This morning...

A bit about today:

Gods I hate Mondays...

Today Gracie's skin allergies are worse, so I've called the vet and feel like an utter failure for not taking her sooner. I had hoped, as we all do, that with a cone and extra love she'd get better. Nope. I need to call around noon to see if they will just refill her prednisone or if I need to drag her to the vet, which really stresses her out. Which stresses me out. There's a reason I don't have kids, LOL, too much stress worrying over them!

Part of this is our vacation on the 27th, we're going to New England so Josh can meet the folks (which in and of itself isn't stressful, I have fabulous parents, but travel is always rough) and we've no idea who is watching the dogs. Pinky (i.e. Civil) will probably end up watching the bunnies (Amber & Jet) and Fudge (our cat), and knowing her, she'll fill our birdfeeders without being asked, which is lovely. Must think of something special to do for her in gratitude!

From Pinky's journal, I was kinda hyped to see that taking the kids to my place after we pick them up from school really takes some pressure of her to keep them entertained. Which is really cool, since as a gal with no kids I wasn't sure if this was just me being lazy (okay, everyone to my house) or just sort of sponging joy off her kids since I adore them and have lots of toys, animals, etc. for them to play with!

Half the people I know are sick or their kids are, its been a rough and cold winter so far (yes, I know strictly speaking its not winter yet). Its a grey day here in the neighborhood, and speaking of which, we got through an entire weekend without cops coming to the apartment complex to handle the neighbors. I'm calling it a victory for peace.

Our bird feeders are busy, the cat is going insane at the window (which is fun to watch), Tracker is snoring away in the bedroom and the buns are exhausted by their runabout in the living room yesterday. All in all, life is good.

But its still a %#%*&@#$(*&% Monday...

Ladies, pay attention to your health

Having had an ovarian cyst removed last year, I thought that by keeping a news bot looking for new cyst stories maybe I'd hear about new technologies and therapies for PCOS. Instead, I tend to get all the wierd cyst stories in the news. Macabre, I know, but really this has become epidemic.

A friend's wife S had a one the size of a basketball. She ended up at the hospital due to gall stones pain and when they did the ultrasound they found it. Surgery ensued. Afterward, I'm talking to her and asked (I always thought she looked pregnant, but she's heavily built, so its hard to tell these things) how this went so long.

Turns out she hates doctors, had't been to one since her 6 year old was born, never went for post-delivery check ups, either. Now, I realize as a woman in her thirties without kids I'm not supposed to know anything about having them or being a Mom, but come on. You have two kids and a sick husband (he has leukemia) and truthfully, it doesn't matter how you feel about doctors. You go so you can take care of yourself, so you can take care of them. 1 + 1 = 2

I know that much.

So what happened to this mother??
http://www.nbc11.com/health/3990428/detail.html

66 pound tumor, mother of three, afraid to go to the doctor's because it could have been "something serious". Like a 66 pound tumor isn't serious?? How on Earth has this woman been taking care of her kids in this condition (see the pre-surgery pic).

I don't have any answers here:
women are in serious denial about their health
women need better relationships with their GYNs
Mothers need serious support from their family 7 friends to support their health and well-being

We need a new paradigm of women's health!

Techie stress

I have a KILLER custom-built pc (don't make me post what's in it, because I will), which I spoiled myself this summer so I can play CSI. I spend too much time on the pc and have a wireless network in the house set up for Josh's laptop. I run three hard drives (one's a 120 gig), a dozen email aliases and much more I won't get into here. Have multiple printers, scanners, thumb drives, digital cameras, etc.

So I'm a geek, get over it. And not even a super geek, sort of a wannabe geek, though I can diss IP schemes with you, if you're bored enough.

Josh has this amazingly horrid habbit of saving his MsWorks files (yeah, I know), then heading out to work with his thumb drive (I've gotten him away from 3.5" finally and burning CD-Rs), then realizing he cannot convert the file to MsWord from his office and he needs his file NOW!

So I get the call, run back and forth between the pc's with my thumb drive (I don't fileshare with his pc due to his irritatingly messy file storage habbits and questionable pc security, didn't even have a firewall until I set it up), copy and pasting to WordPad, saving as rtf, running to the living room (tripping over the still itching Gracie), re-formating the rtf to .doc format, emailing him, then cursing him out at home afterward behind his back.

Ask me how many times I've explained the above to him so he saves his documents correctly, so he can use them at work via the thumb drive? DOZENS and yet, we still get these panicky phone calls!



On that note, additional pc whining from the love of my life:
"Honey, the ISP is down!" - no its not, honey, the wireless network is done, the ISP is fine, would you like to use my pc?

"Why is the screen funny?" - because that's my account, don't mess with it, log over to yours (I didn't give him admin priviledges, natch)

"What happened to your account?" - I changed the background theme and picture, I do that. Switch user to your account. No! You don't have to turn the pc off, just log off or switch user. ARGH!

"Why can't I hear my MP3s on your pc?" - Because they aren't MP3s, they are that stupid MP3 player format that's uploaded on your laptop, not mine!

"The laptop's keyboard isn't working" - that's because you knocked over a glass of water onto it. It will either dry out and work, or dry out and not work. Tough lesson, eh? Here's my old keyboard, hope you know how to touch type since I wore the alphabet off the keys.

"The laptop touchpad isn't working" - see entry immediately above this one! Here's a mouse, deal.

"Hon, the printer won't work" - That's because BOTH printers are hooked up locally to my pc and I'm not sharing them with your doofus laptop because you print out blank pages and crap like that. That's why I gave you a thumb drive! Bring it in here and I'll handle it.

"Now that you have a color inkjet, you shold get rid of your laser printer" - ugh...I don't even know how to respond to that one, I usually just give him a hard stare and grind my teeth. I have a glorious old HP 4+ and I've left instructions in my will to have it cremated with me.

"You need to get your pc fixed" - no, hon, you're just not used to XP Professional, you run XP Home on your pc. They are fairly different. Plus, I run full Office Suite, which causes lots of problems because your dinky laptop runs MsWorks, instead, because you bought the "media package". Great choice that, huh? Listen, this is like your Chevy pickup compared to my Chevy sedan. Their both vehicles, but I cannot tow shit, its a power and versatility issue. And btw, clean out that f*cking truck cab or I'm not riding in it 'till you do.

He keeps turning off my pc when he's done with it. I could just cry. That and he keeps asking how to turn off the LED both inside and outside my tower. I keep telling him, its not a car and they aren't called "daytime running lights".

I'll make an offering to the great tech Gods later to apologize on his behalf later today.

Off to the vet

Finally got Gracie in, so I'm just taking a moment to share this:

http://i.euniverse.com/funpages/cms_content/2529/4candles.swf

For all of us who love candles!

Gracie Update

$351 later we now know Gracie has a raging skin infection and a heart murmur. Tracker, btw, apparently has a thyroid condtion. Yippee, more tests. Like a 90 pound Basset Hound isn't proof enough SOMETHING is going on with that DOG!

I feel like shit...everyone thought it was a skin allergy, what with the water leak in the apartment and our allergies going insane. Instead, poor thing has been suffering while we've been putting cones on her head and telling her not to scratch.

I'm a very bad doggie mother...