do you ever have one of those days?
of course you do.
I nearly just flung almost 200 papers across the floor.
I am at work. So I didn't. But I did make a moan/gurgle/muffled scream-type noise, as loud as I thought I could get away with.
You know, for all my talk about being such a brilliant Administrative Assistant (ok, maybe I only talk about that in job interviews) in reality I blow chunks. The final version of whatever I'm working on might be perfect and pretty, but let's just be thankful that my boss doesn't watch the amount of times I fuck up beforehand.
I can't seem to learn from my mistakes at work. Probably because I never work and so when they actually ask me to I have no oil in my cogs. It done dried up.
Or, that's such a lame excuse and what I really need is a cigarette and some deep breathing. Yes, at the same time.
What's the most annoying job you've ever had? And when I say annoying I mean soul-suckingly boring/tedious/a fucking robot could do it.
8.01.2006
send good thoughts to my mom...i know y'all aren't prayer people
Can I show you the weird thing I noticed a couple of days ago?
My niece IS Cosette from Les Miz! Awesome.
So, my mom is STILL in the hospital. It's been 8 days, which is sort of unbelievable when you remember this is her second hospital stay for one "simple" procedure. Thankfully, my mom's best friend Barb is back in town from vacation. Barb is the sweetest woman alive and is eager to help. I can tell her presence makes my mom feel better.
My dad, however, is NOT doing well. They say people with Alzheimer's need routine to feel like they are in control, which makes sense. You wouldn't want to go shoving all sorts of surprises and changes-of-plan in their faces, because they get agitated. My dad is getting agitated. He's been at the hospital more than anyone else, alternately sleeping in the hospital chair and staying at his sister's house so he doesn't have to drive an hour home. This change in routine, coupled with my mom's state, is messing with his stability. He's frightened for her, and for himself, and he's been testy and unhelpful. My mom says he's gotten much more sarcastic over the past year, and I can definitely see it. Sometimes it's hard to have a straight conversation with him because he makes all these stupid sarcastic jokes. My mom rolls her eyes at him a lot lately.
He is not the best person to be in the liaison position. He can't remember what the doctors tell him about my mom's condition, so every time someone asks how she is he tells us how her general state is - "she had a really rough night," or "she's been nauseous all day"- instead of what we really need to know, like WHAT IS WRONG WITH HER? What did the doctor say? What about those tests they did? He couldn't tell ya.
So, my mom's sister's daughter, P (who looks exactly like my mom, weird) has stepped in, along with Barb. Now, Barb is so sweet and wonderful that I almost want to tell P that we've got it covered, she can go now, but that would be selfish and unwarranted. P is a CEO. She's really good at getting answers now. She played the patient advocate role when her father, brother, and (other) aunt were sick at the hospital, so this is nothing new for her. What bothers me? She's been a bit of a bitch to me. I swear it's not all in my head.* I think P believes I should be doing what she's doing. And you know what? She's probably right! This is my mother we're talking about, right? If it were Micah in the hospital, I would be ALL UP ON some answers, his health status, never leaving his side, everything. So why can't I do that for my own mother? I DON'T KNOW. The easy answer is that P, Barb, and my brother have been ALL UP ON IT and we have the answers we need. The hard answer? Does anyone really want to watch me try to work through that one? I didn't think so.
Barb decided to make up a schedule for a rotating cast of aides for my mom. The aides being her family and friends, the ones who can donate chunks of time, including overnight. The problem is the response time of the nurses and doctors is startlingly slow. If something is wrong, unless my mom screamed "I'm bleeding out of my fucking eyeballs!!!!" into the nurse intercom, no one shows up for fifteen minutes, sometimes 1/2 hour. They apologize and say the hospital is full and the nursing resources are thin. But that's just not good enough for my mom, the most popular and loved gal in among her set. So we all feel more comfortable, especially my mom, when there is someone there all the time to physically GO GET AN F'N NURSE if she needs something. Because on Sunday my mom had another episode of the same type and severity as what put her in the hospital in the first place, and it's just not acceptable that the nurses didn't come immediately.
Thursday is my night! If she's still in the hospital by then, I'm staying the night. I'll put on my jammies and bring a movie (my bro hooked Mom up with a DVD player today!) and my favorite pillow and settle down as well as I can into that fucking chair. The one that squeals and hisses when you move but lays completely flat. Shit, if my 63-year-old dad can sleep there, so can I.
*I swear her attitude HAS NOTHING to do with the one time I house-sat for her and her husband and they came home early and found their house decorated with beer cans and their Grand Cherokee NOT IN THE GARAGE. I mean, come on! That was, like, YEARS ago. She's been nice to me since then! And she has a REALLY messed up step-daughter! Cut a bitch some slack! WTF!
My niece IS Cosette from Les Miz! Awesome.So, my mom is STILL in the hospital. It's been 8 days, which is sort of unbelievable when you remember this is her second hospital stay for one "simple" procedure. Thankfully, my mom's best friend Barb is back in town from vacation. Barb is the sweetest woman alive and is eager to help. I can tell her presence makes my mom feel better.
My dad, however, is NOT doing well. They say people with Alzheimer's need routine to feel like they are in control, which makes sense. You wouldn't want to go shoving all sorts of surprises and changes-of-plan in their faces, because they get agitated. My dad is getting agitated. He's been at the hospital more than anyone else, alternately sleeping in the hospital chair and staying at his sister's house so he doesn't have to drive an hour home. This change in routine, coupled with my mom's state, is messing with his stability. He's frightened for her, and for himself, and he's been testy and unhelpful. My mom says he's gotten much more sarcastic over the past year, and I can definitely see it. Sometimes it's hard to have a straight conversation with him because he makes all these stupid sarcastic jokes. My mom rolls her eyes at him a lot lately.
He is not the best person to be in the liaison position. He can't remember what the doctors tell him about my mom's condition, so every time someone asks how she is he tells us how her general state is - "she had a really rough night," or "she's been nauseous all day"- instead of what we really need to know, like WHAT IS WRONG WITH HER? What did the doctor say? What about those tests they did? He couldn't tell ya.
So, my mom's sister's daughter, P (who looks exactly like my mom, weird) has stepped in, along with Barb. Now, Barb is so sweet and wonderful that I almost want to tell P that we've got it covered, she can go now, but that would be selfish and unwarranted. P is a CEO. She's really good at getting answers now. She played the patient advocate role when her father, brother, and (other) aunt were sick at the hospital, so this is nothing new for her. What bothers me? She's been a bit of a bitch to me. I swear it's not all in my head.* I think P believes I should be doing what she's doing. And you know what? She's probably right! This is my mother we're talking about, right? If it were Micah in the hospital, I would be ALL UP ON some answers, his health status, never leaving his side, everything. So why can't I do that for my own mother? I DON'T KNOW. The easy answer is that P, Barb, and my brother have been ALL UP ON IT and we have the answers we need. The hard answer? Does anyone really want to watch me try to work through that one? I didn't think so.
Barb decided to make up a schedule for a rotating cast of aides for my mom. The aides being her family and friends, the ones who can donate chunks of time, including overnight. The problem is the response time of the nurses and doctors is startlingly slow. If something is wrong, unless my mom screamed "I'm bleeding out of my fucking eyeballs!!!!" into the nurse intercom, no one shows up for fifteen minutes, sometimes 1/2 hour. They apologize and say the hospital is full and the nursing resources are thin. But that's just not good enough for my mom, the most popular and loved gal in among her set. So we all feel more comfortable, especially my mom, when there is someone there all the time to physically GO GET AN F'N NURSE if she needs something. Because on Sunday my mom had another episode of the same type and severity as what put her in the hospital in the first place, and it's just not acceptable that the nurses didn't come immediately.
Thursday is my night! If she's still in the hospital by then, I'm staying the night. I'll put on my jammies and bring a movie (my bro hooked Mom up with a DVD player today!) and my favorite pillow and settle down as well as I can into that fucking chair. The one that squeals and hisses when you move but lays completely flat. Shit, if my 63-year-old dad can sleep there, so can I.
*I swear her attitude HAS NOTHING to do with the one time I house-sat for her and her husband and they came home early and found their house decorated with beer cans and their Grand Cherokee NOT IN THE GARAGE. I mean, come on! That was, like, YEARS ago. She's been nice to me since then! And she has a REALLY messed up step-daughter! Cut a bitch some slack! WTF!
7.28.2006
bits and pieces
This morning when I was driving to work I heard "For the Longest Time" by Billy Joel on the radio and it triggered a major bout of misty nostalgia. I hadn't heard that song, well, for the longest time. It immediately made me feel 4 years old again; it was probably one of the first songs I memorized and sang along to. My dad would listen to Billy Joel all the time, and I remember very clearly sitting shotgun in his green VW station wagon listening to this song while he drove me to school. I've always been weirded out by the brain and how it retains song lyrics forever, because I really felt like I hadn't heard that song since I was 5, but I knew every word. It was awesome. And as I said, misty. I was getting all teary and thinking of my dad and his condition and I'm slowly coming to grips with the fact that I'm losing him. FUN! I know I should be grateful for ever having him at all.
MMKAY!
I am staging an intervention on myself.
I just erased about 9 inches of some depressing fucking shit about my dad my mom her health status my aunt's assertion that since my dad is LALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU that it's my job to make sure EVERYTHING GOES RIGHT at the hospital and AAAAAH!! CHRIST!
I just can't do it, the inch upon inch of sadness that I've already hashed out on the phone with several unsuspecting friends. It's boring, melodramatic, self-indulgent...GET A GRIP, GABBY! A FIRM ONE! This is NOT the time to go all PANSY!
I just...well, don't you have moments where it feels like you're in a canoe treading water at the top of a gigantic waterfall, using all your muscles to keep yourself on top, dreading the moment (which is inevitable, you're not superhuman) when your muscles give out?
Yeah.
But then, so much is right in my life right now. Micah? Wonderful, et al. School? Can I just say? I LOVE IT. Ok, so yeah, I'm only in the first week, the easy-like-Sunday-mornin' week. But I honestly believe I have found the perfect learning forum. Since I'm on the internet, oh, 9 hours a day (holy shit, dude, that's too much) I am completely addicted to going into the classroom discussion threads to see if if anyone has responded to my reading response questions. I got good and GIDDY this morning when I saw the professor had responded to my response with another question, so obviously impressed with me, and you know what? When I caught myself realizing I want to be teacher's pet? I embraced it. Teacher's pets get the motherfucking grades, ya know? Okay, I also realized the people in my class can't write worth a damn and that simply having good grammar and a somewhat expanded vocabularly can make you look like a genius if it's right above someone who writes like this:
. Regarding global warnings It think this could be useful the study of combustion chambers used in power plants could stop pollutants . The universial authenication is much needed to protect privacy from all the preditors . I think all the new technologies in place have their pro's and con's I think along the lines of health cloning is wrong and appose that ,I feel a monster would be created .
And for the trillionth time I'm reminded that though the environment wasn't the healthiest for self-esteem, self-expression, or anything else positive for the self, our high school did teach us how to write coherently. There's that.
And when I was reading "Introduction to Web Design" and saw all the HTML stuff? TOTALLY NOT SCARED. In fact, excited. They're teaching me something I desperately want to know, and I'm pretty sure that's never happened before, except maybe that Human Sexuality class I took at the community college.
What was the best/most useful class you ever took?
MMKAY!
I am staging an intervention on myself.
I just erased about 9 inches of some depressing fucking shit about my dad my mom her health status my aunt's assertion that since my dad is LALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU that it's my job to make sure EVERYTHING GOES RIGHT at the hospital and AAAAAH!! CHRIST!
I just can't do it, the inch upon inch of sadness that I've already hashed out on the phone with several unsuspecting friends. It's boring, melodramatic, self-indulgent...GET A GRIP, GABBY! A FIRM ONE! This is NOT the time to go all PANSY!
I just...well, don't you have moments where it feels like you're in a canoe treading water at the top of a gigantic waterfall, using all your muscles to keep yourself on top, dreading the moment (which is inevitable, you're not superhuman) when your muscles give out?
Yeah.
But then, so much is right in my life right now. Micah? Wonderful, et al. School? Can I just say? I LOVE IT. Ok, so yeah, I'm only in the first week, the easy-like-Sunday-mornin' week. But I honestly believe I have found the perfect learning forum. Since I'm on the internet, oh, 9 hours a day (holy shit, dude, that's too much) I am completely addicted to going into the classroom discussion threads to see if if anyone has responded to my reading response questions. I got good and GIDDY this morning when I saw the professor had responded to my response with another question, so obviously impressed with me, and you know what? When I caught myself realizing I want to be teacher's pet? I embraced it. Teacher's pets get the motherfucking grades, ya know? Okay, I also realized the people in my class can't write worth a damn and that simply having good grammar and a somewhat expanded vocabularly can make you look like a genius if it's right above someone who writes like this:
. Regarding global warnings It think this could be useful the study of combustion chambers used in power plants could stop pollutants . The universial authenication is much needed to protect privacy from all the preditors . I think all the new technologies in place have their pro's and con's I think along the lines of health cloning is wrong and appose that ,I feel a monster would be created .
And for the trillionth time I'm reminded that though the environment wasn't the healthiest for self-esteem, self-expression, or anything else positive for the self, our high school did teach us how to write coherently. There's that.
And when I was reading "Introduction to Web Design" and saw all the HTML stuff? TOTALLY NOT SCARED. In fact, excited. They're teaching me something I desperately want to know, and I'm pretty sure that's never happened before, except maybe that Human Sexuality class I took at the community college.
What was the best/most useful class you ever took?
7.27.2006
like this and like that and like this and uhhh
the gall bladder and liver are connected. didn't know that. or maybe i did but forgot. anyway, they cauterized the connection after taking out my mom's gall bladder and it sprung a leak. bile was leaking all over the place inside of her. now she can't do anything but lay there in the hospital alternately in tons of pain or nauseous from the painkiller. yesterday she was much more coherent and we had a lovely chat about the goings on in my life - a fabulous float trip, the theater, and starting school.
she'll be okay. it's just going to take some time to heal. part of me, the Negative Nancy, thinks she might not ever be 100% back to where she was. no doubt she'll prove me wrong. she's like that.
-----------
the second order of business is the lack of commenting on this here blog. i won't pretend it doesn't bother me. i like the comments. seeing that sad little "0 comments" does not make my day. you want to make my day, don't you?
so, at the end of every entry from now on, i'm going to ask you a question. if you still don't comment, may your undies be eternally slipping up your ass cheeks.
-----------
cleaning has never come easy to me. my parents never made me clean anything but my room when i was little. my dorm room was a fucking nightmare when i spent that year in Boston. now, i only seem to clean when the person i am living with can't take it anymore and they start to clean, which makes me feel guilty and i end up cleaning, too. and then? i can't seem to stop.
Micah is a great cleaner. he actually buys bleach. and uses it! it was rainy on Monday, so Micah came home early from work and started cleaning. and fuck, did he clean. the apartment looks magnificent. feeling inspired, i bought new refills for my swiffer wetjet - they have a wetjet liquid for hardwood floors now! brilliant! - and went to motherfucking town on the kitchen floor first, then the rest of the apartment. it looks and smells so nice now!
(also, i bought a computer chair. a nice, cushy, supportive black leather computer chair, because wooden chairs are NOT conducive to spending lots of time at my desk. my legs and ass were always falling asleep. that has nothing to do with cleaning, but i'm too excited about it not to share.)
now it seems Micah and I are in a cleaning competition. because now that the apartment is looking fantastic, we keep finding other places to clean.
unfortunately, we've had a bit of an ant problem in the kitchen. off the kitchen is a balcony, and the door is always open so the cats can chill out there, which they love. but since the door is always open, sometimes pests come in. thank god no squirrel or bird has been dumb enough to cross the threshold, but plenty of bugs have, and the cats kill and eat all of them. except ants. it's probably the equivalent of licking crumbs off the floor to my skilled, blood-thirsty, hunting cats. boring. waste of time. there are spastic june bugs and confused moths to track! and you want us to kill ants? pshaw!
alas, the hunting cats have left it up to me to get rid of the ants. for some reason, the ants make me very angry and anxious and Micah just doesn't feel the urgency i feel in getting rid of them. his answer is always "we just need to keep it cleaner," and he's totally right. but also, maybe we should look into some sort of poison? please?
so, after buying several packs of ant poison...huts, i guess, i went to the trusty internet and tried to find some ant deterrent to keep them from coming in at all. because i am impatient.
turns out ants do not like the following:
-baby powder
-chili pepper powder
-cloves
-a mysterious substance called Tarro
-ground cinnamon
-boric acid (because who doesn't have that in their home? so convenient.)
-citrus
also, and this is key - there are two types of ants: sugar eaters and grease eaters. there is no way to know which kind of ant you have, unless you happen upon ants floating gluttonously in a puddle of grease or lined up noshing on an apple. I had yet to see either. All I knew is that they really liked being near the stove, walking up it, around it, and across the counters. They also like the dry cat food. (which, DUH, has grease.)
so last night Micah decides the stove needs to be cleaned. what he unearthed was fucking disgusting, and the answer to the question about what kind of ants were infiltrating our kitchen, those dirty little bastards.
the grease. oh my dear, the grease.
it was coagulated in orange-ish drippings between the stove and cabinets. it was splattered behind the stove. Micah, bless him, knew how to disassemble the top of the stove so we could see just how much grease was attracting those ant bastards. it was totally fucking repulsive - caked, black, gummy, thick - and i couldn't believe it was lurking there under the burners for all this time. the stove probably hadn't been cleaned since it was purchased, and i'm guessing that was about 15 years ago. thank god we had oven cleaner, because nothing else would have worked.
and can i just tell you how wonderful it feels knowing we discovered all that nastiness and got rid of it? i'm starting to see the light. i even used an empty spray bottle and filled it with bleach and water and lovingly sprayed down the whole shebang after we were finished.
i really, really want to be a cleaner. i first have to get over an innate tendency to not care. if i'm being honest about it, dishes lying about don't bother me. sinkfuls, sure, that's nasty, but even leaving one dish out just paves the way for more. skipping a week of cleaning (or five) will make the cleaning so much harder, especially when you have newfangling items like swiffers (wet AND dry!) that if actually utilized on a regular basis, would keep the place from ever getting nasty.
i'm starting to clue in. be patient with me.
and if those ants come back after the huge, major, will it ever end grease-elimination party we threw last night, i WILL go looking for boric fucking acid.
----------------
your question, lovelies:
- how often do you clean? (and when i say clean i mean more than dishes - sweep/vacuum, dust, windex, etc.) what is your least favorite thing to clean? most favorite?
she'll be okay. it's just going to take some time to heal. part of me, the Negative Nancy, thinks she might not ever be 100% back to where she was. no doubt she'll prove me wrong. she's like that.
-----------
the second order of business is the lack of commenting on this here blog. i won't pretend it doesn't bother me. i like the comments. seeing that sad little "0 comments" does not make my day. you want to make my day, don't you?
so, at the end of every entry from now on, i'm going to ask you a question. if you still don't comment, may your undies be eternally slipping up your ass cheeks.
-----------
cleaning has never come easy to me. my parents never made me clean anything but my room when i was little. my dorm room was a fucking nightmare when i spent that year in Boston. now, i only seem to clean when the person i am living with can't take it anymore and they start to clean, which makes me feel guilty and i end up cleaning, too. and then? i can't seem to stop.
Micah is a great cleaner. he actually buys bleach. and uses it! it was rainy on Monday, so Micah came home early from work and started cleaning. and fuck, did he clean. the apartment looks magnificent. feeling inspired, i bought new refills for my swiffer wetjet - they have a wetjet liquid for hardwood floors now! brilliant! - and went to motherfucking town on the kitchen floor first, then the rest of the apartment. it looks and smells so nice now!
(also, i bought a computer chair. a nice, cushy, supportive black leather computer chair, because wooden chairs are NOT conducive to spending lots of time at my desk. my legs and ass were always falling asleep. that has nothing to do with cleaning, but i'm too excited about it not to share.)
now it seems Micah and I are in a cleaning competition. because now that the apartment is looking fantastic, we keep finding other places to clean.
unfortunately, we've had a bit of an ant problem in the kitchen. off the kitchen is a balcony, and the door is always open so the cats can chill out there, which they love. but since the door is always open, sometimes pests come in. thank god no squirrel or bird has been dumb enough to cross the threshold, but plenty of bugs have, and the cats kill and eat all of them. except ants. it's probably the equivalent of licking crumbs off the floor to my skilled, blood-thirsty, hunting cats. boring. waste of time. there are spastic june bugs and confused moths to track! and you want us to kill ants? pshaw!
alas, the hunting cats have left it up to me to get rid of the ants. for some reason, the ants make me very angry and anxious and Micah just doesn't feel the urgency i feel in getting rid of them. his answer is always "we just need to keep it cleaner," and he's totally right. but also, maybe we should look into some sort of poison? please?
so, after buying several packs of ant poison...huts, i guess, i went to the trusty internet and tried to find some ant deterrent to keep them from coming in at all. because i am impatient.
turns out ants do not like the following:
-baby powder
-chili pepper powder
-cloves
-a mysterious substance called Tarro
-ground cinnamon
-boric acid (because who doesn't have that in their home? so convenient.)
-citrus
also, and this is key - there are two types of ants: sugar eaters and grease eaters. there is no way to know which kind of ant you have, unless you happen upon ants floating gluttonously in a puddle of grease or lined up noshing on an apple. I had yet to see either. All I knew is that they really liked being near the stove, walking up it, around it, and across the counters. They also like the dry cat food. (which, DUH, has grease.)
so last night Micah decides the stove needs to be cleaned. what he unearthed was fucking disgusting, and the answer to the question about what kind of ants were infiltrating our kitchen, those dirty little bastards.
the grease. oh my dear, the grease.
it was coagulated in orange-ish drippings between the stove and cabinets. it was splattered behind the stove. Micah, bless him, knew how to disassemble the top of the stove so we could see just how much grease was attracting those ant bastards. it was totally fucking repulsive - caked, black, gummy, thick - and i couldn't believe it was lurking there under the burners for all this time. the stove probably hadn't been cleaned since it was purchased, and i'm guessing that was about 15 years ago. thank god we had oven cleaner, because nothing else would have worked.
and can i just tell you how wonderful it feels knowing we discovered all that nastiness and got rid of it? i'm starting to see the light. i even used an empty spray bottle and filled it with bleach and water and lovingly sprayed down the whole shebang after we were finished.
i really, really want to be a cleaner. i first have to get over an innate tendency to not care. if i'm being honest about it, dishes lying about don't bother me. sinkfuls, sure, that's nasty, but even leaving one dish out just paves the way for more. skipping a week of cleaning (or five) will make the cleaning so much harder, especially when you have newfangling items like swiffers (wet AND dry!) that if actually utilized on a regular basis, would keep the place from ever getting nasty.
i'm starting to clue in. be patient with me.
and if those ants come back after the huge, major, will it ever end grease-elimination party we threw last night, i WILL go looking for boric fucking acid.
----------------
your question, lovelies:
- how often do you clean? (and when i say clean i mean more than dishes - sweep/vacuum, dust, windex, etc.) what is your least favorite thing to clean? most favorite?
7.25.2006
set it down
ok, so maybe I overreacted a little. but when it comes to your mom, all bets are off. i'm allowed to freak the fuck out for a second.
my mom's going to be fine. why she didn't tell me the full story of the operation, i don't know. she survived breast cancer and her doctor was worried about the possibility of ovarian cancer developing, so when she found out she had major gall stones her doctor suggested they go ahead and take the ovaries out "while [they're] in there."
why didn't she tell me that? kind of major, right?
maybe not. i don't even know.
anyway, there was internal leakage after the surgery. she told my dad to call 911 after experiencing the worst pain of her life. i don't think my mom has ever been in an ambulance, and that's pretty good for being nearly 62.
(has anyone else been in an ambulance? do i assume because i have, everyone has? discuss.)
so yeah, it was really sad to see her in the hospital bed. when i arrived she still hadn't woken from the anesthesia yet. gradually she came to, looking extremely tired, sallow, and like smiling was a near impossibility. my dad told her "everyone's here" and she scanned the room silently until her eyes fell upon my niece, her sugar plum fairy, and she whispered "hi Bridgette."
nearly broke me in two, how much my mom loves that little girl. i imagine she used to look at me the same way, her miracle, the baby girl her body couldn't produce but who was there for her to love all the same. and now that i've learned Bridgette asks about me all the time, i'm totally smitten as well.
inhale! exhale! everything's going to be fine.
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