Drama

There has just been too much drama going on lately. I had an awesome post planned for my daughter's 18th birthday, back on the 14th. I started leaving her posts on her facebook page on the 13th telling her what was happening at this time 18 years ago, culminating in her birth at 1:58 am. I was going to compose a fitting tribute for her here that day but a young lady that went to my children's school, and also happened to be 18, was killed on the morning of the 14th in a car accident. It did not seem proper for me to be celebrating the life of my daughter when another mother was having to deal with the death of hers. And that accident happened less than a quarter mile from where Emily had her wreck 2 years ago.

We had a major episode of drama again on Wednesday, the night before I had my surgery. It was painful and awful and is still ongoing. Maybe in a couple of weeks it won't be so raw. It may even be funny, who knows? We'll discuss it later.

So far my surgery seems to be successful--I haven't peed on myself once! And did you know percoset + zinfandel = long nap? It does. I'm kinda depressed being here all alone with nothing to do. I can't bend or stoop or pick up anything heavier than a gallon of milk for 4 weeks. Not that I was going to clean the house or anything. But there always seems to be something interesting on the floor that I would like to pick up and I have no minions here now to get them for me. I think I will go get one of those long handled grabber things that they used to give away when you bought a scooter from the scooter store. The old people in those commercials all looked really tickled with them.

Ok, so what will I do with all this time off? I think I need to drag out my copy of blogging for dummies and figure out the "labels for this post". Right now it is suggesting scooters, vacation, fall. I know I have whine and polka posts. I need a better labeling system. Am I rambling? I think I will not take a percoset tomorrow and see how the blogging goes. It makes my scalp itchy, anyway.

Nevermind

Oh. My. God.

I had been typing for the entire episode of King of the Hill and ranted and raved about my horrible, terrible day; in one freakish contortion of my fingers I hit the absolute wrong combination of keys and everything disappears and the little autosave flashes at the bottom of the screen and it is all gone. POOF.

That is the bozo button on the lapel of my horrible, terrible day. It sucked balls. Donkey balls. Big ones.

But it is over. I remained calm (mostly) and worked my way through it and did all the things that needed to be done and I just wanted to share. Is that so wrong? I don't think so. But. POOF.

Well, fine. King of the Hill is over and I need to go to bed. I will deal with this tomorrow. And I will make it to the store to get whine. I mean wine. I know where I can get some for 30% off.

Monday

Yes, Monday is almost over--but to me it is almost Friday.

I brought this up once but didn't think my imaginary audience was up to the task of grasping my alternate universe. Ready? Here goes:

I work in a factory. This factory has 5 shifts: A (11pm - 7am Mon - Fri), B (7am - 3pm Mon - Fri), C (3pm - 11pm Mon - Fri), D (11pm - 11am Sat & Sun), and E (11am - 11pm Sat - Sun). Some departments also have an F shift (5am - 5pm weekends) and there are some variances but, meh. They don't concern us.

At this factory generally you are either a Monday thru Friday person or a weekender. When I hired in, in 1995, I was told I would be a weekender for life. That turned out to not be true. I could be on straight A shift, aka Midnights, but choose to remain a weekender. I work E shift and Monday & Tuesday C shift. I consider my weekend to be Wednesday, Thursday and Friday since those are my days off. That makes Saturday my Monday and Tuesday my Friday. It's a little muddled there in the middle. I mean, when exactly is my Wednesday? Who cares! I just need to know when my Friday is.

This perverted logic makes perfect sense to me and my co-workers; probably other factory/shift workers get it, too. But absolutely no one else understands. Nor can anyone else in the world keep my work schedule straight. That includes my children. I have worked this particular schedule for many years. I did a stint on Midnights a few years back, but only for 6 months since we have a shift alignment twice a year. But almost every day one child, sometimes both, asks me if I have to work today, or tomorrow, or this weekend. My grandmother, bless her heart, has had this schedule taped up on her refrigerator for years, and has been told repeatedly that it is ALWAYS safe to call me on Wednesdays, yet she invariably calls me on Saturday mornings.

I will celebrate my 15th anniversary at the hole (as in hell hole) on February 2nd and grandma still calls me on Saturdays. Even bff likes to call me at 4:45 on Tuesdays. Sometimes. The best part of that 6 month stint on Midnights was talking to her every morning on my way home while she was commuting to work. Well, that and drinking heavily on Saturday afternoons and listening to UT football games on yahoo and stomping and whooping it up and embarassing my kids and then taking a nap.

So, I just burned 3 days vacation and it rained so we didn't get to go to the drag races; we went to the wrong salvage yard and they were closed so we didn't get to take advantage of the 50% off sale at the Pick and Pull; and I ran out of wine. Crappy weekend all the way around. But tomorrow is Friday, the only day I have to work this week, and then it's a 3 day weekend! Hurray!!

The Test

Last Monday I went back to the doctor. Again. To have the test. Again.

This isn't like all the times when I went to have the blood drawn. So many times that I looked like a junkie. Only to find out that the girl who did my bleeding test the first time did it wrong. That was why I wouldn't clot and we all thought I was dying.

No, this was cystometrics. First, you have to pee in front of somebody. That gets you two acquainted--an ice-breaker, if you will. Then the real fun begins.

They use a pediatric catheter to cause less pain, but, OUCH. The first time it felt like fiberglass. This one just felt intrusive. Did you know I have an unusually short urethra? Well, I do. It is only 7 cm long (a typical female urethra is 10 cm long). There was the insertion of something else, somewhere else, but I didn't ask why. Something about offsetting pressure in my bladder? Luckily for me it was the front door and not the back.

Then the pumping of the water commences. You have to tell them when you have the first sensation of needing to pee. Uh, now. Hmm. Then you have to tell them when you would get serious about looking for a rest stop if you were on the interstate. Yes, now. And finally, you tell them when you absolutely can't take it anymore. NOW!

This next part--well, all I can say is she got what she deserved. She violates me with rubber tubing, disparages my urethra, pumps me full of water, then ASKS ME TO COUGH!!!

Oh, yes I did. I peed all over that table.

There was more after that, but it was slightly anti-climactic.

I'm not sure if I passed that test or not.

Pressure

You know, half the time I forget I even have a blog. I was signing up for this site called Mixing Bowl, which is basically a facebook for foodies, when I had to look up my blog for the url. That's sad, really. I don't even know my own url.

Anyway, I look it up, and I have a follower! And I don't think it is someone I know. Now I feel pressure to perform. But I will not let it frighten me! The night I set up my account I kept forwarding through the blogs until I found kunkkink and I started to follow her (mainly because the English was just so atrocious, I thought it was hilarious). Well, she never posted again. I hope it wasn't because of me. Surely I don't wield that kind of power. And if I do, I need to learn how to direct it toward the people I work with so they will do my bidding. Other than the 2 that already do.

Now I just have to come up with some awesome posts. I can't waste an entire post on the fact that I am now washing my hair again. That experiment was a total failure. My hair looked better for about a week and then it just looked dirty and I am too lazy to try and tweak my shampooing ritual to find out the best way to balance washing/not washing. I'm just gonna wash. And condition. And curl creme. And probably color it again. The red washed out pretty quick, and that was disappointing. Bruce Springsteen is never gonna leave that woman for me unless my hair is red--I just know it. I have until November 18 to get it right.

Oh, and I need to find my camera. I have a book shelf full of empty wine bottles that I need to document for posterity.

A Confession

OK, don't judge me. I washed my hair today...for the first time in almost a week!

I know! Sounds gross, huh? Next thing you know I'm gonna go all Matthew McConaughey on your ass and stop using deodorant, too.

No, I read (in two separate places, no less) that not washing your hair was good for curly hair. Since my hair is getting curlier as I get older, I thought I would try it.

The first place I read it was on Bossy's blog. As I recall, it didn't work out too well for her. But she has really bad luck with her hair. Once she got highlights that she said made her hair look like it was having a period. Yes, menstrual blood highlights. One reader suggested she use olive oil in the shower for a hot oil treatment. That one didn't work out too well, either. She lives in Virginia, but goes all the way to New York City (New York City!) to get her hair cut. (He isn't the one who gave her menstrual blood highlights.) I would give my left titty; wait, no, I need that one. I would give my right titty for a New York City haircut. I would prefer it to be by Nick Arrojo. And he would tell me what kind of curl creme he uses on tv. I NEED that curl creme.

Anyway, I also read it in a Jennifer Crusie book called Bet Me. Yes, I like to take hair advice from paperback novels. I liked the book, so I thought I would give it a try.

This is not something I could have gotten away with when I was younger. I was much too oily for that. But now that my hair is downright crunchy, it couldn't hurt, right?

Right, as it turns out. Most days I just rinsed it really well with water. A couple of days I used some conditioner that I rinsed out. I went ahead and washed and conditioned it today because I have been at work for the last 3 days and I wanted to be completely sure that my hair didn't smell like a tire factory.

Overall, I was pleased with the outcome. My hair was soft and not too frizzy. My drugstore curl creme was performing as well as could be expected, since I don't know what Nick uses. And nobody asked me how long it had been since I washed my hair. My son would have been all over it if he had any inkling what was going on. I told absolutely no one...until now.

I think it could be doable. I just can't imagine never washing my hair ever again, though. But I should save a fortune on shampoo. Maybe I can splurge on some fancy conditioner--or curl creme. God, I want to know what he uses. Time to google.

Time to Purge

Sheesh, I think I forgot I even had a blog. I blame it on the cholesterol-lowering cocktail I am on, since that's what I blame everything on these days.

The most exciting news is that I am going to see Bruce Springsteen with bff Betsy. It should have been on Sept. 10, which was a totally cool day; now it is Nov. 18. That is not such a cool day, but whatcha gonna do? Not go?! At least when it was in Sept. I could say, "I can't go to my hs reunion because I am coming to Nashville on the 10th for the Springsteen concert." Now I just have to say, "Nope. The last one was lame. I'm not wasting my time again." And I mean no offense to the people who planned the last one. Everything was lovely, really. It's just that the people I really wanted to see didn't show up. It appears that some of them may actually go this time, but now we have facebook, so I don't really need to see them in person. Oh, and no one has actually asked if I'm going to be there, so my presence will not be missed. Sorta like hs all over again.

I think it is time to do a massive purge of the friend list on facebook. I would friend just about anybody at the beginning. Some of these people update constantly and I could really give a monkey's ass. But I have heard from some people I had given up ever hearing from, so that is totally cool. I just hate it when someone actually takes the time to seek me out then says nothing at all to me. I guess I am guilty of it to, but ex-boyfriends don't count! What would I ever say that wouldn't sound like I am stalking them, which I kinda am?

Ok, I have no pictures today; I don't even know where my camera is. The potent potable of the day is a white sangria slushy type concoction that came in a bucket that I mixed with a fifth of
Smirnoff. It's yummy! I also mixed up a bucket of Cranberry-Mandarin that I mixed with a fifth of Cranberry Finlandia. Quite a splurge for me. Tunes are once again the Elvis Costello channel of Pandora. I am about to fry up a mess of green tomatoes and start in on the Big Joe Super Show I taped Saturday night. This has been perfect use of a vacation day, I think.