Slice of Life: Parenting Wins

I had my second prenatal visit about a week ago.  Kid still has a heartbeat which has got to make us parents of the year or something (don’t set the bar too high and you’ll always feel good about yourself!).

This past week one of the (male) cafeteria employees at work asked me if I was pregnant.  I debated for a split second about answering with “no, I’m just fat” but decided not to be a total asshole.  I’m growing as a person. Plus, this guy keeps me in french fries so it’s best to stay on his good side.  I still need to ask him what he would have done if I had said no…  It’s generally considered unwise to ask a women if she’s pregnant, but I suppose I was waiting there with my hand on my 4-month-belly looking like I was about to puke so the question wasn’t totally out of the blue.

Also this past week I had a major pregnancy epiphany.  Technically I’ve got 2 hearts at the moment–I’m a Time Lord!  er… Lady.  Now where’s my TARDIS?  I REALLY wish I had thought of this at my first appointment when we got to hear the heartbeat for the first time.  The midwife probably would have thought I was absolutely nuts (not that she would have been wrong…).

And finally… we were out at breakfast yesterday and there was a soccer game on that Matt was half paying attention to.

Matt (watching an “injury”): Magic spray!
Me: You’re going to use that on our kid, aren’t you? They bump their head–magic spray!
Matt: That’s brilliant!
Me: We’d really just need a little spray bottle filled with water… I’m not opposed to this.
Matt: No way, I want the official EPL** Magic Spray!
Me: Good lord, I’ll make a fancy label for the bottle.
*If you never watch soccer, pretty much any time there’s an “injury” (ie someone pretends they’ve suffered extreme bodily harm in the hopes that the other team gets a penalty) someone inevitably comes out and sprays the afflicted area with “magic spray.”  I think it’s Windex.
**English Premier League

Slice of Life: Political Hangover Division

politcalhangover

Me: rattling off a grocery list… and we still have tonic so we’re set for election night

Matt: You should probably pick up more

Me: We have 4 cans, that’s 8 [gin+tonics]… how tanked do you plan on getting?

Matt: You better pick up more

 

As you can probably tell, we’re not too excited about the election here.  I think a lot of other people feel the same way.  This is the first election for me where I’m seriously considering voting for a 3rd party candidate.  Not because I think they have any chance of winning the presidency (heck, I’m 99% certain Hillary will win MN), but because I think that if the alternate parties get unusually high support this year (especially if they succeed in taking even a single state) that there will be significant changes coming in the future (because honestly I feel that both parties really need to have a Come-to-Jesus moment).

That’s my logic at least.  I can’t tell you how to vote, but I do encourage all Americans to vote.  Do your research (if you don’t know where to start you can check out I Side With*), don’t buy into every media shit-storm, and as long as you have a rational reason for your choice you can’t really go wrong.

Oh, and if you’re going to comment with political opinions, just play nice, k?  Respectful discussion is great, but referring the candidates  as “Killary” and “America’s Angriest Clementine” is probably best left to rants among like-minded friends.

Dang…. I’m going to have to pick up more limes too….

 

*I think I failed their quiz.  I got Jill Stein as #1 and Gary Johnson as #2… I’m either an anarchist hippie or I need to make my own party…. or I have no idea what’s going on in the world.  Who knows?

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Slice of Life: Delivery Fail Division

We were supposed to get a new stove today.  This was seriously the highlight of my week!  Our existing stove is utter crap and we’ve lived with it for over a year before finally breaking down and getting a new one.

Matt worked from home today so he could be here for the delivery.  I got a text around noon saying that he had to send the the stove back because it was the wrong color AND the wrong model.

@#$^#$%&$^&

Then I get home and learn the oven is no longer working on our old stove (the pilot light refuses to relight).  We’re guessing something got bumped/shifted when they hauled it out and back in again (because why would you be super careful with an old craptastic stove?).

$%^$*&%(&)*

I then get on the phone with Home Depot and ask them what the hell is going on because we don’t even have a new delivery date for the CORRECT stove yet and are oven-less.* While waiting for the appliance guy to call me back with an update we had the following conversation.

Matt: We could do Caprese tonight
Me: Sure
Matt: The baguette you got isn’t take-and-bake is it?
Me: %@#%^&*##$%@#

 

UPDATE: We heard back from HD around 7 this evening and the company they contract with for appliance deliveries isn’t given them any useful info either, but they are going to try and get someone over here to get our oven working this weekend.

 

*I was actually much calmer than that on the phone.  Screaming at people is rarely effective… unless they’re your ISP in which case they are already the devil incarnate.

Slice of Life: Useless Pets Division

Around 1:30 this morning I woke up to strange sound in our bedroom.  One of the cats was running around like a lunatic and occasionally meowing.  This is a little bizarre for either of them at 1 am and I was only partially awake so I listened for a few minutes to try and figure out what the heck was going on.

Eventually I turned on the light and peered over the foot of the bed.  Schmutz was the one racing around the floor and she wasn’t after one of her toys.  Because I had already expected this from the earlier noise I stayed calm, sighed resignedly and said to Matt, who was at least somewhat awake now too, “Your damn cat found a mouse.”

We watched her for a couple minutes while caught the mouse, pranced around proudly, deliberately dropped it, chased it again, caught, pranced, dropped, repeat.  Spencer wandered in to see what the commotion was all about and would occasionally bat gently at the mouse with his paw if it came his way, but he clearly didn’t have any idea what to do with it.

Eventually it became clear that the mouse wasn’t going to be put out of it’s misery anytime soon so I decided to step in.

“Schmutz!  Get the mouse!”  And she did, but ran away with it as soon as I got off the bed.  I followed her into the dining room as she continued her game of chase-catch-prance-drop and grabbed a plastic tumbler and a large putty knife to attempt to catch the stupid thing myself.

Sometimes Schmutz and I would be working together and flanking the mouse, but I never managed to shoo it into the cup.  The 3 of us kept going around and around the dining table while Spencer watched from under a chair.  Occasionally the mouse would rear up or charge Schmutz. “I think it may have toxoplasmosis!” I shouted up to Matt.

After 10-15 minutes of this (and more random things shouted up to Matt who was staying in bed playing a game on his tablet) I finally managed to catch the damn thing.  Since it was nearly 2 in the morning, I just dumped it outside, so I’m sure it’s back in by now, but it was the middle of the night and I was all out of fucks to give.

I went back upstairs (Schmutz was still frantically searching for her new favorite toy) and Matt asked if I had given the cats a treat.

“A treat? Why?”

“Because my cat found a mouse.”

“But she didn’t kill it.”

“But she found it.”

And brought it into our bedroom!

Matt eventually went downstairs and gave both of them a treat.  What Spencer did to deserve it I have no idea since he was even a bigger failure.

Around 5:30 this morning Schmutz sat on my chest and yowled at me for her breakfast.

If you had just killed the damn mouse you wouldn’t be hungry right now.” I grumbled and then Matt kicked her out the room because she was being pesty and it was still way too early.

Screen Shot 2016-06-24 at 6.09.03 PM

So those are our cats in a nutshell.  Spencer thinks everything is a friend and Schmutz has currently brought us one well-dead mouse and one far-too-alive mouse.  At least this is the first sign we’ve had of rodents currently in the home so I don’t think we have an infestation on our hands.

Looking on the bright side, at least she didn’t drop it in our bed.

 

Slice of Life: Safety Division

We started painting our entryway/stairs yesterday!  We’re actually doing pretty good on the ground floor, but have all the upstairs landing to do yet (trim and walls).

Matt was champ dealing with the obnoxiously tall wall on the stair landing…which was good because I am really not a fan of ladders.  He managed to reach most of the wall just by having the ladder on our larger landing, and I came up next to him to point out spots it looked like he missed.*  Now, there was plenty of room on the landing for the ladder, but me standing next to it meant I was standing pretty close to the edge and being the genius that I am, took a step back to get a better view.

Bad move.

I immediately felt myself unbalancing as my foot connects with nothingness and flailed wildly for support.  My left hand grabbed at the railing and my right hand grabbed for the ladder.

The ladder that wasn’t actually solidly attached to anything.

The ladder Matt was sitting on.

I realized this was probably not a good idea a split second after I actually grabbed hold of the ladder.  Oops.

Luckily, my foot shortly connected with the stair tread, about 6″ past where I expected to feel floor, and I was able to regain my balance without pulling the ladder down the stairs after me.  Matt was looking a little horrified though, and I can’t say I blame him.

He made it out completely unscathed, but I managed to bang or twist or something my left wrist as I grabbed for the railing, so it was pretty sore. Luckily it’s my left wrist, but because I’m also prone to emphatic hand gestures and continuing to work on projects when I’m sore, I picked up a wrist brace to try and avoid twisting it further since certain movements do make it worse.

I really don’t think whatever I did to it is that bad.  I’ve sprained both a toe and a foot in the past and at worst this is probably just a very mild sprain, but the best thing for a sprain is to avoid stressing it, so wrist brace it is.

In 90 degree weather.  Fun times.

 

*Painting light gray over light cream is a beast since it’s almost impossible to tell if you’ve missed anything until it starts to dry.

Slice of Life: Cat Food Division

Our cats are very demanding about their food.  They’re both little furry alarm clocks that may go off as early as 5 am and start crying like they’re starving to death the second you get home from work… even if you only had a 1/2 day are home by noon.  They also know what our real alarm clocks mean so they get extra excited when those goes off in the morning.

catfood

This morning though…. silence.  Matt and I both looked at each knowing this was suspicious.  I went downstairs and found Schmutz waiting at the front door, hoping I would let her out onto the porch.  Not yowling, not scolding me, not racing to her food bowl, but waiting quietly.

HIGHLY suspicious.*

I turn into the dining room and find that the cat food bin was tipped over… which had popped the latch… which had opened the lid… which had spilled food all over the floor… which had allowed the cats to gorge themselves.  Spencer was still inhaling food off the floor.

The most disturbing thing about all of this?  They learn, like the raptors in Jurassic Park.  Our sealed food bin may never be safe again…

God help us when they figure out how to open doors.

 

UPDATE: They’ve learned how to open the latch on the food bin!  We noticed the latch was undone in the middle of the day and I know I had fully closed it in the morning.  Matt turned the bin around so the latch was against the wall and later we noticed Schmutz nosing at the hinges, searching for a weak spot apparently.  I don’t know how long we can continue to outsmart them….

UPDATE #2:  …apparently not for that long.  If the bin isn’t pushed all the way against the wall, Schmutz will squeeze her way into the gap so she can get to the latch and then get her snack on.  No wonder she’s turning into a bit of a pudge.

 

*Anyone who’s known Siamese knows it’s highly suspicious when they’re quiet about anything.  A year ago Schmutz was pretty sick and when we first took her to the vet we listed one of her (several) symptoms as “she’s being really quiet.”

Slice of Life: Astronomy Division

So tonight there’s supposed to be a Harvest Moon/Super Moon/Lunar Eclipse, but I apparently fail at life and Matt called me on the way home from his board meeting to remind me.

Matt: So the eclipse is just starting

Me: I can’t see the moon!

Matt: Well of course you can’t, it’s being eclipsed*

Me: I even looked up what direction the moon should be in and can’t see anything! I’m so bad at astronomy that I can’t even find the moon!**

Matt: Um, ok then.  I’ll just head home then.

Once he did get home he dragged me across the street to where you could actually see the moon and, despite the light pollution of living in St Paul (and it being a lot smaller than I expected for a Super Moon), it was pretty cool. And it really did turn reddish near the end… and that’s when we went inside because we’re totally not astronomers.  Obviously.

eclipse1

eclipse2

eclipse3

 

*He thinks he’s funny, and sometimes he is…this was not one of those times

**This is pretty true. Don’t even try to point out constellations to me.  I’ve spent several summer evenings sitting in a hot tub with friends and making up my own dam constellations like Jump Roping Kangaroo and Two Headed Sloth.  This is was in high school so there wasn’t even any alcohol involved, although we did skip Senior Ball in favor of the hot tub, a tea party, and a Monty Python Flying Circus marathon so it’s entirely possible our families and fellow students thought we were doing drugs.

Slice of Life: Friction (or lack thereof) Division

Me: I HATE OUR STAIRS!

Matt: You love our stairs.

Me: I hate our stairs; they tried to kill me this morning!  And that goofy mini landing that I said I was indifferent to last night? I changed my mind.  I like it, it tried to save me.  Also, I hate being thirty.

Lesson learned for the day: socks and wood treads do not mix.  Especially first thing in the morning.  Thankfully (?) I was slightly twisted as I went flying (falling with style?) so I didn’t bounce down on my tailbone, but rather my left butt cheek.  I’m now sitting on an ice pack and Matt just pointed out we have a 3 hour car ride ahead of us this afternoon.  Joy…

We also currently have a plumber in our basement replacing our main water shutoff so hopefully we can finally get our tub faucet replaced since it’s leaky as all hell.  We got it into our heads to try and do it the night before we left for Europe (are we brilliant or what?) but didn’t get anywhere since there’s not a shutoff right at the tub and we couldn’t get the basement one to budge (and were concerned about breaking it since it was pretty old). Fingers crossed that nothing goes wrong since this week has been pretty beastly already.

 

Update: I was all disappointed because before we left I check myself out in the mirror and nothing!  Not even the vaguest hint of a bruise.  Sooo disappointed!  If I was going to be in this much pain I wanted something to show for it!  Then we went to Wausau, we weddinged it up with my family (there is now, unfortunately, photo and perhaps also video evidence of me doing the Macarena.  Beware the open bar….).  I couldn’t sit comfortably all night.  Then we got back to our hotel room and I discovered I now had a giant-ass bruise.  A giant-ass ass bruise if you will. It’s like the size of my hand and almost entirely dark purple.  It’s the most impressive and horrible looking bruise I have ever gotten and I can’t even show it to anyone without being indecent! I just dissolved into giggles at this point.  My sister and brother-in-law were in the hallway at this point because they had managed to lock their 2 year old in their room* and were probably wondering what in god’s name we were up to.

 

*Believe it not this is becoming a trend at weddings we attend.  You have adjoining rooms and some well meaning parent bars the main door so the child can’t wander out when they can’t see.  Child then closes the adjoining door (or babysitting grandparents go to sleep) and you can no longer get in through the main room door since the extra latch is in place.  Good times.

Slice of Life: Arachnophobia Division

This conversation just happened via text today:

Me: OMG THE IKEA PARKING LOT IS INFESTED WITH GIANT CREEPY SPIDERS

Me: And by infested I mean I found one on my car

Matt: Yikes

Matt: But I’m on hold with Century Link

Matt: So I’m in a worse spot than you

I may or may not have danced around the Target parking lot waving a shoe menacingly at my car.  Also spiders and ISPs both suck.