am reaching here.
  • the flu is still alive and kicking under the Big Top and we all have grown weary of it’s malingering here. Bill is still really sick which is no big surprise. But after a horrible dream, fighting with our DSL provider over about an ongoing problem only to have them tell me that they can only work with Bill…never mind I’m the one who writes the checks that pay them…and adding all the stress and worry over the last weeks/months over the obvious overall decline in his health, I decide to kick the sick guy when he is miserably sick and down venting all my worries, fears and frustrations that I won’t be able to get the DSL provider to work with me if he were to drop dead tomorrow. Rational, I know. Still I wish he would realize he is not in a good place health wise and do something about it, obviously not for me, not for our children but maybe for our internet access.
  • It’s late or perhaps it’s early so I am REALLY rational now, I know.
  • Of course I am not alone with husbands who are just adding way too much stress, way more stress than the love we have for them can outweigh. I should really take a step back and realize that more often. But I can be a whiner.
  • Because I can, because I really don’t care what he thinks or feels and because I am beyond sick and tired of him hurting people I love, can I just say that my grand daughter’s Baby Daddy, the one who looks like Abe Lincoln in a very weird way is dumber than a dead tree stump? He is. Unfortunately, he continues to torture and hurt HIS child with his denseness. I mean, you take the time to demand to change your visitation date because you’re going to be out of town and then you don’t show up…at all? Then you finally contact your child’s mother with the excuse that you forgot, that something came up. Dude, the kid hates coming to your house. She cries every time you come for her. You stress her out, ruin her day while she waits for you and then you don’t even show up…for the third time. What a stupid ass you are! Thank goodness she seems to have inherited nothing from you except for her height.
  • Being a parent is tough. I doubt Baby Daddy even has a clue how tough it is or can be.
  • But it can be funny, even when it is hard. It can be a lot funny.  Going through Daniel’s backpack, like we do everyday after school, we find this on the back of a worksheet.

    oh dear! Thank goodness he isn’t my first born!
  • My son, the only brother of four sisters, who happen to have lots of pretty friends, is a ladies man. This I know is true. And, apparently he loves kissing. But when asked to describe the picture he drew he explains that this is our house and the two cuddling cheek to cheek with big ol’ smiles on their faces are mom and dad. I’m the one on the left…see the glasses and the pretty eyelashes? Apparently I am bald. But I am madly in love and love kissing…a lot…just as much as his daddy does..oh dear…the thoughts and imaginations of our sweet babes.
  • I do love kissing…

this that and other things

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Spending a weekend being sick …thanks Hazey-Face for the stomach bug…and then working the past few nights doesn’t allow much time or energy for me to blog like I would want to. And not getting to blog the past few days leaves me overflowing with thoughts and ideas and…where to start? I don’t know. Forgive the bullety, random streams of consciousness but I need to empty some of this out of my mind and onto this blog post.

Eeewww!

That sounds kind of gross doesn’t it?

Sorry.

  • Halloween is just around the corner and there isn’t a single trace of evidence that it is coming nigh here under the Big Top. How lame we are! Lack of funds pretty much guarantee that there won’t be any trip to Dell Osso Farms to get lost in their awesome corn maze or pick up some pumpkins to carve. I know. Lame! But we have some decorations stashed in the garage. I think my darling husband should dig them out. His calendar is wide open so I do imagine that he can do this. Daniel and Hazel sure would love it.
  • Considering my rolling and meandering hormones and my mood of late, it’s probably a very good thing that I haven’t had the funds to buy Halloween candy for the neighborhood goblins.
  • But thank goodness for running! With the exception of the days I felt flu-ish, my training for my 5th half marathon this year has been going very well. Added bonus from the training (and the stress I’ve been under) I have dropped 10 pounds since August. I’m grateful for my training. It literally is keeping me from pulling all of my hair out and going completely psychotic…yes, the stress is that bad.
  • Yesterday the running definitely was a god-send because heads were ready to roll when I came home from working all night to discover that someone, ahem, deleted my dvr programming so he could catch up on programming on TNT…most likely moldy Law & Order episodes that have been viewed so many times the dialogue could be recited.
  • Grrrrr….
  • Thank goodness for running.
  • I try to focus on the good, the grace, the blessings. Really I do. Then I allow myself to whine a little…okay, whine a lot and wallow, definitely wallow until I see what one of my dearest friends and former band mate from my Shelter House days is up against. And through it all she is smiling and laughing and loving.
  • Hanging my head in shame just a little until I literally hear Freida’s contagious laughter in my heart. Then I smile a little…and then smile a lot. Freida has that effect on people. That’s why I love her so and miss standing next to her singing. And that’s why I hate cancer.

photo credit: George Sakkestad/Los Gatos Weekly Times

  • Then I think of another dear friend with the warmest, generous smiles that I know…and a wicked, quick sense of humor. My friend and co-worker, Sharon is hosting her very first blog give away over at Channeling Ricky. You know that you want to share some bloggy love and (hopefully) win yourself an autographed copy of Paula Deen’s It Ain’t All About the Cooking. It’s an easy-peasy giveaway of a pretty awesome prize. I sure would love to hear that someone came from here to win that prize. Head on over and enter and be sure to tell Sharon that I sent you.
  • Driving home from work this early morning made me smile. The street lights were still on as the sun was barely starting to rise and try to outshine the low-lying fog. I love it! No, not necessarily the fog. I love that after several weeks of wondering when Fall was going to get here because it should not be 90+ degrees in freakin’ October, it seems that perhaps, at last, Fall is finally here in the Central Valley! About time!
  • Of course then I am reminded that I need to replace my burnt out fog lights and replace my wiper blades…and dammit, I need new brakes.
  • Okay enough! Happy thoughts….good times….good things….good friends…And with those thoughts of good things and good friends and how they make me smile, I am going to try not to stress over the fact that I’m the only one bringing home the bacon and I’m not bringing home nearly enough. I’m going to pour myself a glass of merlot and count my blessing…no matter how meager they might seem to me at this moment.

MRI streams of consciousness

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Twelve days of trying my best to stay off my feet…as best as a mom with busy kids and an end-of-school-year calendar complete with two graduations will allow…the insurance gods from the mountain on high have given permission for the MRI of my hip and femur that the orthopedist wanted.

Yippee-skippee!

The doctor’s office schedules the MRI and asks if I would like something to help me relax for the procedure.

Can I drive after?

No?

No drugs then. I know it can be claustrophobic but I should be okay. I’m going to have to be. So here I am. All body piercings have been removed. I am ready for my close-up.

Hop on up the perky tech invites me. She then positions me, offers me a flattened, almost hollow pillow for my comfort as well as headphones and a panic button…she promises me that I shouldn’t need to push the panic button since it is an “open” MRI. And away we go!…

So let’s see, the doc ordered three views. Hopefully this will go fairly quickly ● This space is pretty confining. Almost like a coffin. But how would I know what it is like to be in a coffin? I don’t know, do I? ● I gotta go pee! I know, I should have gone before we started this but I didn’t have to then. ● So this bed is REALLY narrow. I mean really, really narrow. I can barely fit my body on it. ● I like how my head peeks out of the tube just a little. Of course there is nothing really interesting to look at…if I could see, that is. ● You know, this bed is really narrow! And this tube that I am in, I barely fit in it. ● I’m getting kind of tired hugging my arms across my chest.● Just a small town girl, livin’ in a lonely world, she took the midnight train goin’ anywhere…● So I wonder what name John Travolta and Kelly Preston will choose for their baby on the way? ● Gah! My tailbone is killing me! ● I wonder if I should borrow Zoë’s LOst Seasons 1-5 dvds and try to catch up?

The exam table slides out of the tube and the perky tech is at my side. How are you doing she asks? I ask if I can sit up and take a break. The answer is no. She just needs to remove the wedge under my knees and tie my feet together to get the next set of pictures. She also reminds me that I have to keep still. I nod my head but whine a little about my tailbone hurting. She diagnoses that perhaps it isn’t my hip after all. I mean lying as still as possible on a hard, narrow exam table is not going to have any affect on it at all. The exam table slides back into the tube.

Why must I always get the perky, happy techs? ● This table is hard! I’d like to see her lie on it for as long as I have been lying on it so far. ● I know she said lie still and I am trying to lie still but why is it I feel like my entire body is twitching. ● Oh goody! Here comes a hot flash! ● Where is my panic button? Perky tech took my panic button away. WTF?! ● This flat pillow and puffy headphones is seriously messing up my hair. I’m going to be sporting some serious bedhead by the time this procedure is done. ● I was having a really great hair day this morning. Even the old ladies blocking the entrance to Radiology thought so. ● Well good hair is gone now. ● Another hot flash? Really?! ● I think there is now definitely something wrong with my back. There wasn’t before I started but there is now. ● I wonder how long I have been in here? ● Gravedigger, when you dig my grave could you make it shallow… ● Oh I would sing Gravedigger while stuck in this thing. ● You know these headphones would be much nicer if there was some music playing in them…like a little Dave Matthews Band. ● A little Dave Matthews Band would mellow me out while stuck in this tube, hugging my chest with my ankles tied together. ● I REALLY wish I had taken those drugs the doc was offering. ● I REALLY have to go pee still! ● How much longe…

The exam table shifts just a little. The tech repositions my legs slightly telling me that I’m not quite done just yet. She needs about ten more minutes. And back in the tube I go…

Ten more minutes! ● I can do ten more minutes. ● Another one? Another hot flash? Is that really necessary?! ● I know she said only ten more minutes but I don’t know how much longer I can do this. ● I want to stretch my arms out. I want to do it right now. ● Drain the pressure from the swelling, The sensations overwhelming, Give me a long kiss goodnight and everything will be alright Tell me that I won’t feel a thing So give me Novacaine ●  My back hurts so much! ● It’s got to be more than ten minutes. It has to be. ● I have to pee NOW! ● So tonight is the last Law and Order and the last 24. Do I care? ● I swear to god it has been more like twenty minutes in this tube…

Just one more minute, Laura…

One more minute! ● I can do one more minute. ● I don’t think I can do one more minute. ● What if her one more minute is more like ten more minutes because her ten more minutes was definitely more than ten more minutes. ● Breathe in and out, in and out…● two-three-four…● deep breath in slowly…● I swear if she doesn’t let me out soon I will scream and then pee all over this comfortable, narrow, hard exam table. ● How do they fit a big person in here? I mean a person bigger than me. What about a really big person? ● Breathe in two-three-four… ● out two-three-four…● And…

The table slides out from the tube for the last time and we are done. I look up at the clock on the wall and see that I have been in that damn thing for nearly two hours. So. Much. Fun. Next time I want the drugs, definitely.