Overheating, Rage Comics, and Links

I'm overheating really easily today.  This is most unfortunate, because I can't move.  If I move, I break out in a sweat and feel sick.  So I can't do the laundry, or put the folded stuff away, or play with the Toddler, or do anything at all that requires any motion at all.  Typing is almost too much.  This is ridiculous.  It's only 85 degrees outside, and it's about 78 in the house!  (The A/C works unevenly - the bathroom and bedrooms feel fantastic, and the rest of the house is miserable.)

Anyway, I don't have the most exciting post ever here - not a whole lot has changed since yesterday.  As an example of how weird my memory is, J was talking about me being stressed over what happened yesterday before he went to bed this morning, and I was completely confused.  I'd forgotten about getting the boxes in the mail.  He looked at me like I was stupid until I remembered.  Wow.  Just wow.

The Toddler has taken to grabbing books off the bookshelves around the house at random and trying to destroy them.  He's already destroyed on of J and S's Robert Heinlein novels and S's copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.  We gave him a trash romance novel to play with so he'd leave them alone, but it's not much of a deterrent.

Today, I made a rage comic.  You should vote for it so it makes the front page.

I also have a ...

Link Round-Up!!

Florida forces welfare recipients to take drug tests, which backfires horribly, as only 2% of those on welfare tested positive.  Wonderful job, Florida.

Here's another case of too much paranoia in the airline industry.  As if terrorists will use airliners again.  At least, the serious terrorists probably won't.  I imagine they'll use some other means of major destruction to terrorize the government into removing more and more of our civil liberties.  I feel so sorry for the guy in the article.

I posted awhile back about a guy who wants to create a libertarian island nation in international waters.  I found an article with more information.  It still doesn't sound very promising.

Oh god, oh god, we're all gonna die!  Washington, D.C. had a minor earthquake.  WE WILL REBUILD.

A 12-year-old boy delivers his own baby brother after watching many hospital shows on television.  Is it a surprise to anyone that he wants to be a doctor when he grows up?

When a young Navy SEAL died, his dog was loyal to the end, even laying on the ground next to his casket at his funeral.  When I first read the article about it, I was worried the dog wouldn't have anyone to take him in, but the best friend of his owner has stepped up and given him a home.  Poor puppy, I feel so sorry for him.

I Can't Think of Anything to Put Here

I've been out of the house more today than I have in the past week.  We went to the grocery store, my bank, and Wal-Mart, where I got some schizophrenic Halloween underwear and a glow-in-the-dark Toy Story shirt, but I forgot to get nail files and a new toothbrush and we never got anything for J for his lunch at work, so we're going to have to go out again.  We took the Toddler to Arby's for a quick lunch, and he got to sit on the bench next to S like a big boy, which was really cute.

Why is it that we always have lots of errands on days when there's a heat advisory?  It's some sort of... can't think of the word, but it's like the world is working against us.  S can't think of the word I want, either.  Stupid brain.

Today, I ordered some stuff online, one of which I am really excited about -  this shirt.  Oh yes.  I am so excited.

I'm still using the No 'Poo treatment, and my hair is wonderful.  I have next to no frizz, except on particularly humid days, so this winter will probably be wonderful.  My hair feels much thicker and silkier, and it's much easier to get a brush through it, unless it's in the morning.  I think I get in a wrestling match with my pillows or something when I'm sleeping, because I always wake up with the craziest morning hair ever.  It almost tops how I remember my mother's from when I was little.  Then again, she's always had curly hair, so her hair will always be crazier than mine.  Anyway.  My hair is great, and since S is also using the same stuff, we're saving about $240 a year, because we're not buying shampoo for each of us anymore.  (Everyone in the house has different hair types, so each person needs their own shampoo when we buy commercial shampoo.)  But that's a ridiculous amount of money we're saving by not having to buy shampoo and conditioner, not to mention styling products!

In other "crunchy" news, I still really want to make my own body wash.  I'll probably do that after I have a job and have the money to throw at it so I can get really nice stuff.

The dogs never got bathed last night because S was in too much pain and I was too tired.  We have to get it done sometime soon, but I don't even know when we'll be able to.  Whee!

Speaking of dogs, Shadow was just laying all over me.  He just leaped off the couch, though.  And now the baby is awake, so this post is done, because we have to get dressed all over again and go out and finish errands.  And oh god, the laundry!

Dog Baths and Head Injuries

Today has been extraordinarily boring.  Seriously, I've completely run out of internet.  S made an interesting dinner that she pulled out of her ass that's sort of modified chicken pot pie.  She made a ridiculous amount of it, too, so we're going to be eating it forever.  It was actually pretty tasty, even if it did have peas in it.  I hate peas, but I ate them anyway, because vegetables are important!

S and I are currently conspiring against the dogs to get them bathed tonight so they stop being such itchy puppies.  I think we have to clean up the floor and vacuum and Febreeze first, but then we're dragging each dog into the bathroom and making them suffer the indignity of a bath.  If S feels good enough, she's been in a lot of pain lately, poor thing.  We're going to have to break out the crutches again soon and make her use them so her foot will finish healing already.

I am easily entertained.  S and I just sat here making faces at each other for a minute or two.

The Toddler was a terror today.  I was watching him for awhile this afternoon, and it wasn't pretty.  I got his toy hammer for him, and he decided to hit me with it and wouldn't stop when I told him to stop, so I took it away.  I was going to leave it at that, but then he started screaming and hitting me, so he got a time-out for that, which was punctuated by attempted head-butting and more screaming and struggling.  Then, when I put the hammer on the bookshelf to take it from him for the afternoon (because of the hitting and screaming behavior when I took it away for hitting me with it), he started screaming and crying again and threw his cup across the room, so he got another time-out for that.  This was in the space of five minutes.  I also got my face crawled on today, but it was while we were playing, so I don't count those injuries as much.

I've gotten a lot of laundry done today, and should be almost done by tomorrow if I don't burn out again.  I definitely need to get to folding, which I'm going to try to get done pretty quick here before we clean the living room and bathe the dogs.

Today, Girl Child got PJ pants in her size that are the same pattern as the ones I just got, because S promised she'd get them for her this week.  It's a good thing I remembered, because there were only two pairs of those pants left at Wal-Mart, and only one was in Girl Child's size.  She was thrilled, though.  Of course, this will lead to lots and lots of mix-ups, just like with the lemon shirts.  Maybe less so, because it'll be ridiculously obvious that the pants don't fit if she accidentally steals mine.

Uh.. other stuff that happened today... Well, the Toddler fell on his head while we were at Wal-Mart.  He was really excited and running in the aisle we were in and ran right past S and around a corner, tripped over his own feet, and fell on his head so hard the floor reverberated.  He was very unhappy about that.  He also peeled a scab off his eyebrow and made the spot bleed all over again.  (The scab was from when he used his face to go down the stairs on the playground when we went to take storm pictures last weekend.)  The whole area is swollen all over again, poor baby.

I haven't really had the opportunity to play Final Fantasy X in about a week.  I've either been too tired or the Toddler has been around, and it's difficult to actually play when he's up because of constantly having to stop him from getting into stuff he shouldn't.  Plus, there's all that laundry.

So, basically, nothing interesting happened today.  There's a cricket somewhere in the house making way too much noise.  I hate crickets.  I'm also scared of them because of the jumping thing.  I just told it to die and it stopped chirping momentarily.

Today I decided I'm going to apply for a job at the Sara Lee plant.  I hope I get it.  At least it'll be a job, and if I manage to keep all my body parts and stuff, maybe I can find a job closer to home or something, unless it pays ridiculously well.

I have one link to share, so it's not exactly a link round-up.  Cracked has an article about things that stopped people from committing suicide, and it was actually really cool.  It was pretty sappy, too, but I like sappy.  I almost cried on the last one.  You should definitely go read it.

Doggies!

So I have a real post to post later, since I didn't write anything for the past few days, and I'm going to write that later, but for now, here is a picture of Shadow and Sunshine when she was four months old.  She was ridiculously cute.

Sunshine and Shadow - d'awww!!

I love how big her nose was back then!  I love puppies!!  I was going to post a picture of the two of them together more recently, but I have roughly 10,000 pictures and can't find the picture I was looking for.

And now, S and I shall continue on our The Joy of Painting marathon.

To Be Loved By a Dog

Okay.  I read Marley and Me two years ago.  I actually own a copy of the book, but I don't know if I'm getting it back, because my ex-fiance never sent me my stuff.  Anyway.  I cried and cried and cried and cried when I read the book.  Even if you haven't read it, if you know it's about a dog's life, you know how it's going to end.  I knew how it was going to end and it was still devastating.  (Also, other than a few Bill Bryson books I really like, Marley and Me is really the only non-fiction I've read in the last few years.)  Anyway, I watched the movie tonight, finally.  We've had it sitting there for almost a year, and I never had the chance to watch it, but finally decided it would be a good idea tonight while I was folding laundry.

That would be a big fat NO.  That was a horrible idea.  I didn't stop crying from the second vet visit on; I even cuddled up on the floor with Shadow and Sunshine and cried on them after the movie ended.  (I'm the only person who is home and awake.)  My eyes are swollen and scratchy and I have a headache.  I don't know what I'm going to do when it's time for these guys, if I'm this upset over a dog I've never met.

I wish I could put into words the kind of love I feel for dogs - any dog, really, but especially Shadow and Sunshine.  By all intents and purposes, they're mine, too, and I .. I don't love them like I'd love a child, or a friend, or how I love J and S and M and Girl Child and the Toddler.  It's a completely different kind of love, and you know they think the sun shines out of everyone's butt (except maybe the Toddler's because he steps on them so much) in this house.  They love you when you've had a bad day, when you've gained weight, when you're mad at them for chewing up your favorite flip flops (Sunshine has eaten something like three pairs of my flip flops) - they don't care, they will love you anyway.  They don't care if you don't have any money or can't fold a fitted sheet to save your life or if you can only cook one thing, because you're you and they love you.

That's a kind of magic, in a way, to experience that kind of love.  I'm so glad to have loved a dog, to be given the very special opportunity that so many take for granted to be loved by a dog.

Now that I'm crying again, I think I'll go hug the furry people some more.

Today Was Obnoxious

I didn't end up posting yesterday partly because I had nothing to say, but also because I ended up getting sick toward the end of the evening. At that point, I decided it would be better to just forget it and not write anything.

I'm feeling better today, no ill effects, but today was obnoxious nonetheless. Why? Because the Toddler decided the best way he could spend his time today was to be as obnoxious as possible. I love the kid, but jeez. There was banging, doorknob removal, hitting, kicking, and general destruction, part of which caused about five extra loads of laundry. Woo. (I figure S would be a bit displeased to discover that I wrote explicitly about how there came to be so much extra laundry or what exactly he did today, so I'm not explaining it. Ha.)

After all that, he also didn't bother to nap. Because obviously, that's the last thing he could ever possibly want to do. He's been driving us crazy all day, and without a break. At least he's really cute.

Today, Girl Child was supposed to go visit her great-grandmother four hours away, and some relatives that were on the way down were going to pick her up and take her. Unfortunately, the driver ended up feeling very sick and they all got stranded in the middle of nowhere at a gas station an hour into the trip, and then Girl Child started to feel sick again (she's been sick lately), so she wanted S to come pick her up, but S couldn't, so Girl Child is spending the night at the relative's house and being picked up in the morning. Poor kid, what bad luck.

Today just hasn't been good for anybody in this house, not even the dogs - when the relatives came to pick Girl Child up, Shadow went outside just fine, but Sunshine wouldn't, and tried to escape again, so I ended up carrying her away from the door, all 80 pounds of her, before I could get Girl Child to get me a leash so I could have a more reliable method of restraining the idiot. Apparently Sunshine has forgotten that the reason she's been so scared for the last 6 weeks is because she got hit by a damn car. It is very hard to restrain a dog like that, especially one that is as muscular and energetic as Sunshine.

On the subject of No 'Poo, I think I'm going to end up changing my washing schedule for whenever the hell I feel like it. Because while I think OCD, I am not OCD in my actions. So I'm washing my hair tonight instead of tomorrow because I did it wrong on Saturday.

It is really hot here right now. It's so hot that the air conditioner can't keep up. I hate summer and I hate heat waves, and I wish this would just end already, because I am so ready for fall to get here, preferably in a nice cold rain with fallen leaves. I love that part of the year, when the leaves are falling and it rains and it's only about 60 degrees, maybe even 50, and it's denim jacket weather (which reminds me, I still need to replace the one I lost a few years ago), and it's all so beautiful and nostalgic. I really, really love October, especially when it's a wet October.

Sometimes I kind of wish I'd stayed in Washington, just for the weather, but then I remember that I had no friends and was completely miserable and I'm glad I came back. I wouldn't mind moving somewhere with similar weather, though. Seattle's weather is very similar to the UK in the winter - it's usually about 40 degrees and it doesn't usually snow, just rains.

Blah, blah, blah, lots of inconsequential nonsense. I'm not doing too well, I'm really overheated at the moment, so my brain isn't working correctly.

Today I finally moved about 100 gigs of my stuff from J's computer to mine.  Woo!  I have so many pictures.  Oh my god.

Anyway, tonight I think I'll put on a movie and ... stuff?



Links Round-Up!!


Apparently dolphins like to play frisbee with jellyfish.  And wear them as hats.  There are pictures.

"She was my wife!  She's still spitting out hairballs!"

Health insurers will soon have to cover birth control and other things without a copay thanks to a new Department of Health and Human Services policy in Washington.

Vocaloids are really cool.

Despite what I said about loving Washington's weather, the fact that the state has the highest rate of parents skipping vaccinations for their children makes me too uncomfortable to want to raise children there.

There is such a high instance of domestic violence in one county in Indiana that the women's shelters there are now having to enact waiting lists.

Deadbeat dads affected by the BP oil spill won't be seeing their disaster relief payments anytime soon.

The Rambliest Post Ever

So I haven’t bothered writing a post at all this week. This week has kind of sucked. I’ve been completely sleep-deprived for the last two or three days, and we’re out of cigarettes (and I’m not sure if we’re getting more or if only J is going to be smoking from now on), so I’m a real treat to be around right now.

I’ve almost completely finished all the laundry that was taken downstairs, though, so as long as I maintain it a little better, we won’t end up with a laundry mountain taking over the hallway again.

I spent three days working on a new Sharpie art piece - I don't have a photo of the completed version (and I'm not entirely sure I'm happy with the completed version), but I do have a photo of it as it was right before I finished it off.

I haven't decided if I want to call this anything or not.  It now has a few more ribbons of yellow and some more stars and a black background.

I've also got photos of the crazy line drawing and the slightly schizophrenic-looking one that I'm pretty sure I've already mentioned previously.  I'm going to put those in the photo gallery instead, though, I think.  The crazy picture up above I'm thinking about uploading to DeviantArt as a work in progress photo since it's been months since I added anything to my profile.

Anyway, Thursday and yesterday were particularly bad in this incredibly fun week.  Girl Child had a friend over for a sleepover, which wasn't a problem, she's actually been working on cleaning her room, so S said she could have her over.  The problem came when Girl Child basically seems to have decided that since her friend is over, she can treat me any way she wants, regardless of the fact that I am an adult and she is not.  So the last two days have been nothing but us sniping at each other because I've finally cracked.  She completely overreacts to everything I say and do, even when I'm being perfectly lovely to her, so I'm done trying to be nice, at least until she adjusts her damn attitude and starts showing me some respect, because I'm sick of her crap.

Today, S and the Toddler are going out to meet up with a friend of S's, AC, for a little while, since it's been awhile since they've seen each other.  He's almost doubled in size (or at least it seems that way to me) since AC last saw him in October. 

Sunshine is slowly starting to get back to normal, so maybe she won't need to be put down after all.  She's sort of started wagging her tail again, and wagging her butt sometimes, too.  Unfortunately, she's also started being food aggressive toward Shadow again, even when he's nowhere near the food.  And for fuck's sake, we don't starve her!  There is always food available.  Dumbass dog.

My hair is about as long as it was in March of 2010, so I'm a little over a year behind where I would have been if I hadn't ever cut it, so at least there's that.  In about another year, it'll be waist-length, so in about two years, it'll be about to where I want it.  It's starting to look thicker, so maybe this not-dyeing thing is working out for me.

I don't particularly have anything of substance I want to write about.  I'm feeling particularly anti-social today.

I'm hoping to soon be able to get my learner's permit so I can start to get the hang of driving again - I discussed it with S a week or so ago and mentioned that if I got it in July, I could try for my license in October - I'm hoping to have my license before next spring, because S is planning on having a medical procedure done that would render her unable to drive for over a month, and the entire household would disintegrate if she didn't have a substitute driver.  Seriously, no bills would get taken care of, we would starve and die, J would never again get a prescription filled, and the car would eventually run out of gas or something.  Of course, we'd have starved and died by then, but still.  So it would probably be preferential for me to have a license so I can help in that way - plus, that would enable me to have a bit more independence - I could also get a job further away once I find a job nearby that I can use to get enough money to buy a car.

I was so angry at the couch the other night that I coated it in tape so it would stop falling on me.  I hate sleeping on it, we were supposed to get a new couch four months ago, but shit kept happening and we never were able to get one.  So I took a roll of packing tape that I had downstairs from a move and taped the cushion fabric to the top of the couch frame.  I think, since S and the Toddler are out of the house, I may remove the tape and nail it up there for a more permanent solution, at least until we get a new couch.  We're basically going to have to completely take this couch apart when we get rid of it to find all the crap we've lost inside of it.

This week has been crap.  The only reason I sound so damn cheerful half the time is because that's just how I sound these days - I don't think there's a power in the 'verse could stop me being cheerful for long.  This is what happens when you decide that you are going to be happy no matter what.  Eventually you stop trying to seem happy and just are happy.  And funnily enough, after writing all this down, I'm a lot less cranky and angry than I was when I started, so maybe that's another little nugget of wisdom I've learned: don't bottle everything up, find an outlet.

The weather here is awful, I wish it was winter again.  All my clothes that look good on me are too warm for me to wear unless it's 20 degrees outside.  It's currently over 90, and even with the air conditioning on, I feel like I'm melting.  I'm wearing my oldest, rattiest pajama pants and an ancient t-shirt, so I should be fine, but my stupid body is convinced that it's actually on fire.  (I've had these pajama pants since 8th grade, actually - I got the set specifically for pajama day at Sumner, and the only reason I can still wear them is because the elastic is basically exploded.)

I love the music that M makes - this particular song simultaneously makes me feel like my heart is swelling and makes me think of Jurassic Park.  What a combination.

I'm experimenting with not messing with my fingernails at all unless they get a snag, and am working on breaking myself of the only relic of biting my nails - sucking on them.  They're still very thin and bendy, and I hope they eventually get hard if I stop putting them in my mouth and idly playing with them, but right now they're like kitten claws - flexible and sharp.

Yesterday, S and I were introduced to a new way to play the Bad Translate game by my friend CN.  There's an online tool that does the translation transitions for you, so 10 translations, 20, 30, 40, 50, or 56 - and there are often hilarious results.  S and I spent most of yesterday playing with it, writing stream of consciousness passages, nonsensical sentences, and weird phrases to see what we would get.  For example, if you input, "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog," and tell it to translate that sentence 50 times, it comes back with, "Fox Brown cloth."  I don't know what the hell that's supposed to mean, but it's pretty funny.

I require more coffee and I am interested to see if we have any canned pumpkin in the house at all, because I'm interested in completely winging a pumpkin cake.  Since I'm awesome like that.  I just wish I wasn't so tired.  I hope today doesn't suck as much as yesterday did.

Art, Weird Dreams, and Laundry

I didn't do anything yesterday.  I did a couple loads of laundry, one of which was necessitated by J using the weedwhacker on all the weeds and cutting down all the saplings in the back, and his whole body ended up contaminated with poison ivy.  Wheeee!  Fortunately, he seems to be one of those rare people who doesn't react to poison ivy, because so far he hasn't developed a rash at all.  Lucky man.

I did some more art with Sharpies yesterday while watching Firefly.  Some of them turned out pretty interesting.  However, I've also finished the series, so all I've got is the movie now, and then I'm going to have to find something else to have on while I draw.  S told me that I could probably sell some of my art and make some good money with some of it - particularly an acrylic painting I made in 2005 that's of a naked female torso.  A blue naked female torso.  Apparently that could be worth a lot, according to S.  I don't particularly think I'm all that talented - the things S draws are much more beautiful than the things I've made.  Anyway, the Sharpie drawings are apparently not too bad either, just psychedelic.  Heh.

J took the eight million loads of dirty laundry downstairs last night while I was sleeping, which is awesome.  Once my back stops hurting, I'm going to get started on that stuff.  For some reason, I always wake up in a lot of pain, no matter where I sleep, and it makes it difficult to move around for a couple of hours after waking.

This morning, I had a bizarre dream where first I was in a house with some people - this part is really fuzzy.  Robin Williams was there, though.  Then I was fixing something at the church I attended as a child with my grandparents in the restroom.  Father Frank was there, sort of.  I was both 11 and 24, at the same time, in that weird way dreams have of allowing things to be that way.  Anyway, I had a good conversation with a boy I attended elementary school with that I was sometimes friends with - he went to my 11th birthday party, but we didn't hang out a whole lot because boys and girls don't really hang out at that age.  We were, I think, the only two kids in our grade who weren't being raised by our parents.  He was being raised by his grandmother (possibly his grandparents, we weren't close so I don't know), and I was being raised by my grandparents, and our parents were otherwise absent.  Anyway, we were chatting in church and then there were some stairs and then I went outside for a smoke, which was the weird part, because I wasn't really eleven.  I was wearing a really awesome skirt and a jacket and something else.  And my awesome green hat, or something similar.  Anyway, a storm was beginning, and I was trying to find a place to go that I wouldn't get caught smoking because I didn't want to be expelled.  And then S yelled, "You are so cute!" in the living room, and I turned around and suddenly I woke up.

Yesterday, S had to take Sunshine to the vet again because she has been acting funny and we were worried that she might actually have some nerve damage or something - she won't go outside to pee or anything, and she's been very fearful since she got hit by the car.  We thought that there was a high likelihood that S and Girl Child were going to come home without her, so there was a lot of crying while we were getting everything ready for the vet trip, but Sunshine seems to be fine, and the vet has her on anti-anxiety meds now.  I think she's doing better, she even got a little excited about me petting her when I got up this morning.  The meds also help her pain, so hopefully that'll fix her up until she's completely healed and she forgets about getting hit by a car.  Unfortunately, the dumbass keeps trying to escape out the front door - she won't go outside to potty where it's safe in the back yard, but she's perfectly happy to endanger her life by attempting to go out the front door.  Stupid dog.

We've got Aladdin on, which makes me very happy - I love that movie.  It was my favorite in second grade.

Anyway, once I wake up some, I'm going to start some laundry and then ... do... stuff?

Hulk Lady, the Ring of Power, and Yarn

S is kind of like the Hulk, but without the radiation.  If we did not have her, Girl Child and I would never be able to eat anything that is kept in a jar ever again, unless J was available to open it.  This is because J has some sort of weird thing about having to close jars as tightly as possible so everything stays fresh.

Girl Child just brought me a jar of hot fudge and asked me to try to open it for her because she couldn’t get it.  She and I have about the same level of strength, so that was a fail.  I apparently turned purple and looked quite funny, because she laughed at me.  Then she took it to S, who exerted absolutely no effort and opened it immediately.  I imagine if S did not have so many physical problems, she could pick me up and toss me around like a rag doll.  Then there's W, who could easily throw me around like a rag doll.  He's a little scary, actually.

Anyway, things have been pretty standard around here.  The car turned out to be fine - the starter wasn’t the problem, but rather the battery, which died.  The shop told S that they weren’t going to charge her anything for looking at it - they said it needs new brake pads and a new battery, and they weren’t going to charge her for telling her this, so she got an oil change, which made the car run beautifully, and she changed the battery herself, and they’re getting new brake pads next week and changing those themselves, I believe.  So yay, it wasn’t something that was going to be horrible to attempt to fix.

S wants to quit smoking, and I think I’m going to attempt to quit with her this time, as long as J doesn’t smoke in the house anymore.  My willpower is just about as good as S’s, so I do hope he’s willing to do it outside until he quits.

I miss wearing my filigree ring and having a ring on my left hand.  My filigree ring broke awhile ago, and I can’t exactly wear my engagement ring, since, y’know, I’m not engaged anymore.  I’ve switched to my high school class ring for my right hand and my green onyx claddagh for my left, but it’s not really the same.

Yeah, I’m not terribly exciting today.  I’m exhausted, actually.  I’m not sure why I’m so tired, because I got a decent amount of sleep last night, but I think I’m going to have to nap before tonight.  Tonight we’re supposed to start watching Return of the King with M, and I don’t want to fall asleep during it, since I love the Lord of the Rings movies.  I can’t wait for The Hobbit to come out.

S and I have made plans to go see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 in the theater soon, once the initial excitement is over, because I generally dislike other people's children and do not want to sit through two hours of attempting to hear a movie I've been excited about seeing since 2007.  We're also waiting because it'll be less annoying to go once it's less crowded and not sold out.  M was going to take Girl Child to the midnight showing, but they were sold out by last week, and the movie doesn't even come out in theaters until July 15th, so it's probably going to be a little bit before we get to go at all.

This weekend we're planning on having a massive water gun fight.  Can't wait.  We should have gotten water balloons.  I thought of that last night.

I’ve been doing some work on my afghan, making more squares since I haven’t finished making all of them, and I’ve been watching stuff on my computer while I’ve been doing this.  Last night it was Fifteen and Pregnant, which is a Lifetime movie I saw in 1998 that has Kirsten Dunst in it.  Parts of it were as predictably bad as a Lifetime movie gets, and other parts were almost good.  Today, I have been watching Firefly.

Sunshine seems to be doing a lot better, she's much less fearful today.  She chased the laser through the living room last night (we had to get Shadow outside for her to do it at all), and today I caught her trying to chase her tail, so hopefully she'll be back to her old self soon.

Anyway, a napping opportunity has presented itself, so off I go.  Particularly since I'm incredibly dizzy.

The Longest Week That Ever Was

So we're officially not going to be playing the D&D campaign we've been playing anymore, because W and A haven't been able to consistently show up on time in weeks.  I know they're busy, but ...

I'm just really disappointed.  I was really excited about this campaign and interested in seeing how the story would play out, and I'm upset that I may never get to find out what happens next, especially as I was actually starting to get sort of good at playing.

Anyway.  Today has been kind of a bad day - the car broke, and they're having to have that fixed this weekend in anticipation of J going to work on Tuesday.  He's got Sunday and Monday off, though, for Father's Day and J and S's wedding anniversary.  I'm going to be taking the kids on a long walk/trip to the park, and texting to see if the coast is clear before we return.  Lots of water we will need.  Yes.

I'm still in a lot of pain from the whole "let's risk my life for Sunshine thing" - I damaged the plantar fascia tendon in both feet because of sprinting in untied shoes without arch support.  I didn't do near as much damage as S did to her foot in May, but it's quite enough to be going on with, especially with all the muscle pain and the other tendon pain I'm experiencing from that.  At least I know I can still sprint when I need to, I guess.  Oh, and for extra fun, I've finally started menstruating again after three months.  (I know, squick, sorry.)  I'm worried there's something wrong with me, but it could also be my weight or how stressful the last three years have been, or maybe something got broken when I had the miscarriage in 2009.  I don't know.  I hope it's just being all funky for no reason, though.  That'd be nice.

Sunshine seems to be doing a little better.  She's still being much more timid than usual, and she can't wag her whole butt at all right now (though she wags just the end of her tail a little bit when we pet her right after giving her her meds), but she's been a bit less stiff today, which I'm going to take as a good sign.  Also, I've discovered that since she can't scratch her own itches at all right now, if I scratch her ears, I can make her moan, which is hilarious.  I love those damn dogs so much.  Shadow's just been himself, though I think he's being a bit more gentle with Sunshine now than he was on Thursday - he tried to play with her and flipped her onto her back and she screamed, it was scary.  Anytime someone happens to say "where is it" about anything at all, he comes running, thinking we've got the laser out.

Today was pretty boring, actually, beyond the whole car thing.  It feels like that didn't even happen today because today has been such a long day, even though nothing really happened today at all.  I've been particularly tired all day (espresso didn't even help), and rather moody as well.  I'm sure I'm just a barrel of laughs right now.

W and A were here for a couple of hours without LW because he's actually visiting his mother for once this weekend, and we just hung out because J couldn't even remember what he wanted to do for the dungeon we were about to go into.  I don't know why he didn't write it all down like he did the last one, but whatever floats his boat, I guess.

I'm worried about C.

I haven't been sleeping well at all the last few weeks.  I'm always tired, but I can't seem to fall asleep, and once I manage to get to sleep, I sleep so lightly that everything wakes me up, so I'm barely getting any sleep at all, and that's not helping my mood, so I've been probably a bit unnecessarily cranky lately.

This week feels like it's been about three weeks long.

Sunshine Follow-Up and Other Stuff

So, after the last post, I was left with a lot of uncertainty.  We weren't able to take Sunshine in to see the vet until this morning, and S and Girl Child took her because I had to stay home to watch the Toddler.  When they talked to S, they told her that if Sunshine's tail was actually broken at the base, it could have caused nerve damage that hadn't developed yet that might render her permanently incontinent, at which point we'd have to have her put down if it wasn't possible to repair.

That... was pretty devastating to hear.  S came home with Girl Child from the vet's this morning a lot earlier than I expected her, because she had to leave Sunshine there, and that's when she told me all this.

A lot of the day was spent being really morose, not to mention physically exhausted (I'm pretty sure I bruised a rib with the wire of my bra when I tackled Sunshine yesterday, not to mention all the other pain I'm in from running like that), and I ended up curling up with Shadow on the floor and crying on him for awhile.

The vet called this afternoon, and they said that Sunshine has no cracks or breaks in any of her bones, and couldn't find the source of her bleeding (she may have peed on my leg and had some blood in her urine from the trauma or bitten her tongue, there's no way of knowing, since I had to tackle her twice to catch her) - but she's going to be fine.  We're not going to have to put her down, and she'll even be able to wag the Tail of Doom again in a few weeks once she's all healed up.  She's just very bruised and stiff and achy.

I'm so relieved.  J and S picked her up from the vet this evening after J's doctor's appointment, while I was baby-sitting the kids (that's a long story all by itself).  The vet gave her some narcotics for the pain (and they had to sedate her for x-rays), and she was wagging her tail at the vet's office, too.  Apparently she's very happy when she's on doggie narcotics, S said she was totally chilled out and delighted to see her and J.  They've got her on prescription doggie naproxen (anti-inflammatories that are chewable and meat-flavored), and she's doing a little better, though she seems stressed.  She's sleeping under the high chair right now, which she's been doing a lot since yesterday - trying to hide under things.  Damn dog thinks she's a cat.  Well, she's the biggest damn cat I've ever seen.

 Here's a picture of Sunshine from tonight.

Sunshine is hiding under the high chair, looking a little stressed, and very pretty.

Anyway, J and S were out for several hours, so I was home alone with the kids, which would have been fine, but.  There's always a but.  Why is there always a but?  The Toddler was an angel the whole time, it was wonderful and refreshing.  He did as he was told, he was as obedient as toddlers ever get, he didn't throw any tantrums or grab anything he wasn't supposed to.  Girl Child, however, started off really nice, then threw a tantrum when I told her to turn down the TV so the Toddler could nap and just gave me attitude for the rest of the day.  God.  If it's not one kid, it's the other.  She's had an attitude adjustment since her parents got home, so maybe that was her way of letting off steam about Sunshine or whatever, but I would really like it if she'd, you know, behave.  At least it's been awhile since she's been like that - we've been getting along great the last few weeks, so that's a huge improvement over how she'd been over the last several months.

So that's my day today.  Emotionally and physically exhausting.  I feel so drained, and so relieved.  I've been mostly giving Sunshine her space, due to the stress I imagine she feels about having had to go to the vet and have her butt messed with so much, so I've only pet her a little bit and taken some pictures of her pretty face.

I just wish I could get the mental image of her being hit by that car out of my head.