Two quick pix from BlogHer

Where I had such a great time! I’ll tell more about it later, but here are some pix of The Girl with Patia (top) and Birdie (bottom).

Did I mention, I’M GOING TO BLOGHER??

And I am SO excited! Actually, I am only going to one day of the conference (Friday) so that I can hear Birdie and SJ speak.

And, I am having dinner with Shawna.

And, I am having dinner with Birdie and Patia.

And, I might even get to cross paths with Phil.

AND, on the way there we are spending two days on Lake Michigan so The Girl can play in the sand.

AND, I am going to see my old friend, Les, who lives in Chicago.

I cannot remember the last time I was this excited to do anything.

 

BlogMe 2007

blogme2007

Gawd … ten seconds? I wonder if I could really think of 10 seconds worth of interesting facts about myself. Well, here goes:

I started blogging in 2005, the year I was about to turn 40 and was dealing with the fact that my sister, who died at 41, was diagnosed with cancer when she was 40. I was inspired by, and pushed to, start a blog by the wonderful and talented Claire Bidwell Smith author of the blog Life in LA.

Since then I got pregnant, left my job as an attorney, and moved to Mitten Land with my husband of seven years. I am now a SAHM to a fisty little 17 month old girl. I’ve never been happier.

I write about whatever I feel like writing about. I’ve written about such things as living with depression, hating (yes, hating) pregnancy, what it’s like to go through a colonoscopy (it’s easy, especially as compared to chemo), loving motherhood, having a moth stuck in my ear (yes, that really happened) and The Girl.

I’m going to meet Birdie, Patia, Shawna and SJ at BlogHer, and I am so freaken excited to meet them I could DIE!

That was longer than 10 seconds, wasn’t it?Didn’t someone say that brevity was the sole of wit? Yeah, well, that just goes to show you I’m not witty either.

Oh, the other weird thing, BlogHer starts on what would have been my sister’s 48th birthday. Huh.

A shameless reposting

This was my favorite post from my old blog, and since I didn’t want it to be lost forever, I am reposting it here. I originally posted it on May 6, 2005.:

Miller – domestic beer or unspeakable nightmare?

There is a woman at my office with whom I have become great friends. My friend has a daughter who is four, and the stories of my life provide endless fascination for this child. She’s been on the most recent story for days and, since she enjoyed it so much, I though I would share it with you:

One warm summer night, several years ago when we were living in Michigan, I was home alone and getting ready for bed. Since Norman travels so much, I tend to keep the TV on for company – white noise, really. I crawled into bed and all the lights in the house were off except for the glow of the TV, a very small color TV that I kept on the night stand; a little too close to my head, as it turns out.

I was lying in bed, probably half listening to Leno or Letterman, and I noticed some Millers fluttering around by the TV, drawn in by the light. This didn’t bother me in the least. My husband and I are pretty peaceful people; we are the “live and let live” types. If a bug isn’t hurting anyone, why should we kill it? If we don’t want a bug in the house, we generally pick it up and carry it outside. So, I noticed the Miller, yawned, and shut my eyes.

I few seconds later I heard zzzZZZZZZUD FDFDFDFDFD. The very second it happened I knew what it was: the Miller had grown bored with the TV and had flown into my ear. Oh my god … OH MY GOD … OH MY GOD … I was screaming and freaking out “get out … GET OUT … GET OUT!!”

FDFDFDFDFD his wings pounded against my eardrum making the sound of a helicopter landing in my brain.

I jumped out of bed and was flailing around like a crazy person. I was tipping my head sideways and jumping up and down, like you might do if you had water in your ear, but I didn’t have water in my ear, I had a Miller in my ear.

Oh my god … OH MY GOD … OH MY GOD … get out … GET OUT … GET OUT!!

FDFDFDFDFD

The jumping up and down was not working. I put my hands around my ear and tried to pull open my ear canal as wide as possible so the Miller could get out. It could not get out.

Oh my god … OH MY GOD … OH MY GOD … get out … GET OUT … GET OUT!!

FDFDDFDFD

My next move was hydrogen peroxide. I would poor hydrogen peroxide in my ear, the Miller would drowned, and I could pull it out. I somehow managed to find the bottle, and started pouring – all over my face, all over my neck, but definitely in my ear too.

FDFDFDFDFDFD

The hydrogen peroxide didn’t work; he did not drowned, it only made him stronger.

FDFDFDFDFDFD

At this point I am hysterical. I am screaming and crying and have absolutely no idea what to do.

Oh my god … OH MY GOD … OH MY GOD … get out … GET OUT … GET OUT!!

FDFDFDFDFD

Rubbing alcohol – that would kill him, right? Find the bottle, poor it in, all over my face, neck, shirt, bathroom floor …

FDFDFDFDFD – damn it!! Nothing would kill it.

Having no clue what to do, and remember that I am completely hysterical, I call Norman on his mobile. For the first time ever I did not get him. I got his voice mail. The message I left was something like this:

(gasp, gasp, gasp) ca ..ha..ha..ll meeee, p…p…please call me, p…p…please, oh god, oh god, oh god, ca ..ha …ha …ll meeeee.

I hang up. No call back. Crying fit. Try jumping up and down again. Oh my god … OH MY GOD … OH MY GOD … get out … GET OUT … GET OUT!! Call Norman again. No answer. Leave the same message again. Hang up. No call back. Crying fit. Etc. Etc. Etc.

By some miracle I finally remember what hotel he is at and I get the number. The night auditor answers and I am sure he either thought my whole family had been murdered or I was being held hostage. I was bawling, BAWLING, and completely hysterical at this point. Keep in mind that the Miller is alive this whole time and he is as freaked out as I am and is FRANTICALLY beating his little wings, so there is the FDFDFDFD right on my eardrum constantly.

“I …I …I … need to t…t…talk to Norman.” The night auditor doesn’t say a word, he just puts me through.

I get Norman and I am yelling, screaming, and having a meltdown. Norman remains very calm and tells me he is going to call the neighbor to come over and help me. At this point I don’t know what is worse, the Miller in my ear, or the neighbor helping me.

A bit about the neighbor, Mr. Redneck. The neighbor is the poster boy for redneck. He is an avid hunter, not that there is anything wrong with that, but there are often dead things hanging in his garage. He has also served a little time in the big house for growing dope in his basement. One time Norman returned from being out of town when the neighbor came over and said “hey, you got a cat?” Norman responded that we did not have a cat. The neighbor said “good, cuz I shot one in your yard.”

What? Are you kidding me? He shot a cat in our yard? What if it was a pet? What if it had been our beloved pet for 10 years? Why would you just shoot a cat in your neighbor’s yard? Anyway, I agreed that Norman could call Redneck.

Redneck comes over, I give him a pair of tweezers, and he positions my head under the light. He looks for a minute and then says “Nancy, it’s too far in there; I can’t get it out. We’re going to have to go to the emergency room.”

I am really doing my absolute best not to cry in front of Redneck, but I can’t help it. “O …o…o… K” I choke out.

We go to the ER and it is a nightmare. This is an ER in a small town, so there are no other patients waiting, and yet I have to wait. I am holding my ear, bawling, and the clerk looks at me like she hates her job and says “earache?” I respond “N…n…o, there is a Miller in my e …e…ear.

This is when I learn that in Michigan they have no clue what it means when you use the word Miller. After repeating “M …m… miller” three times I finally get it and say “MOTH! I HAVE A MOTH IN MY EAR AND I NEED YOU TO GET IT OUT!!”

Apparently what she heard was “I have a minor problem so, please, take your time, and do everything as slowly as possible.” They wanted me to fill out some insurance info first. FIRST? GET THIS FREAKEN’ MOTH OUT OF MY EAR!

Fine, they reluctantly agreed to wait with the forms. I get called back and Nurse Ratchet, who acts like she sees this type of thing every day, wants to weigh me, take my temperature, take my blood pressure etc.

ARE YOU FREAKEN KIDDING ME? “I HAVE A MOTH IN MY EAR GET IT OUT! GET IT OUT! GET IT OUT!!” I  am so freaked out that I cannot stop shaking long enough for her to get an accurate reading of my blood pressure, and this is when she says to me “if you’d just calm down, we could get this part over with.”

Again, keep in mind that through all of this the Miller is alive and pounding his little bastard wings against my eardrum.

FDFDFDFDFD

What? If I would just “calm down?” How about if we put a moth in your ear and you see if you can calm down? Better yet, how about if I put my foot up your ass while you calm down. I am not one for physical violence, but I really wanted to smack this woman along side the head in the worst way. She gave up on taking my blood pressure, and FINALLY the doctor came in to see me. He got the LONG tweezers out, tipped my head and pulled out the godforsaken, still alive, slightly blood covered Miller.

Ahhhhhhh …. You know that feeling you get after you’ve had a long massage, or the feeling when you almost get in a huge car accident and don’t, or possibly the feeling right after the big O? That wonderful all over relaxation of every single muscle in your body? That is what it felt like. This is when I notice that I am wearing pajama bottoms with a T-shirt that not only does not match, but is inside out and soaking wet from hydrogen peroxide and rubbing alcohol. Who the hell cares, a don’t have a Miller in my ear. Ahhhhh …

I spent the next few days putting drops in my ear to wash out Miller parts. Have you ever touched a Miller? If you do, you will get kind of gray dust on your fingers. This is what I had in my ear, what felt like pounds and pounds of gray dust.

And this, gentle reader, is why you should never, ever sleep with the TV on.

Don’t call Mensa … yet

I’m sure that every parent thinks that his or her child is a genious. Well, probably my parents didn’t, but I am sure a lot of people do.

Lately, I’ve been thinking that The Girl is pretty darn smart. For example:

• if she has heard a book twice, the next time it is read you can pretty much leave out any word and she can fill it in. Even if it is a word she has never heard or said before. She might not say it perfectly, but she says it.
• she can say big words, and knows what they mean – like the word “chemical.”
• she has a book called “A Fish Out of Water.” The story is about a little boy who fed a fish too much and the fish keeps growing and growing. The boy keeps putting the fish in bigger and bigger containers because the fish won’t stop growing. At one point he puts the fish in “pot after pot.” One night after The Girl’s bath I was putting on her PJ’s and I was telling her how when I first got her PJ’s they were so big and I had to roll up the pants and now the pants are too short. I told her that she was growing so fast and I said “what am I going to do with you?” and she said “pot.” I gotta say that relating those two things was pretty impressive, even for a mother who is easily impressed.

So, just as I am ready to call Mensa I have The Girl help me with the laundry, and this is what she does:



In case you are wondering, those are my underpants she has put over her head. She thinks she is VERY funny.

Yeah, I can definitely wait on that call.

(And yes, the underpants are cotton. I am old.)

And in the business “don’t” collumn …

My husband has worked for the same company for 14 years. I’ve never stayed at any job longer than 3 years – even jobs I loved. If Norman is anything, he’s loyal. Even when they treat him like crap. Even when they don’t appreciate what he has done for them. Even when they recognize his 14 years of service with this:

Can you believe?? The “rocker” attaches to a pin – like a lappel pin. You don’t even get a new pin, you have to attach this 10 cent piece of crap to your old pin.

We seriously used these same kind of pins in my church. We used them to signify achievement of the Sunday School year. Basically they were rewards for kids ages 4 thru 12 or so.

In other words, as a symbol of thanks from his employer, my husband received the same gift as I did when I was 7 for perfect attendance at Sunday school. That is just so wrong in so many ways.

Splish splash we were taken a bath …

So, The Girl and I were in the tub the other night. Because I am what is politely considered an “older mom” I have to do things a little differently. For one, I almost always get in the tub with The Girl because it is about 800 times easier on my back than sitting on my knees and bending over the tub like the Hunchback.

For another, I’ve got old eyes, which seem to get older and older faster and faster. I am far sighted (meaning I need glasses to read or see anything close to me). The Girl often has to listen to “wait a minute, honey, mama needs her glasses.”

So … you have the mental picture? Me, very old, very naked, very blind, sitting in the tub with a toddler. Got it? OK.

As I sit there I see this brownish, greenish, circle-ish kind of spot right over that little latchy thing that you flip to keep the water from draining out. I’m staring at it trying to figure out what it could be. It kind of looks like a big spot of mold, but I am not that bad at cleaning the bathroom and since it wasn’t there the night before I didn’t think it was possible for something to grow that fast.

I look, and I look, and I look … and finally I pick up the wash cloth to wipe it off when “it” MOVES!!! I shrieked that big shriek you do when you inhale all of the air in the room as fast as humanly possible. This noise, of course, scares the pants off the girl and she begins to cry.

At this point, even though I am too blind to see what is actually there, I have to fake that absolutely nothing is wrong to get her to calm down – which doesn’t work anyway. All the while I am calmly shouting (as much as one can calmly shout) “DADDY!!! DADDY!! Come up here please … NOW!! COME NOW!!!”

So Norman comes in and retrieves a TREE FROG from our bathroom!!

And let me add that we do not live in a van down by the river where someone might expect to see a tree frog. We have a nice-ish house in a middle class neighborhood with like, electricity and running water and everything. And even though I live in a place that I consider somewhat civilized, I had a freaken’ frog in the bath tub!! WTF, people, WTF!!!

If this blog were a child someone would call social services

Good lord, I cannot believe how long it has been since I blogged. The bad thing is, I have about 1,000 ideas for posts. I write posts in my head all day long, and never get them on line. I think I may have mentioned this before but the problem is The Girl.

Of course, she is not a problem, it is just that she needs, nay demands, attention pretty much 24-7. The computer is right next to a stairway and the second I sit down to write anything she starts to go up the stairs – which of course means I have to jump up and prevent her from trying to “jump like a fwog.” We finally got a gate put up there and so her new tactic is to bring me a book and say “book. book. read. READ!!” Well, how can you say no to that? You just can’t. So, basically, I get about 30 total minutes of computer time which means I can scan a few blogs and respond to a few e-mails and that is about it.

Yeah, I know, wa, wa, wa, poor me. I know that in the big picture this is nothing, but there are SO MANY of you that I miss. I might get a chance to read your blog, but I never get a chance to comment and, really, aren’t we all comment whores? So, someday I will be able to write on my blog and read your blog and COMMENT on your blog. Until then, I hope you will check in from time to time.

Two more things before I have to run.

The first is the story of me flying home from NoDak after a 10 day visit to see my family and friends. There are many post worthy stories, but this is the best … well, actually the worst, one.

Picture me like this:

hair – in DESPERATE need of coloring. Roots showing. Gray showing. No time for a shower. Greesy hair pulled back in a pony tail. Bangs (being grown out again) clipped back in a cheap Target clip.

Face – no make up (no time, again!), zits, oily patches, dry patches and, my personal favorite, eczema on my eyelids. That’s right, my eyelids. It looks like I had bad red eye shadow on both eyes. zoikes.

Clothes – a nursing tank top where my boobs were basically falling out the top, with a button-down shirt over that – open. My jeans had a giant apple juice stain. No belt. Tennis shoes.

Accessories – Baby back pack with The Girl in it. Giant bottle of water.

This is how I went to the airport on a Sunday morning to fly back to Detroit. I know I looked horrible, but I had no time to get ready (another long story) and really … who was I going to see … right?

So, I walk into the airport and who is the first person I see? The Jerk. My ex-boyfriend. THE exboyfriend. You know, the one that you just regret and it makes you sick that you spent 3 minutes with him much less than 3 years with him. The one that makes your skin crawl. Don’t we all have at least one of those?

Well, that’s who I saw. I keep telling myself that this really doesn’t matter. If someone I despise thinks I look like crap, what do I care? But damn, I really wanted him to think I was the one that got away, rather than congratulating himself on what a fine job he did dumping me.

Oh well, whatchagonnado?

I’ll TRY to make my next post a little more coherent, but I am not promising anything.