Another true story

New Year's Eve, 2003. Husbandly One and I did not go out. We did not party. We did not drink.

New Year's Day, 2004. I woke up at 8 am, and I hate to say it but I was a little smug about my lack of hangover. Mere hours later, I was wishing for a hangover. I was wishing for a blunt trauma injury. I was wishing I was dead.

Out of NOWHERE came the most astounding throat infection I have ever experienced. I woke up at 8am completely healthy, and by 11 am my fever was so high that Husbandly One was scared. My throat was on fire, I was only semi-coherent, and swallowing made me cry out in pain. No, not swallowing food, just swallowing. Any idea how many times a day we instinctively swallow the saliva in our mouths? Let me be the first to tell you, it is OFTEN. Like, several times per minute. And I couldn't do it. Husbandly One rigged me up with a spit bucket until the emergency clinic opened at noon on New Year's Day, and then rushed me in.

The doctor took one look in my mouth. Exact quote: "Wow."

I desperately needed antibiotics, but I couldn't swallow anything. The doctor hesitated to put me on IV (therefore meaning being admitted to the hospital) and therefore prescribed the only liquid antibiotic he could think of at the time, seeing how pills were completely out of the question. What I ended up getting was an antibiotic formula meant for BABIES.... so while a six month old could get away with a teaspoon a day, I had to take an entire bottle of the stuff every day for the next ten days. (Hey, it was a clinic open on New Year's Day. Don't be judgin')

We got back home, and Husbandly One put me to bed after pouring me a beer mug of antibiotic. I cried for the entire half hour it took me to get it down. And then, in desperation, he said, "Tell me what I can get you, what can I do, PLEASE give me a way to be helpful." (Ok, he didn't say it quite that way, but that's what he meant.)

I might have been out of it, but even fever-crazy chicks can be brought back to reality. I realized that, more than anything, I needed calories. But how to get them? Swallowing was my sworn enemy, and it didn't look like me and that bitch would be making up any time soon. Finally, I saw the answer.

"Strawberry milkshake. I need a strawberry milkshake, I think I can get that down and it has fat in it so it's good. Strawberry milkshake."

And then I kind of passed out.

I don't know how much time passed before I came back to myself, but it was the noise in the kitchen that did it. The URNG URNG URNG KWHIR noise coming out of the kitchen.

I (wrongly) thought I had been clear that I was asking for a Dairy Queen milkshake. But Husbandly One went to the grocery store, on January 1st, to buy actual strawberries, so that he could blend my milkshake at home.

I had been dreaming of a nice, thick, icy, milkshake.

Husbandly One eventually came into our bedroom with his gift of love. He had blended expensive strawberries with 1% milk, because he remembered how much I hate ice cream. And that was it, strawberries and 1% milk.

Now, to be fair, I DO hate ice cream. And he remembered that and tried to make me a beverage I could stomach. MEANWHILE, I have been thinking (but not saying), "I will eat a milkshake, even though it contains ice cream, because it will be coolly soothing and I need those calories, damn it."

Instead of a scrumdilicious concoction, Husbandly One thrusts a luke warm glass of menstrual fluid at me and says, "I love you baby, I am so worried about you, I want you to get better, drink this."

And to my credit, I did.

===========

You know, sometimes that idiot I'm in love with misunderstands me. And sometimes that idiot gets it wrong. And sometimes that idiot misses the point.

But he is MY idiot, and he loves me and I love him. And everything he does, he does for me.





Don't forget to comment, to be eligible for the fabulus CF or NICU related prize!

Is it possible he hates me?

About 40 minutes ago, I was seriously considering going to bed. It is Sunday night, I am tired, I am (as previously mentioned) hot. I decided I would strip down, lay on my bed reading for a while, and then to to sleep.

Husbandly One, on the other hand, had other plans. HE never goes to bed before 1:00 am, so for whatever reason, 10 pm seemed like a reasonable time to strip the sheets off our bed and throw them in the washing machine.

Sobs.

So now I have to wait for the sheets to dry. And then I will have to make the bed. And, heaven help us all, when I get in to bed, the sheets will be WARM.

Sobs again.

I am sooooo hot

Not in the sense of, "Wow, please get that woman a bikini, so that we can all further enjoy the fabulousness which is her physique."

It's more along the lines of, "Huh, I need to join some undiscovered tribe of people who have never seen the 21st century ideal of feminine beauty, and who are perfectly happy to welcome a slightly overweight woman who needs to sit around in a T-shirt and her panties to deal with the farking heat. Oh, and praise her for her lusciousness. And, umm, her wisdom. And bring her pretzels."

Omigod, you guys, it is only JUNE and I am already praying for winter. I went to the grocery store this afternoon, and in the six minutes it took me to travel (by car!) from my house to the air conditioned store, I developped that uniform sticky layer of, umm, glisten all over my entire body. The worst offenders? My forehead and under-boobage area. And if you know me in real life, you know there ain't much to the boobage, rumour says we modestly endowed women are supposed to escape the living hell which is Summertime Boobs. Guess what? Big farking lie.

I sincerely wish I was one of those women who welcome hot weather, who romp freely in the glaring sunshine. Instead I am ME, the chick who hides in her basement after it hits 25 degrees (Celsius people, NOT Fahrenheit...I'm not THAT weird.)

Yet.



PS. Don't forget.... comment = cash. See my entry from June 20 for details.

I know I'm slow, but explain to me how this works

Son (like thousands of other kids) received his final report card today.

Let me first make this clear: I am proud of Son at all times, in all ways, no matter what. And he knows that. I do not consider his grades important in the least, as long as he is trying his hardest and is becoming a kind, compassionate person along the way.

So we get the final report card for Grade Six today. It has ten grades. Three B's (80% to 86%) , three A's (87% to 94%), and four A+'s (95% and above). (He gets this stunning scholastic ability from me. Oh, okay, he gets SOME of it from my Ex-Husband, but mostly? Me.)

Here's my issue (and why his History teacher had better hope not to meet me in a dark alley). Aside from his actual mark, the teachers get to make one of five broad (and I mean BROAD) comments : Very Good, Satisfactory, Acceptable, Requires Improvement, Failed.

So can someone please how explain to me how my Son achieved a 99% in history....and whose interest in history has now placed him among the top 165 historically-minded children in all of CANADA to be chosen for the National History Fair, along with an all expenses paid trip to the other side of the bloody COUNTRY... My child was NOT rated "Very Good", but merely "SATISFACTORY"???

Lady, you better keep looking over your shoulder, cause I'm a'comin.

Signed,
Proud Amah


PS. Don't forget to post a comment -- any comment, up to and including "You suck" -- to be eligible for a chance to win my Most Outstanding Prize, a chance to help someone who might otherwise not be well enough to last til Christmas. Am I playing the Guilt Card? Ummm, yeah, and I have zero regrets about it. So just say something, damn it. We'll all feel better.

Who wants to fall in love? (Plus? CONTEST!)

Yesterday (was it really only yesterday?) I was a little on the bored side, so I checked out a blog that was new to me, Confessions of a CF Husband.

I have already explained that my way of "accepting" a new blog involves me going back to the very beginning, and reading forward. I encouraged you to check out some of my favourite blogs and possibly use my methods of getting to know the bloggers I enjoy. No pressure, just sayin'.

Then, seriously? DUDE. I found CF Husband.

Please please please link to this amazing blog through my sidebar. And please please please go back to the beginning and read it through from start to today's post. I will admit freely (as I'm sure the author would) that the very earliest posts, ummmm, SUCK (hey, he started this as a communication tool for his immediate family, not for strangers like us). But I promise you, by the time you get to Tricia's Secret Prayer, your life will change.

Shut up, I did NOT drink any Kool-Aid. I am simply humbled and surprised by the emotional envolvement I have forged with this family of strangers in the last 48 hours. Seriously, check it out.

As for contest....I have thought about doing this for a while, and I had several fun prizes in mind. And while those may well show up in future, here's the current deal:

Leave a comment on my blog, on any post, between now and next Friday at 8pm AST (7pm EST) and you will be entered for my fabulous prize: a $50 donation, made in your name, to either the Cystic Fibrosis organization in your (Province / state / country) OR a $50 donation to your local NICU (again in your name.) Which means that I will donate $50, and you will receive the tax receipt.

No, it may not be as fun as getting an actual prize for yourself, but maybe between the two of us we can help save a life.

Listen guys, I see my stats, I know there are a lot of lurkers out there. SO c'mon, delurk in support of two great causes.

Food, from opposing views

The Outside Diner in me reports: Tonight Husbandly One and I tried a new restaurant. A restaurant with escargots on the menu.

Now, my love of escargots is long, deep, and well documented, but you would not believe how difficult it is to find good escargots in this day and age. (We eat out on a regular basis so I am qualified to say.) Seriously, dude, if I wanted a big plate of greasy, melted cheese with a few overcooked snails at the bottom, I would have ordered it.

Surprisingly, the escargots I had tonight were divine. Actually, they were beyond divine: even as we speak, new religions are being organized, simply to sing their unending praise. They were flavourful, they were garlicy and lightly curried, they were NOT drowned in curdled cheese. And where did I find these miracles? The farking KEG.

The Inside Diner in me reports: Tonight is garbage night at our house. I opened the fridge, thinking I would throw out my usual half onion and one expired cup of yogurt, no big deal. Then I realized that my (usually careful) grocery shopping over the last week had not matched our family's schedule in any way. I threw out an open container of cold cuts, with exactly one slice missing, but which we apparently opened at the dawn of time and left uncovered to dry out.

I threw out an entire pack of EIGHT cups of yogurt which, umm, I must have bought quite a while ago because the expiry date was at least three Garbage Nights ago. I threw out four apples that I don't even remember buying. I threw out two pounds of rare, delicous fresh fiddleheads (a true delicacy) that I purchased in honour of my BFF coming to visit ten days ago and then never cooked for her. And the carnage only got worse from there.

Next week, I'm going to save time, not bother to buy nutritious food, and just place $60 in the garbage. The end result will be about the same, plus I'll save time by not having to shop.

Geek? ME.

True story.

We all know that we are not supposed to talk "baby talk" to our children. Other than casual references to bankies (blankets, obviously) and tays (which means "bottle", it is short for the French word "bouteille"), my ex-husband and I never once dumb-downed our vocabulary to Son in our lives.

I remember a day when he was two years old and sassed back at me, much the same way two year olds have sassed back at their mothers since the dawn of time. Did I say, "Watch your tone, boy!"? Did I say, "Wait til your father gets home!"?

Nooooooo. I literally said, "Son, I strongly recommend you reconsider the manner in which you are addressing me." (And then shot him the Mummy Look Of Death.)

Seriously, THAT is how I spoke to my son as an infant.And I offer up this particular nugget NOT as an example of my superior linguistic training, but simply as proof that I am such a dork about English that I couldn't even manage to tell off a toddler in less than 14 words.



(oh, and the Mummy Look of Death? I had that sucker DOWN. My best friend, who was visiting with her own kids for a play date, once saw me shoot The Look at son, and commented, "Holy Shit, I want to obey you when you look like that!")

Irma's Picks

Still not up on the Funny yet. I will get there but my day at work was anything BUT funny today, except in the very bitchiest of frustrated ways. So, instead I give you my personal secrets to enriching your on-line hours.


Every now and then, I recommend a blog to a friend, and the next day, I invariably get the same question: "How do you find the fabulous sites?"

Guys, it isn't difficult, and soon you too will be able to amaze and dazzle people around you with your mastery of the Internet (says the girl who can't hyperlink). First, find a blog you like. Then, check their blogroll to see who they enjoy. Go to one of those blogs, find one you like, and then let the process continue from there. It ain't complicated, but, in its exponential way, can take over your life... you've been warned.

That being said, I have finally updated "Irma's Picks" on the right hand side with the blogs I check every single day. There are others I read from time to time, but this is my list of "must visit" sites that have given me hours of enjoyment and caused my laundry to pile up on more than one occasion.

How to enjoy a new blog? Personaly, I initially go to a site and read the most recent entry or two to see if it appeals to me. I then click in to the archives and read the whole thing from the very beginning. Now, this is just my personal method, I know lots of people who go to blogs and just pick up the story wherever the author may be. I can't do that, though, I need to know the whole story / all the in jokes / all the context. And once I have read it all, I keep up with the updates as they occur.

So yes, the blogs you see in Irma's picks? I have read every word and I highly recommend them all. On first glance I know it seems that I focus on "mommy blogs" an awful lot , and I suppose I do. I'm a Mommy for Christ's sake, what do you want?? But these ladies (and gentlemen) are either incredibly poignant or funny as hell. Or both.

So go. Read.

Be more funny

Man, I can be a bit of a downer, what with all the crying and the emotional upheaval.

Bah.

Promise to be more entertaining and sarcastic in the future....because, really, isn't that why you like me in real life? Yeah, that's what I thought.

Oh, and note to Gill: I don't have your email address, dude.

She's been and gone

I haven't seen my best friend in seven years. We have been apart longer than we were ever together.

Still.

We cried like babies when she finally arrived. She was able to say sweet words to me, all I was able to do was nod and cry some more. It was perfect.

She was only here for five days, but I feel like all is right in my world. She gets me. I get her. We both know when something mundane or obscure is freaking funny. We have our own language, our own history that no one else could ever understand.

I left her at the airport tonight. One quick hug. I did not cry.

At least not where she would see me.

T minus 12 hours

This afternoon, Chef asked me what I was doing this weekend. I reminded him that, tomorrow at noon, I will finally see my best friend, after seven years apart. And my eyes started leaking, and my breathing was suddenly ragged in my chest.

And he, who has been in my country for twenty years now, and who has undoubtedly longed for well loved friends of old since he immigrated, just smiled and said, "I know."

Buh bye FACE.xx.-l78.xBOOQC

I got sucked in to that friendly site about a year ago (extra characters and misspelling in my title are by design....umm, paranoid much, Irma?)

I have had a wonky feeling about that place for a while, I decided to leave about five months ago but I was convinced (by well meaning friends) to stay. But now? I'm outta there. No real reason, but the place has started to creep me out.

For the same reason, I abandonned my old (much loved by me) blog which contained my real name in the frigging ADDRESS (God I was young and stupid) and came to this site instead. Most of us know that my name isn't actually Irma, right? (Although I must admit, the name Irma is starting to grow on me. )

I find it fascinating how much we are all willing to pour in to our on-line diaries, simply because we all get complacent and think of these sites as the diaries we kept when we were young, those slim volumes bound in fake leather with that lame little brass key. Well, we all know how well that dumb key kept our younger brothers out of our personal thoughts and info, so why do we trust the internet MORE? Believe me, I recognize that, despite my attempts to "hide my true identity", it would probably take a 10 year old, anywhere in the world, 20 minutes to piece together exactly who I am, where I live, and what I had for lunch today. I am not saying my goal is total anonymity...if that was the case, I wouldn't BLOG.

I guess I just assume that most people understand that I want to express myself while protecting my identity, and I have to believe that most people respect that, and have more important things to do than put two and two together = her REAL NAME.

But that Face place? Man, I had my real name out there, I had pictures out there, none of my child, thank God, but still pictures. And my general location, And my birthday. And I did it all because it seemed like such a sunny, happy place, full of (legitimate) people who wanted to contact me. But what about all the shady characters?

NO THANK YOU

Today, in a totally unrelated matter, a friend if mine was contacted by her bank today to let her know she is the victim of identity theft. No no, it had nothing to do with anything she did on-line, the bank thinks it happened when she used her credit card at a store almost two months ago. But now my friend has to change her phone number, cancel her credit cards, close her bank accounts, transfer her mortgage, etc. Not because SHE did anything wrong, but because Someone found a way to tap in to her info.

I love the internet, but I fear it at the same time.

Head? Meet Wall. Repeat.

Gawd what a bizarre day.

At 11 am, my general manager announces to me that he has hired a coordinator to help me and Husbandly One plan the catering in August for 70,000 people. He explained at great length that he wasn't saying I can't handle the task, he knows I can, he just wanted to get me help, etc. And while he is telling me this, I am thinking at the back of my head, "Dude, be it 100 or 6,000 or 70,000 , it's all pretty much the same to me. It's Husbandly One who is going to be in the shitter, seeing how he has to actually pull off everything I organize."

But anyway, he keeps saying how he doesn't want me to read anything negative into this, he has total faith in me, but he feels I am going to need the help....oh, and by the way, she starts tomorrow and I don't even know where to put her, we have no free office space.

Tomorrow. WTF?

In my mind, I quickly ran through possible locations for this young lady to work from. "Sir, I have the biggest office in the sales department. I will get rid of some furniture, and rearrange what's left, and she can share my office." And I wasn't trying to be the big hero, mind you, I was trying to be practical and self sacrificing and do something for The Team.

I spent over an hour in my bare feet (because my stiletto sandals were NOT helping the situation) dragging heavy furniture around my office, in an attempt to make room for a second body. The resulting set up for me is NOT perfect (in fact, I hate it) but I figure it's only for two months and I have to be a team player.

I arranged to get her set up on our network with an email address and appropriate system access. I found a desk to be delivered to my office. I borrowed another office chair. I arranged to have my office re-wired for an additional phone line and a second computer terminal. I managed to find her a bloody computer. I even had a second key for my office made for her. I cleaned out an entire drawer of my filing cabinet for her, and organized all of my past concert files in a way that will make it easy for her to benefit from our past concerts. I even put out word to other departments that I needed an extra recycling bin and garbage can. In short, I worked my ass off today, to try and make her first day tomorrow as smooth as possible...even though my day today was full to the max long before I even knew this woman existed.

At 4:30, Husbandly One gets out of his all day meeting and for the first time, he learns of this coordinator, coming tomorrow. He says, "Well, 75% of the work she is going to do will be for me, so she should work out of my office."

I said, "Yes, of course she's working for you, but I have waaaaay more space than you do and I was essentially given ten minutes to figure out where she would work, and I couldn't talk to you, so I volunteered half of my office and all of my privacy to help out."

He, NOT getting the point, said, "No no, I want her in my office. It won't be a problem."

Nooo.....I guess it won't. Seeing how I did all the scrambling today and arranged everything. And neglected my other commitments to make this happen. And now have new holes in my office walls for no reason. And am now left with an office set up that I may hate, but spent an hour and many good intentions putting together. And now I have to put it all back the old way tomorrow. Assuming, of course, that the Old Way will cover the holes in the wall.

And as an added bonus, thanks for further removing me from the arrangements, from the planning process. At least if she was in my office, I'd be up to date with what was happening. Guess I am just an order taker, after all.

Forget gray hair, butter is what makes you old

I started going gray when I was 25 years old. I remember Daddy visiting me in Alberta when I was 28, and he seemed kind of down. When I finally asked him what the hell his problem was, he stammered, "Well...it's just....I'm not ready to see My Baby with gray hair....it means I'm old..."

And I was all, "Hello? YOU were almost completely gray at thirty, the few strands you see on MY head isn't because you're old, it's because you gave me bad genes, you moron." And he cheered up right away.

But seriously, Internet, I need to ask you about butter as it relates to aging. Up until six months ago, I could eat butter and simply enjoy it. Now, whenever I do -- be in on a roll at dinner or on popcorn at the movies -- I experience the weirdest senseation about two hours later, it seems like the butter comes back to haunt me by flooding my mouth with a gross, buttery, greasy saliva. Yeah yeah, I'm sharing too much, blah blah blah. But WTF?

And no, I'm not talking about indigestion, the feeling seems to originate from within my mouth itself, I have no problem with my digestive tract (like heartburn). Just this bizarre squishy flooding directly in to my salivary glands. Guh-ross.

Does anyone else out there have any idea what I'm talking about?