undesirable

Almost done with my antibiotics

I’m pretty sure I haven’t mentioned it here, but I found a tick on me a few weeks ago. Talk about undesirable.

It was pretty surprising to find a tick in November, but we’ve had some pretty unseasonably warm weather up here in the Northeast of the US. We live in a heavily wooded area, so ticks are pretty common. I was pretty skeeved out, but not too concerned otherwise. I thought it was a small-sized dog tick, and not a deer tick. (Deer ticks can carry Lyme Disease, but dog ticks don’t.) I also thought the tick had only been on me for a few hours anyhow, and apparently ticks need to be attached for at least 36 hours before they can transmit Lyme Disease. However, about a week and a half after removing the tick, and well after the initial trauma from the tick removal had healed, I started to get a rash at the site of the bite. So either the tick had been on me longer than I’d realized, or our clumsy removal of it had caused the tick to transfer the bacteria faster.

My doctor prescribed a 2-week course of antibiotics for me. I just took the preantipenultimate pill. I’m happy that I’ve only got another day left to go, because the antibiotics have done a number on me, and I have been feeling pretty wiped out and was actually pretty sick for a few days. On the other hand, I’ll gladly take 2 weeks of feeling awful over the longer-term feeling awfulness associated with full-blown Lyme Disease. The rash cleared up right away, so it seems that the antibiotic is working.

But you know what? It really sucks taking care of 2 small children when you are feeling awful. I have found myself being (even) crankier than usual. It’s hard to be patient and cheerful when you just want to curl up in a ball on the floor. I don’t know how I would have coped if I hadn’t been able to take the kids to daycare some of the days, or if John hadn’t been around. (How do stay at home parents manage when they are sick? Or single parents?)

It was such a relief when I felt better, but then Theo has been sick the last few days. I’m not sure whether he’s got the intestinal bug that a couple of other kids at daycare had, or whether he’s also reacting to the antibiotics getting passed on to him through me. (He’s still nursing.) In any case, he has been sleeping worse than usual. And now it seems he’s getting a cold. Phoebe has seemed a bit under the weather, too. Or perhaps she’s just been more needy in reaction to my crankiness.

Life has generally been more than ordinarily crazy the last couple months. John has been working pretty much around the clock, 7 days a week. I’ve had work deadlines, too. And did you know that there’s some sort of major holiday coming up soon for which we’ll be expected to do things like decorate and purchase (and even mail) presents? We as yet have no tree, and I haven’t even started Christmas shopping.

(If it’s any indication of the craziness of our household, I took the above photo on Saturday for the PhotoHunt theme of “undesirable,” and started drafting the post. And I still have yet to get it finished. I decided not to actually submit this as a Photohunt entry, anyhow, because I doubt most people participating in that really need this much detail about my life. But I figured I might as well still use the title.)

12 reasons why I won’t be giving Mark Rayner’s new novel to my mother-in-law for Christmas

The cover of a book I will not be giving to my mother-in-law.
Mark Rayner’s new novel, Marvellous Hairy, has gotten some great reviews, and some marvellously entertaining press. It’s been published just in time for the major gift-giving holidays. The paperback comes in an attractive compact format, and it also comes in an economical ebook version. You would think this would make it an excellent gift.

In spite of this, I will most definitely NOT be giving a copy of this book to my mother-in-law. Here are the main reasons why:

The 12 Main Reasons I won’t be giving Marvellous Hairy to my mother-in-law:

  1. The novel contains “adult” language.
  2. The book uses colorful descriptive language, and I mean beyond describing a room as having been painted “belligerently pink.”
  3. I’m talking about sentences like the following:

    He had long greasy black hair that clung to his head like an octopus humping his skull, and then fell onto his his shoulders in oily post-coital exhaustion.

  4. The book has sex in it.
  5. The book has sex and monkeys in it.
  6. My mother-in-law would be fairly scandalized by something that induced me to compose a sentence including both the words “sex” and “monkeys.”
  7. My mother-in-law has probably never spent any significant amount of time contemplating what it would be like to grow a tail.
  8. It is extremely unlikely that the phrase “Release the monkeys!” would make her giggle.
  9. She wouldn’t know what to make of a playful romp of a novel that is described as “part literary fun-ride, part fabulist satire, and part slapstick comedy.”
  10. Especially one that has been called “deeply, unsettlingly weird.”
  11. She certainly would not take well to the suggestion that she get in touch with her “inner monkey.”
  12. She would probably much prefer some lavender-scented hand soap.


Disclosure: Since I’m a big fan of The Skwib, Mark Rayner’s humor blog, I was all set to buy a copy of this book. (Though not for my mother-in-law.) It was already in my Amazon shopping cart and everything. But then Mark offered to send me a copy. (For FREE! Sucker!) How could I resist? (The monkeys made me do it.)


(Monkey images from wpclipart.)

The November Just Posts

Holly (of Cold Spaghetti) are pleased as ever to offer up the latest roundtable of posts on topics of social justice.

The November Just Posts:

This month’s posts were submitted by:

If you have a post in the list above, or would just like to support the Just Posts, we invite you to display a button on your blog with a link back here, or to the Just Posts at Cold Spaghetti. If you would like to have a post included next month, you can find out how to submit posts and all sorts of other stuff about the Just Posts at the information page.

A Toddler’s Guide to Tantrums

Preface – The Fine Art of the Tantrum

Chapter 1 – Know before you Throw: Planning ahead for Optimal Tantrums

    1.1 Timing: How to choose when to have your tantrum
    1.2 Motivation: Why should you consider having a tantrum?
    1.3 Location: How and where to get yourself noticed

Chapter 2 – Warm Up: Revving Up for a Tantrum

    2.1 Whining: A time-tested precursor
    2.2 Pouting: using the lower lip
    2.3 Tears: when to let the waterworks start

Chapter 3 – Vocalizations: what to say, and how to say it

    3.1 “I WANT,” “DON’T” and “NO”: Three standards of tantrum verbiage
    3.2 Repetition: No matter what you say, make sure you say it a lot.
    3.3 Repetition: No matter what you say, make sure you say it a LOT.
    3.4 REPETITION: No matter what you say, make sure you say it a LOT.
    3.5 Wailing, Shrieking and Howling: piercing or eardrum shattering, you’ve got to be LOUD

Chapter 4 – Throwing yourself into things: using your body

    4.1 The Limp Noodle: perfecting your boneless body
    4.2 The Flail: using arms and legs to express your feelings
    4.3 The Foot Stomp: a classic expression of anger
    4.4 The Throw: Tossing objects for greater impact
    4.5 The Throwdown: Throwing your whole body down for added affect

Chapter 5 – Personal Style: Making the Tantrum Your Own

    5.1 Lessons from the Greats: The Tantrum Hall of Fame

Chapter 6 – Consequences: What will happen when I have a tantrum?

    6.1 Frazzled Grown-ups: a guaranteed outcome
    6.2 Time outs & Loss of privileges: What have you got to lose?
    6.3 Will I get a puppy? Debunking the myths of tantrum outcome

This post is for the Monday Mission, hosted by Painted Maypole. This week’s assignment was to write a post in the form of a table of contents.

curved (PhotoHunt)

This week’s PhotoHunt theme is “curved.” Curves are amply represented in my photo library, but what came to mind in particular were some sights we saw on our recent trip to Barcelona. Namely, works by Antoni Gaudí, an architect known for (among other things) an avoidance of using straight lines.

On our last full day in Barcelona, prompted by strong recommendations from azahar and Sally, we paid a visit to Casa Battló, a house full of plenty of curved lines. Windows, doors and even walls showed plenty of curves. This was my favorite photo I took there.

I’ll hopefully get around to posting more photos from that visit soon, as well as others from our trip to Spain. (I know, I know, I keep saying that.)

For other people throwing us some curves, stop by tnchick.

tantalizing Tikoli tea towels

What with the season coming up for giving gifts, I’d like to direct your attention to these ever-so-cool tea towels from Tikoli:

Aren’t they beautiful? Aren’t the designs eye-catching?

Do you want to know something even cooler about them? They were designed by my sister.

And you know what else? There’s a drawing going on right now over at Design Milk where you can win a set of 6 of them. To be entered, you just need to leave a comment on the Tikoli Tea Towels Giveaway post by the end of tomorrow (December 4th).

And in case you miss the drawing, or you don’t happen to win, Tikoli tea towels are available from various retailers, or from the Tikoli online store.

While I’m at it, I’m going to repost some stuff I wrote last time I shamelessly promoted my sister.

You can feel good about yourself for buying Tikoli tea towels because:

  • using cloth towels instead of paper towels reduces waste
  • buying them supports a small business owner
    • what’s more, the business owner is a woman
    • and that woman is also a mother of 2 small children
    • and a very cool individual
  • the tea towels are lightweight, so their shipping impact is relatively small
  • they come with minimal packaging

Tikoli tea towels make good gifts because:

  • they are functional and durable
  • They are low-priced, so that you can easily give 2 or 3 of different designs
  • they are compact and easy to wrap (or you can get them wrapped)
  • they are gorgeous

NaBloPoMoFaSoLaTiDo

Okay, so I guess this will have to do for the post mortem of my efforts at posting daily for the month of November (i.e. my annual NaBloPoMoPoMo.).

While I’m not exactly sorry that I participated in NaBloPoMo again this year, I was a bit disappointed not to have written more posts that I had been wanting to write. I had hoped, for example, to get through some more photos and stories and such from our September Spain trip. I did manage one such post (Sevilla Tapas tour). But believe me, I have many more photos to share.

I did manage a few other posts that I was pleased with. In all, I guess I feel that there were 10 or 12 worthwhile posts from the month. (Now with over 60% filler!) But considering that lately I’ve barely managed that many posts in a month at all, at least the endeavor got me posting again. And while I didn’t manage to really write much in the way of substance, I did put together some posts that were a lot of fun (for me), and what’s more, I did come up with a few pretty kick-ass post titles (if I do say so myself).

Here are some of the highlights (at least for me) of the month:

I did also put up the The October Just Posts, which is always worthwhile, if not actually “fun.” (Which reminds me–it’s time to send in nominations!)

Plus, I participated in Neil’s Great Interview Experiment, which was a lot of fun. I got to interview Michèle of Voix de Michèle, a wonderfully entertaining blogger. (Here’s that post.) I also got to be interviewed by Becky of Welcome to My Life, for which Becky devised this brilliant post title:

I was really happy to meet both of these bloggers. And while I didn’t meet nearly as many bloggers through NaBloPoMo this year as I did the year I started the Ministry of Silly Blogs (check out the crazy-long list I put together last year), I did get to make one other new blog friend (submom of Absence of Alternatives) through the NaBloPoMo site.

One last thing: I totally took advantage of the WordPress post by email feature. I find it’s much faster to compose posts in my Mail application, especially with links and photos, than to do so in my browser. If I hadn’t been using this, I don’t think I could have managed to post as often as I did.

Also, I’m still behind in my blog reading from the month, especially for those other bloggers who participated in NaBloPoMo. So if you see me pop by with a comment on a 3-week-old post, that’s why.

Oh, and one more last thing: Here’s a photo of Phoebe riding a blue dinosaur. Just because.

I totally don’t have to post today

So, here it is almost midnight once more. But it’s December 1st, and so my month of daily blogging is over and done. But I thought I’d post some gratuitous cuteness anyhow.

First, these are a couple of shots I took during our Thanksgiving visit to the in-laws.

These last ones are from grocery shopping tonight. Being a Tuesday evening, it was pretty deserted in Whole Foods, so we let Theo walk around a bit. He had blast. Phoebe went with him and looked after him. (She did a great job except for the couple of times when she got distracted and knocked him over or and pulled him down by his jacket.) I could barely stand the cuteness of it.

I’m glad NaBloPoMo is over. Maybe tomorrow I’ll have the time/energy/inclination to do my annual NaBloPoMoPoMo.

from behind closed doors

Dear Homeowner,

We regret to inform you that several individuals placed in our care are no longer eligible to continue residence in our facility.

In the uppermost level of the facility, several bagged items have greatly exceeded recommended levels of frost. In particular, the contents of the bag of store-brand Mixed Vegetables have become inextricably melded together.

In the Lower Level, in the departments known as “Vegetable Crisper,” we have become concerned about the rapid degeneration of one Bunch of Celery and several Zucchinis (aka “Courgettes”).

On the Main Level, a large container of Plain Yogurt has only recently expired, yet it is only the most recent such instance. There are several partially used jars of Salsa, Spaghetti Sauce and Various Condiments which should no longer be considered Viable for Consumption. While many are not yet visibly spoiled, our records indicate that these items have been in long-term care far beyond recommended time limits. We have been notified that the opening of the jar of Sweet Pickles, in particular, most certainly pre-dated the birth of your first child.

Additionally, there are many other items whose earthly remains may no longer be identifiable by visual means. There is a glass container which houses, according to our records, what had once been a portion of Canned Black Beans. We consider it advisable that these remains be removed from our premises and disposed of posthaste. Failure to do so may result in additional spoilage and potential generation of new life-forms.

Please remember that while we strive to provided the utmost in Low-Temperature Care, our ability to maintain levels of ick-free storage depends on your upholding your portion of the contract. Should these matters not be resolved in a timely matter, we may consider closing our facilities to further new items.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

Your Refrigerator and Freezer

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This week’s Monday Mission was to post in the form of a letter of regret. I have done so. Perhaps regrettably. To find more regrettable letters, check your mailbox. Or stop by Painted Maypole.