buttercup

Take one child who likes to jump on beds, one small shower pouf thingie, one safety pin, and one set of pajamas, add them all together, and you have one happy Rabbit.

She now has a rabbit tail in the evenings. Like a werewolf only less fangy (most of the time).

So, Amy, am I a good mother NOW? Hee.

The verdict: a pinched nerve. Good because it's not, like, a heart attack. Bad because now that I know what it is, it hurts more. Hahaha, that's so sad, but it's true. I have muscle relaxers to take at night, but they don't do anything. Which -- why would muscle relaxers help a pinched nerve, anyway?

I asked the doctor that, but phrased it the wrong way: I asked, "what do the muscle relaxers do?" At which point he looked at me and said, "they relax your muscles." Errr . . . never mind.

Although my blood pressure is apparently a bit high, so that + our family history = an exhortation to get my blood pressure checked regularly. So I've made the plunge, contacted a "real" doctor instead of my usual urgent care clinic doc, and scheduled a physical. BLEH. I have successfully avoided them since my pre-cheerleading exam in twelfth grade. Oh well. I guess it's part of being an adult. Shudder.

Medical posts are EXCITING, aren't they? This is the last one for a while. Actually, I'm not going to be posting much for the next few months, between trips and shoulder/arm pain and getting the house cleaned and semi-decorated before Jinx house-sits.

Or so I say now, anyway. It depends on how slow work is, I guess.

If you are, let's say, my mom, and I ask you, "have you ever had a weird pins-and-needles thing go on in your arms before?"

Please do not answer all nonchalantly, "YES! when I was diagnosed with high blood pressure, that was my main symptom. You could have borderline hypertension . . . " You could at least add a note of worry or something in there instead of being cheerful about it so that I feel stupid for now being even MORE worried.

At least my paranoia now has a focus, I guess.

I have a lot of stuff I want to talk about but we just went through this big shake-up at work (equipment, not personnel), and my week is going to be spent adjusting to all these new things, so I don't think I'll be able to post much.

You know I'd do it at home normally, but my arms have been doing this weird thing were they tingle and ache, especially my left one, and it's making me paranoid. So I'm not going to be online at home for a while. I'm going to be avoiding keyboards and working out with weights to see if it'll stop the weirdness.

See, this is what my body does: I have these weird symptoms that could either be nothing at all or something really serious, so I end up thinking I'm dying half the time. Like last night, my left arm started the aching thing, from shoulder to wrist, and I thought I was having some sort of Heart Attack Lite. This is not something the body of a hypochondriac should do, it's just cruel. Now I've just got a pins-and-needles thing going on in my left hand and wrist, so who knows what it is? If you guess correctly I'll name my next mystery ailment after you.

Oh, that reminds me, Mystery Jaw Thing is still with us, it just hasn't done anything since the last flare-up, so the semi-hot ENT doc is letting it go as long as I keep an eye on it.

Yes, this is fascinating, isn't it? I swear, the other stuff I have to talk about is much more interesting. Maybe I'll get some time Wednesday.

Rabbit has a bunch of those little Wiggles finger puppets. We keep them in a travel box that's meant for soap, you know what I mean? Last night we put some tissue paper in there so they could sleep because otherwise they would have stayed on her fingers all night.

This morning after waking up the Wiggles, Rabbit decided to use them as toe puppets. And it worked quite well, I might add.

I am on the fence -- should I declare her "creative" or "strange"? I think we'll stick with "creative" for now.

I LOVE PLANNING VACATIONS.

There, now you know. I love getting all the details together, making it run smoothly. Putting little packages together for the kids' road trip bags. I am such a nerd.

So I've been hit with The New-Book Fever, which is much like scarlet fever, except instead of germs there is a drive to acquire new books. I think I've gotten all the ones I wanted now, though, and very cleverly, I might add. I did all this comparative shopping on Amazon and half.com and Ebay and got quite a good lot of cheap books. PLUS I have a few on hold at the library, like Garlic and Sapphires. I don't want to take a lot of library books, though, because of the whole lost books thing.

And I've figured out how to get around not being able to read in the van without falling asleep -- books on CD. Duh, I'm not sure why this is such a revelation, but there you have it. It will also help out during the night drives, since most of the long drives will be at night. (As an aside, I figured out that in the van, reading makes me fall asleep; it was only in the CAR that it made me sick. And we sold the car. Not really for that reason, but I like to think it had something to do with it.)

I am extra crispy right now because I forgot sunscreen Saturday. My face feels like I accidentally tripped and hit a stovetop. I probly have not had a sunburn this bad since ninth grade, actually, which is my own fault for staying in the sun for seven hours without sunscreen. Which is ironic, since I am the Sunscreen Queen. (That is the correct use of irony, right? I'm not trying to channel Alanis or anything here.)

Saturday, for those who were not coerced into watching my child at the last minute and therefore do not know, was Flea Market Day of Wonderfulness. Wherein we sold a bunch of junk and only bought a tiiiny bit more.

The round-up:
- Ben's drum set. sad to see it go, but it was taking up too much space for a once-a-week hobby. the saddest part of all was when Rabbit was playing in her room Saturday evening and looked up at me, pointed to the empty space, and asked, "drums go?" she really liked those things. but I think she will be equally content with a drumstick set and some pots, luckily.

- air conditioner that was in the kitchen window. and thank god it's gone, too, because ginormous beetles kept finding their way through the empty spaces in the window frame and scaring the freaking crap out of me with their loud BZZZZT. it was the perfect a/c, though, I'll miss it. we sold it for $25 and it was gone within two minutes of unloading it; the lady who bought it had us keep it for her and it was the one thing guaranteed to get a sad-looking "how much did you ask for that?" I'll never understand what the point is of knowing how much of a deal you missed out on, seriously.

- cute blue and silver microwave. the cutest microwave ever. sniff.

- a bunch of Jinx's stuff, which is always fun because I get to pick through it first. I got a pretty cool basic messenger bag out of it, this time, which rocks because I've been looking for one for a while. and it's already worn in, woot, etc. I also rescued the tiny bear ornament I gave her LESS THAN SIX MONTHS AGO for xmas, which will either be revamped as a bear in a bunny costume or maybe regifted to Jinx next xmas. haha, yes, that might do nicely.

Nobody bought our space heater, I think we might have to wait til fall to get rid of that. More stuff sold than I thought would sell, including Ben's old decrepit laptop that he paid way too much for at a thrift store.

And then I went and bought a few things, although I passed on the tiny porcelain elephants that were fifteen freaking dollars for three tiny little elephants. That were probably mass-produced in China and could be found at any quality dollar store. Ridiculous. Although I almost felt sorry enough for the guy selling them to buy it, since earlier that morning I witnessed a customer knock over and break one of the ceramic houses he was selling, and then REFUSE TO PAY FOR IT. Bad form, man.

If you're selling fruit at a fruit stand in a flea market, generally it's stuff you grew yourself, right? Hahahahaha.

I bought a bag of apples from a vendor at the flea market, got them home, and discovered freaking PRODUCE STICKERS all over the little suckers.

So I'm thinking this older guy with the three creepy non-speaking women sitting around him probly bought the produce at a grocery store and repackaged it to look "quaint." Right? Am I wrong? I hope so, because I feel really stupidly fleeced right now.

I will only be buying from the farmers' market from now on. I should have known better, anyway. I'M SORRY FARMERS' MARKET.

By the way, flea market vendors, and for that matter, yard salers, I'm making a new policy -- I will not buy your stuff if there is not a price on it. It's not that hard. It took me all of five minutes to put prices on two tables' worth of crap. You can do eeet!

Ooh, the best part of the FME (that's Flea Market Experience, you know) was that until September, all tables are only $8 each. So cheap. I should try selling some DIY stuff. Maybe some M&P soaps scented like fruits and shaped like ice cubes, packaged cutely. Like the Apple Martini and Daiquiri ones at B&BW, only not overpriced. And some cards. And some tiny felt animals, maybe finger puppets. If only I weren't so busy this summer (read: lazy).

I know how it goes . . . you have $100 sitting around and are pondering, "hmmm, what can I get Karen? She appears to have everything but I KNOW there has to be a 12-inch plastic figurine that will surely be a better thing to buy, selflessly, for her, instead of buying, say, groceries, just because she is THAT fantastic and I would like to bribe her into making me many batches of cookies and perhaps also bribe her into refraining from making them with expired eggs . . ."

The next time that happens, and I know it happens a lot, just follow this link. God knows I will never be able to justify spending one hundred bucks on what is essentially an arty toy, but dang, it's cute, isn't it?

First the correction: 80˚F at 7:00 a.m., not 70˚F. And the humidity is so bad that it looks like you're driving down a street in a horror movie.

Then the confession: I'm spending way too much time these days thinking about Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes, and Scientology. There's something about summer that just turns me into a gossip hound. This whole thing, with the mysterious religion and the nutso star and the girlfriend-in-headlights, it's like my Perfect Storm.

By the way, I'm not as cranky as yesterday's post makes it seem. Although right now I'm really hungry which is making me cranky. I want Taco Bell, man. Or better yet, Aztlan. I guess I'll settle for the leftover mashed potatoes from last night. At least they're tasty.

That reminds me -- I used this recipe for Tilapia en Papillote last night and it was quite the dish; the mushrooms were especially great. It was my first time using sun-dried tomatoes and they smelled so good. And I cooked it IN THE TOASTER OVEN, which gives me all sorts of ideas for other en Papillote stuff I can make in the toaster oven. Which is good because Ben is procrastinating like a mofo as far as getting the oven fixed.

Okay, y'all, it's time for another freaking list, because I am apparently too lazy to make timely posts. Timely posts are for antelopes.

As a side note, I deeply regret ever reading Pink is the New Blog because every time I say "y'all" now I feel like a Britney Spears imitator. KHAAAAAN!

So here for your non-pleasure and my blog-fulfillment-satisfactionism is another list, only to make it more fun this one has no theme. A stream-of-consciousness list. I know, I don't know how you've lived this long without it, either.

* Yesterday morning I was driving to work and I realized . . . it's summer. How did I know this? 1) 70˚ at 7 a.m. and 2) so humid I didn't have to take a shower because I could just walk outside, turn around a few times, and it would have the same effect. This is how we do it in the VA, bitch.

* Did I mention that our a/c is hooked up now? I don't think I did because I was afraid of jinxing it. Some kids decided to vandalize an a/c unit at Ben's worksite so the company had to replace it. And his company was thinking about selling it to us, but found out they wouldn't have even been able to use it for parts, so they gave it to us! Sweet, yes? The only thing we had to pay for was the hook-up, which was about $300. And then Ben had to clean off the house paint the kids poured in it, but that took him all of five minutes. Sweet squared. Now I'm just paranoid that it's going to quit and I will have been too spoiled by it to survive.

* Rabbit has another effing cold. You can't cure a cold, right? Don't tell the four medications I have to give her each day about that. She has a steroid inhaler, a "regular" inhaler, saline nose stuff, Pediacare so she can sleep, and if she starts to get warm, there's Tylenol. Poor baby girl. Luckily she has come to enjoy the spacer (for her inhalers) instead of screaming the entire time like she used to.

* The helicopter company (whom we owe $6500) has informed us they can only accept our $50/month payments for three months, after which we will have to give them at least $250/month, because it costs them over $50 just to process the payments. WTF? It was nice of them to tell us that when we originally set up the payment plan, huh? OH WAIT THEY DIDN'T. Asscats. That's like a freaking car payment. I'm still not sure how we're going to be able to afford it -- if we just don't pay it, it will only stay on our credit report for seven years, right? Isn't that the way it works?

* We're going to Florida for vacation. To visit the grandparents. However, I got the dates of the week I can take off mixed up and this week we realized that they aren't going to be there the week we're in Florida. I suck. They're letting us stay in their house, but the idea was to go to FL so that they could see Rabbit and C. Now there's no point in going to Florida, right? Except Ben HAD to tell C we'd take her to Disney World. You can't see it, but I'm crying on the inside.

* So the Washington Nationals are number one in the NL East standings. It's times like this I wish I cared about baseball as much as I do about football. But I don't. It is fun to hear DJs bitching about how the Post cares more about the Orioles than the Nationals, though.

* If you don't want me to think you're picking a fight, don't address me by saying "um" before you make your point. "Um," to me, means, "you're a moron if you really think that but let's assume you do think that, now here's why you're obviously wrong." All that from those two letters, yes. And yes, I know that's overreacting, that's why I usually give the benefit of the doubt and assume that it was just meant as a spacer. I use it that way sometimes, so it's not impossible, right?

I haven't really been getting much accomplished the past couple of weeks. The heat and a little annoying sickness conspire to make me feel supremely lazy. That and the internet drama, which always fascinates me. The way people interact is so interesting to me, I like to study it.

Now I should probably clean up before Rabbit wakes up. It's much more fun for her to throw all the toys around when they're on shelves at first.