Inane Chatter

What I should do: study for my calculus midterm.  What I’m going to do: play on the internet and possibly watch TV.  Then?  Bed.  I have to go to Baltimore again for work tomorrow.  On the one hand, the work I’m doing in Baltimore is the best thing about my job.  On the other hand, I have to go to Baltimore.  It’s far.

I need more sleep.  Roxy was due for a seizure over the weekend, but she never had one.  This is good news (seizures are bad), but it means I’ve been watching her like a hawk when I’m home and I keep waking up at every random sound in the night, convinced it’s her.  I’m tired.  But she just licked my elbow and wagged her tail, so everything must be fine.

Update: I jinxed it.  She just had a seizure.  But at least it was before we went to bed.  (She’s fine.  Walking it off.)  I’ve been playing phone tag with the vet since yesterday.  She wants to talk about changing her medication.  (Roxy’s, not the vet’s, just so we’re clear.)  I’m all ears.

There is not enough caffeine in the world to make me alert today.  Roxy had a seizure last night (right on schedule – it’s been a week and a half), so we got to bed late, and then I got up at 5:15 and was out the door by 6:20 (for the third day in a row), which is clearly not early enough because I was trying to be in DC by 8 and it was 8:30 before I got there.  Traffic sucks.  And it was raining, which only makes traffic worse.  I stopped at Starbucks before I got on the highway, and then the barista handed me my coffee, and then she got this horrified look on her face (seriously, like the world was about to end) and said, “Oh no! I put TWO shots in your coffee!”  “How many are there normally?”  “Just one.”  “Don’t worry about it.  It might help.”  It didn’t.  I still had to sing along to the radio at the top of my lungs to stay awake on the GW Parkway.

Also, I think I’m over my usual Starbucks order.  It hasn’t come out right for weeks now.  Disappointing because when it’s right, it’s SO good.

Roxy eats mud.  I don’t know why, but she’s tearing up the lawn.  I keep meaning to ask the vet about it.  Or at least Dr. Google.  Tonight, John suggested I try to deter her.  He handed me a full water bowl.  I went out on the deck, he pointed the flashlight, and I dumped half the bowl on her head.  She hates that, but she came right back on the deck (she was ignoring me when I was calling her in because she couldn’t tear herself away from the mud).  This might work.  The spray bottle is probably a better tool than the water bowl, though.

And I’m not talking about the weather.  Sure, it’s cold, rainy, and gloomy, but I plan to stay inside most of the day, all cozy with the dogs.  No, John and I got up and got ready to go out (he’s heading to his parents’, I was going to run a couple of quick errands), but before we could leave (thankfully, really), Roxy had a seizure.  She’s been having them about one every week and a half or so, and I knew she was due for one this weekend.  That was one of the reasons I had planned to stay home with her rather than go to PA in the first place.  And maybe she did me a favor by getting it over with first thing – now I don’t have to worry about it every time I leave the house.  Not for another week and a half, anyway.  We (me and Roxy) spent about half an hour on the floor together, me holding her still, her drooling and panting on my right shoulder and arm.  I certainly won’t be going out in the clothes I was wearing, and that sweater might be a goner.

She’s partway back to herself now (she’s eating).  Once she recognizes her name, I’ll feel comfortable leaving.

“Now relax” should be banned from all dentists’ vocabularies.  They should get fined every time they’re caught saying it.  Sure, I’ll relax now that you’ve poked me in the cheek with a giant needle, shoved a giant rubbery tray thingy between my teeth to hold my mouth open, shined a light in my eyes, and started up the drill.  Totally relaxed, no problem, taking a nap.  (I wish I could have napped.)  It was awful.  All three hours of it.  (Would’ve been a FANTASTIC nap.)  My dentist is great and all, very nice, friendly staff, but that doesn’t mean I look forward to going.   (I know, I know – who does?)  And yesterday is why.

This morning I found Roxy in the bathroom with the door closed.  No idea how she got there.  I worked from home today, and around mid-morning, she had a seizure.  (She’s fine now.)  I usually keep a pretty close eye on her during her recovery phase (she rambles around the first floor, slobbering on everything, bumping into the walls, the furniture, getting stuck under the table – she tried to take a chair with her, legs first – and I try to keep her out of the water bowl, keep her from knocking things over, from slobbering on the books on the bottom shelves…the important stuff), but as she gets closer to normal, I start going back to other things.  I checked my email, realized I hadn’t heard her stumble into anything for a minute, and went looking.  Not in the dining room, not in the kitchen, not in the hall, not in the family room…but I could hear her breathing.  The kind of breathing she does when she’s head first into a wall and her nose is getting smushed.  (Happens a lot – I know that noise.  To her, people.  Happens to her. During recovery.  Geez.)  Followed the sound of her breathing, found her in the bathroom.  Behind the closed door, under the pedestal sink.  Maybe she needed some alone time, but I don’t understand how the door closed behind her.  She’s not that clever.  Certainly not in that state.  Wish she could tell me.

Roxy is mad at me because I’m making her wear a sock again.  I noticed last night that she was obsessively licking one of her rear paws, but there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with it when I checked it out, and it didn’t seem to be hurting her, so I left it alone.  Then this morning I heard the licking noise again (horrible noise), and when I got her head away from the paw, I could see that she’d managed to lick ALL OF THE FUR off two of her toes.  It’s kind of gross.  And again, except for the hairless part, nothing looks weird, nothing looks irritated, there’s nothing stuck in her paw….her nails could use a trim, but I’m fairly certain that’s not what’s bothering her.  So I wrestled her into a sock and used electrical tape to hold it on.  Now she’s pouting.

Riley is jealous because Roxy got to sit in my lap while I put the sock on her.  All Riley has ever wanted is to be a lap dog.  All 80 pounds of him.

Once again, the impetus behind my semi-quasi-half-assed (but still!) massive cleaning effort today is not the desire to live an uncluttered, streak-free, dog hair-free life.  Oh, no, I can live quite happily with clutter piled high and nose tracks on the windows, as evidenced by the state of the house.  I do have some pride though, and I refuse to allow someone – anyone (other than John) – to see the house like this.  Unless they helped put it that way.  And unless they’re in John’s band.  I don’t go to great lengths to clean up when the band comes over to rehearse.  Although maybe I should.  ANYway, I’m cleaning because we’re expecting a visitor this weekend.  Not just a visitor – a refugee fleeing the hurricane.  A refugee with cats!  Because cats shouldn’t have to fend for themselves in the middle of a hurricane.  Instead, they’ll have to fend for themselves in a house with dogs.  Honestly, I’m not sure which they’d prefer.  We’ll manage just fine.  Although based on the weather right now, it seems totally ridiculous to be planning for a hurricane.  It’s sunny, a little muggy, bright blue sky, fluffy white clouds that are not in the least bit intimidating…

Oh, speaking of intimidating, I passed a car yesterday (a dinky, dented, old Honda or something – not impressive (not that there’s anything wrong with Hondas – I’m just painting a picture)) with the license plate DOMN8U.  Really?  In that car?  Napoleon complex much?  It’s so aggressive and hateful.  Maybe I’m reading too much into it.

Update: My house will not be a haven for hurricane refugees after all.  But hey – it’s clean!  So I can enjoy that.  And I’ll see my refugee friend in a couple of weeks.  All is well.

All this rain means walking the dogs is out of the question.  So maybe it’s gloomy for them.  It’s been raining almost non-stop all day long.  Very good for the lawn.  I wish I could send some of this rain to Texas.  They need it.

Wait – it stopped.  Walking the dogs is back on the table.  Well, not literally.  I would ruin our pretty (expensive) dining room table if I walked the dogs on it.  And it wouldn’t be good exercise for them.  Not long enough.  Aaaaannnnd…that was dumb.  Moving on.

But not very far. Since I find myself incapable of writing anything anyone might want to read today, I’ll leave you with this video (courtesy of the The Daily What and Say OMG (I think that’s where the original came from)).  It’s only 2 minutes, and the payoff is totally worth the wait.

If you were a dog, would you want to be an outside dog or an inside dog?  A big dog or a little dog?  A dog with responsibilities or a pet without a care in the world?  I’m watching our two sleep the day away, and I’m just a teensy bit jealous.  Only a teensy bit.  I think they’re sleeping because they’re bored.  I’m not entertaining them.  (I’m working.  Clearly.)  I’m not sure I’d want to be a dog if it meant (as it must) giving up reading.  And talking.  Somebody asked me the other day if all this working from home is isolating.  I don’t feel particularly isolated.  I’m not talking as much as I would if I were in the office, but I don’t think I’m making up for it when John gets home.  (John may disagree.)  I don’t feel starved for human contact.  I talk to the dogs (although not as much as you might think), and I spend plenty of time emailing and calling work people for work stuff.  In fact, I think I spend too much time on that and not enough time on what I wanted to get done in the quiet of home.  Hey, if I turn into a dog, I won’t have to work. Unless I’m a working dog.  But working dogs always seem to enjoy their jobs, so maybe that would be okay.

Who can resist those beautiful brown eyes?

He’s reminding me that I should be paying attention to him who adores me and not so much to the computer.  I’ll be right there, Doggy-dog.

I love Tom and Lorenzo.  They make fun of people in the most delightful way.

That appears to be all I have to say today.  Oh, wait.

This week, from an I-was-better-about-doing-the-things-I-need-to-be-doing perspective, has been much better than last week.  Last week was all about keeping weird and stupid hours, not getting enough sleep, eating like a piggy little pig, and NOT EXERCISING AT ALL.  All week.  I didn’t feel so hot when I got to last weekend.  I felt downright disgusting.  And very very tired.  So I’ve been better this week.  Not perfect, no, but better.  About that stuff.  I haven’t pigged out (as much), I’ve done some sort of exercise every day since Sunday, and I’ve been getting closer to eight hours of sleep every night.  This week was MUCH worse for work, though.  But I’m not going to talk about that.  (I vented to Jess on my way home today, so I feel a little better.  Thanks, Jess!)

The other thing I feel better about?  Calculus.  I got my midterm grade back over the weekend.  I got a B.  That’ll do.  I thought I did better than that, but considering…everything, I can be happy with it.  I take my final next week.  I turned in my last quiz twenty minutes ago, so the final is all that’s left.  That feels good, but so does knowing I can still handle calculus.  After all this time.

Now what do I get to do?  Clean.  Clean like crazy, like the wind, like I’ve never cleaned before.  Because the house is a WRECK.  It looks like a tornado came through.  See for yourself:

This is what happens when we don't pick up the clutter for a couple of weeks. We just keep shoving it to the side.

Note the calculus paraphernalia and the books stacked all over the dining room table (because the giant annual used book sale I LOVE was last weekend and we just HAD to leave work early on Friday to go before they closed at 7pm that night because we were out of town the rest of the weekend) and the toilet paper, giant bottle of ibuprofen, and tons of mail scattered on the island.  And that’s just this room.

I know where I’m starting, though.  All those new books need to be shelved, and before they can be shelved, they have to be catalogued.  Hey, it’s gotta be done.  I might as well be the one to do it.

I woke up this morning a little crazy with anxiety.  The worst thing about it is that I woke up with a list of all the things I should be doing on a loop in my head, and then I froze.  I could have gotten up right then to get started on the list, but did I?  No, I stayed in bed.  Because I could put off all the hard things.  I do that all the time (procrastinate).   Of course, that gives me less time overall to get everything done, so all it really does is ratchet up the anxiety a little more.  Not exactly helpful behavior.

Instead, let’s a play a game (courtesy of Mom) called “What’s the worst that could happen?”

Anxiety Causing Thing #1: Quiz #4 for vector calculus and the midterm I have to take on Thursday

What’s the worst that could happen?  Well, I could get all the answers wrong on my quiz, but that doesn’t affect my grade (just makes my professor think I’m an idiot), so there isn’t anything to worry about there.  Of course, my performance on my quizzes is an indicator of my performance on the midterm, so if I don’t do well on my quizzes, I may not do well on my midterm.  And I could fail my midterm.  So what if I do?  I won’t have a very good grade in my calculus class.  That would be a blow to my ego (something I could survive), and it may put me on the road to failing this class.  What if I fail the class?  I’m taking it online at a community college because I need the prereq for grad school.  If I fail it, I’m out approximately $350.  If I fail it, I can retake it later.  Will I fail it?  Probably not.  I may not get an A.  I may not even get a B.  But I probably won’t fail.  I submitted my quiz this morning (confident that I got three out of four right), so that’s out of my hands, and I still have today, tomorrow, Wednesday, and part of Thursday to study for the midterm.  Breathe deep.

Anxiety Causing Thing #2: Work

What’s the worst that could happen?  I could get fired.  Or laid off.  Or whatever.  That could happen, but there’s nothing I can do about it (and there’s no immediate indication that it’s coming), so that’s not what’s making me edgy.  There’s nothing specific about work that’s bothering me.  No major deadlines, no one is asking me to do anything I’m not capable of, I don’t have any issues with any coworkers.  I just don’t like it.  I don’t want to come here every day.  (I know, whine whine whine, most people don’t actually like going to work.)  I want to do something with flexible hours where I can work from home and have more time for me.  The math that’s stressing me out is the first step in that direction, so this is more of a low-level, back-burner, always-bugging-me sort of thing that every once in a while jumps up and says, “Hey!  Loser!  Worry about me!”

Anxiety Causing Thing #3: Army Ten-Miler

Did I tell you about this?  A few weeks ago, John registered to run in the Army Ten-Miler this October, and I caved to the very mild peer pressure and registered with him.  So what’s the worst that could happen?  I’ll be so slow that the bus that picks up the slowpokes who aren’t going to finish in the required time will pick me up.  Humiliating.  I have 17 weeks to train for it.  I had more, but I didn’t use them.  I can’t procrastinate on this one, so every day I don’t start this training plan gets under my skin, and I didn’t run today.  Well, I kinda did.  I sprinted around the block (up the hills) a couple of times with the dogs this morning.  My math anxiety trumped my race anxiety this morning – I spent the extra time on my quiz.  (SuzRocks sent me a link to a half-marathon training plan.  I figure if I’m capable of running a half-marathon by the time I finish training, ten miles should seem easy.  Ish.  I just need to start the &^$* training plan.)

There are other things that bug me (there are always other things), but those are the three I woke up with this morning.  Peace, serenity, lots of gym time tonight, some studying…I’ve got it under control.

Happy thoughts!

We’ve had a stretch of beautiful weather this week.  It had to end sometime, and sometime started today.  Today was all gray and ominous, and it’s supposed to rain for most of the weekend.  Rain is good, but sunshine makes me happier.

The dogs need a walk before I head to the gym tonight, so I’m heading out the door.  We’ve been going on a lot more walks lately.  My theory is that the more I can wear them out on a leash, the less likely they’ll be to get all hyper in the yard and dig holes to get to the rabbits (the EVIL rabbits) mocking them from the other side of the fence.

Bunnies are bad news.  You think they’re all cute and cuddly and not a menace, but really, they’re out to get you.  And your baby trees.  You know that cute little crabapple tree John and I planted a couple of weeks ago?  It had little baby leaves and everything, and now it’s GONE.

I used to think rabbits looked like this:

All cute and innocent and nose-wriggly – but look a little closer….

If there are train tracks between you and this bunny, RUN!

…EVIL!  So clearly evil.  Turns out they’ve looked like this all along.  This explains the disappearance of the sunflowers John tried to plant for me a couple of years ago and my poor munched-on black-eyed susans.  It explains the death of our cute little baby crabapple tree, and it finally explains why Roxy goes airborne and tries to tear my arm out of its socket every time she spots a rabbit on our walks.  She’s always known they were evil and just couldn’t tell me.  Those rabbits aren’t just hungry – they’re out to get us.  Monty Python was on to something.  (Like that’s news.)

A few months ago, I made a donation to the Arbor Day Foundation, and they mailed me trees.  Trees by mail.  Trees by mail that fit in my mailbox.  Seriously tiny trees.  Sticks.  I’m going completely on faith that the twigs I pulled out of what looks like the plastic sleeve your newspaper gets delivered in when it’s raining will grow into trees.  We planted kindling in the ground.

It has leaves! It lives! I think it's a crabapple. And it's only four inches tall.

If you look carefully, you can see a stick inside that cage. That one might grow up to be a golden raintree, whatever that is.

Roxy likes to eat sticks, so I put fences around the 8 trees we planted in the backyard to try to keep her away. It's mostly working.

In other news, Candy completed a triathlon yesterday.  (She’s completely insane.  Awesomely insane.)  She swam 1.2 miles, biked 56 miles, and ran 13.1 miles yesterday, in under six hours (which is better than average because, of course, she’s better than average.  WAY better.).  Does this news inflame every competitive instinct I have?  If she can do it, I can do it?

Not really, no.  She’s wonderful (and batshit crazy, clearly), and I will leave the Ironman (which I’m sure is next on her to-do list) to her.

Corrupt orphans screwed with my computer last night.  For reals.  They were obviously upset with Michigan State Senator Bruce Caswell, who recently proposed that money set aside for clothes for Michigan’s foster children should only be spent at thrift stores like Salvation Army and Goodwill.  (Story here, courtesy of (and with commentary by) Nancy Nall.)

I’m not kidding about the corrupt orphans, though.  I tried to boot up my computer this morning, and it got stuck.  I called my handy live-in IT guy to fix it.  He helped those poor orphans out.  Very competent, that guy.  I think I’ll keep him around.

You should be so proud of me.  I just got back from a long walk with dogs and started dinner.  Dinner will only take ten minutes,  but I’m hungry NOW and I want to munch.  To graze.  To eat food high in calories and not good for me.  Like those candy-coated chocolate eggs that are my favorite Easter candy ever.  Or chips.  (Not as exciting, but STILL.  Chips.)  I resisted the urge and reached instead for – wait for it (this is where you should be proud of me) – baby carrots.

I’ll wait for the cheers and applause to die down.

Thank you.

Yes, instead of pounding down delightfully tasty treats with no nutritional value, I’m chomping on crunchy orange CUTE little carrots, chock full of vitamins and other healthy things.  They only occasionally remind me of toddler fingers.  Or my own thumbs.  Not at all disturbing.

And the yard.  Several, really, but there’s one that’s getting bigger along the fence line between our yard and one of the neighbor’s (the uphill side).  I just let Riley in, and he’s got dirt on his nose, on top of his head, and around one eye.  We should start calling him Patch.  That neighbor doesn’t have pets, so his yard is probably where all the rabbits live.  If we give the dogs enough time, they may soon have two yards to run around in.  I can’t believe we have a digging problem.  What do we have to do?  Fill the holes with rocks?  Fill the dogs’ heads with rocks?  Done.  They came that way.

Yesterday’s XKCD comic is hilarious.  And relevant, like I never am.

This is irrelevant, irreverent, and a little unbelievable.

And I’m off to read.  Haven’t been doing enough of that lately.

I had some major balance problems in my strength class last night.  I kept teetering over during lunges, and when we were doing push-ups on the balance ball (you lay on your stomach on the ball, put your hands on the floor, and walk yourself forward until the ball has rolled down to your shins and ankles), I rolled off three times in a row.  I wasn’t the only having problems, though.  The guy next to me tried to take out my knee with his weights when he rolled off during chest presses.  I forgave him; he looks like Jon Hamm.

Speaking of celebrity look-alikes (who are all around – it’s getting weird), I ran into young Stockard Channing again recently at work.  An eerie resemblance, at least in part because she’s not that young.  She’s like an alternate version of Stockard Channing – another way she could have looked if she’d aged in another direction.  I know exactly what I mean by that, but when I read it over, I don’t know exactly what that means.  In the same meeting, there was a woman who looked (and sounded) like Catherine Keener.  Maybe it WAS Catherine Keener!

To add to the weirdness in that building (I was downtown when I went to the meeting with all the celebrities), they have a public bathroom that – wait for it – actually smells good.  It smells like flowers, clearly an air freshener and not actual flowers, but it’s a nice air freshener that doesn’t seem to be just covering up bad smells.  I like that bathroom.  I don’t want to hang out in it or anything, but it’s my bathroom of choice before I hit the road to come home.

Oh, oh!  Wildlife sighting!  The dogs and I were jogging on the trail this evening, and I saw NINE DEER.  At once!  Just hanging out.  They saw us, but they didn’t run (which is why both of my arms are still attached to my body – I think if the deer had taken off, the dogs would have, too); they sort of ambled off into the woods, looking back at us over their shoulders.  Nine of them!  I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many deer in one place.

When I got home, I got a little lost in TV Tropes.  If you’ve never been there, be warned!  Don’t do it at work!  It can sometimes be hours before you come up for air.

It’s been a very exciting evening.

Roxy had a very strange episode last night.  It definitely goes into the seizure category, but it wasn’t like anything she’s ever done before.  She skipped the convulsion part and jumped straight to her recovery zone, where she wanders around the house and bumps into things for a while.  This time, though, she was skittish with us and she was halfway crouched down as she hurried from room to room.  It was weird.  She’s fine now.

In some strange way, I’m sure it led to the somewhat off-the-wall dream I had after finally going back to bed, involving an obstacle course/marathon through a city, in and out of houses and hotels and malls, through windows instead of doors, across bridges and boats and parks.  I was determined to beat my pal Jess, even though I knew she was better and faster than me in this event.  She was always just ahead of me, almost in arm’s reach.  The rest of the people running in the race were way behind us.  Because we’re awesome.

Riley usually doesn’t care about treats (unless it’s steak or fish or something irresistible like that), but tonight we’re only talking about a tortilla chip.  John offered it to him, and he slobbered all over it, but ultimately declined.  Walked away uninterested.  So John put the chip in Roxy’s bowl (she was outside).  A few minutes later, we heard a loud crunching sound coming from the other side of the island.  Unmistakable.  Roxy never knew what she missed.  And Riley may have developed a love for chips.

My brain has been buzzing all day, but only about work stuff, and I wish it would stop. I was asked to volunteer for some outside-normal-working-hours work, and that project finally started to need me, so work is reaching into my evening and weekend hours again. Thankfully, this particular project is due in two weeks, so the pain will be short-lived.

I have a desperate dog trying to crawl into my lap, making typing difficult. He’d climb into my skin with me if he could. Needy animal.  We’re going to try group meditation (me and the dog) and see if he’ll calm down once I’m fully relaxed.  Deep breaths, Riley. You can do it.