Monthly Archives: August 2008

Who’s in the Bathroom?

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For the last couple of mornings, Zack has tried to wake up in time to tell me bye. I always feel bad waking him up to say goodbye in the mornings. I hate being interrupted in my last few moments of sleep, and most mornings I walk out of the door at the same time his alarm is waking him up. I leave him notes instead of waking him up. (Oh, the joys of working different schedules.)

This morning I was ahead of schedule (once in a lifetime fabulous bed-head hair prevented the need for wetting/blow drying) and about to leave the house at 7:40 when I heard Zack get out of bed upstairs. “How sweet,” I thought, assuming that he was getting up 5 minutes early to catch me and give me a sleepy kiss. I turned around and walked up the stairs to meet him half way. At the top of the stairs, I noticed that Zack had made a pit-stop in the bathroom before coming downstairs. We are not the “keep the mystery” type of a couple, and often share the bathroom in the mornings.

Right before I opened the door, I remembered that SisterKaty had come home last night (as evidenced by the bowl of leftover stew in the sink) and she had brought friends (as evidenced by the 2nd and 3rd bowls of leftover stew in the sink), and as a boy became visible through the crack in the door, I realized, then AW CRAP. That the boy standing in the bathroom had a lot of hair on his head, dark hair, hair that was not thinning in any place at all, and that boy was NOT ZACK.

Luckily I had just peeked into the door; I hadn’t flung it open. Also lucky, Brad is a modest boy who doesn’t still go pee-pee with pants to the floor.

After I saw that it wasn’t Zack, I walked into the bedroom where Zack was still dozing. “Zack,” I said, “I heard you moving around up here, so I thought I’d come tell you bye.” That’s when he started looking at me like, um, Sarah, I am clearly NOT moving around. And I said, “But you’re not moving around. And that wasn’t you peeing in the bathroom, either. It was Brad. Love you! Bye.”

She’ll Call Me “Tia”

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Kate, pictured above being tickled by her mom, is getting cuter by the second.  I captured this on Friday night at an engagement party for a dear friend of the family.  

Zack and I spend a lot of time with family, as compared to the amount of time that we spend with “friends,” but I couldn’t be happier about that.  I lucked out: I have an awesome family of my own, and my family-in-law is the perfect ying to my family’s yang.  The balance is fantastic.  In fact, I think my family probably one of the most well balanced things in my life.  (A grain of salt: OMG AM I EVER UNBALANCED RIGHT NOW.)

Brag, brag, brag. 

Also, my nieces are infinitely adorable.  I totally win. 

Allergy Progress

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Well the good news is that the meds prescribed to me counteract my Zack allergy totally work.

The bad news is, they make me drowsy, irritable and totally miserable.

A whole dose made me a zombie.
A half dose made me a little sleepy and REALLY MAD.
Not taking it at all makes me itchy, but when I’m a miserable zombie it doesn’t matter that I don’t itch cause I don’t want anyone to touch me.
Crap.

Low Light Love

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I haven’t really taken my camera out for an all-day shooting experience yet, but right off the bat, I can say that I already love it.

My old camera, The Olympus Evolt E-500, treated me fantastically for the 2+ years that I worked with it, but it was slow to focus and snap an image whenever it was low light situation. This possibly could have been a result of the fact that I was just working with the in-camera pop-up flash, or because I never read the book and learned how to work the camera the way God and the Olympus Engineers intended. Either way, it would focus (or try to focus) and focus and never snap.  I can’t tell you how many pictures I missed because my camera and I couldn’t get our flash-act together.  The 40D has a no flash setting, allowing me to turn it off so it never bothers me.  Even with the no flash setting in moderate-to-low light (the area in which it was difficult, but not impossible, to take a picture with the olympus) the 40D shoots like a champ.  It responds beautifully to my commands and never misses a beat.

Yesterday I took the 40D into Katy’s room for some real tests.  Shooting in the DARK was impossible with the Olympus.  Katy’s room in the late afternoon is really dark.  The strange dimensions of the room (10′ X 27′, with barn-ish slanted ceilings) combined with the paint color make Katy’s room look something like one would imagine the inside of the body to look like.  Often I’ll go in there to borrow (steal) some shoes or a jacket, and feel like I’m diving into my own intestinal system.  There is just one window at the very end of the room. Here’s my point: it’s dark.  The same kind of DARK that was debilitating to the Olympus.  So with the lights off, I stumbled through her room taking pictures of anything and everything I could see well enough to focus on.  It was so dark that in most of the pictures, I was having to focus on the reflection of the light from the window in a teeny bit of glass, or plain out guessing on the focus spot.  By the time I was done shooting the room, I was jumping for joy.  With the simple use of some prop-it-up tri-pods, the Canon captured some really cool images.  Captured! Images! In the dark! Ah!

Zack looked at me a little funny when I was telling him about how exciting this was to me.  I guess he thought it was goofy because I also bought a flash over the weekend.  (I got a 430EX, I couldn’t justify getting the 580, when the 430 is all the flash I need, so if you’re a naysayer, HUSH. I love my flash and I don’t want to hear it.)  There was really no good reason for me to be taking 2″ exposures in the pitch black of Katy’s bedroom, cause I could have lit up that place like a Miami Christmas!  But I didn’t care about that. I did care that I wanted to take pictures in a dimly lit room, and so did my new camera.  

I love it when a plan comes together.

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In other news, the laziness that occurs between school sessions has officially settled upon me.  Other than tinkering about with my camera and making dinner with last night, I can officially say that I’ve done nothing productive with this week thus far.  Every day this week my one and only goal has been to go to the grocery store, and I have yet to accomplish that one measly task.  

This is especially shocking because I am so awesome at coming up with things that I HAVE TO BE DOING RIGHT NOW when I absolutely can not do them.  Last weekend I was staring down the nose of 4 tests, one of which was the nursing school equivalent of the SATs, and all I ever wanted to do was fold laundry, clean out every drawer in the house, bleach the grout in the bathtub and personally groom every animal in a 6 block radius.  I wanted to clean out and detail my car, mow the lawn, plant flower beds and get a haircut.  But I couldn’t. I had to sit there and write out 1,000 note cards.  So many note cards that even today there is a visible indention into my right pointer finger and thumb. 

But now?  Now that I have a week of freedom?  A week wherein I can do whatever I want to do and nobody can say, “Sarah, where is that on your priority list?” Now, I am sitting on my butt, drinking Middle Sister red wine and reading The Bell Jar.  And it is perfect.  The laundry might get done, and it might not.  The car will probably get cleaned out, but the grout probably won’t.  I don’t care.  This week is so fantastic because of its nothingness; I could not ask for anything better.  Not even perfect flower beds could top sitting here in a pair of Zack’s boxer shorts, not being at the grocery store.  I can always go to the store tomorrow.

On Being a Doggie Mom

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Yesterday I got up early with a long list of things to accomplish on my first whole day as a woman free-of-classes.

I discovered yesterday that Scout had outgrown her collar over the course of the 6 weeks that I was entirely enveloped in my AP2 class. It’s hard to imagine that it’s even possible for her to have outgrown her 16″ collar, since when I first got it, It wrapped around her neck almost twice. Zack and I had to burn 2 extra holes in it so that we could attach it around her teeny little neck. After the “Oh, my little puppy’s all grown up” shock subsided, I decided that I should take her with me to PetSmart this time to pick out her new collar, thus avoiding having to make multiple trips (due to my grossly underdeveloped neck-size guesstimating abilities).

Taking Scout to PetSmart with me was admittedly a questionable decision. First of all, we have already discussed the fact that I didn’t have a collar. In order to leash her up properly, I had to rig the leash around her neck and clip it to itself. Also, I hadn’t taken Scout anywhere that required social interaction nor have I required her to operate under the guise of proper social behavior in about 3 months. She was TOTALLY EXCITED ABOUT LIFE when she figured out that I was holding the leash not because I was cleaning the dining room, but because I was about to string it up into a pseudo-noose and take her OUTSIDE, OMG, HER FAVORITE PLACE EVER.

Of course, Immediately upon arrival to Petsmart, she hops out of the car and starts doing The Walk. Scout has a very distinctive walk that she does when she has to go to the bathroom. I’m not sure if it’s my awesome timing or hers, but it seems like pretty much every time I take that dog anywhere in the car, the moment she gets out she’s running around like a crazy dog screaming “WHERE IS THE CLOSEST AVAILABLE POTTY AREA? Because there were so many smells in the area though (likely because Scout is not the only dog that has these bathroom centric indecision issues), so she never went to the bathroom. Finally tired of her unproductive potty walk, I decided to just go inside.

I’ll just tell you right now, in case you think that I’m creating a slow built to the moment where Scout poops in the middle of PetSmart: Scout didn’t go to the bathroom in PetSmart. In fact, after some initial insanity upon walking into store, she was shockingly well behaved and easy to deal with. We headed straight for the collar isle, locked her down into a shiny new control device (of which I had to try 5 or 6 on, because as it turns out, I’m not any better at neck-size guessing than I was 8 months ago) and then she behaved like an angel. We ran into a 13 week old German Shepherd puppy whose owner wanted her socialized, so we socialized the hell outta that dog in the raw-hide isle for about 15 minutes.

…15 minutes during which I was practically chomping off my fingernails whole because, OH MY GOD. SHE HAS TO POOP. SHE IS GOING TO POOP ANY EVER-LOVING SECOND. POOP AND ROLL AROUND IN THE POOP WITH A STRANGER’S PUPPY. If there’s one thing I don’t want my dog to do, it’s poop in a retail environment in front of strangers. That’s just downright embarrassing.

On the way out the door, the clerk said, “do you mind if I give her a treat?” I said, “of course not! Go for it!” I can’t say ‘no’ to people. What I really wanted to say was, “NO! Bursting at the seams! Might die from poop poisoning! No more!” but it didn’t occur to me to say those things until she was already out from behind the counter, asking Scout to sit.

Enter: heart attack #36 for the day. HOLY CRAP. CLERK IS ASKING MY DOG TO PERFORM TRICKS OF WHICH SHE KNOWS EXACTLY THREE. DID NOT KNOW CLERK WAS GOING TO REQUIRE DOG TO BE AWESOME. SHIT.

Here is what my train of consciousness looked like during the 45 seconds of the clerk’s interaction with my dog:
SIT. COME ON SCOUT, DO IT.
phew. she sat. good. give her that treat. we gotta get outta here. she’s going to poop.
OH NO. SHE IS ASKING SCOUT TO SHAKE.
SHAAAKEEE DOOOG!
sigh of relief. okay. the dog performed. we’ll be fine as long as she doesn’t ask her to…
LAY DOWN! CRAP! SHE NEVER DOES THIS ONE. i look like a crappy dog owner. didn’t have a collar, don’t teach my dog any tricks, she’s bouncing all over the place COME ON DOG FOR THE LOVE, JUST LLLAAAYYY DDOOOWWWNNN.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh. Thank you, dog. Now let’s get outta here before they figure out that they just maxed out your trick capacity.

(My consciousness doesn’t properly capitalize.)

By the time we finally got out of the store, I was so flustered by her impromptu performance exam that I totally forgot she had to poop. The moment I let her out of the car, she bolted for some grass and let it fly. After she was done with her business, I hugged her hurry little collared neck, thanked her for her good behavior, and promised her I would never go so long without walking her ever again.

Selective Noticing

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Until 3 weeks ago, I operated under the general assumption that my earrings were highly visible to the general public. I have had an array of ear piercings for many, many years. My upper cartilage piercing has been with me for more than 10 years. My tragus (small flap of cartilage just in front of the ear canal) has been in my left ear since early in my college career. I got my conch (that’s the basin of your ear) pierced when I was still in college, as well.

I never intended to keep all my piercings forever. I knew that they were signs of my irreverent youth, and I was really okay with that. I got married with all my earrings in on purpose–displaying proudly the choices that I had made as a teenager and as a young adult. The trick is, I’d never really decided when I wanted to start the great elimination of the metal in my ears/face.

Zack and I talked about my eventual plans for removal early in our marriage. I mentioned once that perhaps I wouldn’t keep my earrings in for much longer. Zack was shocked, saying that no, I should leave them in. “How long do you expect me to keep my earrings?” I asked. “Well, always, I guess,” was his reply. I was really surprised; he’d never expressed any interest in them, nor fondness for them before. He said that he just thought of them as part of who I am, and that he didn’t imagine I’d ever want to remove them.

So as a result of my assumption, combined with that conversation, I was a little nervous when I decided to remove my upper cartilage and tragus piercings about three weeks ago. I cruised along for two weeks without anyone, not even Zack, noticing the lack of metal in my head. It wasn’t until last weekend when I was telling a 15 year-old friend of mine about how I removed them that Zack became aware of the situation. He hasn’t said anything about it since.

Supposing that he just wasn’t very sensitive to aesthetic changes, I brushed off the whole situation. I don’t really care that Zack hasn’t memorized my ears, especially because ears are not (by any stretch of the imagination) what is important in a marriage.

Then, the other day I walked into our bedroom after parting my hair on the left side instead of the right side and Zack promptly had a heart attack. WOAH! YOUR HAIR! IT IS DIFFERENT! WITH THE PART AND THE WOOOAAH! YOU NEVER DO IT LIKE THAT! OMGGGGG.

So what’s your excuse now, mister?! You notice that I part my ever-changing hair differently in .32 seconds, but you don’t notice my two most visible ear piercings have been removed until I point it out?

The only logical answer I can come up with is this: Months ago, Zack knew that I would want to do the opposite of whatever he said in regards to keeping/taking out my earrings. So, secretly he’s always had a vengeful hatred towards them and in order to get me to remove them, he said to keep them. Then when I did remove them, he celebrated privately, not saying anything to me to prevent any backtracking of the removal decision on my part.

IT IS THE ONLY POSSIBLE EXPLANATION.

baby steps towards healthy

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I’ve been eating a fantastically healthy breakfast this week, and It’s quickly become one of my favorite things.

It;’s Bear Naked Granola (fruit and nut flavor) and a low-fat, organic, vanilla yogurt parfait.  It is so outrageously delicious that if you had it yourself, you would never believe how good it is for you.  There are no preservatives, no  trans fats, no hydrogenated oils, no artificial flavors, no sodium and no high fructose corn syrup in the whole breakfast.  What it does have is: fiber, good calories, protein, calcium and iron.

Honestly, though, I can’t front like I am really eating it because it is so good for me.  I am eating this fantastic breakfast because it tastes good.

Just like the Coke that I’m washing it down with.

At Least I’m Not Allergic To Air Conditioning

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Turns out, I’m not crazy.

I am clinically allergic to my husband.  The whole truth is that I have not one but THREE sensitivities that come together to make Zack & Sarah snuggle time pretty difficult.  Now, because I have no filter and would have no idea where to stop with the details, and because Zack doesn’t really like it when I spell out those details for internet consumption, I’m just going to leave the details of the allergies out of it.  Suffice to say that it is both wonderful and miserable to be diagnosed as allergic to touching my husband; it’s wonderful because it’s not a mystery anymore and miserable because there is not a hard-and-fast cure for the particular allergies with with I am dealing.  I have a long road of medicine experimenting in front of me, (and testing!) which should start sometime after my finals are over.  The medicine that was prescribed as a starter-kit has a tendency to cause drowsiness, and I can’t risk drowsiness right now.  After finals are over and I can once again use my time for things that I want to do (sleeping, watching awesome reality TV, not writing note cards) I’ll delve into the meds and see what results I get.  Until then, I’m keeping the hydrocortisone cream with me at all times.

In other, less open-ended news, our upstairs air conditioner broke over the weekend.  Zack and I avoided the 95+ degree temperatures (and the sure death it would have caused) by moving our lives downstairs, where we slept on the air mattress in the living room for a few nights.  We would literally just run up the stairs for the minimal amount of time possible, grabbing whatever it was that we required from the inferno and darting immediately back down the stairs.   The most complicated part about having the upstairs air out, though, was the fact that the whole downstairs of our house has a very open floor plan.  Open floor plans aren’t very well tailored to two people who are living by two very different sleep schedules.  Zack was exhausted all weekend, and I was tippy-toeing around his various napping areas while trying to quietly memorize the roles that MHC Class 1 Proteins have in the T-Cell driven immune response.  It’s hard to memorize The Immune System under your breath. TRUST ME.  They fixed it on Monday, and I vowed to myself as I crawled into bed that night to never again take for granted any of the following: a.) doors, b.) my mattress or c.) being able to speak my flash cards out loud while pacing and eating chips.