I knew the teeth would have to come out; all of my friends had theirs cut out already. I think wisdom teeth extraction has become this generation’s tonsillectomy. But, without dental insurance, I was going to have to pay out-of-pocket and since my pockets were already turned inside out, the teeth stayed in. My mom eventually called around and found a dentist up in Missouri who would get the suckers out for the lowest cost. 

Tucker and his mom drove me up to the dentist’s office. I was nervous since I had wanted to be totally knocked out so everything could be done at once but apparently that costs a whole heck of a lot and thus wasn’t gonna happen. Up until that point, I had only been seen by a pediatric dentist who always used nitrous and I liked going to the dentist. 

So we get there and I’m sure I filled out paperwork or something and a tech took me back. During our polite conversation chat I asked about anesthesia other than just getting a shot and was told I would have to come back to watch a video or something if I wanted to go that route.  Since the office was over an hour away and I had class and work to worry about, there went that idea.

The tech took purty pictures of my teeth with one of those cool standup x-ray machine jobbers and I met the dentist. Who looked like he was about fall over dead from old age. And according to him, was retiring at the end of the week. Closing up shop. Getting the hell outta Dodge.

The tech leaned me back in the chair, the dentist popped on the Super Special Dentist Light and reached for a metal syringe.

It’s at that point I started to wonder if nitrous was included in the grouping of “extras” with the video and all that. Surely not. Nitrous wasn’t that big of a deal to need its own VIDEO the day before the actual appointment, right? 

RIGHT?!

I had just started planning out my escape route when the dentist must have caught on to my brilliant plan since more techs materialized and then held me down. The dentist did his shots in my jaw thing, yanked out two wisdom teeth, screwed up an adjacent tooth I later had to have root canalled and capped and sent me on my merry way.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago when Tucker forced me to go to a new dentist. A new dentist who discovered the broken molar I had been ignoring for three years. What? It didn’t hurt! You see where I’m going with this, right? Yup. #15 had to leave the party. 

Fast forward some more to Monday. I had to get a couple of fillings repaired. New Dentist’s people gave me nitrous, I freaked out very little and life went on.

Yay, life!

Today? Not so much. 

On went the nitrous and I was left for a few so the gas could start going to my head. Dentist came back, did the topical crap that ALWAYS makes your tongue go numb and then eventually shot me up. He fixed a discolored filling and then shot me with SOME MORE stuff in my jaw. 

I had jokingly told the dentist and tech, “This is what some folks might consider a trigger moment.” OK. I wasn’t really joking.

Once he left again to check on some other patients whilst the left side of my head went numb, I texted Tucker. 

I had been scared. I did the whole silent cry thing but I couldn’t really move since the nitrous mask basically held my head to the chair so I had to wipe the tears out of my ears. Odd feeling, that. 

I got my shit back together before they came in to yank out the tooth and I felt bad for having texted Tucker. There wasn’t anything he could have done; he had to be home to keep the kids from eating each other. I guess I feel bad for making him feel bad. But I’m glad he felt bad cause that means he cares. Or something. Make sense? 

The whole oral situation?

So, Tucker?

This happened a couple of times and one time she actually tossed the stuff. A few other times, she just bagged the stuff up and scared the crap out of me. While I still hold that method was a really screwed up way to motivate me to clean my room (It didn’t work.), I understand her motivation.

Truth be told, I’ve always been crap at picking up after myself. I still am, just ask Tucker. 

We’ve been telling the kids to pick up their rooms and playroom for quite a while. 

Admittedly, we suck at follow-through sometimes. OK. A lot of times.

I suspect, like most parents, the rate of crap follow-through has to do with just how worn down Tucker and I are feeling at that particular time. 

But we’re serious now.

We’re off to Arkansas later today since next week is the kids’ Spring Break; They’re spending a blissful week with the grandparents.

All of this is what prompted the Facebook post on the Taste Like Crazy Facebook page. 

Since not all of you saw it because Facebook likes to play with its algorithms all the time and some of you don’t “like” the page on Facebook (WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!), here it is:

 
To be just a bit more specific on what I mean by “ALL THE THINGS,” I’m talking about toys and books that have been left on their floors for weeks and they literally step on the stuff.

But do they pick said stuff up after they’ve stepped on said stuff? 

What semi-sucks about this plan is that it’s a bit of a punishment for me since I’m the one cleaning their rooms but at least it will be done. Finally.

They were warned last Monday that if they didn’t have everything picked up by today then we would pick up their things and they would have to earn the things back.

Since they’re five and seven, they’ve been warned just about every day since Monday and each time we ask them, “What will happen if your rooms and the playroom aren’t cleaned up by Friday?” They then parrot back the consequence so we know for a fact they know what’s coming.

I’ll post before and after pictures. Eventually. Once I’m done. 

I was quite disappointed in myself. 

The pain’s gotten a lot better (It was mostly a gross ache, anyway.), I quit taking the meds and even had some leftover.

That’s a good thing. I’m getting to that. 

Last night I dreamed some weird things. 

In one, I had a deep conversation with some Russian dude about his feelings on Putin and what’s going on in Crimea.^[1] In another, I was bouncing with a racoon on lime Jell-O. Figure THAT one out, will you? 

The one that has to do with the pain in my hand and the state of today involved Tucker, bugs and me whacking the shit out of him. 

Multiple times.

It was about 2AM and I was in that weird awake-not awake place.

After I beat on Tucker, I found out he had been awake “looking at the news” because he couldn’t sleep. I’m positive he wasn’t actually looking at Fail Blog.^[2]

Maybe his news reading roused me a bit? 

So I’m in awake-not awake land and dreaming about spiders and bugs and in the kinda-dream, I looked over at Tucker and dude was COVERED with various creepy crawlies.

And what does one do when your beloved spouse is COVERED with various creepy crawlies?

You beat the everloving shit out of them.

So I did.

Oddly enough, Tucker didn’t seem too put out by the pummeling. He’s a nice boy, sometimes. 

But I didn’t have anything over my sutures and since my primary hand is my surgeried hand, that was the one I used to whack Tucker.

Multiple times. 

That was a very stupid owie mistake.

Needless to say (but I’m gonna), Tucker had to cover my sutures and get me a pain pill.

It was ~2:30AM by that point; I didn’t dream after that.

I also didn’t realize all of the alarms on my phone (other than the LEAVE NOW!!! alarm) had been turned off. I woke up at 7:20…which is when Ollie has to be checked into pre-k. 

I didn’t have time to make the kids’ lunches and breakfast was served courtesy of the school. Pancakes and sausage, in case you were wondering. 

Lessons learned:

1. Make sure ALL of my alarms are good to go the night prior to when I have to get up.
2. Make lunch the night prior, too…though I tell myself that every night and, well, that’s working out GREAT.
3. Surgeried hands make adequate weapons but the aftermath sucks ass.
4. Don’t take opioids at ~2:30 in the morning when I’m supposed to get up at 6:30 that morning.
5. Sleep on the couch. 

1. ^[1]Random podcast I just found concerning Crimea. I’m listening to it whilst I write this.↩
2. ^[2]He NEVER does that. Nope. Never.↩

When I had my emergency induction with Cara back in ’06, a nurse with about as much skill with a needle as a lobotomized polar bear on crack (LPBoC) shoved an IV into the side of my left wrist. Blood went everywhere…I guess LPBoC wasn’t expecting a cannula, not attached to a line, to spurt blood? Damn thing hurt the entire time it was in and eventually became occluded. I’ve never been so happy to get rid of something.

Bad experience but I didn’t expect it to make me all PTSD and crap when, Friday, the (very nice) nurse picked that exact spot to site my IV.

After Tucker had been let into the pre-op area and I demanded he remove all the blankets and give me something to fan myself, the nurse told me she thought I had looked “really nervous and [she] was glad to see that [I] had relaxed.”

Yeah…not so much “relaxed” as got through the panic attack.

In her defense, I didn’t tell her I was freaking out. She was so business-like about putting in the IV (and I didn’t know I would have such a drastic reaction) that she was done before I thought to object.

Fast forward through two hours of waiting (and napping) and the most awesome nurse anesthetist in the history of nurse anesthetists (Avis McCalla) came in, introduced her awesome self and told me she had a “wonderful recipe” for me. This made me especially excited since I had been told the whole shebang would be done with just local sedation and I was expecting to have to fight for some sort of happy/oblivion pill. 

Avis said it with such zeal I couldn’t help but love her even more.

According to one of the surg nurses, the actual surgery took seven minutes. Yeah, I don’t remember any of it. I’m not complaining. 

Awesome Nurse Anesthetist brought me back to Earth and in about five minutes, I was stone-cold sober. I’ve never had such a great experience with Let’s Have Surgery drugs.

Now, five days later, I’ve removed the massive bandage and replaced it with a little bit of gauze and tape. The entire palm of my right hand is a giant bruise, the three stitches gnarly and I’m still taking pain meds BUT my fingers haven’t gone numb since right before they wheeled me back for surgery. 

Considering the numbness had progressed to the point I routinely dropped stuff, I say a bit of bruising, a few stitches and some pain are completely worth it. 

Annoyances of Carpal Tunnel Release surgery:

1. Not being able to use my primary (right) hand.
2. Not being able to pull up the right side of my underwear/pants on my own.
3. Worrying about one of the kids and/or Sophie the Wonder Pit Bull whacking my hand.
4. Bathing/washing my hair with only my left hand whilst either holding my right hand straight up and/or hanging my hand over the side of the tub so my surgeried hand didn’t get wet. 
5. A crazy amount of desire to decorate cookies which requires a heck of a lot of manual dexterity.
6. A crazy amount of desire to play video games which requires a heck of a lot of manual dexterity.

Though I probably won’t get to 100% with my right hand (since I waited so long to admit what was going on), if I get to 75%, I’ll be happy. Once my right hand gets to as good as it’s going to get, Lefty will be going under the knife. 

As of right now, I’m cool with that. 

Surgeryish pictures coming right up!

For the record, the monitor part of the first picture is due to the fact one of the nurses at my GP’s office hates me and always accuses me of having high blood pressure.

It’s YOU, woman. It’s not me.

Take that, hateful nurse.

And that hospital coffee was really, really good.

Anywho.

I’ll get to the hand thing here in a sec but first I want to talk about the raging headache I’ve had all day. I’m talking the most horrible hangover headache you’ve ever had but without the debauchery the prior night. A hangover headache without a reason is doubly wrong, don’t you think?

What happens when you make the mistake of telling your five and seven-year old you have an excruciating headache and won’t you stop trying to off each other in the middle of Target, please and thank you?

Basically they turn their attention to you with a vengeance and you instantly regret ever complaining. 

On to the hand. 

Tomorrow is mah surgery. Nothing to eat or drink after midnight since my hand might puke whilst under local anesthesia and aspirate its vomit. Or something.

My surgeon, who is one cool ass dude, mentioned something about being able to give me something to “relax” me and I said

I gotta tell you though, I left CAD’s (cool ass dude) office all angsty. I didn’t know why. All I knew was I wasn’t satisfied with the whole surgery thing and was basically an adult version of a petulant child. 

And then Tucker was all like

If your brain is all wackety and you haven’t a clue as to what exactly is going on with your feels, just bitch to Tucker for about twenty minutes without taking a breath and he’ll figure it all out for you. 

He (rightly) surmised my issue wasn’t with the actual surgery (I’ve had three unrelated surgeries already so I’m a pro at this stuff and stuff.) but with the fact I have other stuff going on and the general attitude is, “Oh, well…we’ll fix the right hand first and then the left and then we’ll get to your shoulders and deal with those toes that have been going numb since you were little as we make our way down.” No one (other than us) seems to wonder what’s the root cause.

Everyone else is just looking at the symptoms but not the overall picture.

So what’s one to do?

Attempt to be less petulant, hope for happy drugs and have surgery!

Well, maybe these aren’t so much resolutions as they are a (somewhat) well-formulated plan of attack (PoA). A New Year’s resolution just seems like something you except to break. Everyone makes them. No one follows through on them. Having said that, I couldn’t come up with a better title so we have what we have. 

Anyone who has been in my house (Sorry, house beinginners!) knows I struggled with keeping our house clean. It’s not even so much that I struggle. It actually feels more like a giant pink and green dotted elephant is sitting on my chest. Or something. I KNOW I need to pick up and clean and do the housework thing, but it all gets so overwhelming. 

I have good intentions and then get distracted and before I know it, the clutter and mess has had litters of their own and basically it’s a vicious cycle I haven’t been able to get out of.

Then a couple of days ago, while I was warming up my coffee, I looked over at the open dishwasher full of clean dishes. I had a little less than two minutes before the nuclear machine was done heating up my tasty beverage and something just…clicked. 

PoA 1: While I’m Waiting On My Coffee To Heat, Put Up As Many Dishes As I Can

I can hear you laughing right now. That’ s not very nice.

But here’s the beauty of this part of the PoA: I drink coffee constantly throughout the day while I’m doing my writing schtuff. That’s numerous trips into the kitchen where I stand around for two minutes doing absolutely nothing other than waiting for my coffee to get hot. Since I’m in there anyway and two minutes isn’t long enough for me to get overwhelmed, I work like a demon for those two minutes and then am rewarded with a nice, hot cup of coffee and a tiny sense of accomplishment.

Think of me as one of those rats in a Skinner box. 

PoA 2: Bribe My Kids

This is actually awesome on a number of levels but let’s just focus on the cleaning level. We’ve been working on coming up with an incentive program to get the kids to do their fair share around the house. Since we’ve shied away from the allowance incentive, we’ve picked internet “free time.” Basically, kids do X for Y amount of time and earn Z number of seconds/minutes of free time. 

We’re still in the process of coming up with the exact numbers and tasks but it’ll look something like this: 

Put all of your dirty clothes in the laundry room during the week – x minutes/week

Take your dishes to the sink after a meal – x minutes/week

Make your bed – x minutes/week

PoA 3: Pick the Smallest Room and Clean All the Things!

I’m not even going to lie here. PoA 3 is the one I’m going to have the most trouble executing. However, the smallest “room” in our house is our pantry. It has three walls and a door so it’s a room. I don’t care what you say. I’m starting small here (literally) and going for one complete room a week. 

The “experts” always say to give yourself small goals you can achieve, right? I can stick to these three. 

If you have tips for me, I’d love to read them down in the comments section!

This is a compensated post brought to you by . Mr. Clean is kicking off the New Year with the launch of a new product called Mr. Clean Liquid Muscle, a new multi-purpose, multi-surface concentrated cleaning gel that delivers superior cleaning performance on and off the floor. Be sure to like Mr. Clean on Facebook and follow @RealMrClean on Twitter.

With electricity.

I’m not down for the shock thing. Ever. 

No, I do not want to put my tongue across your battery. (That’s not a euphemism though it totally should be.) Once is enough for me, thanks. 

That hot wire around your pasture? I am not touching it to see if it’s hot. Feel free to do that task yourself. 

I learned my lesson about tinkering with my electronic gadgets when I got shocked (twice) by my old Nikon camera. If you haven’t read about THAT sucktastic fun experience, you can laugh at me by following this nifty link to my Spare Parts post. 

Electricity should stay in my gadgets and not conducted through my body. 

Unlike when I took it upon myself to be all superhero camera fixer person, I’m going to be PAYING someone to shock me. More specifically, shock the nerves in my arms.

This is going to suck so much. 

While I was hanging at my doctor’s office because my Ear Ebola was persisting (and I might have found five pills of untaken Cipro about two weeks too late), fingers on my right hand went numb. This isn’t an “Oops! I accidentally cut off the blood flow to my hand. Pins and needles! Pins and needles!” 

Nope.

This is just a dead-finger feeling. There’s no pain but sometimes I drop stuff and when they’re dead, I can’t write very well. Nerves are important, yo!

I have peripheral neuropathy. Correction: I haven’t been diagnosed with that but that’s what it is. 

I shake my hands. Move my shoulders around. Feeling magically comes back and I go on with solving the great problems of humanity. And stuff. 

Unfortunately for my now-self, I decided it would be a fantabulous time to inform my doc. Should have kept my mouth shut. 

My doctor thinks I have carpal tunnel syndrome (which makes sense since I spend an exorbitant amount of time at a keyboard) but to complicate matters, I have pretty bad shoulder bursitis in both shoulders and that condition could also be pinching hand nerves (I’m feeling so medical right now…and too lazy to remember any of my anatomy classes to give you a real word for the nerve. Or google it. LAZY!). Add to all that numbness between my shoulders and I say I have a pretty good case for, “HEY! I don’t have carpal tunnel schtuff! I have My Shoulders Are Jacked!’ syndrome.”

What does my doctor know? Not like he went to school for a long time or was/is well-respected in Ireland where he was a big, important  doctor dude.

Back to the shocking part. *shudders*

I’m having (like I’m ordering a ribeye medium rare or something) a nerve conduction velocity test. What it measures would super cool–read at the link if you’re interested–if I wasn’t the one having the test. 

This right here is why I generally keep my trap shut about weird things happening to my body. Bad. Things. Happen. When. I. Talk.

Blarg! 

Keep an eye on  Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Tumblr. I have no doubt those places will give you a faster update than this space will. Probably. 

At least that’s what it felt like. 

I don’t know how long I laid on the tiny, black and white tiles in my bathroom with nothing on but my birthday suit and just sweat.

Buckets and buckets of sweat. 

If I moved, it hurt. If I didn’t move, it hurt. If I thought about moving, my brain bitch slapped me and made me hurt just as a warning to not move. 

Basically I felt like: 

Mom drove me to my uncle’s practice (He’s a doctor.) and his partner examined me and decided I had appendicitis. 

Off to the hospital we went. 

We got there and these little old lady volunteers wearing bright pink, two-sizes too big smock things apparently couldn’t tell by all my grimaces and sweat and stuff that I was obviously about to be dead and they gave Mom all kinds of static about “proper check-in procedures” and what have you.

They were like the Little Old Lady Proper Check-In Procedures Mafia or some crap. 

Eventually I was wheeled back to the OR–I don’t remember this part.–and the general surgeon was all ready to cut out my appendix and LUCKILY he dug around in there since his hand hit something big.

Something big that wasn’t supposed to be in mah body.

They called in a new doc and he dug around and snipped out my right tube, ovary and the big thing. An encapsulated dysgerminoma. I’ll cut it short for you here and just say it’s a (usually) malignant germ cell tumor that is very sensitive to chemo and radiation and has an awesome cure rate. 

I lucked out in that the doc only gave me a right salpingo-oophorectomy (He took out my right tube and ovary since they were all wrapped up with the necrotic tumor and there wasn’t any saving those dudes.) and thus (though we couldn’t know for sure) preserved my fertility. 

I guess the other doc took out my appendix (cause that’s what you do with an appendix) since I don’t have that anymore. Maybe he felt left out? 

After that I became well versed in the AFP non-pregnant blood test (I had blood drawn like once a week for a coon’s age.), CT scans with and w/out contrast and the dos and don’ts when it comes to abdominal ultrasounds. 

Other than my junior high school choir teacher telling everyone I had a hysterectomy, things actually weren’t that bad when you get right down to it. 

Granted, I did look to my 24th birthday with crazy eyes since I had been told if nothing happened within ten years then I was considered cured. 

And nothing did happen. 

It took us over a year to end up pregnant with Cara. Scar tissue had done a number on Old Lefty and had blocked that fallopian tube something fierce but that’s nothing a little radiographic dye during a hysterosalpingography couldn’t fix.

Painless procedure. OK. I’m lying.

When the radiologist says, “You’re going to feel a pinching sensation,” what she really means is, “I’m going to inject a ton of dye into your blocked fallopian tube and it’s going to feel like baby ducks rubbing up next to you in a comforting manner.”

I’m lying again.

“Pinching” is code for “cramps from hell.” And said Hell Cramps last for a heck of a long time. But don’t worry. The Navy will give you Motrin. Motrin is their wonder drug. In case you were wondering.

So here I am some years (I ain’t telling how many.) later, with two kids and a not so annoying husband and I pretty much forget all that stuff happened. 

I mean, I didn’t really have cancer. Sure I had a big-ass tumor removed but it was long, long dead (basically rotting inside of me) and I never had to have chemo or radiation or any of that horrible crap. 

I got off easy. 

I’m sure by now you’re wondering where all of this came from and you’re in luck! I’m gonna tell you. 

Earlier I read a post by this psychiatrist named Elana. Someone had shared her cancer post on Facebook. I don’t know Elana from Adam, though she does seem cool as hell, but her post Love Is… (Holy Shit, I Have Cancer) is awesome and you should read it. I commented that I had a “…tiny inclining as to what [she is] going through right now.”

And I kind of do. But then again, I don’t.

She and I were in two completely different places when we found out. I ended up being able to have kids. She might not. I survived the cancer or tumor or whatever you want to call it and she doesn’t know if she will. She has a professional life already established and I was just a kid. 

Now that I’ve written all of this out I realize I might not know Elana (Hope you don’t mind me being all familiar and shit, Elana.) but I hope her body gets its shit straight and kicks some cancer cell ass. Because, you know, I do kind of know where she’s at right now and it blows and the only thing that makes all the bullshit worth it is the other side when things go back to normal. 

Here’s to hoping Elana gets her normal back. 

I have lots of feels tonight, people so you’re basically going to serve as my best-friend/therapist/sounding board/something. Just listen. Err…read. And if you’re feeling all TL:DR, you can get to the main point by clicking here. This is a rather long, ranty, gif filled post of awesome but I know some of you can’t handle all the words. It’s OK. Everyone has issues. 

I’ve become a bit obsessed with the making and decorating of cookies. I have no doubt this is a passing obsession and I’ll probably move on to something else in a month, but, for right now it’s all cookies all the time. This means I have to make the royal icing to top said cookies. That means I must have at least a hand mixer since you can’t whip this stuff up all on your lonesome. 

And then this happened:

Why is this relevant, you ask? Well, other than the fact that the crappy mixer dying blew in a major way, we went to Walmart tonight and Tucker bought me a $7 POS to get me through “until Christmas.” Me thinks that’s a subtle hint I’m getting a badass, gas powered hand mixer for Christmas. Or a team of elves to make my royal icing. Both? Cause that would rock. 

And why is THAT relevant, you ask?

After we left Walmart, we drove through a neighborhood with a blinking sign outside of the subdivision that promised “BLINKING CHRISTMAS LIGHTS.” 

As we were leaving, I spotted an itty bitty chihuahua in the gutter. I stopped my SUV and the little dude started coming toward us. Tucker gave me with this “WTF are you thinking?!” look and told me to drive.

And I did.

Tucker’s reasoning (which I totally understand so don’t hate) was we were in a nice neighborhood, there were people out and about and little dude had probably just wandered off. When we left him, I saw him daintily trotting into a yard full of blow-up Christmas kitsch and tried to comfort myself with the knowledge that at least he’d have the blowers and radiant heat of the MASSIVE OMG THEY WERE SO BIG Christmas lights to keep him warm. 

But it’s cold, y’all. We put a quilted jacket thing on Sophie the Wonder Pit Bull before we let her spend any extended amount of time outside. She’s old. Don’t judge. But little dude? Not a stitch of canine pride eviscerating clothing. And he was shivering…though isn’t that a chihuahua thing?  

All the way home I was vacillating between being pissed Tucker told me to leave and I listened to him to me agreeing with him to me silently begging him to tell me to turn around.

And then the dumb tears started working their way to the surface. 

Which I found incredibly dumb since I’ve never met a nice chihuahua.

Each and every one of the little bastards has either growled a demonic growl complete with bared mini-fangs, tried to bite me or has tried to assassinate me. Oh yes, yes I do realize I’m painting an entire breed with a broad brush. Yes, yes I do realize there are (probably) very nice Chihuahuas inhabiting the Earth. Duh. We own Sophie the Wonder Pit Bull, remember? I might know a little something about people assuming bad things about our dog because of something they’ve heard or because of a bad experience with another pit bull.  

But even Sophie the Wonder Pit Bull, with all of her 60+ pounds of stupid, is terrified of Chihuahuas. Sad but true, people. She was mauled by a (very mean) chihuahua when Sophie was about ten weeks old and she hasn’t been a fan ever since. If she sees one, her ears go flat on her head, her eyes get this weird slitted thing going on like a bad WWII American propaganda caricature of a Japanese person and she runs in the opposite direction.

Bringing little dude home definitely wouldn’t have made Sophie happy (NOT THAT I WOULD HAVE KEPT HIM!!!) and Tucker was definitely worried I was going to want to keep little dude (WHICH I WASN’T!!! Didn’t I prove that with Biscuit, people? Sheesh! I had forgotten how damn cute he was! Make sure you watch the video but don’t judge the intro and font. ) but all I could think about was:

Either way, little dog’s outlook wasn’t too bright.

We got home, I started heating up the oven for dinner and had to grab a tissue since the tears had started in earnest. Tucker hugged me, gave me a once over and told me to go get the dog.

I flew out of there faster than you can say, “Deuces!”

Welp, I drove all over that damn subdivision. Up and down the streets. Past the same houses over and over and over and over and you get the point. No little dude. After about 15 minutes, I was ready to give up.

OK. No, I really wasn’t.

What I really wanted to do was get out of my SUV and walk the streets while I quietly whistled for little dude so I could stuff him under my puffy jacket, take him home, tell Sophie the Wonder Pit Bull to deal with her issues and welcome her temporary brother while I run him a warm bath and then spread his picture all over social media so I could find his owners. 

Worst case scenario? I had Mom’s Christmas present. 

But, sadly without little dude, I decided to call it quits and started toward the exit. At least I thought it was the exit. It wasn’t. I couldn’t find the exit. I looked for that fucking exit for ten minutes. I’m kind of surprised no one called the cops. I mean, really? The same vehicle drives by your house twelve times at ~10mph, you get kinda freaked, right? I know I would. Not that I’m paranoid or anything. Nope. 

Peoples, I’m talking the Hotel California of subdivisions but with less warm smell of colitas, mirrored ceilings and pink champagne on ice and more piped-in Christmas music and seizure inducing Christmas kitsch.

For. Eternity.

And then, right before I lost my mind completely, I saw a woman walking her dog. And here’s where the REALLY conflicted feels happen.

To catch you up: To this point right here, I was imagining a little dude as either a popsicle little dude or a flat little dude come morning. So, when the very nice lady and I have a short, very nice conversation about my quest and she tells me there is a house in the neighborhood with occupants who let their little dude roam around “all the time” and she and I both shake our heads all judgy like, I’m actually hiding this pushed down rage like you can’t even image.

Now look here, people. I get the “Dogs will be dogs and dogs want to roam,” thing.

My father’s mother is like a million years old and lives in the middle of 200-odd acres. She never had “inside” dogs; they were free to run around and come back when they felt like it. My father was a farmer. All of his dogs were treated the same way. Usually nothing too bad happened to them and they usually made it home in one piece. Growing up, I didn’t think that was especially cool but it was what I knew so I just let it go. That and they were big dogs that could take care of themselves.

But little dude is MAYBE the size of my shoe and, because of the Christmas lights, people aren’t watching the road. They have their faces plastered up to the windows of their vehicles so they can more fully experience the Christmas cheer. And did I mention it’s cold out tonight? And raining?

So now I’m conflicted again. 

Do you have any idea how PISSED I would be if Sophie the Wonder Pit Bull got out of the house, heading to Mexico, and someone picked her up? I bet they would jump to the conclusion I jumped to and ask (in a very loud mental voice): What asshole dog owners would let a dog wander around in the cold and where the dog could get flattened?!

I finally found my way home, vented at Tucker, helped get the kids into bed, grabbed a beer and then started writing this discombobulated post.

My takeaway question for you is this: 

Should dogs (of any breed/shape/size) be allowed to just roam around wherever their little doggie hearts take them? 

And to think I planned on cleaning the trainwreck kitchen, reading a bit of vampire porn and then getting into bed before midnight. 

To those of you who made it this far, you’re my heroes. To those of you who didn’t? Losers. Though I guess you aren’t reading this, huh? Still. Losers. All y’all. 

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have vampire porn to read. Scanguards Vampires #5, if you’re curious.

Later, gators. 

OH! Before I really leave, make sure you check out the post before this one: 20 Things Every Gifted Child Needs To Know…and Probably Everyone Else, Too. Folks seem to dig it, I don’t hate it and you just might like it. If you have a soul. Just joking about that last part. Even soulless people like the post. 

At first we assumed it had something to do with her reflux but as the pain persisted with no obvious trigger, we started to suspect her pain had less to do with a physical issue and more to do with an emotional issue: stress/anxiety. 

There are few things more annoying and upsetting than 1. your kid being in obvious pain and not being able to help and 2. trying to explain to a seven year old that all of her worrying is making her hurt. 

I had considered writing a post about “gifted” kids and how we’ve been talking about maybe petitioning (if you will) to have both kids put into the school’s G/T (Gifted/Talented) program–they call it SPACE (Special Programs for Academic and Creative Excellence) here. That’s one hell of a complicated topic that would result in a post of epic proportion and I’m not going to do that to you.

This is going to be long enough as it is. If you want to just jump right to the list, click here. 

You’re welcome. 

I guess we’ll just consider this #1 in a series of posts…which probably won’t ever be finished. I have a habit of not finishing series of posts. Can anyone say Word of the Day? 

I tested into G/T right out of kindergarten and continued in gifted/advanced/honors/AP classes up until I dropped out of college. Tucker was also in his district’s gifted program (He has a SLIGHTLY higher IQ than me…not that I’m bitter or anything.).

Mom tells the story of going to pick me up from grade school and not being able to find me. She eventually discovered me in a corner crying because I had gotten a B. I don’t remember this. She might be lying. Who knows? 

I’m joking about the lying part, Mom. 

The point, I suppose, is I had a perfectionist streak. 

I worried a lot more than I probably should have. I took criticism way too personally and hard. My need for approval was probably one of the most important things to me (I try not to be like that so much now. Really.) and was crushed and felt slighted if I felt someone was disappointed in me. And Grandpa routinely called me “Drama Queen.” Now that I’ve listed all this out, I’m starting to think I must have been an overly dramatic and neurotic child. 

Those poor, poor people who had to put up with me…

And Cara? She’s just like I was. 

Her Those poor, poor parents people who have to put up with her…

Yesterday Cara brought home her quarterly and weekly progress reports and one of the scores on her weekly report was a 1 (4 is the highest possible with a 1 essentially meaning F.). The girl was hysterical and the complaints of stomach pain started. 

She had made a stupid mistake on a logic/problem solving math question so she had earned the score she got and once I helped her calm down, we went over the problem. During the course of all that craziness, this list got started. 

My hope was that if I listed off things she knew, things that were constant and would never change, Cara would have less to worry about. I wrote 1-9 with her next to me giving me suggestions and then reading them off, one-by-one. 

She cried a lot. My eyes might have teared up once or twice. Allegedly.

OK.

So the list might have hit a bit too close to home for all involved. 

After I sent Cara off to do her homework, I continued with the list but switched to what I know. The 20 things, a few are especially targeted at “gifted” kids/adults but the vast majority will apply to everyone. I’m sure I missed something; feel free to add your own to the comments section below. 

Let the list begin!

20 Things Every Gifted Child Needs To Know…and Probably Everyone Else, Too

1. My parents/family will always love me. 
2. I will always have somewhere to live.
3. I will always have food to eat. 
4. I will always have clothes and shoes to wear. 
5. I will always make mistakes but I will be loved anyway. 
6. Perfection is a goal and not a destination. 
7. Someone will always be smarter than me and that’s OK and sometimes I will be someone else’s someone. 
8. I will never be good at everything and that’s OK, no one else will be either. 
9. It’s not my job to solve everything. 
10. There are mean people in the world. You will get your feelings hurt by those people and by people who don’t even know they hurt you. 
11. There are times when you will be one of those mean people. You will hurt people’s feelings even if you don’t know it. All you can do is try, everyday, to be kinder.
12. You may never know what you want to be when you grow up and that’s OK. I know more adults who DON’T know than do and most adults only ask you because they think that’s what they’re supposed to do. 
13. If you’ve done it, thought it, said it and/or written it down, someone else has, too. You’re not alone. You’re not as strange as you think you are. 
14. You will like people who don’t reciprocate. There will be people you don’t like. 1/2 the time it has nothing to do with the other person. All you can do is focus on the people who are your friends and the people who want to be your friends. Try not to spend too much time worrying about it but don’t beat yourself up too much when you sometimes fail at that last part. 
15. If it’s living, it will die and that sucks and there’s nothing you can do and that sucks, too. You’re going to feel a lot of different things and that’s normal. 
16. People are good at different things. You can not be good at everything and that will probably bug you; it bugs a lot of other people, too.
17. You will make good grades. You will make bad grades. Good ones don’t mean you have nothing left to learn. Bad ones don’t mean you’re a failure. 
18. You won’t always get your way and you will never have everything you want. Sometimes you won’t even get everything you think you need. 
19. People think about things in different ways. People believe different things. You will never agree with everyone about everything. All you can do is try to find common ground and that won’t always happen either. 
20. Oxford commas are evil.

If you have your own “knows” I’ve left out, add them down in the comments. I can’t wait to see what you come up with!