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February 26, 2006
so bored
Quick update...
Monday night started having contractions ten minutes apart.
Tuesday they got much worse at work. Went to the Dr. Got monitored and got a shot to stop contractions, which by the way hurt. Got sent home on bed rest. Went back to Dr. Thursday, got sent to the hospital for monitoring and an ultrsound. Was there until almost nine at night (from 3 in the afternoon). More bed rest. Now on pills to keep contractions at bay. Back to the Dr. tomorrow again.
Good news, baby is riding this out just fine so far and doing great. Ultrasound says he's 6 pounds 2 ounces right now - that's big (average at this stage is 5 pounds). He's not due for 5 more weeks but we think he'll be here in two to three depending on his lung development.
Okay, I'm supposed to only get up to go to the bathroom, so I have to get back to bed now. Miss you guys!
Posted by bugg at 08:56 AM | Comments (5)
February 17, 2006
think before you speak
I can't stopp giggling.
I just called the community center pool near our house to find out if they have open swim on the weekends and how much it costs.
Instead of getting a live person I got a lovely pre-recorded phone message. It was your generic, run-of-the-mill message until the very end when they say their cheery little tag line. I almost choked I laughed so hard. The woman actually said in the sun shiniest voice possible -
And remember, if you're not wet, we're not happy.
That is one full service community center.
Posted by bugg at 11:06 AM | Comments (3)
February 15, 2006
the hounds of hell
I have had an almost life long fear of German Shepard. It seemed quite rational until recently. Here’s some background.
When I was a little girl my cousin had a German Shepard puppy. We were visiting from Wisconsin and I was allowed to take the dog for a walk. My mom and aunt followed behind me to keep an eye on me because my mother was afraid the dog was too strong for me to keep control. I hate it when she is right.
I had wrapped the leash several times around my wrist and was keeping up with the dog just fine until it saw a cat and decided to have a snack. It took off down the street dragging me along the sidewalk behind him. I couldn’t let go because of the stupid leash being wrapped around my wrist so many times. By the time the dog stopped running I had a lovely road rash up the entire right side of my body. I still have scars from it. That moment started the ball in motion.
My other aunt and uncle had German Shepard guard dogs that they kept at their business. They kept one of the dogs at their house too. When we would visit them they would lock the dog in the basement because it seemed quite vicious. Now mind you, I never once saw the dog. It was always in the basement when we were there so I just assumed it was always down there because it was evil. It never occurred to me that it saw the light of day after we left. The door to the basement was in their kitchen and I remember being a very little girl and having the dog lunge at the door ferociously barking, clawing and scraping - trying to get me as I would walked by. I would scoot by quickly as possible terrified by what I assumed was a trained killer, foaming at the mouth, lusting for small child blood – the hound of hell. That perception coupled with my obscure fear of basements turned this dog into a beast of mythic proportion.
When I was about 17 the dog finally died. When we visited their house afterward, I couldn’t help myself, I had to open the basement door – or the gate to hell. The door was one of those hollow wood doors and there was a huge hole where the dog had scratched right through the first layer of wood and had come quite close to penetrating the outer layer. It sent a shiver up my spine knowing that he had come so close to escaping – to kill me. I closed the door soundly and never looked back.
My fear of the German Shepard had been soundly planted and I would just about shrivel up and die upon encountering one. Until several months ago when for some reason my mother and I were discussing dogs and the topic of the killer Shepard came up.
My mother didn’t understand my fear at all. I gently reminded her of the dog that had dragged me down the street, which she had all but forgotten. She seemed to empathize and then asked me what else could have made me so afraid of this particular breed of dog when I love animals so much. So I said Aunt Sonjia and Uncle Tom’s German Shepard. She asked – The ones they kept at their business? You never even saw any of them.
I replied rather snappishly – No, of course not. The one they had at home. The one they locked in the basement. God, how could you forget that creepy thing?
My mother laughed outright at me.
I was incensed – What is so funny? I demanded to know.
That thing was vicious.
This made her laugh even harder. I was getting more and more angry and told her to stop laughing at me and tell me why this was so damn funny to her.
Apparently it is funny because the hound from hell, the murdering beast was actually a very hyper active, annoying, yappy – Beagle. They only locked him the basement when we came over because he was such a pest.
So, it looks like I have actually been afraid of Beagles for the last 20 some years.
Savage beasts!
Posted by bugg at 02:09 PM | Comments (5)
February 14, 2006
full circle
It has been a rough weekend.
Little Bear came down with the crud and is not much fun to be around. There is much coughing, sneezing, crying and whining to be had.
Out of the blue we got a call saying that his hippatherapy program is being canceled, immediately. Thankfully I had him on the waiting list for the other place that has that service so he will start there very soon but it still sucks.
On Thursday, my mom's sister had to go into the hospital because she is becoming combative from Alzheimer's, like my dad did near the end. Since she is the family outcast and since I live closest to her, I have become the main contact for her Dr's and her husband, who is, I'm sure, a very nice guy (never met him) but he's not mentally stable. They are quite a match. They are the kind of people who have had such crappy lives that you always feel better about your own life. Tragic really.
On Saturday, my mom called to tell me that my uncle Joe (dad's oldest brother and last of the siblings) is being moved into a nursing home.
And finally, my mom's youngest sister, my Godmother, passed away yesterday morning. She had been fighting cancer for the last four years. With only about 6 weeks left in this pregnancy, I can't even fly to Michigan for the funeral. She had three sons and always wanted a daughter, so she treated me like her own. She was so kind, funny and fierce. I will really miss her.
I stopped at Target yesterday on the way home to pick up some cards. I bought an anniversary card for Grumpy's grandparents, Valentine's for my boys, a wedding card for my friend Laura who is getting married this weekend, a birthday card for Bunny, and a condolence card for my uncle.
I laughed as I wrote in the cards to bunny and the boys and smiled while I wrote a note to Laura and Nana and Papa and cried as I wrote to my uncle. It's funny how life goes on anyway.
Posted by bugg at 09:09 AM | Comments (4)
February 07, 2006
flush it or drink it
The first 6 months of my freshman year at WMU were awful. I had never shared a room before and I hated it with a passion. I had only shared a bathroom with my brother and he had gone off to college 5 years before me, then we moved to Michigan, leaving him in Ohio. For five years, I pretty much lived like an only child. Now not only did I have to share a room with another girl but I had two suite mates and the four of us shared a bathroom that resembled a nasty locker room. It was gross. It was galley style, with a shower stall, two sinks and one toilet, which had no privacy door! For someone as bathroom sensitive as I am, this was complete torture.
My suite mates were decent enough. Angie was a very spoiled girl from Flushing and her roommate Laurie was her best friend from high school. I don’t know how they ever became friends. Angie was rich, spoiled and yet, still kind and funny. She had the same boyfriend, John, all through high school and I hear they eventually got married. Laurie was the poor girl with a single mom, who drove a school bus. She was kind of slutty and ended up having problems with alcohol and drugs. Lots of drama.
Then there was my roommate, Jen. She was from a really tiny town way up north in Michigan so she was a wee bit of a podunk (you know - backassward). She was weird from the get go. She talked me into buying this horrendous loft for our beds so we could have more space – ha. The loft was a giant piece of crap. It was severely wobbly and it was so tall that you had to climb up your dresser to get into it. To top it all off, you couldn’t sit up all the way because you were only about 15 inches from the ceiling. You could barely sleep on your side. It was claustrophobic and horrible.
Aside from being a nerdy fool, she was gross in a handful of other ways. Most disturbing to me and my suitemates was the fact that she never, and I do mean NEVER, flushed the toilet. That is nasty. Also, she never changed her nasty orange sheets once during the entire time I lived with her and her boyfriend (Shaggy from Scooby Doo incarnate) came down from MSU almost every weekend and they would lock me out of the room so they could do things that I believe require the sheets to be washed, twice if you ever saw them. Goons in love.
She drove me bat shit crazy. We couldn’t stand each other and she moved out after the first semester and I finally got a decent, normal roommate who actually flushed the toilet. I never heard from Jen again after that year. Good riddance. That is until today when I got the following email forwarded to me from my brother….
Subject: Are you Bug’s brother?
Hi, I was wondering if you are Bug’s brother? I was her roommate our freshman year at Western Michigan University. If you are, and she is interested in contacting me, could you please forward this email to her?
Thank you very much,
Jennifer, I eventually married Shaggy from Scooby-Doo
Apparently, she lives in the same city where my brother is a professor at the local university and we have an unusual last name so she found him quite easily. I’ve told several co-workers this story and they have all said, are you going to contact her? My reply was HELL NO, but I certainly will be blogging about it.
Posted by bugg at 12:46 PM | Comments (5)
February 02, 2006
sick and twisted
N is for Neville who died of ennui.
If you are a sick little moppet like me you have probably already heard of Edward Gorey, but just in case you haven't, you must find and buy his books. I especially love The Gashlycrumb Tinies
My favorite is Neville, poor Neville.
Posted by bugg at 09:44 AM | Comments (2)