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.

Amen.

Handicapped. Not disabled.

I am exhausted, this evening.  I busted ass all day, cleaning my living room (which hadn't had a real good cleaning since December).  I probably didn't get as much done as most would, and it took three times the amount of time to do.  Because really?  I didn't have the energy, but it had to be done. 

No, it's not done yet.  Remember, I'm working with no energy or stamina.  That means everything that gets done gets done slowly.  Steadily.  With frequent breaks to rest. 

I can still do it, though.  It just takes a while. 

That makes it a handicap.  I can do things, it's just not as easy or as fast as it is for others. 

The difference between a handicap and a disability is that a handicap doesn't remove ability, just makes things harder.  A disability means that I can't do something. 

Yes, there are things I'm not able to do.  However, in most cases, my thyroid has nothing to do with that.  I can't run a marathon--or even to the end of my driveway--but that has less to do with energy and stamina, and more to do with bad ankles, knees, and boobs that would knock my ass out if I tried.  I can't reach the back of the middle shelves in my kitchen standing on the floor, but that's because I'm four feet eleven inches tall in my socks, and barely five foot even in most of my shoes.  (Five foot one, in one or two pair). 

So there are disabilities, and there are handicaps, but calling everything a disability (like with the whole ADA crap) smacks of excusing laziness.

I am handicapped.  Not disabled. 

Cost v. benefits

Okay.  The Friatta I bought at Sam's Club was $12 for 7 servings.  Tasty, and cheaper than many fast food things, but let me break down the costs* for making your own by the recipe I found. 

Great Value sausage: $2.75/lb (recipe takes 1/2 lb), 15 minutes to cook whole pound of sausage
Farmer's Market Eggs: $0.97/doz (buy 2, because the recipe takes all of 1 carton)
Highland Heavy cream (1 cup): $1.94 (recipe takes 1/2 of this, so this makes egg muffins twice)
Great Value shredded cheese: $4.22 per 4 c bag (1 c per recipe)

So, cash cost is $10.47 pre-tax.  For around 2 dozen small muffins, or one dozen big muffins. 

How much time does it take to make this?  Say fifteen minutes to cook the sausage (mix the rest of the things while you do that, and you're taking no more time) and preheat the oven, another minute to pour the mixture into the sprayed or buttered muffin tins, and thirty minutes to cook.  Figure minimum wage hourly cost (what a fast-food worker deserves to make), and you've got about $5.73 worth of time spent.

Your total, for one dozen servings, comes out to about sixteen dollars, cash plus time, or about $1.35 per serving, vs. the premade cost of $1.75 per serving.  If you leave out the time costs (which isn't much), it's under a dollar per serving. 

The other major bonus to making it yourself?  You choose what goes into it, which may well bulk your price, but will also be healthier than the premade (i.e., adding mushrooms, onions, peppers, spinach, etc. costs more for the initial outlay, but...yeah, it adds more, in my opinion than it costs).

*Prices from my local Walmart.  Your costs may vary...on all of it.

Recipe

I ran across something at Sam's Club--Jimmy Dean friatta.  I read through the ingredients, and found that it was basically eggs baked in a muffin cup, so I went looking for how to do that. 

I found how to do it. 

Egg muffins
1 doz. eggs
1/2 c heavy cream or whole milk (using 2% or less might as well be using water)
1 c shredded cheese (your choice--cheddar, mozzarella, pepper jack, etc)
1/2 lb browned sausage

1. Preheat oven to 350, brown your sausage, and spray your muffin tins. 
2. While your sausage is cooking, mix your eggs, heavy cream, and cheese.
3. Mix cooked sausage into the egg, then fill muffin tins to within 1/2 inch of the top.
4. Bake for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into middle comes out clean.  Try not to scorch the tops.

Depending on the size of the muffin tin, this could make anywhere from six to twelve or more muffins.  My muffin tins were the big ones, so this made six for me.  

I made mine with plain bulk sausage because the imp prefers that (and he actually ate half of one of the giant muffins doused with salsa), but you can use maple sausage, add fresh spinach, mushrooms, onions, or whatever. 

I'm going to be getting more eggs tomorrow, and will make some for myself with onions, peppers, and mushrooms and perhaps bacon. 

Mmm...coffee...

Last weekend, we had a pair of contractors come in, tear down the deck, and build us a set of steps up to the back door.  It revealed a lot of slightly dangerous mess under where the deck was.  I've got some picked up, but there's a lot more to do.  Including adding twelve feet of fencing. 

I managed to get the path to the back door cleared, yesterday.   Made it a lot easier to get the back yard cleanup started.  Made for some happy kids, too, both yesterday afternoon and this morning. 

I got the shopping done, with two kids on Spring Break in tow.  That...wasn't fun, for all that they're much better behaved than the majority of children I see shopping with their parents.  I think this summer, shopping's going to be done early Saturday morning, either with Odysseus, or with Odysseus watching the kids while I go do it.

I have a load of laundry in the dryer, and another in the washer.  Once those are finished, I'm going to pull all of my daughter's clean clothes and rewash those--the rash she's had for a month and a half isn't what I thought it was, it's an allergic reaction to the dryer sheets I've been using for about the same length of time. 

I have the dishwasher unloaded, the dirty dishes loaded, and the dirty dishes loaded with the hand wash only done. 

I think I've earned a coffee break.

And after that, I've got the laundry to finish, and the living room to clean up.   And more to do in the bedrooms. 

Fucking yay.

Stupid.

Ran across something on the book of face, last week.  I saved it, and have been ruminating on it for a while.  It's this:

My older sister posted it.  And, like I said, it got me thinking.

I have never eaten (drank) ice soup.  Nor have I subsisted on Ramen because that was all I could afford.

I don't understand why this meme resonates to that point.  The only thing it takes to avoid ice soup and starvation is a little bit of planning, and an ability to use a microwave. 

When I was student help (in college, in '01), I got paid two hundred dollars every two weeks.  I planned, budgeted, and grocery shopped.  Yes, my kitchen consisted of a cube fridge, a crock pot, and a microwave; yes, my pantry consisted of one of the two nightstands that came in the dorm room (two drawers and a cubby--held potatoes, bread, tortillas, and canned soup).  I ate very well on that, while helping my mom pay for the stupidity she chose to buy.* 

And then, I graduated, got into grad school, and my paychecks started coming once a month.  It wasn't any harder budgeting for that, even when Odysseus was between jobs.  After rent and utilities were paid, and a bit put back for car insurance, we still had something around two hundred for groceries.  Between the savings card for Kroger/Dillon's, and a once-a-month hour long drive to the nearest Sam's Club, we didn't suffer. 

The whole point, here, is that if you're not being paid a whole lot, and aren't getting paid often, if you learn to budget, buy groceries wisely, and learn how to cook, you're not stuck with ice soup.  Or even Ramen.

And this?  This is even cheaper if you don't have the same food intolerance (allergy to wheat) I do.  A dozen eggs will run you about $1.65 or so, around here; a pack of processed cheese slices, around $3; bacon is the most expensive at around $5/lb for the decent stuff; English muffins around $3/dozen; and butter's about $2/lb.  That total would be around $17, after sales tax.  For enough for a dozen egg sandwiches. 

A 1lb bag of lentils is around $1.50 or so, now, and will make around three pots of lentil soup, which is high in protein, a lot of trace minerals, and fiber. 

A 2 lb bag of black beans costs around $4, and will make a LOT of meals. 

Ham bits or bacon ends costs around $5 for a 3lb package, and goes well in either lentils or beans, for extra flavor, a little fat, and a little more protein.

Plan.  Shop accordingly.  Cook your own food.  If you're too tired to cook on days you work, cook a lot on your days off, and freeze your own convenience food. 

Doing otherwise is irresponsible, and sheer stupidity.

*Mom's stupidity was a Ford F-150 with the 4wd, upgraded towing tranny, bigger engine, and 180,000 miles on it.  That she bought for ten grand on a nine grand per year fixed income. 

LOVE the guitar riffs on this...

The rhythm of both lyrics and melody also just do it for me.

Well, damn.

I had thought I had a smarter bunch this time.

Not so.

A smarter bunch wouldn't have tried to turn in papers late without having first asked for an extension.  This bunch?  Two Muslims and a theater student have all tried it.

I do not take late papers.  Not even turned in one class day late, before I've really managed to get much grading done.  I've offered them three ways to turn papers in on time: in person in hard copy, through the class site directly to the grade book, and by email attachment.  Electronic copy is due by midnight of the due date, which gives an extra thirteen or fourteen hours, depending on which class it is.

Still.  Three zeroes.

Yeah, I'm irritated.  REALLY irritated.  Because two of those papers?  Will be C papers at best, and aren't worth my time and effort due to outside issues preventing them from being capable of better.

The other one is an A student who "forgot," because she's the stage manager for both one of the university theater department's plays, and one of the local city little theater plays.  At the same time.

Yes, they have a chance to do better--I have a policy that late papers can be turned in during the two hour block of time set aside during finals week for our class.  That means, however, that they cannot revise that particular paper.

I cannot bring myself to care that that means that two of them will likely lose their scholarships and be sent home.

I cannot bring myself to care that that means that the other will likely lose a potential letter grade from her potential final grade.

They're supposed to be adults.  I cannot let myself care about whether they succeed or not.  They have to learn to do this on their own.

Or not.

Random ramblings

No, I'm not dead.  Just...yeah.

A week ago Thursday, I had the appointment with the ear/nose/throat specialist...then got sick with a mild, short lived bout of something that had me aching all over and spiking a fever, but fine the next day.  

This week alone has been horrifically busy: the kids were out on Friday (but I wasn't).  I arranged with my mother in law to meet her at the halfway point between their house and ours, and hand the imp off for a couple days' overnights.  Then Friday morning, I ran the pixie up to my mom's before busting ass to get to my classroom in time to hold class. 

We had a parent-teacher conference with the imp's teacher on Thursday.  She says he will be thoroughly ready for 1st grade this fall.  The pixie's teacher said that she didn't feel a conference was particularly needed at this point, so...yeah.

Today, we buzzed around getting a few things, looking around at a few things (like the baby chicks, ducklings, and guinea fowl at a nearby farm supply store), then Odysseus went to the halfway point to snag the imp.  I managed to get the dishes done (well, loaded--the imp actually put the soap in and started the dishwasher for me). 

Tomorrow?  Last Monday was Odysseus's birthday.  We'll be going up to my mom's so she and my sister can stuff him with pork roast sandwiches, butter and herb potatoes, and chocolate cake. 

The cats have been...well, cats.  Cricket's still nervous and jittery, but incredibly affectionate, and Shadow's still fat and lazy.  Shadow is currently curled up sleeping on the imp.  Cricket's as still as I ever see her, stretched out sleeping on the arm of the couch.

So far the semester has been rather...uneventful.  The students are better writers than last semester, with a few exceptions that aren't so bad as to be notable.  They've reassured me a few times that they love the idea I had to change up the class.

Over the past several years, English departments nation wide have started complaining that the rest of the university seems to think they're...irrelevant.  Horrible thought, I know.*  Part of the reason, I think, is because of how we teach writing: English departments seem to think it's adequate, timely, and relevant to all majors to teach research papers...done only in MLA format. 

I don't agree.  The only departments on campus that use MLA are English and foreign languages.  No one else.  Social sciences use APA, history and journalism use CMS, and the hard sciences use some variation of CSE.**  What are we doing to help the students majoring in other disciplines write better in their own? 

Not much.

I'm trying to change that in my class.  This semester, I'm teaching three research papers--one each in MLA, APA, and CMS.  Next semester, I'll add CSE to that. 

Right now, I'm trying to rewrite my textbook.  I've gotten some of it done, and gotten most of the chapter over how to do an APA paper done.  I still lack an explanation of the different parts of an APA paper, and the sample essay.***

Unfortunately, with the textbook, I've not had time to more than rough out one of the handwritten drafts for one of the stories.  All of my writing time has been focused on trying to fix things for my students, with regards to teaching them what they actually need to know.

*Not really.  As it just so happens, it's actually true.  English departments that do what mine is doing--shoving writing instruction off onto the other majors to teach to their own requirements--are more and more irrelevant.

**APA--American Psychological Association; CMS--Chicago Manual Style; CSE--Council of Science Editors

***Yes, I have to learn three new styles so I can write the chapter for them.  And so I can write a sample research paper actually using said style.  If anyone would like to offer me a persuasive paper in APA, CMS, or CSE for inclusion as a sample in my textbook for my students, leave me a comment with an email addy where I can contact you.