clickmom

catch up

I rarely wear makeup anymore. Mostly because I am too weary from my life of worry to worry about how I look. However, today was an exception, as I was taking the husband to see yet another new specialist. And we all know, that the world treats a woman better of she has a bit of makeup on, nothing extreme, just a spot of concealer, a stripe of eye liner, some mascara.

And then, I forget I'm wearing makeup, and I look in the mirror for the first time (since the initial make up application at 7 this morning) at 4:40 this afternoon only to realize that I have been rubbing my eyes the entire day and the only thing left on my face is under eye smudges of what once was eyeliner and mascara. I wish I could call myself a hot mess, but alas, I'm just a plain and simple mess and I know it.

The latest doctor is another geneticist, and I have faith that she will look in all of the right places in an attempt to unravel the mystery of the rapidly failing husband. She did say that in the end it is possible that everything is the result of 2 decades of diabetic recklessness, but it looked like it has the possibility of something more. Let the blood letting begin! I was ready to drain the husband of at least a quart of testable blood, they felt it would be better to do this in stages, so they took a handful of blood vials for a preliminary round of testing (along with some pee) and now we have to wait months for all of the results to come in. And by months, I mean could be up to 5! Some tests might trickle in sooner, and the doctor said she'd call if anything legit showed up.

I'm not good at waiting.

If you're thinking of going to med school, maybe try being a geneticist, I am pretty sure there are openings in that field. 

There have been so many things that passed by which I thought to write about but couldn't muster the energy for. I'm functioning on a code necessary for sustaining life mode right now.

So, let's catch up. I did contact the two reviewers from the portfolio review- one said he'd talk to me next summer, the other said to send images, which I did but haven't seen them make it to the internet (his blog) yet. He didn't confirm that he got them, so I might shoot him an email some time soon, just to make sure.

Pal didn't make it for thanksgiving. I know Matt and Evan were both disappointed. Matt mostly because Pal is way more interesting than we are and Evan because Pal was going to make his signature pinch souffle which he writes on with cheese and was planning on topping his previous all time winner which said F*CK ISIS. Pal's husband has parkinson's. Which is just crazy for both me and Pal to be in such similar circumstances at the same time, so I was particularly looking forward to that kind of my life sucks-give me sympathy bonding, but it was not to be. If you don't know about parkinson's, it can be very up and down and the day before they went running to the doctor, so it would have been too much. 

But it was lovely to have all of my kiddies in one place and the table conversation was typical click family competition of who knows the most about any and everything (I just watch- they totally get this from their father) So it was lively to say the least.  Also, my turkey rocked. I did a 48 hour brine followed by a 24 dry out before cooking, then I cooked it half breast down - half breast up and it was the juiciest turkey I ever made.

Before thanksgiving was Josh's play. Naturally he was brilliant in his little part during which he stole the show for the last 5 minutes of the play, because he was only on stage for the last 5 minutes. Now, I know I am supposed to say this because I am his mom, but I swear to you that women who I don't know were stopping me on the street to tell me how brilliant he was. Also, both the husband and the wife who live across the street called me separately to share their fabulous impressions of my sweet little baby.  Commands the stage, comedic timing, true actor's presence..... those Moms didn't have to stop me because I didn't know who they were, and I'm not even sure how they knew who I was (other than Josh being my male clone) because as far as I am concerned I keep the lowest of profiles) but they did because Josh is THAT GOOD.

Also, someone recommended him for some sort of honors kid type program which sent us some flyers in the mail and I think I'm going to try to convince him to go to Yale for a 3 week theater camp next summer. I won't hold it against Yale that they rejected me (twice) they can still have the honor of educating my child. (For a hefty fee, but that's beside the point) 

The hair on sweet pea's nose grew back after a week of anti fungal cream followed by two weeks of antibiotics. I'm really glad it wasn't anything more serious.  Also, I'm really glad the hair grew back. I was uncomfortable just looking at her shiny nose skin! Also, I didn't want catch mange.

I can't think of any of the funny little things I thought to write about here. I'll try not slack off so much.

Hey Mitzy- Thanks for caring! 

 

Unpleased

This is Beast and sweet pea.  They are good friends. Today Beast ate a pile of poop and then sweet pea found an even fresher pile of poop to roll in. My nose determines the poop to be human. I don’t know why folks are suddenly pooping in the woods. The girls (dogs) earned themselves a spa morning. The kind where the attendant is brutal and angry and does an aggressive job. We took the girls to the do-it-yourself dog bathing pet store. I had to lather, scrub, and rinse sweet pea four times before the odor was undetectable. I am not pleased.  Also, I’m posting this from my phone and do not how to rotate the photo 

Sweet Pea in the rain

still a dog

I'm still floating on a cloud of happiness after the portfolio review. Seriously. I keep waiting for the sadness to creep back in, because before I left I walked around thinking to myself I am so sad, I can't believe I am so sad. But now that sadness is far enough away that I am still my regular old happy self. 

I'm frigging happy even though my knees and elbows are screaming out in pain. I think I know what the pain is all about. I think it's grains, as in processed, I have been eating fake food, as in fake gluten free baked goods and my joints are inflamed food. If it isn't the grains, its the sugars. What I can tell you here is that there is so inflammation happening in me right now that my shoulder snap knees are hot to the touch. SO, upon realizing the problem, do I immediately stop eating the suspect offending foods? Of course not, I gobble everything down and then once I have poured everything I shouldn't eat down my own personal garbage disposal (mouth) I will begin to eat a cleaner diet in hopes of not crying every time I walk down stairs. That day is tomorrow, and I will start my cleanse with a nice smoky bone broth, that I was going to put on the stove in the morning but just decided to put on the stove tonight instead. I'm a tad bit wary about cooking anything all night long as I sleep, but I really want to be able to drink some of the broth when I get back from my morning ritual of photographing/walking sweet pea.

Speaking of sweet pea, she had some kind of ugly looking bald patch on her nose, which I assumed was due to picking some infection up by cramming her nose into every single chipmunk hole in the park, or eating unspeakables off of the ground, and the vet did a skin scraping and found fungus and bacteria so I put an ointment on it and it got rid of the fungus so now she is on oral antibiotics and finally , 2 weeks later I think the hair is starting to regrow on her nose, Phew. I was going to love her to pieces no matter how awful she looked, but I am really glad it didn't have to get too bad before it got better. I was afraid she'd end up looking like a bear with a tan furless nose and black fur. 

first time victory

The portfolio review could not have been a more fabulous experience. In a nut shell, all 9 of my reviews were super positive, some reviewers suggested I add more work in (sexier, sadder and some with a varying point of view-I tend to shoot from the same vantage point) and some reviewers just only had positive things to say. They all complimented my images and  printing ability (Yay!, personal source of pride there) and even my paper choice. I heard things like. I usually don't like rag paper ever, but this is the perfect paper for this project. Nothing else would have worked so well. I was told by more than 1 reviewer that they had seen a lot of really bad printing on cheap paper. So, I scored again when I said that I prefer to do my own printing. Which is totally true! Trust no one! I can see that each person came to my work with their own perspective, just like we all carry our own baggage with us about everything else. Only one reviewer wasn't super thrilled with my work, she thought it wasn't resolved enough to show yet, so I showed her the work I did this summer instead and she got excited about that work. You see internet? I am a people pleaser.

When I had to fill out my preference list for reviewers I came very close to only requesting female reviewers. I've been feeling a bit sick and tired of men lately, especially when we see many doctors because I always feel a little undercurrent of doubt when I describe the husband. The husband is there acting like I'm all panicked and making shit up, and I'm being real and concerned. You know - you totally know that if I were the one on the exam table pretending that he was exaggerating everything that the response would be much different. Hell, if we switched places, they'd probably toss me into a wheel chair and put me directly into the old folks home where the husband belongs!! 

But, anyway, back to my story, I changed my mind at the last minute and tossed some men into my list and BOY am I glad I did!! Two of the men who reviewed me made me offers. I've heard back from one, and he said that if I hadn't heard from him by mid summer to shoot him a reminder!! Mid summer NEXT YEAR!!!!! This is gonna be hard. However, if I do get some exposure through this reviewer it will be a big deal. Fingers crossed. I want this!! 

Aside from getting tons of positivity from my reviewers I also hung out with some really nice photographers. It was great being surrounded by folks who like to talk about the same stuff that I do. It was an interesting mix of people from all ages and different levels of representation. Very international, all sorts of styles and subject matter. Very interesting. Tomorrow I will email all the different reviewers I saw because every single one of them told me I should because they'd like to help me find my way. I couldn't have asked for a better first time at the rodeo.