clickmom

TISMF

So I’ll tell you something “funny.”

 Two days ago I heard something about “positivity bias training” (mind over matter right?) so in the morning yesterday… (this story with provide in depth coverage of the 24 hours after my first attempt positivity bias) when I was brushing my teeth in front of the mirror, despite the fact that I had to run sweet pea out to the backyard for her diarrhea at 2AM and then she had a liquid accident on my bedroom carpet at 6AM, which I managed to scrub away with some decade old stuff from when I was housebreaking her, I looked into my own dishonest eyes, smiled, and I said “today is going to be a great day” and I pretended to high five myself and then the rest of my fasting/colonoscopy prep day went like this:

Drop off the gallon sized zip lock bag of liqui-poo that I scraped off of the bedroom carpet for parasite testing at the vet around 9:30 and headed home instead of hiking because…. Surprise! It’s raining. 

Watch sweet pea be rear end sick again twice (outside) before I bring her with me to the sleep apnea doctor for a mask fitting so I can get a better fitting head gear. Disappointed in the lack of reasonable options available to me but I come with something new to try. 

It’s still raining after my appointment so we come straight home after. 

She has another round of pure liquid poo upon arrival home, walks into the house and yaks up a glob of foamy bright yellow bile onto the light sand colored family room rug. 

I call the vet and tell them about the sudden frequency of liqui-poos and vomiting and they tell me to bring her in at 2:30. 

She has more squirts before getting into the car at 1:30 because I have therapy at 2 so I figured I’d get there early and talk to my therapist for at least half an hour from my car while outside the vet’s office. 

I parked in the vet’s parking lot and I realize sweet pea is panting and trembling so I change plans and clumsily try to walk her around while talking to my therapist in case she needs to go again but she doesn’t go she just tried to pull me as far away from the vet’s office as I would go. They expressed her leaking anal glands a couple of weeks ago and I still have hearing loss from the sound that came out of her. She remembers, I am sure of that. 

With my therapist I talk about the same thing I talk about to everyone- except for the couple of minutes when a man who was either super drunk or mentally ill, or both, stopped his car in the middle of the block to call out the window and let me know that he grew up 3 towns over but always had an affinity for the town we were currently in. What?? I tried to give him the least conversational possible response so he would leave but dude felt like chatting with me. I finally told him he had to keep driving because there were about 5 cars stopped behind him. 

I must have looked friendly despite my ravenous hunger and hangry emotional state. Or maybe crazy people just like to talk to me. I don’t know. Life is confusing these days. 

I told the therapist I do not know where to move to- and this time I really want to choose right for ME. I finally get to choose for me and I am paralyzed with fear over choosing some place I might regret. I don’t know how to do this! I sound like a broken record already and I’m starting to bore myself. 

We go into the vets office and we see the man vet, I like him a little more (he’s much more warm and cuddly with the dogs) than the lady vet. He looks at sweet pea and he thinks that she actually looks nauseous (I have no idea) and I tell him that she’s been licking dubious puddles, one in particular that smells like raw sewage, and possibly eating coyote dinner remnants from the backyard because coyotes are hanging out here at the clickmom family backyard and wild life refuge more than ever before and we agree that this is most likely a bacterial infection. Sweet pea and I leave there with probiotics, pre-biotics, antibiotics, and she gets a shot of anti-nausea medication and I have tablets to follow up with. I am under strict directions to only feed her rice and a light protein source, such as lean ground beef, chicken, or turkey and despite my goal of making this a spend as little as possible month after having a party in Toronto I’m out about $400 dollars. I love her though so I’m not stressing about it. 

I come home after the appointment because I can’t deal with life while I am this hungry and because I am irritable AF. I can’t stop thinking of all the food in the house. I want a snack in the worst way. Also, I’m dreading the whole laxative part that is in front of me so I’m also getting more anxious by the minute. 

I try to stay busy by cutting up a watermelon I got for Anne (she loves watermelon and she is sleeping over to be my driver) and not snacking while I am cutting is rough. I decide to stay out of the kitchen unless I’m getting more drinks- I always get severely dehydrated during this so I am trying very hard to force myself to drink as much as possible. I’m absolutely miserable. 

Now I’ve waited over an hour since sweet pea got the shot so I administer her meds which I hate doing because she doesn’t really want to take them I have to cram them down her throat despite the organic peanut butter coating I’ve put on them. 

I’m supposed to start the laxative part at 6PM and I fetch the package that has been mailed to me from the hallway table at 5:30 and open it to discover that it’s fucking antifreeze. I’m instantly furious at myself for forgetting to check on what they were giving me and also for ignoring that voice in the back of my head that had been telling me two days earlier that I should probably open that package and check on what it was. 

I’m hysterical for two reasons
1. I’m quite sure that my mother’s MiraLax addiction contributed to her kidney failure and 
2. The last time they gave me antifreeze for a laxative I ended up simultaneously vomiting and shitting my brains out for three hours straight while covered in a cold sweat unable to move off the toilet. 

I tried calling the doctor’s office to get the doctor on call to quickly prescribe me something that isn’t going to make me incredibly ill and nobody calls me back even though I call back every half hour but then when I check my phone, I see that somebody did call me back and it didn’t go through, which happens all the time because where I live I lose phone signal regularly, especially in the evening.

I’m supposed to drink the first batch of poison between 6 and 7 PM so by 6:45 when I haven’t heard from somebody, I feel despair, and resignation, and I accept my fate and the potential that I’m going to be madly sick all night and I mix up the antifreeze and consume it within 15 minutes. The first batch made me mildly nauseous. 

I had to take a second batch around 1 o’clock in the morning and that batch was somehow even more foul than the first batch and I did sit in the chair between dashes to the bathroom for three hours afterwards, clinging to the largest mixing bowl I have in the kitchen, but luckily I managed to not throw up this time around. I can tell the whole time that I am insanely dehydrated. My lips are sticking to my teeth and I’m not allowed to drink any water after 3 AM. It’s a long night. I didn’t even go upstairs to my bedroom until 4:30 when I showered so as not to be nastier than necessary when I moon the room full of people who are about to violate me with a camera. 

Anyways, at least Anne was a real hero she totally showed up for me. She isn’t a great driver though! Holy hell. On the way there I thought it might have something to do with driving at 5 o’clock in the morning before the sun came up but she wasn’t great on the way home either. I was checking my seat belt to make sure it was low and tight. I hope Anne has some very alert guardian angels looking out for her. 

When I got home I ate a big bowl of fruit salad and passed out in a chair. As soon as I hit send on this world’s longest text I’m going to give sweet pea another opportunity to poop (now she has been mysteriously poop-less since the first dose of meds hit her system. Money well spent! My girl needed them) and then I will hit the hay.  

I’ll try again tomorrow to high five myself in the mirror. Probably won’t be worse than the last day and a half.

goals

So, being the natural born worrier that I am I feel like I need to pinch every penny left to me from the life insurance the husband had on himself. I don't though. But I was thinking that if I got a terminal diagnosis and knew that I didn't have to worry about having savings for my future I would hire a bunch of people to get my work into the public eye as fast as possible, not because I want to be famous, or make the big bucks on my work, but because I want to leave this world thinking I brought a bit of joy to people with my own creativity.

When I was teaching we "celebrated" a certain children's book writer in every classroom of the school and even invited him to come to our school for a day. The teachers got to eat lunch with this author in the library and he could not have been a more delightful and charming older guy (keeping in mind I was about 28 at the time and I just did the math, he was probably in his early 60's) if he tried. He died in 2021 and left behind this legacy of so many children enjoying and exploring reading and art and maybe even some love for the world of science through the books which were his legacy. That's the kind of fame I would like to invite, the kind that warms the hearts and maybe even inspires children and the educators and parents who love them so much. 

So, here is what I would do:

1. Hire someone to create a series of stop motion films with a. the animals at night series b. the summer solstice series c. the daily moon practice
2. Hire an editor to help me assemble those photos into story books for children. So many options here: A. Animals acting out famous movie scenes/Children's poems, create a story of friendship between either the mice, fox babies or the deer and fox b. The daily Moon- both beautiful and also so many opportunities for learning about the moon
3. Create a limited edition of artist printed and bound books to sell to collectors
4. Create a limited edition of gorgeously printed (Platinum for animals? carbon for moon?) images for gallery type sales.
5. Self publish the books for the mass market and hire someone super aggressive to do an insane amount of local PR, leading to national coverage
6. Posters and prints for classrooms and/or children's room decorations

You know, when I put all down like this it really does not seem like such an insurmountable amount of time, effort or even money........ Hmmmmm

 

I am boring myself

Okay- I am definitely on the mend, just not 100% yet. Still full of snot, though I suspect a secondary sinus infection. Still coughing with positional changes, getting out bed, bending over etc... and still feeling blah, but not as blah as before. The good news is that my sense of taste is returning. I know this because I went to the store on Saturday and got some yogurt. On Saturday the yogurt had zero taste but I could feel the texture and greasiness of it so much more than usual and I had more yogurt this morning and I could taste the tanginess again. What a relief! I am excited to see what other tastes have returned. While I was sick the only taste I really had was salty and to even get that taste I had to go hardcore with some dry cured olives. Not that I am complaining, I love those olives, I just missed the other flavors.

Yesterday I finished a novel about a family of daughters and their experience during Nazi occupied France in WWII. Whoa........ too many frightening similarities to today's US political climate. Let's be honest, the Nazis are already in power. I am not looking forward to the food shortages. I figure I can outlast most with my special slo mo metabolism. 

This week I am going to start THROWING THINGS OUT. I have to. I can not continue to do nothing here and just sit on my but and wonder what I should do. I need to be making some forward movement. My goal is to lighten the load as much as possible for a future move. The big question is still WHERE WILL I GO? and I don't know the answer to that. Maybe NY state maybe Massachusetts. Will I stay here in the nutmeg state? I don't know because I am so NOT happy with new town (she says almost 14 years later and with admittedly zero effort to engage)  that I think it has colored my impression of the whole state. Honestly, I just don't want to be surrounded by shitty people anymore. I hate the entitled attitude that so many people with money have. In this neighborhood people can't even wait their turn at a 4 way stop sign. It's unbelievable. The first thing I am going to do when I get to wherever I am going next is to join up with some like minded political group. I can't sit back and wait for someone else to make a difference.

My goal for right now, as in the next couple of hours, is to get some paperwork done. So much freaking paper work to do when someone dies! What a crock of bullshit. Once this bullshittery is done my goal is to SIMPLIFY everything possible for the kids. When I die I'd like them to be thankful that things are left easier for them rather than harder. Will there even be a tomorrow? I know it's not guaranteed but it looks less likely to happen every single day. While the weather hasn't been crazy- last summer's draught (I assume this is why) was tough on all of our weeping trees and I have spent more time than I care to think about gathering up all if the little branches that have fallen off all winter long. Or... maybe it was the spotted lantern fly infestation that seemed to hit me hard enough for them to attack some of my more fun herbs...whatever it was it has taken a toll on my trees and between that and the insane wind we seem to be having half the days this winter I am not optimistic. What is up with this wind? I feel like I end the day with wind burned cheeks more often than not lately.

Everything is strange now. Not only am I single for the first time in 36 years, it is still not familiar to be along, but the whole world seems less familiar, more unsure and completely unpredictable every day. It would not surprise me if we were entering into a third world war except the US are on the wrong side this time. I wish the kids and I had some safe country to flee to. I'd leave in a heart beat.

holding

To be honest with you I knew from the second they saw something suspicious on my lung I KNEW that it was pneumonia. I did manage to locate some older X-rays that did not show what was suspicious on the current X-rays (so no scarring from previous bouts) so diagnosis: pneumonia. DUH. (naturally, have we met? I am the queen of getting pneumonia)  But anyways, just in case it is actually suspicous and not "just" pneumonia we are going to redo after a few weeks to make sure that nothing is wrong wrong, you know? 

Seriously, before the husband died I kept saying "I'm just trying to get through this without getting sick myself" because assholes love to tell you how many people they know who got  insert any random disease here as soon as the person they were caretaking died and then it was all down hill from there. Fuckers. I am gonna be so mad if I get something in the next decade. So mad. It feels like people were wishing it on me. Fuckers.

You wanna know what viral pneumonia feels like? Have you ever walked into a steam room and immediately thought to yourself: "Wow, the air is tight in here. I have to consciously breathe in here." That's basically what it feels like, along with the general ick feeling of being sick. I am taking my own advice though, because lord knows I am the first one to tell anyone else with pneumonia that it won't go away if you don't really rest, but I am feeling just enough better that I still feel sick but also so so so very bored out of my mind. 

I have been in such a do-nothing mode that when friends call I open the conversation with "I hope you feel like talking cause I don't have anything to say" I am boring myself. Boo Hoo.  

Also, can we go back to living in a world where someone answers the phone? Do they think that I don't know that their scratchy faux classical music/wind mix NOISE interrupted with ALL REPRESENTATIVES ARE BUSY PLEASE CONTINUE TO HOLD  FOR THE NEXT AVAILABLE REPRESENTATIVE is not 100% designed to be as annoying as it can possibly be to get me to hang up and give up? I know this to be true but what they don't know is that I take their offensive noise as a freaking challenge and I don't back down from that kind of bullshittery. I hate this world. Holding 31 minutes and counting.

Politics is interesting. I also happen to be listening to a novel about Nazi occupied France (You know, for shits and giggles) and holy hell. The parallels! It can get much worse folks.

And what is with this insane wind we have been having waaaay too often to go unnoticed? Is this a global warming thing or some other freak unrelated weather pattern? At least I didn't make the mistake of going to the beach instead of the woods today. It's always windiest at the beach. Sweet pea is not a wind fan either. So, while on the one hand we don't want to be crushed by a falling tree limb we also can't walk with sand blowing in our eyes and she is so close to the sand ...... Could my guardian angels please make my life easier for a while? Pleeeeaaase? Just little things like no wind, telling me where to live next for maximum happiness and also that winning lottery ticket would be nice. holding for 39 minutes now.

I was supposed to go to an event with my friend Ed the other night. Of course I didn't go because I didn't want to get Ed and the rest of the people sick, or pick up anything they had brewing while already on the mat with the Big P. So Ed and I talked instead. He is such a nice guy. His sibling recently came out as trans to him, which was really tough for him so we talked about it A LOT. I mean, Ed is in his 70's. His sibling was married with kids, so yeah, that is a lot of lifetime to have to wonder about. But Ed is a loving guy and he tried really hard to understand and now he is throwing himself into all sorts of advocacy and education groups for families of trans people. I told Ed I admired him and that I wanted to be more like him. Holding 43 minutes now.

I refuse to be reincarnated. REFUSE! Do you hear me? This is my last go around here in this hellscape and I am glad about it. 

It is ever so slightly possible that the hold music has gotten to me and that the best course of action for me to take right now would be to hit publish on this post and try to see if I can get some answers online instead of torturing myself with another 3/4 hour of hold noise. Holding 45 minutes.

suspicious

I am on hold waiting to see if there are other chest xrays out there that my doctor can compare to the "suspicious" one they took they took the other day that indicated something even though I am sure in my heart that I have mother fucking pneumonia again. It better be "just" pneumonia.

Not for nothing but my bitch mother continued to chain smoke despite the fact that yours truly had pneumonia at ages 2 and 10 and also had bronchitis 2-3 times per winter every single freaking winter her entire childhood until said mother also ended up with bronchitis and was unable to smoke without coughing until turning purple for so long that she was able to give it up with constant nagging by twelve year old me, who was also home with my own personal bronchitis. Then she became one of those obnoxious reformed smokers who couldn't stand being around smokers. (insert eye roll) 

But, if I end up with some fucking lung cancer because of her smoking I will round house kick her straight to hell the second I get to the afterlife. Just saying.

I am so tired of my fucked up childhood coming back to bite me.

Angry much? 

Why, Yes. Yes I am.

I’m in a synesthesia group. Recently sent this reply

My condolences for your grandparents. My grandmother practically raised me and I know how hard it is to lose someone so precious. Your letter has come through at just the right time for me. I lost my husband in October after a long decline and just a few days ago I was thinking about how, while in mourning, I am experiencing so much less of my synesthesia these days. In my case, voices and music represent so much sound and movement for me that it almost keeps me entertained all day. Right now, I feel as if I’ve got a horrible head cold and can barely taste anything and the whole world has become disappointingly bland. It compounds my grief in a way, since I enjoy my secret world of color and dancing sounds and I feel like I am unable to speak in my original language right now. I am hopeful that time will correct this interruption and as I find my way in my own new normal my experiences will return to what I have been familiar with all of my life.

nothing is the same as it was

The family room in this house is long so I have a sitting area in the center where we sit to watch television and two smaller chairs on the end where someone could sit and not be directly in front of the television. The windows face south so in the winter the low sun beams into the room making warm spots on the rug. For the past few winters I would often find myself sitting in the chair on the side of the room moving my feet along the rug so as to stay in the sun spot as the sun itself moved low across the sky and the warm sun beams crawled across the room. It's one of those cozy comfortable memories. The husband and I could be talking, the television was surely droning away in the background but my focus would be on the warm and cozy feeling of the sunspot on my feet and legs. I would sit in the chair, inching my feet along with the spot day dreaming about the family room window being a sliding glass door into a greenhouse where I could lay my whole person down and bask in the rays of the winter sun. 

I realized this week that we are half way through February and that I had not been lounging with my feet in the warm sunspot all winter. Maybe its because without the husband here the television is rarely on and when it is on I can tune in to something I want to watch. Maybe its because I am sitting around less. Maybe its because nothing is the same as it was. 

I think that is it. Nothing is the same as it was.

Even mowing the lawn isn't the same as it was. Nature thoughtfully provided me with a drought this summer, just at the right time for me to be unable to mow the lawn because I couldn't be away from the husband during his last 6 weeks. Thankfully the lawn didn't grow during that time. And when he left us, nature let go of the rains and the lawn needed to be mowed again. That was never the same. When the husband was here I loved mowing the lawn. I loved how ridiculous I felt sitting on my tractor mower getting the job done. I'd listen to music, or books or stand up comedy. The smells of the fresh cut lawn were heavenly, the challenges of a job well done, the feeling of accomplishment looking back at a neat well trimmed straight line job. I felt like I had discovered men's little secret- Mowing the lawn felt fantastic. It was a great way to spend some time outside on a summer's day. The whole process from start to finish had been such a little treasure of an inside joke/joyful chore for me to do the past 5 or so years. Then came the few times I mowed after the husband passed. I couldn't wait to finish. I didn't want to be there. I wasn't laughing at the thought of my city girl self sitting on my tractor mower. I didn't care if my lines were straight or my spacing turned out perfect. There were times when my headphones lost connection and I didn't notice the silence. Did it even smell like fresh cut grass anymore? I couldn't tell. It wasn't the same anymore. 

Nothing is the same as it was.

TISMF

Guys. I wanna share something with you. I have been in a 10 year “friendship“ with a woman who is a complete narcissist. (Roscoe can vouch for that) A couple years ago we started hanging out with this guy (because she pursued a friendship with him over my protests) who is a disaster in 1 million different ways and recently, they both betrayed our friendship by talking about me behind my back, and I decided to completely cut ties with both of them. I am absolutely fine with it. They can’t hurt me. I know that he is mentally ill and that she’s a horrible human being.

But anyway, every once in a while, she reaches out to me (because she knows what she lost and narcissists aren’t happy unless their victims are devastated which I am NOT) and I just didn’t pick up a phone call from her and this may sound ridiculous because I’m gonna turn 60 in a week but standing up for myself is such a big deal that I’m over here dancing in celebration that I didn’t pick up a call from a horrible person that I wasted 10 years hanging out with. Yay me

Also, today would have been my 34th wedding anniversary.

angry face emoji

I'm meeting with the attorney to work on settling the husband's estate today.

I hate every second of this process and it seems incredibly intrusive that the government needs to know every penny of whatever thing of value that he owned. Creepy creepy creepy.

The good news is that it's getting easier and easier for me to reach out and ask people for help. Also, I was forced to comb through some mail ISO some forms that did not arrive but I did find a couple of surprise checks! Yay money.

TISMF

Well, the weird smelling salmon I prepared and ate last night didn’t kill me. I realized that about 4 o’clock today that it didn’t make me sick or anything so I don’t know what that smell was about. The big question for right now is…. Do I eat the leftovers or should I just throw them away?  
Probably gonna toss them. It’s garbage night. 

Also, I spent about 2 1/2 hours snowblowing and shoveling the driveway this morning and then I took sweet pea out for a walk later in the afternoon and I am so tired now that I can barely move. I was going to make all this Super Bowl food like chili and chicken wings but I’m too tired. Luckily all the meat is frozen. I’ll probably just make it during the week. I might have to eat a gluten-free bagel for dinner (with non-dairy margarine.). I can manage to toast something. Barely. 
Last night I dreamed about living in some kind of group situation that was raided. People’s pot was being taken because it was in the communal area and not their bedrooms. One of the weird robotic government agents cut open someone’s huge cactus and I was so worried about the cactus Josh left in my care. But I know where that comes from, I knocked it off the table the other day and I’m praying it’s fine. It seems fine but I don’t know how to evaluate a cactus. I’m just trying to keep it alive until he gets his degree and moves back. I don’t even want the responsibility of a house plant!! 
I was hoping that the husband would show up in my dreams and let me know if I am ever going to win the lottery or if I’m better off saving the few bucks here and there. Or… give me a new set of numbers!! Anything!! I want him to talk to me and not just be there. Dang. I even put a pad of paper next to the bed so I can write it down and not forget. 
I’m not watching the Super Bowl tonight. Might try to find a good movie or something.