The Average Blogger

Blizzard, Birthday, Bailout

You can be a child of God, or a child of rage, but this child of mine is apparently a child of snow.
I've mentioned before the snowstorm the night he was born -- and the worse snowstorm the day he was going to be inducted if he didn't make deadline. 

There was snow for his first birthday, but not a big deal.

There was no snow for his second birthday, but there was also no plumbing. And we had 20 people at our house.

There was heavy snow when he was 3, and we watched as the entire town descended on Chuck E Cheese when we did.

There was some snow and bowling when he was 4, a little snow and a party when he was 5, and no snow, but lots of ice at a hockey game when he was 6.

And then there was 7.  Great goshamighty.

All week the forecasters were sounding klaxons and flashing red lights.  Lock down! Get food! DO NOT LEAVE YOUR HOMES AFTER FRIDAY MORNING!

Friday morning, I went to work.  It started snowing juuust as I got on the interstate.  I kept an eye out the window all day. 

Eventually I had to go out.  The Young Prince had requested "White frosting! From a can! Not that stuff you make, the whippy kind!" and I had neglected to get any.  There was also a mixup with some birthday gifts, so I had to do some last-minute shopping on that front too.

It was still really warm -- I left my jacket undone. Snow wasn't sticking yet, and it was early afternoon.  I found the gifts, bought some lunch and headed back to the office.

Without the frosting, of course.

So I went back out at 3, and although the ground was still clear, it was getting colder. Plus, the wind was pretty crazy. You could turn any direction and it was still blowing snow smack into your face. I was unhappy to find that the first drug store only had chocolate frosting. I went to the one across a diagonal block, and bought the Last. Can.  -- blinded the whole way by big fat flakes bashing me in the eyeballs. 

I left work at 4:30 or so.  I got home with McDonald's for the family around 5:40.  This is because the interstate was deserted and the road was quite clear -- but once I got off the interstate the roads were terrible and visibility was quickly decreasing.

Error Number One: I call home and tell Not Your Average Blogger that I'm going to park at the top of the driveway. "Oh, don't do that. The plows will just come by and bury you."  So I park at the bottom, in the usual spot.

Error Number Two: Power outages were predicted.  In a display of hubris, I was sure if I baked the cake Friday night for Sunday consumption, we'd have power galore.

Still Friday night was nice. We watched a movie, I frosted the cake, we all went to bed.

8:30 next morning, we heard "Hum, click-click-click" as our cable and Sleep-Number bed informed us the power had gone out. This was quickly followed up by the YP barging into our room and announcing the lights were out.  Error Two deployed. 

The power magically returned at 11:30.  We scrambled to wash dishes, crank up the heat to 75 so the house will be warmer when the power goes out again, and throw some snow-soggy clothes in the dryer.

Error Number Three: NYAB decides to put pork chops in the crockpot instead of flash-frying them. 

Annnd, the power goes out again at 1:30.  

For whatever reason, NYAB decided to pass the time by reading aloud from the book he's currently working on. About the Donner party.  This was not helpful.  All that cold imagery and descriptions of 30-foot snowdrifts did nothing to warm my soul.

We moved up the kid's birthday celebration to alleviate powerless boredom. Fortunately, none of his gifts required electricity.

After another couple hours, we concluded that huge amounts of food would be ruined if we didn't do something, so we dumped the contents of our fridge on the deck and the contents of the crockpot into a cast-iron pot and threw that in the fireplace. 

Dinner was fantastic, though we took no photos. Error Three corrected.

The cake was a success.

Once it started to get dark, we dragged all our bedding down in front of the fire, lit some candles, told stories, and entertaine ourselves til it was the kid's bedtime. 

We brought in buckets of snow to melt for non-drinking water use, watched as the first snowplow of the night took a first pass at our street, and went to bed. 

Next morning we woke up early and started digging our way out. We only have one snow shovel, so we took turns -- not a huge rush, just to get started on the job.  I went to see if the neighbors had a spare, and was told it might be Tuesday before we had power. 

Well.  I had to be online for work at 4:30 Monday morning. That wasn't going to do.

So after that, we shoveled a bit faster.

At about 1 p.m., we were halfway up our driveway.  The kid came out and rolled some snowballs, but he wasn't a lot of help and we sent him back inside to watch the fire and make sure the house didn't burn down.

At 1:30, some guy with a snowblower showed up and did our neighbor's driveway.  As he was trundling it back down our street, I stopped him.

"How much??"
"To go all the way down?!?"
"Nah, just to where the car is. Halfway down."
"Oh. Twenty bucks?"
"SOLD!"

I gave the guy $30.  And he did in 15 minutes what would have taken us another 3 hours.  Talk about having the right tool for the job -- and he cut a path to our mailbox.  Best $30 I ever spent.

After that, we packed up, buried the food in a bit more snow, inhale a bit more smoke from the fireplace -- the whole house reeks -- and decamped for a hotel. With power. And wifi. And a pool.

And a jacuzzi.  My shoulders were shot last night but they feel muuuuch better today. 

The YP has dubbed this, "the birthday of Lights Out."   I call it, "the Donner Birthday Party." 

Of course, upon arriving here, I heard from a neighbor that our power had come back on a couple hours after we left.  We'll go back today to see if we have cable/internet/etc., or if I will be putting in another early morning shift at the hotel.

Regardless, nobody will be picking up our trash for a while.

Plan ahea....d.

Things I want before the next snowstorm (which will be Tuesday, apparently):

-- a snowblower

-- a drying rack for sopping wet snowy clothes.

-- snow boots

-- a snowblower

-- a generator

-- a snowblower

-- Waterproof pants, jackets, gloves, etc.

-- an extra snowshovel. Or a snowblower. 

Full coverage tomorrow.

Is It Still a Party if Nobody Shows?

I wouldn't know the answer to that actually, since all my hale and hearty neighbors did show up for our annual cookiefest last weekend, but  this is as close as I've ever come to having the game called on account of anything.

What got in the way? Well, first, the Senate decided to be a bunch of prideful twits and convene a jillion weekend sessions.  Then Mother Nature decided to be a prideful twit and dump 2 feet of snow on us.  So between those two things, it's hardly surprising that nobody ventured to make the 40-plus mile drive out on Saturday afternoon.  Even if they had, our road didn't get plowed, so they would have had to walk at least the last half-mile or so.

As it turned out, this was a good thing.  For one thing, I wound up having to do a number of things for work while the poor woman on call tried to get home before the subway closed. Then the YP and NeighborGirl went out and flopped around in the snow for a bit, and then the kid came in and went promptly to bed -- getting out of it only to throw up intermittently, and to come down and wanly say hello to the neighbors when they showed up for the evening portion of our party.   On Sunday he was still barfy, and the house was so, so quiet. It would have been enjoyable if not for the niggling urge every four minutes or so to go up and see if he was still breathing. NYAB and I took advantage of this relative peace to slalom the car up the driveway and to watch a few movies.

Turns out his bug was a doozy -- he was still sick Monday, so NYAB took him to the doctor while I went through another round of Senate votes. Doc said he was dehydrated (really? Go figure!)  and that if he continued to barf he would need to get an IV stuck in him.  NYAB brought him home and we tried to pump him full of Pedialyte, which of course didn't work as I only remembered to go up and tell him to drink every 40 minutes or so.  When he threw up the second time that afternoon, I handed off work to another colleague and went upstairs and monitored so that he took a sip every 5 minutes. That did the trick, he went from cracked and pale to flushed and irritable in a little over an hour.  Meanwhile, his malady ... moved south. Ugh. Still, easier to deal with than barf.

It is now Thursday and he is only now beginning to resemble his normal self. Yesterday he was still somewhat cranky and rather weepy, and wound up crashing for a 6 hour nap at about 4.  Though perhaps he was worn out by the excitement of the Christmas tree trying to commit suicide -- twice -- by toppling over and smashing several lights and ornaments, including some we'd had since I was at least 3, and possibly had been in my -- dad's? mom's? -- family longer than that. Apologies to whichever parental unit's memories just got destroyed.

Meanwhile, it is Christmas Eve and I was up at 5:30 for what I hope will be my last morning of work for a week and a half, and after I update the site one more time tomorrow, I'm done done done.  Since I've worked in some capacity every day for I can't even remember how long at this point -- it feels like Thanksgiving was the last day I didn't touch anything office-related, but that's probably wrong -- I'm ready.  I hate the Senate. I really do.

So tonight I will wrap a jillion presents and go to bed late.  And tomorrow we will get up way early to see what Santa hath wrought.  And the next day we get up before sunrise to go to the airport. And then, weather and travel gods willing, we will wing our way to Hawaii by way of Atlanta and Salt Lake City.  Part of me is sorely tempted to just spend the entire time there sleeping, but I have a feeling once I get there and see vistas with no effing snow, I will perk right up and get moving.

Is it terribly wrong that I am sincerely hoping that the BlackBerry won't work there?

See you in 2010, y'all, when I am tanned and rested.  

My Epitaph:

And The World Kept Spinning

Thursday was by far the worst day I've experienced in my phenomenally lucky and blessedly happy life.

Wanna know what happened? I got promoted to run a department of approx. 10 people, and NYAB was reassigned to a more editing-intensive job.

Counterintuitive, right?

I also saw 30 good friends and colleagues laid off. People I've known for 10 years, people I trusted to babysit the Young Prince when he couldn't even sit up, people I hired, people I mentored, people I am deeply invested in and loved seeing every day. I felt horribly, awfully responsible. It was hard to make eye contact.

I'm not a Kennedy, it seems. It felt like I spent a lot of time crying and trying not to cry and hiding so I could get it together and stop crying. And feeling like an ass for doing it, because there I was, with a shiny new set of keys to the kingdom sitting wrapped in a big red bow on my desk. What right had I to be upset? Such gall. Such unprofessional behavior.

As more details emerged, I was further disappointed. Thursday was the first day I've ever been anything less than proud to say I work where I work.  I trust and believe that the people in charge set up the day's operations in the way they felt was best and caused the least pain. I am sure they chose what they felt was the best of a series of terrible options. And absolutely, there ain't no good layoff and there ain't no good chain gang. But it makes me sad, because I don't think any of the announcements, for those staying or leaving, were made in a particularly humane fashion.  It was swift, it was brutal, and it was over, that is true. Not a single minute of anxiety more than necessary.  But it was also incredibly public, almost ruthlessly impersonal and devastating for a group of people who hail from an extinct company that prided itself on its heart and soul. 

There were strange outbursts. There were lingerers. There was a wake afterward.

And now, those of us left move forward in a new culture, with a new structure and new teams of co-workers, but with the same directive to produce more and better. I'm good with directives. I'm good with teamwork. I'm good when I'm too busy doing to leave time for thinking.

So next week will be different. Next week will be busy.

In the meantime, my kid politely waited until the dust had settled and held off on coming down with a vomitous stomach bug until this morning, so I'll be busy with that til Monday.  And on Monday he will be better, just in time for Grandma and Grandpa to roll into town and serve up free babysitting while I spend almost every waking minute of the next two weeks hacking out underbrush for a new path to success.  

The good news is, I have a great team. The people I kept, the people who folded in under me, they are all star players and proved their worth on Thursday, when all hell was raining down around them and yet one sacrificed her first day of vacation to cover the shift of the person we lost, another signed on early and stayed late, and the rest acquitted themselves with grace and style and zero errors. I'm incredibly excited about the people on the team I'm going to be lucky enough to lead, and where I think we are going to be able to go.

But it's still a hard, hard thing to do -- letting go, moving on, figuring it out. I have a feeling it's going to stay with everyone in that building for a long time to come. And that's going to be the hardest part. Dealing with a group of people whose reactions include survivors' guilt, outrage at betrayal, relief, etc., is going to make it very hard to keep a forward focus. I don't know how we're gonna do it, but I do know that we can if we so choose. Here's hoping everyone does... 

Oh, MRSA MRSA Me...

Oh, things ain't what they used to be... and that's good and bad, I suppose.

It has been a long, long week. There was dinner, and Disney, and more dinner, and a reunion, and yet more dinner. 

But that’s all for a later post.  The real reason it’s been a long week stems from the YP’s disease. 

As I indicated in my last post, he had a nasty boil.  And was sickly acting, thus headed for the doctor.  On Wednesday. At 9:45 a.m.

At 10 a.m., I was en route to work. So I texted Not Your Average Blogger: “What’s the verdict?”

And got the answer: “Headed to hospital.”

Whaaaa? 

Needless to say, I freak right the frack out. For tests? For admission? For last rites? WTF?? Should I turn around? Should I go into work but expect to leave early?

No answer.

I call his cell phone.  Also no answer.

I call the pediatrician, who kindly informs me that it is just for tests.  NYAB resurfaces while I’m on the phone with the pediatrician, and tells me all is well. OK, then. I continue on to work. 

When I get home, I am greeted with the news that the kid has a staph infection (unsurprising,) and they think it’s MRSA (a little surprising,) and that it’s totally fine if he swims in hotel pools because, “the chlorine will be good for his wound. It might make other kids sick, but …” (Extremely surprising. And disturbing. I mean, how does that work? Like, “Hello, NeighborGirl Faux Pair who is traveling with us, please swim with my son and get the Incredible Hulk of staph infections!”) NYAB also tells me that neither the doctor nor the specialist could get a sample of goo to verify that it was MRSA for sure (and that it was good I’d drained the boil and it had scabbed over,) but it seems likely because he is a hale healthy 6-year-old so it takes a pretty major thing to overcome those defenses.

I find the whole thing a bit odd, because  aside from the whole swimming thing, I’d seen his bump oozing that morning. For another, a highly contagious disease that only the kid has? The kid who sneezes and snots all over us and drinks from our glasses, and so on? Hmm.

Final news flash? The kid has to take 4 pills a day. Two augmentin and two bactrim. 

Huh.  Yeaaaaaah.

Day One: He chokes on them and wails and drools and howls.  Finally he chews them up and makes a dreadful face but does get them down.

Day Two: The kid is back to acting quite healthy and strong, except he gimps around with his arm out like it is broken; I guess because he's afraid he will bang into the bump on his side and cause agonizing pain. I give him pudding to help the pills slide down.  He eats all the pudding. The pills? Still in his mouth.  Sigh. Again, he chews and swallows and howls and drools.  I’m about to send him off with a book while I shower and get ready for work, but his scab breaks. And I am telling you, it is the Niagara Falls of disgusting goo. A gusher. A half-box of Kleenex. I would have been fascinated, except the kid was every bit as hysterical and insane as the time before and I don’t have time to be amazed because I’m dodging flailing limbs.  I give up and inform work I am exhausted and will be staying home. 

NeighborGirl Faux Pair comes over, and good thing too.  We went through another four sessions with her holding him down and me squeezing and squishing.  Argh.  So gross. NeighborGirl was OK until a big hunk of goo had to be drawn out with tweezers, when even she was squicked, but draining was easier after that, albeit every bit as gushy and prolific. We take a break to go fetch the rental car. Then the kid gets his pills ground up in applesauce, which he snarfs down without a second thought, and it works very well.

Day Three, Morning: We are on the road.  We drain his wound at the hotel and probably wake up everyone on the second floor of the Comfort Inn.  Then we eat at Cracker Barrel. Where they serve applesauce. Into which we put the ground up pills.  And which he agonizes over, and psyches himself out, and eats six bites of, and then barfs it all right back up – INTO THE SAME BOWL. So not only did he not keep any down, he can’t eat anymore.  Argh!  We have a big screaming Wow Average Blogger Could You Be A Worse Parent Moment in the parking lot, wherein he chews up another pill and throws up again in the bushes.  Yay us.  NeighborGirl is entirely entertained and amused and can’t stop laughing – particularly at the woman looking on horrified near the store entrance.

Day Three, Afternoon: You try lancing a 6-year-old’s boil in the back seat of an SUV at an Exxon. That was fun.

Day Three, Evening: We arrive in Orlando.  Squish him again at the hotel. More howling.
We meet my friend Bald Owl for dinner.  In an effort to avoid a repeat of the morning, we put the ground pills into a milkshake.  Which he sips in agony. And then barfs all over me – and my purse. Though, fortunately, not INTO my purse.  I am reasonably sure Owl was beyond appalled and horrified, but he was most gracious and pretended  not to have noticed a thing up until and possibly even after I reacted violently, flinging the kid off my lap and into the next room as I howled and flapped ineffectually at my skirt.

Day Four: The bump is much better and nicely scabbed.  We grind up the bactrim, the more important of the two stinking pills, dump it on a waffle, and tell him it’s powdered sugar.  He buys it.  We attempt the bactrim in ice cream at DisneyWorld and more or less fail, but at least there’s no urge to purge. We head to Plant City, we see a good friend, we stuff him full of McNuggets, we send him off to the pool and we skip the evening attempt at drugs. To hell with it.

Day Five: We stuff both drugs in a peanut butter sandwich. He catches on, but not until he’s eaten most of it.  Happily, he opts not to throw up this time.  We drive to Atlanta. NYAB decides he’s done in and begs off going to dinner. He and the kid stay at the Embassy Suites and meet up with an old family friend, and again eschew the whole mess.

Day Six: We opt to give up on augmentin, as it is too bitter and too crunchy. Waffle trick again with bactrim. Kid is completely snowed. Wound basically healed.  Day’s second dose of bactrim buried in ice cream.

Day Seven: Last dose also in ice cream and smothered in chocolate syrup.

Day Eight: Oh, how I loves me some doctors.
9:15 a.m.: Call "infectious disease specialist" two whom the other doctor referred us, only to be told she only sees patients 18 and over. WTF?  Get referred to "Dr. Dan Kim in Springfield."
9:17: Call Dr. Kim's number, only to be told by the guy who answers, "Well, that's the number you dialed, but unless he's hiding under my bed, ain't no Dr. Kim here."
9:20: Log on to home computer to see if I can find the right phone number.
9:28: Give up on f'ing computer and go shower while it loads.
9:47: Return to computer,  look up Dr. Dan Kim.
9:39: Learn it is Dr. Daniel KEIM -- and he doesn't take our health insurance.  All pediatric infectious hoohahs who are in our network operate out of DC or farther away.
9:40: Call original doctor and ask, "OK, I tried. WTF?"
10:25: The doctor's assistant calls back and says,  "IDK! I will call! We wouldn't have referred you if she hadn't said she'd make an exception! I will call you back!"
2 p.m.: Infectious Disease Specialist calls back and tells me she will see us in two weeks. Two weeks? Eh. I guess we’ve contaminated four states, what’s another two weeks?

Success!

I've been a little uneven IRL the past couple weeks. Some days I was more manic than depressed. Others I was ready to out-Eeyore the Eeyorest people I know, including people I actually refer to Eeyore.

I fired someone this week.  This is the second time I've had to do it, and I'm (a little) disturbed to say it was (a little) easier this time than last.  Granted, it was also a more immediate thing -- last time the delay between the infraction and the consequence was so long as to be absurd and the guilt was huge.

But easier doesn't mean easy. I was horribly disappointed at how dreadfully wrong everything went.

(And because we all know that I have a big fat ego and everything is all about me, all the disappointment and situational angst aside, my brain also turned this into an across-the-board, top-level-management-on-down recognition by God and everyone of the fact that I am apparently ooh lala teh suck at reading people and distinguishing black holes from superstars.)

(And then, in turn, I get my hackles up, because while I can take criticism from certain corners, there are others that just piss me off and trigger a nearly violent "Excuse me?!? How dare you judge me? Who the hell do you think you are?" response that does not put me in a particularly collegial mood. Which is sort of important when one is attempting to be a good boss in a trying situation.)

Well, nowhere to go but up, right?  Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke.

So yesterday I worked from home. Get a little distance.  And free up that commute time.  I had grand plans to work, do laundry, make 2 nights' worth of meals, take the kid to his violin lesson, work a second shift and still get 5 hours of sleep.

Well, I did manage the work. And the laundry.  And I made tomato sauce. And the kid did make his violin lesson. But I also watched a movie, scanned a bunch of photos that now need color correcting (and who knows when that might happen?), failed to make the other dinner,  and got hijacked by cranky computer systems for the second shift, so I didn't finish my work and only got 4 hours of sleep. Oh, and somewhere in there I also got a political remonstration on Facebook. Yay. Some days there aren't enough hours to drink enough alcohol, you know?

But guess what? The Young Prince LOVED that tomato sauce.  This kid -- the one who won't willingly go near food that doesn't come out of a drive-through window or appear on a blue plastic tray that comes out of a box, this same kid -- sampled a taste and then demanded another heaping spoonful and then told me he was very excited at the idea of eating a whole plate of it.

Really, who needs more validation than that?? Not I, that's for sure. 

Though I could probably do with a few more hours of sleep. And some mood enhancers.

Huh. Well, That's It, Then.

And then there were none.  I'm stopping by the vet's on my way home to sign forms and send the cat off to the Chinese Children, as my grandfather likes to euphemise.  Blargh.  I can't wait to see the bill. A thousand-dollar dead cat.  Oh, well, at least the ground isn't frozen and I can bury her beside the $800-for-a-single-pointless-procedure dead dog.

So all those little bits of carbon-based string from the days before I knew NYAB are just memories. I guess my car is pretty much the last vestige of my Young and Stupid California Period. Eh. That's probably just as well.

And we are an utterly petless household.  I don't think I will find that acceptable for very long.

Spose it's time to see if the docs will give the YP dog-shots yet to curb his allergies?

Or maybe NYAB will bring me a brand new mouser in a heart-shaped box??  Or will I have to wait until my birthday? 

Or maybe we should get a pig. The neighbor on one side has a horse and the pie-eyed woman across the street keeps threatening to get chickens.... but I don't think I could have a pig, as I am far too fond of bacon.

Thoughts?

Ugh. Brr.

Now is the autumn of my discontent. Leaves are off, extremities are numb in the open air, it is either gray and dreary or painfully bright and sharp.

Oh, and two days with snow flurries this week alone.

I'm being literal and metaphorical. 

I start a week and a half vacation next Wednesday afternoon. I wonder if it will help.  I hope so.

And Next Week, Maybe I'll Tell You About My Gall Bladder!

I really sorta figured that NYAB's back had already put us over the limit in terms of physical effed-uppedness in Ye Olde Blogger Household this year.  I've already seen more of doctors and hospitals and drugstores and blah blah blah than I would prefer. 

And while NYAB still wins the prize for Most Effed Up and Biggest Deal Needed for Healing, this week has suh-huh-hucked.

Sunday, I worked in the yard pretty much all day. NYAB came out and helped a bit with hoeing, and grilled dinner. It was a nice, productive day, except I felt really hot and lousy and tired when I finally called it quits. 

Monday, I woke up at 4 a.m. for my work shift. With a headache.  And by 7:30, that headache was splitting. So I went back to bed.  After instructing NYAB that he really, absolutely, H-to-the-ELL NO, was not going to leave the YP at home with me, he was going to take that thundering noisebox to school and let me get some actual effing sleep by god.  NYAB was very good about it and left me to pass out in peace.  I fell asleep at 9. I woke up at 2:30. In the afternoon. Yes. And it was goooooood.  And I went back to bed at 9.

Tuesday was just a day. We all went to work. Except that by Tuesday night, my eye was swollen shut for no apparent reason and NYAB had a big raging rash on his leg that looked like a spider bite gone wild.

Wednesday we went to the doctor. The doctor said, "Wow, y'all got a lovely spread of infections!" And commented that NYAB is healing very nicely from back surgery, so that's a nice affirmation. I got steroids. NYAB got antibiotics.  I was too embarrassed to go to work sporting what NYAB lovingly referred to as "that certain Jake Lamotta thing you've got going on," and by the time we were done at the doctor it just made more sense to work from home.  So NYAB worked and I installed a new ceiling fan in our room with a few minor assists in the lifting-and-threading-screws department.

Thursday, I went to work and NYAB stayed home with antibiotic blowback. Apparently they always make him sick. (And yes, I did maliciously ask him if he wanted me to leave the YP home to keep his throbbing head company. He declined in good grace.)  All was well, until I headed over to get the YP from day care. In ridiculously impractical shoes.  In a hurry. On slippery pavement. Leading to one skinned knee and one twisted foot. Rah. Then, back at the office, the kid ran full-speed into RagingStress's Killer Kubicle and sliced open his ear and bled like a stuck pig.  Many props to RagingStress and Most Favored Colleague Kathy for the help in soothing and icing and band-aiding, since I was such a lousy slow hobbler that any ice I might have toted would have melted en route from the freezer to the kid's ear. La.

So there was some discussion of stitches, but I think he dodged that bullet.  And my skinned knee was of great interest to him this morning, but it's fine too. And my eye and J's rash both seem to be on the mend to some degree. 

My foot still hurts like a mother.  If it's like this on Monday, I'm afraid I'll have to go back to the flippin' doctor and get a flippin' X-ray.

Our insurance company is going to LOVE us this year.