Holy Jeebus I’m tired. The Hatchling got up at 4:15 this morning and would not go back to bed. I’m beginning to question whether she’s actually my child. Except I know she really is, because a) stretchmarks, and b) she’s just waking up from a nearly 4 hour nap, in which I could not join because I had stupid adult crap to take care of while she refreshed herself. I hate adult crap.
In completely unrelated news, this is fucking awesome. (via eWAC)
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Posted in Funny Stuff, random tidbits, trials and tribulations
Our grill was stolen. Mr. Squab noticed it when he came home today; I’d been outside in the afternoon but I have no idea if it was there then or not. It was a pretty sizeable grill, and quite heavy, so we’re guessing that whoever took it did it last night, with a friend to help and a getaway truck. This sucks for many reasons. One, no grill! And we like to use it a lot in the summer! Two, it was a surprise present from my sister and my stepdad, and I don’t know why but somehow it feels worse to have a gift stolen than something we’d bought ourselves. Three, it just feels so icky and invasive. With all the work we’ve been doing on the house, especially outside, I’d been feeling pretty good about where we live – we’ve been meeting a lot of our neighbors as we work on the front yard, and everyone has been so nice, and the house is looking good. Now it’s hard not to feel suspicious and like we live in the semi-ghetto again. Our back yard, where the grill was, isn’t fenced, but it is up on a hill a good 6 feet above the sidewalk, so to steal something out of our yard you really have to make an effort to leave the public space of the sidewalk and enter our private zone. We’ve been leaving some of Ellie’s toys out there, the occasional ladder or shovel – you know, stuff that you leave outside sometimes. Only now I guess we can’t. Which sucks. On the plus side, I guess this makes it easier to figure out what to get Mr. Squab for Father’s Day. On the minus side, when we get a replacement we’ll have to figure out some way of chaining it to the house. Stupid theft.
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Posted in trials and tribulations
The Hatchling woke up this morning with a temperature of 103.6. She’s been hovering around 100 for the past few days, but this was high enough to send us to the doctor’s office. The pediatrician took one glance down her throat and said, “Oh, yeah – she’s got some nasty looking tonsils there. She’s got tonsillitis.” Then he started asking all these questions about other symptoms: had she been vomiting? (no) Nosebleeds? (no) Rash? (ummmmm …) See, the thing is, the Hatchling, like her benighted mamala, has a tendency towards eczema, a tendency that is exacerbated during allergy season. In other words, now. So, she does have some red bumpy patches, but I thought they were just eczema. But apparently not so much, or at least not entirely. So the doctor looked at her rash, and then looked closer at the skin on her back and face and said, “so she hasn’t been vomiting …” “Nope.” I said. “Except she did this morning, but that was just because she was really pissed at us for taking her temperature. Why?”
Seems the Hatchling has petechiae on her back and face. Those are those red dots that you get sometimes if you vomit really violently or cry really hard – broken capillaries under the skin basically. Only the Hatchling hasn’t been violently vomiting or crying. So the doctor says we’d better do some tests, because sometimes petechiae are caused by other things, like viruses – he mentioned mono – or, you know, low platelet counts. Gulp. So they swabbed her throat to test for strep and poked her little finger to run various blood tests. Fun times! The results came back negative for strep and mono, with a good platelet count but an elevated white count. So the doctor says keep her hydrated and tylenol’ed and bring her back in if her fever hasn’t gone away by Saturday. Oh, and also keep an eye out for unusual bruising or nosebleeds, because if her platelets do start going down we want to know about it asap. But probably it’s just a virus or combination of viruses.
So of course I’m now totally convinced that the Hatchling has leukemia, only I don’t *really* believe that but I kind of superstitiously think that maybe if I preemptively worry about it now it won’t actually come to pass. Because – let’s face it – I am TOTALLY INSANE. Fortunately, I talked to a friend who had just taken her toddler into the doctor and was told that they’re seeing a LOT of young kids with exactly the Hatchling’s symptoms, and there’s some kind of virus going around. Which made me feel better. But dude: if there are four words I do not want to hear at a visit to the pediatrician’s office, they would be “platelets” and “elevated white count.” You know?
Last night, before going to bed, I took:
1 Allegra (prescription)
1 Singulair (prescription)
2 Mucinex DM
4 snorts Afrin (the good stuff, back from before they took real decongestants off the shelf)
2 puffs asthma inhaler (prescription)
2 Benadryl
This is what Mr. Squab calls “pulling a Ledger.” As in Heath Ledger. But he can stick it, because I was actually able to sleep last night without having to get up every hour to blow my nose.
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Posted in trials and tribulations
So what I thought was just bad spring allergies appears to be a head cold ON TOP of bad spring allergies. The Hatchling is also afflicted. And sure, I should probably expect something like this after a huge birthday party, multiple playdates and (on my part) insomnia that lowers resistance, but I would still like to know with whom I can register a complaint. I DO NOT HAVE TIME TO BE SICK.
That is all.
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Posted in trials and tribulations
OMG. The coffee shop is playing the shittiest music right now. Memo to Dunn Bros.: I CANNOT WRITE WHILE CELINE DION IS SINGING.
Why did I not bring my headphones? WHY?!?!?!?!?!
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Posted in trials and tribulations, writing
We had ourselves a little adventure this evening. The Hatchling and I were on our way home from a playdate, and we were just pulling up to the house when I got a call from Mr. Squab on my mobile phone. “There’s a bat in the basement,” he said somewhat breathlessly. Mr. Squab, he no likey the bats. “I was bringing some laundry down and I saw something swing out of the corner of my eye, but I thought it was a spider or some trick of the light. About 1/2 way to the washing machine, I turned around and the bat flew right at me! I ducked and ran the hell up the stairs and closed the door. You gotta get that bat out of there before Gary comes.” (We were expecting a visit from our contractor about some possible work on the house.)
“Well, holy shit.” I said. “I think Gary just pulled up behind me. Why don’t you open the side door?” (There’s a door on the side of the house that opens onto the landing of the basement steps.)
“YOU open the side door! I’m not going down there!”
Now, I don’t have a phobia of bats. Spiders and centipedes freak me the FUCK OUT, but bats and other rodents, I actually kind of dig. I know, it’s weird, but I think they’re kind of cute, close up. However, it’s one thing to think bats are groovy in their natural environment. It’s quite something else to confront a freaked out and possibly rabid bat in the confined space of your basement. I figured we’d try opening the door and see if that worked, and if not I’d try my dad’s trick of coming at the bat with an open paper bag; either you trap the bat in the bag and then release it outside, or you sort of steer the bat in the direction you want it to go. I’ve seen my dad do it maybe three or four times, but … I was really hoping for the door thing to work. I slowly went down the basement stairs, keeping my eyes peeled for flying rodents. Just as I was leaning over to unlock the side door, our winged tenant flew over to the bottom of the stairs and then circled back into the basement proper. It was a big bat, y’all. Most of the bats I’ve seen up close (except at the zoo) have been little brown bats, which are pretty small and cute. But this bat was … not small. I mean, it wasn’t pterodactyl-sized or anything, but it had a wingspan of maybe a foot and a half. I was a tad unnerved, I must admit. I quickly unlocked the main door and pulled it open, figuring I’d open the screen door from outside. The Hatchling was bawling like I’d abandoned her, so I grabbed her and took her outside with me to open the door … which was latched from the inside. Of course. I yelled at Mr. Squab to just run down and open the damn latch already, it would only take 2 seconds. He convinced Gary to do it. (We like Gary.) I pulled the door open, carefully keeping it between us and the hopefully soon-to-be-fleeing varmint. I think it took all of about 10 seconds for the little critter to find the way out. He took off like a … well, you know. We last saw him careening over the treetops, 1/2 way down the block.
Mr. Squab is still recovering from the trauma. He was keyed up (“on adrenaline”) for most of the night, and has now decided that he’s taken the first step towards being Batman. (A traumatic experience with bats being the first step, apparently.) We took a walk this evening and he most helpfully identified several locations on our path that were “total bat-lairs” using his new, trauma-acquired “bat-sense.” Me, I’m hoping the independently wealthy part kicks in soon.
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Posted in trials and tribulations, updates
God, I know, I know! It’s been like a ghost town around here lately. What can I say? Depression and lack of dissertational progress make for exceedingly light blogging. This fucker is just not getting written. OK, let’s take out that passive construction and own it: I AM NOT WRITING. This last week I finally called in reinforcements in the person of my mother, who a) has directed many dissertations (though not in my discipline), b) knows my tricks, and c) is an excellent writing mentor. Because despite my having repeatedly told my own director that it would really be helpful to me to have him set some deadlines for me and/or have regular phone conferences, he steadfastly refuses to do so. “Just send me revisions when you have them” he says, and until I do I will not hear word one from him. He just doesn’t consider that kind of checking in to be a part of his job. And of course, from a purely objective standpoint, it’s not: his job is to give me comments on my writing and confer with my committee and decide when the dissertation is done. But I call bullshit on that, y’all. I don’t know offhand what the percentage is of PhD students who actually complete their degrees, but I know it’s fucking small. And dammit, dissertation directors are supposed to be mentors, as well, and shouldn’t a mentor be a little more available to assist a struggling student in getting their degree done? It’s not like I’m asking him to write it for me, for christ’s sake. I’m asking him to set some dates, or maybe shoot me an email once every month or so. That should not be beneath him!
But it is, so I called my mom, and she kindly agreed to take on the role of taskmaster. I’ll tell you what, at 36 going on 37, it’s fucking embarrassing to have to call your mother to help you get your homework done. But I am so damn stuck right now, I didn’t know what else to do. It’s not like I don’t know how I’m supposed to approach this. I’ve read all the books – shit, I have entire passages of How to Write Your Dissertation in 15 Minutes a Day memorized – and everyone keeps saying, just break it up into manageable bits, don’t try to do too much at once, think small, etc. But when I go up to my study and turn on my computer and start even thinking about writing something, I feel exactly as though I’m standing at the edge of swirling black waters, and if I stick in even so much as a toe I’ll be sucked into the abyss and drown. I know that sounds melodramatic, but I swear to God that’s exactly how it feels. I started crying just talking to my mother on the phone about it. I don’t know why it’s so scary; I’ve never had this kind of response before, even when I was writing my master’s thesis. I’m not even sure what it is, exactly, that I’m scared of, but whatever it is, it’s nightmare level. So you tell me, how the hell do you break an abyss into tiny, manageable pieces? I’ll be damned if I know. But I’ve got to do something to break through this block, and I’m hoping – desperately – that being accountable to someone else and having an externally imposed timeline will help me do it. I’m supposed to get four pages done before I have a phone conference with my mom tomorrow. I’m not there yet, but I’m going to stay at this damn coffee shop until I get there, if it kills me. Encouraging words are welcome.
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Posted in trials and tribulations, writing
When you’ve spent the last two nights up with your daughter, who is sick – AGAIN – with what you’re hoping doesn’t turn into bronchitis, you don’t really have the wherewithal to blog, no matter how much you have to say.
Grump.
We have an extremely sick, extremely pathetic little Hatchling in our house. We’re pretty sure it’s the flu: high fever, vomiting, lethargy, no appetite, etc. Also, which is fun for everyone, really disturbed sleep. We spent the entire day sitting on the sofa, covered by blankets, watching Sesame Street and The Upside Down Show. Of which I believe I have now seen all the episodes. Whenever I had to get up to answer the phone, or get something to drink, or pee or whatever, she moaned and whimpered until I came back. I even had to put her to bed tonight, which is normally Mr. Squab’s job, because she would not be separated from my side. Pray to whatever gods you believe in that Mr. Squab and I don’t catch what she’s got.
