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Friday, December 31, 2010

Tom Cruise

oh i hate him. i hate him i hate him i hate him! he totally grosses me out and i think he is the worst!!! but we watched Knight and Day yesterday and it was really pretty good. he was funny, and cute (OMG, i i almost threw up right when i typed that) and the movie was entertaining. we saw the previews for it a while back and though it might be pretty good except for gag Tom Cruise gag, but, ugh, it was good, better than expected even. i'm not really a fan of Cameron Diaz either. Like, i think she is the worst part of Shrek, but i can tolerate her and she doesn't make me sick the way Tom Cruise does, but gosh darn it, it was entertaining and i'd suggest putting it in your queue if yer looking for something entertaining.

other news - its the last day of 2010. Wow! that's kind of crazy! i am not going to dedicate the last post of 2010 to just Tom Cruise. Instead, we are trying to figure out our plan for 2011. I've got some exciting plans coming up for the new year as far as training and racing go. can anyone say "tri bike"? oooh!! scary but exciting, and oh so pretty! new mtn bike on the horizon, too! eric got two new bikes last year, and it looks like 2011 will be the year of new bikes for me! i've got xterra worlds on the books again for 2011, only this year eric isn't so sure he is going to come with me, so it might turn into a girls trip! but i think he should come! why would he be so silly as to pass up a week in the sun and on the beach! seamus is turning 7 in feb - yikes! that is coming waaaay to quickly. the two of those kids are so cute - sirus gave me big hugs last night right before i tucked him into bed and he told me he loves me more than anything. apparently i'm ok even if i am bossy!

eric took the kids out sledding this morning. every morning around 8 - can we go sledding??? so we bundle them up and eric take them out. they love it!

i took the 2nd Bar Method class. it was much better than the first. found out that if i get higher on my toes i don't shake as much - hooray! - and then the whole building doesn't shake. this instructor seemed to incorporate a bit more ballet into the mix, too. not a ton by any means, but more. makes me think screw yoga or this class, i should take ballet again to work on core and flexibility. i remember i had a rock solid arse when i was doing all those plies and crap back in the day - chiseled man's ass. gonna have to check into that. just looked it up and wow - there are a lot of offerings locally. will i have to wear a leotard? can i wear a biketard instead?

yesterday we swam - i tried to do some drills and concentrate on everything i learned on tuesday. seemed ok. then i ran for 30 minutes on the treadmill. i was flying along, i felt good and wasn't even working and was pushing a good pace. and gosh darn it, Inception was on the big screen and i hate Leonardo Decaprio right up there with Tom Cruise but ugh, he's aging quite nicely i have to admit.

Happy New Year!!

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

criss cross apple sauce

so back when i was a kid, it was called indian style, but now that is not pc. we heard a new variation today, criss cross apple sauce, put your hands in the spaghetti sauce. gracious, kids these days.
we are still all missing pawpi very much, but she is now back with us in a little box on a shelf in the family room. and what was super nice was that the emergency clinic sent us a hand written note expressing their sympathies and then a few days later we received on from the vet clinic in west seattle that did her surgeries and got her well back in july. when i saw the return address on that card, i almost didn't open it because i was worried it was a holiday card, but it was a sympathy card, with a bunch of hand written notes from the vets and vets assistants there. i didn't realize they did that and i thought it was a very nice gesture. we're just not sure how they found out.
i think nadj knows what happened. she has been very sweet and is spending more and more time with me and eric. she even goes into the kids rooms, not sure if she is looking for pawpi, or what the deal is, but something is definitly going on with her.
other news, i have been enjoying my time off from work. oh how wonderful it has been! i have cleaned the house over and over, and have helped with laundry, made the beds every day and making lunch and all kinds of things!
i've even gone swimming a few times, been running a few times and been on the trainer a bit. our DVD player stopped working a week or two a go, so only basic cable tv while on the trainer, unless we take the computer out there, which i have been, which has allowed me to watch Lord of the Rings... again. wow, i don't know how many times i've actually watched that movie, but Sam annoys me in the way he calls frodo, Mr Frodo, and Frodo just annoys the hell out of me, he is so damn lame, and then good gracious, how can Legolas Greenleaf be sooooo much cuter and cooler than Will Turner?? Although Greenleaf is a pretty funny, last name, seems more fitting for a fairy rather than an elf. dude, he walked on snow! but another thing i noticed with the movie, is that once again, i found out that i didn't remember any of it!! makes me wonder what the other two are about, since i've seen them both but can't remember a damn thing, other than the trees fight back. i do know the last one, i think went on and on and on and on. maybe it was the 2nd one, but i know i was super pregnant with seamus and it just went on and on, and every time it was over, it kept going!!
other stuff, i went and had some swim technique work done today which was incredibly helpful AND got my fancy mavic road shoes finally fitted. i've had them for almost a year but stopped wearing them right before the onionman since they didn't feel right and then never put them back on after I got hurt. but today, i think we got them figured out and i'm pretty excited. i also found out i have a pretty smooth pedal stroke which i was happy to hear! Hooray!
tomorrow i am headed to my 2nd and last Bar Method class. good grief. last week i did it and it about killed me. i was sore for days after - DAYS. here's hoping this week is better.
OH! and we had xmas! it was very fun! the kids were great and happy with their presents, and eric liked his lederhosen! sirus was very funny when he noticed that eric and my stockings really didn't have very much in them. he very casually said, as he was walking into the other room, oh, santa must have not left you very much because you are so bossy. nice. and we had a lovely xmas dinner with grandma, xtie and jon, and jon' mom and we used grandma's beautiful china that i have loved since i was a little girl! it was a perfect day!




Sunday, December 19, 2010

what happened

after eric got to the cat ER and pawpi was looked at he gave me a call. she weighed 4.4 pounds and her temperature was 96, when it should have been closer to 100. they did some blood work and when the results came back, apparently complete kidney failure is a 10 and she was a 9.9. pawpi was very very sick. the vet said she could stay the 3 days through the weekend, she would need constant attention and be pumped full of IVs and medicine. they would test her again on Monday and see if there was any improvement. if there was, and if she was well enough to come home, which they were not optimistic about, we would need to give her daily injections of fluids, and bunches of medicines because not only were her kidneys in bad shape, but her thyroid was going too. eric said that every time he would say "year" the vet would correct him and say "month". so eric called me, i cried and cried and cried but we decided it was time. poor poor pawpi, she was so so sick. i knew when we were packing her up to go that night that she wasn't coming back, i knew she was dying. i also knew that if we didn't take her in she likely wouldn't last through the night. eric was with her, he cuddled her, petted her, gave her kisses. then he called me again and i cried and cried some more. i cried the entire time until he got home around 2am and then cried some more, all the way until around 3am when i finally was able to fall asleep.
we decided we weren't going to tell the kids in the morning and then send seamus off to school. we didn't think that was a good idea, but if sirus asked during the day where she was, eric was going to tell him. but he didn't ask. later we had my company holiday party and decided when we got home it was too late to tell them and we would wait until the next day.
saturday morning we sat the kids down and told them what happened. seamus instantly understood and instantly sobbed. sirus looked confused and asked if that meant she wasn't coming home, and then he began to cry, too. we all cuddled and talked about it. seamus asked a lot of questions like how she got sick and what the vet was going to do with her. we told them she would be cremated and turned to ashes, and we will put her little box on the mantle and how she will always be with us. sirus said, ok, so she will be here but we just won't be able to pet her. apparently he didn't totally understand because later in the car seamus was crying and he asked her why. sirus then told me that seamus was crying because she thought pawpi had died. i had to tell him pretty directly that that was what happened. and he cried again, too. he had said earlier how we would miss pawpi but we still had nadj and seamus mccat. even later when seamus was crying again, he tried to comfort her by telling her that it was the normal life cycle, just like the salmon - the salmon lay their eggs, then they die. the eggs turn into fry, the fry turn into fish, then they lay their eggs and it goes on and on. it was pretty cute to listen to a 5 year old try to comfort his older sister like that.
it had already been a rough day, but we headed out, to get some shopping done and to just get out of the house. we went to bellevue square, and much to my surprise, many of the stores were having better sales than last week, so we stopped in a few and got some really great price adjustments.
then we went to the play area. its an indoor play area with a cushy floor and there is a ferry boat and a sand castle and a bunch of other shinny, slippery, slightly squishy things for the kids to climb on. its generally a mad house there, and yesterday was no different. i let the kids play for almost 40 minutes when i started the 5 minute count down. with 2 minutes to go, i saw a woman carrying sirus towards me, with seamus trailing behind. sirus was covered in blood - OMG - what happened? The woman said she didn't see, sirus was too upset to say anything. because he was so upset i knew it wasn't just a normal, no reason bloody nose, but i couldn't tell where the blood was coming from - nose, mouth, where? what happened? so i thanked the lady, picked sirus up and grabbed seamus and we headed out, blood gushing the entire time! we saw mall security and they took us into the mall security lair. he got the first aid kit, asked if i wanted them to call 911 and then i cleaned sirus up. while i was cleaning him, trying to find out what happened, seamus stepped up and told me that she accidentally kicked him in the face. i was proud of her for telling the truth and told her how very important it is to always tell the truth because when someone is hurt its very important for grownups to know what happened so they know how to help the hurt person. i was very proud of her because i am sure she was scared she was going to get in trouble. eventually the bleeding stopped and we headed back to the play area to get the kids shoes and then to finish up what we needed to do and go home. the lady who had helped came over and we talked a little, she said that at first, seamus was trying to pick sirus up and carry him to me, which is very sweet of her, and explains why seamus's dress was covered in blood. i was wearing my black puffy jacket and seemed like i was clean, but it was awkward walking through the mall with two kids with blood all over their clothes. :(
we made a quick stop at starbucks for some hot chocolates, and then sirus sneezed and a big deep red bloody snot rocket shot down all the way to his chin! i gasped in horror and quickly cleaned him up! then we stopped in one last store at the mall and headed to fred meyer. we got our business done there and headed home. only then did i finally go into the bathroom and look in the mirror and see that i had blood splattered ALL OVER MY FACE!!! OMG, dude, walking around, holding two bloody kids hands, with my face totally splattered, we must have been a sight, and WTF, why didn't anyone tell me????
around 4pm, seamus came to give me hugs and said, mommy it feels like its night time. she had a rough day, that is for sure.

Thursday, December 16, 2010

ER

we spent the evening watching Scott Pilgrem vs the World. It was quite entertaining, not at all what i expected. i'd recommend it to anyone wanting a kind of funny movie that isn't going to be what they expect, unless of course you already know about it. we also watched From Paris with Love. I liked this movie too. Eric kept saying we got it from netflix and that we should watch it but i kept thinking it was a romantic comedy because he does like the rom-coms, but finally i was like, ok, lets watch it and it was good! not a rom-com at all. highly entertaining.
we watched the Wizard of Oz with the kids yesterday. It was the first time they had seen it. sirus was all pist because he wanted to play a video game but no, mom and dad are so mean we made him watch the wizard of oz! he moaned and groaned that it was in black and white, then started freaking out when the tornado came but then laughed as soon as the house lifted up into the air and everything was flying by her window. and when she opened the door and everything was in color he gasped! it was quite cute. he did not like the munchkins at all, and although both kids sat there glued to the screen the entire time, not looking away for even a moment, after it was done, sirus said it was only ok. he said he liked the girl but that was about it.
so tonight we watched the movie and after as we were heading to bed we noticed pawpi just sitting there in the hall way, staring at eric's shoes. this is common behavior for her, so it wasn't that alarming, but eric made the comment that she was looking quite thin, and usually she at least looks around if we call her name or walk by, but she was just staring. he petted her some, her back legs slipped from under her and she just left them there, all spread out to the sides. after a while she worked really hard to pull them back up under her. she walked a few steps and clearly something wasn't right with her hips and legs. we got down on our hands and knees, and saw that her nose was bleeding. not gushing, but there was blood there and it looked like her nose collapsed on the one side. just like even though she is so puffy we were able to tell when her cheek was swollen, this time, even though her face is squished, we could tell something was wrong with her nose.
so even though its late, eric called the emergency vets clinic and is taking her there right now. there is no way we could have gone to sleep knowing she is not right like that. something is terribly wrong.

Sunday, December 12, 2010

pineapple express

dude i was so mad that i actually thought that movie was kind of funny.

but we are having one right now! rain rain and MORE rain. apparently pineapple express is a real weather phenomenon but really here in the PNW anything weather related is blown way out of proportion by the new stations an given silly names.

the after effects of the shot seem to now be wearing off but the discomfort and pain that the shot caused was alarming. "flipping the pancake" and "scrubbing the kitty puke out of the carpet" both caused pain yesterday when in the past both were ok. this morning "flipping the french toast" is still a bit of a concern and typing is actually bothering me for the first time. i haven't yet tested the actual injury itself but think baking a pie might be necessary soon to test it out. i wore the wrist brace on the trainer last night which i don't ever do but the brace just feels good and so i did it and it kept my wrist in line and it all worked out. i'm keeping the spiderman band aides on the injection site although i am pretty sure i can go without them by now.
other news, i have a new way of testing out my swimming fitness without actually getting into the pool! hooray. sort of. i have determined that i have at least two dressy dress up dresses that if i am in good swimming shape i can get them up over my ass but cannot zip them up the back. if i am not in swimming shape, they can still get up over my ass but i CAN zip them up. currently both of these dresses can be zipped up. that means i better get my ass in the pool ASAP!!! but i might wait until after the holiday party i am going to next weekend, so i can wear one of the dresses!

Friday, December 10, 2010

omg

NOW the pain is setting in. WTF! dude, if it had been hurting this bad all along i would have totally gone to the doctors waaaay sooner. this is no good.

today i got a manicure

not really, but it sure looked like i was going to get one.
i went to the hand surgeon. i was nervous about going, i was pretty confident that i would not be needing surgery but at the same time, i didn't know what to expect. on the intake form it asked me how far i could comfortably walk. i didn't know what to put down, i almost wrote that I knew I could comfortably run 13miles but instead i just put in 20??? wondering what that had to do with hands.
the exam room looked just like a nail salon. it had one of those little nail salon tables with a stool on one side and a chair on the other for me. there was a little lamp on it and then a bunch of liquids and crap over where the manicure peeps keep all their liquids and crap. weird!
as i sat there i heard the same weird suctioning noise i had heard when i was getting the MRI. after a bit, there was all the super loud banging and clanging from the other parts of the MRI. turns out there is an MRI place right next door which made me wondering if i was being exposed to something that maybe i didn't want to be.
the doctor came in, i sorta expected him to shake hands but he didn't but maybe since he is a hand doctor that doesn't work out so well a lot of times so he just doesn't do it.
he started doing the exam and writing a ton of stuff. i told him the whole history of it all and tried to lighten the mood by telling him that although a life without push ups would be bearable, a life without pie would not be, since making pie crust hurts. he didn't comment or react. he left the room a few times and came back, he looked at the MRI stuff somewhere else, he grabbed the grabber mesurer and had me squeeze it with both hands, he left the room. he came back and moved my bones around and stuff. then he left and got a hand skeleton. he said, this is where the torn cartilage is, this is where the cyst is and this is where the pain is. none of it is near the other. sweet. he said there are two bones that in some people are fused but for me are not and he suspects they are smashing into each other. so he said he'd toss a cortisone shot in there and have me come back in 4 weeks.
so he left the room and i started to worry about this shot. in my joint. in my hand. and OMG it is going to hurt because he is going to dig around in there with the giant needle and omg its going to be terrible. i started to sweat and feel a little not good. then the nurse came in and started prepping everything, the sterile gloves, the alcohol wipe, the bandaide, the syringes!! i asked her how much it was going to hurt and she didn't say, but the after affects can hurt more than the injury itself, at least for a while. it depends on the person, blah blah blah but some people it really really hurts. she left.
i rested my head on my left hand which was sweating profusely, with my hurt wrist sitting on the manicure table. and just waited.
the doctor came back and got to work. i felt one stick which was for the numbing stuff. that didn't hurt much at all. then i felt that he was putting in another one. next thing i know he was like ok see you in 4 weeks. what? that was it? that was easy! nothing to it. i assumed the numbing stuff would be like the dentist where they stick you over and over a hundred times, but nope. totally easy. makes me wonder how bad the cortisone shot would have hurt with no numbing stuff? i was so over joyed with the lack of pain that i almost told the receptionist about how awesome it was. then i assumed she probably either knew it really wasn't a big deal or really just didn't care so i kept it to myself. but wow, i was really happy. now to wait if its going to start hurting during the next 48 hrs and also to see if the shot possibly cures the whole thing for good!

Friday, December 03, 2010

M to the R to the I

i went for an xray on my wrist the other day. the people are so funny. they just look at me and are like, whats wrong with you? i tell them my wrist hurts and then they just look at me funny. i wonder if its because when i go in for stuff i am walking and talking? there was the time eric tried to kill me by feeding me salmon that still had bones in it. i was 8 weeks pregnant with sirus and there i was eating this amazing salmon when i totally started choking. it was terrible. i remember gagging and gagging and eric just sitting there, not even paying attention. i went into the bathroom because i was sure i was going to puke but instead i just gagged and gagged and my eyes were burning and watering and my mascara was all down my face. finally i composed myself a bit and asked eric to keep an eye on me all night, ya know, in case i died. in the morning a friend at work convinced me to call the doctor who told me to go to the ER right away, so I did. they did that horrible horrible thing where they shove the scope up yer nose and down yer throat but they couldn't see anything. even tho i was all preggo they did an xray which turned out to be an adventure. the girl doing it was new or something and someone said to double me up on lead barriers since i was pregnant, so i had on the normal apron like thing then she took this lead sheet like thing and rolled me up in it all burrito style. when the first person came back, they were just like, oh, ok, i guess that will work. anyway, they went on to take a billion xrays because the lady kept putting in slides that had no film in them or something like that. and once the ER doctor took a look at the xrays he came rushing in, OMG how are you not just screaming in pain! you have a 2 inch bone vertically wedged in your throat, OMG, why can't we see it? so they called in the ENT doctor to take a look. everyone who came into check on me was just like WTF, you have a fishbone stuck in your throat and yer just hanging out? so the ENT doctor and i looked at the xray together, he made a funny face and then i said - that's not a bone! that is my retainer! but then he found the bone on the xray, they took it back to the radiologist to confirm and then yeah, it was small, but it was stuck in there. the ENT dr insisted on putting the damn scope up my nose again but then they put me under general anethetic and went in to get the bone out. but alas, it wasn't there! they saw where it had been but it was gone by the time all was said and done. when i was getting prepped to go in for "surgery" i asked if i could keep my clothes on. they said sure, and i told them while i was starting to get all happy that i was going to be really pissed if i didn't have my pants on when i woke up. sure enough when i was being wheeled into recovery and was starting to wake up i heard one of the nurses ask "why does she have pants on?" people coming out of "surgery" and general anesthetic, normally don't have on pants i guess. i won't even go into how eric went to the wrong hospital when he came to pick me up and wound up driving all over the place in the middle of the night or how he always has to one up me.
so on friday i went in for an MRI on my hand. the people were nice but at the same time, totally like what's wrong with you? dude, my wrist really hurts! really it does. i haven't ever had an MRI so it was a little exciting but scary, too. i got to wear all my normal clothes but had to take off all of my jewels and assure them any lotions or makeup did not have any silver in it. i had to wear ear plugs, and lay on my stomach with my hand above my head. then in went my hand and head! dude, it was really freaking loud and would get louder and then louder at times, too. and it kept going on and on. what i don't understand is why does something that is so amazingly high tech live in a room that looks like a storage closet and why can't they make it not so loud? really, what is all that noise about?
on monday i got an email from my doctor with the results - a tear in the cartilage and a cyst all up in there somewhere. along with this was a referral to a hang surgeon. yikes! no me gusta! so of course i started doing all kinds of research on the things that were wrong and saw all kinds of horrible horrible photos and read many horrible stories about botched surgeries and such. so not cool!
so on friday i'll go see what is up with all of that. yikes!!!