The Latest

It’s been a while since I have written anything.  I haven’t been able to think of much to say.  So for those of you on the edge of your seat wondering what is going on in my oh-so-exciting life…

Shelby is still nutty as ever, although she is learning the value of a dollar which is great for bribery.  In no time she will be at the track betting on the ponies.   She gets fake money for chores she does around the house, which she gets to cash in for real money if she wants to make a purchase of some sort.  There is also a payback plan…she has to pay me a certain amount for saying no, or when I have to repeat myself for the third time, or if she has a tantrum.  Now, if I ask her to do something, instead of saying no she goes and digs a fake quarter out of her jar and hands it to me.

My relationship with Wayne has progressed to the point he farts in front of me, but it is still early enough that he acts embarrassed about it.  Although he did fart in front of my sister the other night so maybe there is a ring in my future.  We are going to Vegas in a few weeks to check out jobs and living arrangements for him.  How nice, right?  Let’s just rub it in that you are moving away, shall we?

Work at Joe’s office has slowed down to the point that we don’t even get up and walk to each other’s offices to speak anymore.  We just email.  We have a slow email server so 5 minutes after I hit send, I can tell he’s gotten it by the laughter coming from his office and likewise.

Work at the stable has been great.  I’m learning a lot about horses that I never knew, such has, a hoof abscess costs about $700 when it is all said and done.  Tomorrow I get to learn how to feed them, since I live relatively close.
Off to settle up with Shelby for the day and get her to bed.  Wish me luck.

I Love My Dog??

Shelby wanted a dog.  And I admit, even knowing my feelings towards dogs, I decided I had to have one, too.  I was going to be the best dog mommy, and he was going to change my life by forcing me to get up early, therefore making me show up on time to work.  I was going to brush him every other day, and teach him good manners, and I was never ever going to resent him or be annoyed with him and we would be the happiest, most well balanced family in the world.

That lasted a week.  He has separation anxiety.  He eats Barbies.  He steals food.  He drags the cat around by his head.  He burps.  He farts.  He smells like dead worms when the humidity is high.  He wipes his nose on my bed.  He turns into a giant tangle if I give him a bath.  He wants to lick my arms.  Instead of sleeping on the floor next to the bed like a faithful companion, he sleeps on my leg, or stretched sideways across my bed, and occasionally jumps up to launch himself through the mini blinds in the middle of the night and whine at a cat outside.  He humps the cat in front of company.  He’s allergic to everything.  Every morning, as soon as the alarm goes off, he gets the hiccups.  He eats horse poop.  He eats cat poop.

In light of these things, I’ve compiled a list for my own purposes, of wonderful things about Rosco.  A little something I can go to whenever I am about to strangle him.

·         He rarely barks.

·         He does his business outside.

·         He loves the cat.  Too much.

·         His eyelashes are black and 6 inches long.

·         He has big, luminous, intelligent brown eyes.

·         He willingly goes down the slide at the playground with Shelby repeatedly.

·         When I got a moment alone to sit on the kitchen floor and bawl my eyes out over a man who is leaving soon and not coming back, he quietly sat on my lap and leaned against my chest.

·         He rides on the armrest of my car like he owns it.  We occasionally make eye contact, but other than that we are just two lonesome souls, traveling to destinations unknown, side by side staring off into the horizon.

·         He only likes grape chewable Benadryl, not cherry.

·         When you blow in his face he puts his nose between his paws and sneezes.

·         After he eats, he picks up his favorite toy and burps while it is in his mouth so it’s really loud.

·         Every morning I turn on the shower to warm it up while I dig through my sock and underwear drawers, and he comes in with his favorite toy to play exactly two rounds of fetch.  After the second round, he takes the toy to bed with Shelby and goes back to sleep until I wake her up.

·         The pizza delivery guy, the bank teller at Keybank in Cicero, all of the Agape Cowgirls, Monday night volunteers and staff, all the kids at the playground, and all my neighbors know his name and love him.

·         He only likes to play with toys that are twice his size.

·         If I yell at Shelby, he hates me and won’t come near me for an hour.

Well, I just caught him dragging his butt on the floor so I think that’s my cue to stop.

Psycho Mom

Saturday Shelby and I woke up, excited at the prospect of warm weather playing outdoors, but it was raining.  Since I got her some color tablets for the bathtub, she opted for a bath around noon (although she found out if you put all the colors in, it turns into a weird shade of “I don’t wanna sit in that.”

Shelby climbed out of the tub and wrapped herself in a towel, and I went off to the kitchen to start some lunch.  I noticed there was no noise coming from the living room and found her laying on the floor, next to the couch wrapped up in her towel.  I went to touch her and she was burning up.  When I took her temperature it was 103.5.  I mean, it hit her THAT fast.  I got some Advil in her, and Wayne called to invite us to the park.  I told him what was going on and he told me I need to alternate with Tylenol, which he would bring over in 10 minutes. 

By 7 that night, her temp had reached 104.7 and I couldn’t make it go down.  I called her doctor, who sent us to the emergency room.  They swabbed her for strep, and 20 minutes later a nurse walked in with discharge papers and a prescription for Amoxicillin and told me she had strep.  This is where the psycho mom part comes in:

Crabby male nurse:  “Well, she has strep.”

Me:  “OH, GOOD!  I’m so relieved!  THANK you!”

Crabby male nurse stares at me for 30 seconds and says “Really?”

For five years now, this kid has been running fevers for absolutely no reason.  She has been to the E.R. with a 105 temp.  Diagnosis?  None whatsoever.  She has been to the doctor more times than I can remember for fevers that have lasted days.  Diagnosis?  Nada.  She has been held down by me and two nurses while she had blood drawn for a CBC and a mono test to back up negative mono and strep tests in a desperate test to find SOMETHING wrong.  Absolutely nothing.  It did get better when I put her in daycare, she is very rarely sick now, but she still has these weird fevers now and then.

So this time it was so nice to find out that I am going to spend at least 3 paychecks (we are uninsured) for a reason.  Go ahead, judge me.  All the nurses that watched me skip out to my car with my strep infected kid, waving her amoxicillin script like a winning lottery ticket sure did.  I’m waiting for CPS to call with orders to undergo a psychiatric evaluation but no big.

Euchre

This seems to be a week of recognizing all of my various weaknesses.  Or maybe it’s a hormonal thing.  Today’s topic is learning new things.  I SUCK at it.  You wouldn’t believe how many times I have had this exact conversation:

Card playing freak:  “Let’s play Euchre!” 

Me:  “I don’t know how.  I’ve tried to learn, I just can’t figure it out.”

Card playing freak:  “Oh it’s simple.  I will teach you.”

Me:  “No, seriously.  I’ve tried to learn.  I don’t get it.  Something in my brain is missing.  Like, the spot that is labeled “Euchre”.  I just can’t figure it out.”

Card playing freak:  “Yes, but you have never had ME as a teacher.  I’m really good at it, I can teach you  how.”

Me:  “Um, no.  A LOT of people have said that and haven’t been able to teach me.”

Card playing freak:  “Come on, let’s just play a couple of open hands, I will walk you through it, and I promise,  you will figure it out.”

Me:  “Look, I don’t know what part of this you don’t understand.  I can’t play Euchre.  I do not understand it.  I do not wish to understand it at this point.  I do not want to play it.  Count me out.  I’m not playing it.  I promise you, I am not making this up, I do not understand how to play Euchre.  It doesn’t work for me.   The person that invented the game couldn’t even possibly make me learn how to play it.  And if you mention it one more time, I am going to take those cards and shove them up your nostrils one by one.”

I’m real popular at parties, as you can imagine.

So whenever I get to my office and my boss wants to show me something new to lessen his workload, I immediately get my Euchre attitude.  My mind shuts down, and I turn into a 3 year old.  But finally, today, after 10 years of being an accounting clerk, it all fit together.  The fog lifted.  I knocked out an entire year of unpaid payroll liabilities, complete with W-2’s, W-3’s, WH-3’s for a company that didn’t know that they had to pay taxes on their employees.  I also figured out why it is I have to analyze the Trial Balance and what exactly to look for for each client, that it didn't have to be a massive struggle.  I almost felt like I won the lottery. 

I almost felt like learning how to play Euchre.

So I Come Off As Self-Centered...

I have a confession to make, a deep dark secret.  I’ve been hiding it since birth.  Maybe it’s a phobia.

I can walk up to a complete stranger, tell them my life story and then some, but I absolutely cannot reach out to people.  I don’t think I’m shy, as I can talk to anyone…but I can’t ask them THEIR life story in return.  (That’s just an example).

I have a serious, sincere phobia of “bothering” people.  I am so afraid that I am going to butt into something that is none of my business, or say or ask the wrong thing.

Here are a couple more examples:

Meals:  At church and at Agape, when someone is going through a hard time, or an illness or injury, we take turns taking them food.  When I see a list like this I break out into a cold sweat and taking notice that my name is the only one missing.  I had a breakthrough a few months back when a coworker’s wife was very ill.  I made them some chili and a salad but the closer it got to actually dropping the meal off, the more of a mess I became.  By the time I reached this kind man’s driveway, I was shaking.  I breathed the biggest sigh of relief to find him in his driveway getting something out of his trunk.  I literally jumped out of my car, leaving the door open (I’m surprised I remembered to put it in park), shoved the bag at him, gave him a hug, and sped off into the night.  I’m terrified of interrupting this person’s night, or making them feel obligated to be nice or hospitable.  I know the person on the receiving end does not feel this way, but as the giver I feel as if I am forcing my way into this person’s life at a time when they just want some peace.

Depression and hard times:  My boyfriend is depressed, and I can’t bring myself to talk to him about it.  I just try to create as little drama in his life as possible and always have a smile on my face in his presence. I have a friend that I recently suspected was extremely burned out and tired and could never bring myself to say something to her out of fear of being told to mind my own business, (which that person would never do).  Another friend had a close relative die and I couldn’t bring myself to ask her how she was dealing with it because I know she gets asked that same question 20 times a day or I am afraid of making her sad. 

I am so terrified of stirring something up or crossing a line, that I come across as heartless, uncaring, and self centered.  I’m not, I just can’t bring myself to prove otherwise and it sucks.  I can’t even tell someone that I am proud of them or I’ve been thinking of them.  It’s weird.

So there, it’s out.  I’m working on it.