Argh...

It's way before eight on a weekend, as I start writing this.  And I am up with a massive sinus headache that hurts from the top of my head, down my face, through the roof of my mouth. 

I know why I've got it, too.  I spent the last three days either cleaning (i.e., stirring up dust), or outside with the kids at the zoo (Odysseus took Friday off, and that's what we did).  Sudafed PE--which isn't really Sudafed, and only sort of works--is about the only thing I can take.  Actually, no, that's not true: Midol Complete works better, but the new bottle is in the bedroom somewhere with sleeping husband. 

The floors, though, are mostly decluttered in the living room and kitchen.  Yes, I still have the back room to do, and I need to find a better spot for the dog food to restore easy access to the washer, but that, and the vacuuming in the living room and sweeping in the kitchen, will have to wait until this headache lets go.  Hurts a lot worse when I'm moving.

We have let the Scotty dog come into the living room to play with us, though (even though we have to send her to bed when she starts questing about on the floor for fear she'll find some crumb of chocolate that Odysseus gave the pixie, and she lost track of).  She loves tug-o-war, shake the rat, and make the hedgie grunt. 

I'm just glad we finally got her to eat.  We brought her home on Wednesday, and she'd only eaten a few mouthfuls before yesterday morning.  It took bacon grease melted and stirred in to get her to eat yesterday morning, and chicken broth (past its best by date on the can, but still good) last night.

Last week, early in the week, I had my new laptop on the table next to my chair.  I thought it was stable, with all four rubber feet gripping the table (and it was), until Cricket hopped up on the table to watch the world go by through the window. 

Cricket.  The stupid and easily startled one. 

In any case, as it so happened, a bird came in to land on the porch railing, pretty much exactly opposite where Cricket sat.  And she came totally unglued.  Scrambled to run away, and managed to dislodge the stability of the laptop's rubber feet on the table.  My laptop wound up kicked off the table to land actually on the cord charging it. 

That did to my new laptop what had happened to my old one (which is what I'm actually working on right now): the charger connects only sporadically, because the prong that the cord plugs onto is a bit loose.

Thank God I spent the extra on the two year protection plan.  I've sent it in for repairs as of Friday morning.

Oh, great.  Now, she's found a toy, and is yowling in the hall.  That's probably going to go on for the next half an hour or so (or until she loses it).  And since the kids are outside, I can't just put my headphones on and ignore the cat.

Adventures in pet care

The plan I had for this morning was derailed by well-meaning relatives: I had planned to go up, have Mom help me wash the dog, then take the dog to the vet's in a nearby town.  What happened was that my mom and aunts had washed the dog by the time I got there to wash the dog. 

I was left with an hour on my hands.

So, our delightful little super-intelligent dog snapped at the vet twice.  She didn't want him handling the hair around her eyes, and didn't want him to pet her after he'd given her three shots.  She ended up costing over a hundred bucks for a well dog visit and weigh-in (19.88 lbs, if you were wondering, in a front wheel drive dog), with a shot package, worm treatment, and flea and tick treatments. 

She loved the little vet tech, though.

I got her home, gave her a bowl of water and let her sleep for a while, while I fixed something to eat and collapsed.  About an hour later, she woke up and whined a bit, so I figured she needed to piddle, and let her out the back door.  I got distracted for a few minutes (no more than about three), and came back to the dog going batshit insane.  Jumping at something, then jumping back.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  I thought, "oh, shit--she's cornered a snake" and ran outside to get the dog in the house so that the snake could get away. 

Nope.  She'd cornered--and pissed off--a box turtle.  I have never, in my life, seen a box turtle as pissed off as the one our dog had spent no more than three minutes with. 

The turtle was hissing.  I have never heard a turtle hiss, not even the big snapping turtles that lived in the slightly swampy area in my maternal grandmother's pasture. 

So, I pulled the dog back by her harness, and stepped in to pick up the turtle--at which point, it hisses at me, probably for taking so long to make my dog start irritating it--and put it outside the privacy fence gate.  It actually sat there and glared at me for about fifteen seconds before turning to turtle off. 

The dog?  Spent the next half a minute while I hunted for something to block under the gate sticking her muzzle under the gate to see what I'd done with her marvelous new toy.  The marvelous toy that was hissing at her, and tried to bite her. 

After that incident, I went to go rescue my mom from my kids.  She'd been wonderful enough to watch them so I didn't have to control both dog and kids at the vet's office. 

And then, after dinner, Odysseus and I heaped indignity upon injury (blood draw to check for heartworms and shots), and sheared a Scotty dog.  Since my family, who grew up around dogs and other animals, are incapable of reading animal body language, they haven't been able to keep the dog's hair cut, and she had four inches or so of hair length over parts of her body.  And mats.  And embedded dirt within the mats.  We took a Walmart bag full of dog hair off the dog. 

Grooming our particular Scotty is a two person job: one to hold her, and one to man the clippers. 

I will say that after the long snuggle while she was being sheared changed her attitude and behavior.  She went from ears and tail down miserable to ears up, and tail acting like a flag, with a happy doggy grin when she went outside for a walk. 

Right now, the dog and the kids have gone outside to play.  I think the dog has calmed down enough (and the kids grown up enough) that she's not scary to them even at her happiest and bounciest, anymore. 

Hurrah!

We have a new, six foot tall privacy fence surrounding our back yard.  The gate locks from the inside, and will stay that way, for the most part.  And that means I can boot the kids out into the back yard without having to be out there with them. 

They were out for a little less than an hour, this morning, but I got some housework done (without hearing them fight, or having the pixie come find me, bawling, because the imp "was being mean). 

Tomorrow, I'm going to feed them, dress them, and kick them out for a while early, before it gets hot.  And then, I'll see how much I can get done before they come in for TV.  I'm also thinking of going to find a sprinkler later this week for them to run through, so I can boot them out in swimsuits and water shoes after nap time, see how much writing I can get done in the afternoons.

Last but not least, we need a new picnic umbrella.  Our old one died the final death two years ago, but with the deck in too bad of shape to let the kids play outside, I didn't see the sense in immediately replacing it.  And there is no shade in the back yard until late in the day, so it's time to replace it.

Last week, Odysseus caught a nasty summer cold, then the pixie caught it (and ran a significant fever, the first day of it).  They're recovering, now, but both are still feeling it in their chests...and the imp woke up with a really bad ear ache, and a bit of dizziness (which could be from three trips to the swimming pool with his paternal grandparents, or it could be him catching this crap).  I'm keeping an eye on all three, as well as on myself in the hopes that I don't catch it.

I've got phone calls to make tomorrow.  First, I need to call the city to get their inspectors to come look at the fence, and then I need to call our vet to arrange a stay for the dog to go get wormed (my mom's place has 'em bad, and Mom can't afford to get the meds every time, and wouldn't let us), shots, flea treated, shorn, and nails clipped.  And then, the dog's coming home. 

updates on shifting stuff to new laptop...

I've been working with my new laptop since Tuesday. The first thing I did was use Explorer to download Firefox, then Firefox to download AVG, and created system recovery disks (which took an hour, but actually did work, unlike with the other laptop).  Then Open Office.*  Finally, I started Windows looking for updates.

That...that took from 3:00 pm Tuesday afternoon, until 6:47 am Wednesday morning.  It finished up just after I got up and got settled with a cup of coffee.  There were over a hundred critical updates.  I picked through them for the two updates that create the nag screen for "upgrading" to Windows 10.  They weren't in the recommended updates, so I went ahead and upchecked all of those for download and installation.

The updates that create the nag screen for Windows 10 were in the "recommended" updates.  Those, I rarely download.  And it's easy to pick through less than sixty programs and hide two.

It took the rest of the morning to download and install updates.  The laptop finished the restarts after the updates a bit after the onset of naptime Wednesday (1:00 pm).

Since then, I've gotten the printer set up to run with the laptop (that was a bit of an argument), and played with Open Office's Writer.

Writer runs pretty much identically to Word '97.  I used to know all the ins and outs of that program, but I've been using Word since it actually made improvements that were improvements, and I have to say that I find the interface...clunky.  Word '03 through '10...one of the biggest improvements was in the interface between user and program.  The drop menus were replaced with something that worked better, and was less of a pain to navigate through and find the commands needed.

I have the opportunity, as an employee of a university, to download Office through the university's accounts.  I do want to give Writer a solid chance, though, and will wait until after the first assignment is to be turned in through the course site to see if I actually need Word, or if I just want it.

Regardless of which it is, I do plan to download Office sometime in early September.  Because I do like Word--the current incarnation of such--a lot better than I do Writer.

*remember--I'm testing to see if the course site will open papers turned in online for me to grade regardless of whether or not I have Office.

Dear Microsoft,

I would greatly appreciate it if finding the security updates for a new machine didn't take for-freakin'-ever.

Especially since I'm going to have to sort through and hide a few updates to avoid an operating system that I paid extra to avoid. 

Thanks.  Thanks ever so much.

It's only been a damn year!

I'm having my computer dying on me, yet again.  This time, it's not the fan, the motherboard, power supply, or anything else.

The little prong that the power cord plugs onto to charge the battery is losing its connection.  I had two older computers--Averatec, both of them--do that.  Both were repaired.  Neither stayed that way longer than about a month.  That particular repair just seems to not hold.

So, I've ordered a new laptop.  Same brand, same model as this one, same operating system (Windows 7) with an additional two year warranty.  It will get here on Tuesday.

I know, I know (TCA), I could transition to Linux.  I'm going to have to in a few more years, if I don't want my OS sending my data to Windows so that they can, in turn, sell it to the highest bidder (or turn it over to the government).  I know course site the university I work for uses even works with Linux.  However, what I don't know is whether or not the gradebook grading will work without using Windows Word.  I am planning on waiting to download Office until after the first assignment gets turned in.  If it does, my resistance to moving to a different, spyware-free OS will be far less.

I has new pens!

I've been craving new pens for a while.  And new, pretty inks.  It wasn't helped by Odysseus suggesting that the next volume in the Liquid Diet Chronicles (to be written after I finish the current project of the 4th, but CLEARLY not last Modern Gods book, at this point in the writing process) should be done in a burgundy or dark crimson.

Anyhow, I resisted the temptation...and then I gave in.  Odysseus told me to go ahead and make the order I was considering from Goulet Pens, and I did.  I ordered a Platinum Preppy because I've heard a lot about the silly little $4 pens (yeah, they're cheap, and kinda ugly, but damn do they write well), a TWSBI vac mini (it posts, was a little bit less than the full sized one, and something I'd been really wanting for a while, now), a sample of Noodler's Black Swan in English Roses (gorgeous, water-resistant red burgundy), and a full bottle of their Red-Black (which looks like you wrote in blood, and it dried).

I hadn't ordered pens or ink for myself in about a year.  And Odysseus told me that this was my early (but not by a lot) anniversary present.*

I also ordered a set of Jinhao shark pens for my imp, who held his grades to all A's and B's (with the exception of his handwriting, which is still better than his daddy's).  My imp, who loves snitching my fountain pens, and requests a few inked up with his favorite colors every so often, gave me one of his set of seven pens, and gave the pixie another.  And the dumb little things are absolutely spectacularly nice writers.  The little black shark in Chinese fine (finer than European fine) is incredibly smooth.

In any case, my fingers are ink-stained a bit, I have spatters on my left shin from where I dropped an ink syringe that I was using to fill a converter from a sample vial for the pixie, and I couldn't be happier.

In other news, my local Walmart had finally restocked their smaller Pen+Gear brand smaller 5-subject notebooks.   Hadn't happened in a while, and my current favorite is that particular notebook that I'd written out the rough of Bite Sized in (I'm excited--that book has eight reviews, more than any single one of my other books, and all are 5-star), and am working through drafting Gods and Monsters in the second section.  Walmart had three left.   

Had.

I now have those notebooks in mint green (my old one), royal blue, red, and black. 

I also snagged a package of their top-spiral memo books and mini-comp-books (same size as the little spiral books)--at $0.88 cents a pack (three in the comp book pack, four in the spiral memos), it was worth a try.  I'm shocked and thrilled by how well they stand up under fountain pen ink, and am now questioning my choice to give the kids one of each out of the two packages to go with their new composition books.

Hi, my name is HH, and I'm a pen and paper nerd.  And I share the voices in my head with anyone who wants a listen.  

*I've already collected part of his Father's Day gifts, and know what I'm doing for his anniversary presents. 

I didn't need this.

So.  We've been having some issues with the imp.  Major boundary pushing issues.  Yes, he's closing in on eight, so it is to be expected.  That does not make it any less infuriating.

Several weeks ago, he got some of his Transformers toys confiscated.  One was a complicated blue Corvette.  That one was the core of the issue: two weeks ago, he'd earned it back through good behavior.  All he had to do was wait until Friday evening.

He didn't.

Instead, he got the step-ladder step-stool, got it down, and put another the same color in its place.  And then, he lied about it.

That got both toys put in the trash, and the trash taken out to the dumpster.

Two mornings later, the imp has a Transformer--playing with it on the couch while watching Transformers.  I'd slept in, assuming (like an idiot) that the kids were trustworthy.  He told me Daddy had gotten it down for him, and the pixie told me the truth: that he'd gone outside, dug through the dumpster for the bag it was in, and pulled it out.

That.  That got him in really big trouble.  He got banned from TV for the rest of the day, got all of his Transformers toys taken away from him until school starts, and got him banned from watching Transformers until school starts.  And then that got delayed, because he started nagging us about it.

Yesterday morning, he snuck out of his room a little before five in the morning (against the rules--they're not allowed to get up and stay up until six at the earliest), found the remotes and turned on the TV (also against the rules--they're not allowed to do that until after Odysseus leaves for work around half past seven), and watched an episode of Transformers: Robots in Disguise on Netflix (which we only found out about by checking the history).  When confronted, he lied and denied it.

If he hadn't deliberately disobeyed, then lied about it, he'd have only been banned from TV for the day, like his sister was.

I also told him that the next time he lied to me at all, he'd lose all his blocks, and all of his wood rails.

Guess what got confiscated this morning?

Going by his record, he's going to end up with nothing but his bed, desk, books, lamp, dresser, and clothes in his room within the next two weeks.

I so don't need this to deal with right now. 

Visionary.

Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded--here and there, now and then--are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty. This is known as “bad luck."
--Robert Heinlein, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long

The floor is open for discussion.  

Earworm.

Gotta share this with inflict this on everyone else.

Not on a freakin' lost bet.

About forty-five minutes after we put the kids to bed, the neighbor kids were knocking on our door, asking if our kids could come out and play...

Yeah, no.  Unlike the crotchfruit next door, my children have a very strict bedtime, even during summer.  It isn't just me being a bitchy mommy, either; both children are very cheery little morning people if they're put to bed early.  If they're not put to bed early, they're still morning people, but not so cheery.  In fact, the children become downright assholes if they don't get enough sleep. 

It doesn't matter, either, what time I put them to bed.  The latest they're up is 7:00, and that's if it's a dark, cloudy, quietly rainy morning that absorbs sound.  The usual is more like 6:00, or just after. 

I have tried putting them to bed late, in the hopes that they wake up late.  It doesn't work.  It never works. 

(I really, really wish it would work...)

So.  No, my children are not playing with the crotchfruit next door.  Not unless they get up and come out to play while mine are outside in the morning while I'm drinking my coffee before 7:00, while it's not raining (it's in the forecast until the second of June, on a daily basis in the late mornings on, 'round here) and relatively cool. 

And if they don't want to play because they want to sleep and can't because my kids are being noisy in their own yard?  Tough shit.  I honestly half hope it does wake them up, and that they wake the adults in the house up, because they make it incredibly difficult for my children to actually go to sleep. 

I can't wait to get outside of town where we can have no close neighbors...

Great.

I noted, just before I went in for surgery, that we have possible poison oak growing in the back yard, and in one of the front beds.  Looks like oak leaves, but on a vine.  Five leaves in a bunch.  I don't have a camera handy--oh wait, the kids just brought me the camera.  Here's the damn plant:

I don't know what it is.  I do know that until I know, I can't take the kids outside. 

And I want to take the kids outside.  At six fucking thirty in the morning.  And let them run screaming around the yard, waking the new neighbors up.  I want to do this every morning. 

Because they're doing this every night, right around the time I'm making my kids go to bed. 

Yet another fucking idiot that can't fucking read

I don't know how widely this has been disseminated, but Justice Sonia Sotomayor has come out and flat-out said she doesn't understand her job. 

Wait, what? 

Yep.  She says she's in favor of forced labor, and is in favor of forcing all lawyers to do pro bono work. 

Where this clashes with her job is that she is currently a Supreme Court justice.  Someone whose entire job has to do with whether a law is or is not constitutional.  Whether or not a law is rendered illegal by whether or not it contravenes any part--original or amendments--of the Supreme Law of the land. 

This...this is not. 

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. --Amendment 13

It seems to me like it takes a lawyer to misunderstand the clear language in the Constitution and its amendments.

Maybe lawyers should be banned from serving as Supreme Court justices.

Done for now.

I went in for a follow-up with my surgeon, today.  He gave me the path report (good--no cancer), a boost on my dosage (50 mcg to 125 mcg of thyroid replacement), and removed the stitches and told me to move my head a bit (but not to tip it back just yet) so that the scar tissue didn't stiffen up.

I go back in six weeks for blood work to see if the new dose is what I need.

updates

Okay, so last Friday, I had surgery.  A total thyroidectomy.  I have family history of goiters and nodules, and my dad and his brother had thyroid cancer.  A couple of relatives on the paternal side have had Graves Disease, and a couple on both sides have had Hashimoto's Thyroiditis (an autoimmune disease where your body starts treating your thyroid like a virus, killing it and causing severe hypothyroidism). And I had nodules, a goiter, and a non-functional thyroid.  So, it came out. 

Side note: I am mildly allergic to morphine (severe nausea, rash down chest and belly, and difficulty retaining consciousness) and codeine (hives and facial swelling).  And Darvocet is off the market, thanks to the FDA deciding it's better to preserve the lives of fools that overdose than it is to alleviate the pain of those who are allergic to other pain meds. 

I spent Friday night through Saturday lunch in the hospital, and came home Saturday with the drain tube still in. 

(Did y'all know that the surgery recovery beds molest you in your sleep?  The nurses said that it would periodically deflate and inflate, but it felt kinda like shiatsu massage.  And with my lack of height, it meant the bed humped my butt every few minutes for as long as I was in it.)

I've been managing pain with ice packs, and Tylenol as best I could until I got home to my useful pain management.  After that, what hurt the worst was the drain tube that was still there.  I was told to empty and measure it twice a day (I did), and come in this morning to get it out. 

That.  Hurt.  A lot.  The tube was one that went under both sides of the thyroid from the middle.  And pulling it out hurt like a bitch.  It's better, now, after Aleve and an ice pack.  But yeah.

Such was my weekend.  And I still have blood in my hair until my other half gets home to help me wash it out in the shower. 

Dear God.

Can I please have students not try to insult my intelligence by plagiarizing the sample in the freakin' class handbook? 

Yeah, somebody just failed my class. 

How much clearer can I possibly be?

"You have the two hour block set aside for your class's final exam time to email me anything you didn't turn in over the course of the semester."

"Email things to me.  I will not be on campus during finals week."

"The last day I will be on campus is the last day of classes, Friday, May 6." 

"If you haven't turned in anything over the course of the semester, you have one last chance during [this two hour block] on [this day] to email it to me, because I will not be on campus during finals week."

These things have been iterated and reiterated on a daily basis for the past fucking month, both verbal and written.  I still have students trying to find me on campus, to turn in hard copy, and not during the set final exam time.  I have students sending me things three or four hours late. 

I'm heading into Friday's surgery with a fuck-ton not finished up around the house.  The living room is a fucking disaster, as is the kitchen, and the master bedroom/bathroom.  I do not yet know what time I am supposed to show up for surgery, nor can I find out before Thursday when the hospital calls me.  I have the kids to plan for, the landscapers to watch for, and a whole mess of other things relevant to my LIFE going on.  I cannot handle whiny-ass students who don't fucking listen and fucking pay fucking attention on top of all the other shit I've got going on. 

I'm about ready to turn in all grades, my grade books, and everything, and tell the stupid shits that think they're adults to go fuck themselves with a fucking cactus impaled on a reciprocating saw. 

I know nobody wants to hear the truth about themselves, but damn.

Recently, I was talking to my mother.  She said she was thinking of seeing a psychologist to see if she could get them to figure out why no one liked her and wanted to be around her for long, why people tend to turn against her after a bit of time in her company. 

"You self-sabotage, and sabotage others around you.  You also act like you expect others to bail you out when you do this."

"I don't understand what you mean."

"You bought a new couch.  The old one was perfectly fine--you just didn't like it.  I helped you out with groceries since that was your savings plus your grocery money.  Now, your water heater, washer, and air conditioner have all given up at once.  You had no savings, and asked the church to help you with the water heater (which they did).  Instead of getting your washer, which was still under warranty, fixed, you decided to take your savings, the money from your secondhand toilet you sold, and [sister's], and buy a new to you one.  Your AC is still out.  And now, [sister] can't afford the new mattress she needs without paying financing charges, and can't move out because you've sabotaged yourself and her financially.  And you're helpless to fix this by yourself.  And you expect others to help you out of the mess you got yourself into."

"I still don't understand.  Why won't you tell me straight out, instead of dancing around it?"

I don't think I can use small enough words to get this across to her.  There is not a single shrink in the world that can.  And then she'll wonder why they write her off when they do. 

I wonder how the hell I wound up as sane and reasonable as I did with this for an example.

Think I need a new doctor...

I've spoken with my doctor, as of this morning, requesting a refill on my thyroid meds, perhaps at a higher dosage so I can actually function, and so my dosage doesn't need to be adjusted upward so sharply after my thyroid is removed (and, hopefully, so I can heal up a touch faster, since that is also dependent upon metabolism). 

She said my blood tests indicate my TSH is "normal" and she doesn't want to up my dosage until after I stabilize after surgery.

Yeah...no. 

I've seen my numbers.  Sure, they're in the "normal" range.  The TSH is high normal.  When I got her to order the full panel, the TSH was high normal, and the T3/T4 was low normal.  So, I'm on the scale, but my body's not happy with the hormone levels, and is demanding more. 

Fuck that. 

I want a doctor that is willing to put me in the optimal range--right in the middle. 

I want to feel human again, damn it.

Somebody needs a reality check.

Recently, there's been a bit of a local kerfuffle.  Five years ago, we had a GIANT tornado rip through the middle of town, just as the high school graduation was letting out.  There were around two hundred people killed in different areas of the town (there was a six mile swath, nearly a mile wide, running diagonally from one of the hospitals to the far edge of town, angling north as it went). 

One of those killed was a boy who would have graduated this year.  His parents want an empty chair on stage at what would have been his graduation, had he lived.

I can understand their grief, and to some extent, their request, but...

How the fuck dare they?  How dare they demand the right to cast a shadow on the graduation of the kids actually walking across the stage?  How dare they imply that their loss is somehow more important than the losses of all the other parents whose children have died before graduation?  What, are they going to insist on an "empty chair" at the university of their choice when their dead kid should have graduated? 

Why should the survivors' day be spoiled by the reminder that one kid that may or may not have bucked his parents' expectations and dropped out didn't survive to his graduation? 

Why should the other parents whose kids died in the same tornado have to face facts that nobody but them cared?

Why shouldn't these parents have their nose rubbed in that same fact?

This is utter selfishness on their part.  Their kid is dead.  There is no reason for others to coddle them and give into their demands. 

I have a sneaking suspicion that it's going to happen anyway, given the way feelz trump facts in this idiocratic society.