Month: April 2010

It’s early and I have some free time

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Sometime last month I installed a widget to track blog stats, and since then I’ve gotten a little obsessive.  Which is completely ridiculous, since my highest views-per-day count is only 49, and that was unusual.  This is not a high-traffic site.  🙂  But I like to watch the search terms that bring people here, and in the last week or so, quite a large number of people (comparatively speaking) have been coming here from a search for “bernese mountain dog puppies”.  One time (ONE TIME!) I posted a picture of some adorable puppies that happened to be Bernese Mountain Dogs (because, let’s face it, they are the cutest puppies), and now all these people hoping for a Bernese Mountain Dog site are disappointed.  Sorry, people.  But they came!  Maybe some will stay.

This morning’s class is supposed to start at 8:30.  It’s 8:18, and I haven’t seen a single person.  Usually there’s at least one person who comes early.  Besides me.  I have to be early.

Whoops.  I was just plunged into darkness.  The lights in this room are motion-sensitive, and I guess one person typing in the back of the room doesn’t create enough motion to keep them on.

Hey!  There’s my one early person.  Time to stop playing.

Metro does not make my commute shorter

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With the nuclear summit going on in DC today and tomorrow, I decided to avoid the road closures and additional delays by taking the metro to work.  I drove to one of the western-most stations with a parking lot, left the car there, and took the train in.  It was kind of nice to let someone else be in charge of the actual driving, but since it added a half hour to my commute (each way), I don’t think I’ll be doing this regularly.  And today was a light traffic day, according to the news.  It seems everyone took the opportunity to work from home.  Wish I could have done that.  Kind of impossible with my job right now, though.

I got home around 6 and spent a very pleasant half-hour or so hanging out in the backyard with the dogs.  Riley actually fetched the ball.  Only three times, but still.  Then he decided that he’d be most comfortable stretched out on top of me, so I fought him for blanket space until I gave up and went inside.

I have no interesting thoughts tonight. Here’s what’s going through my mind (word for word, practically):

I’m SO tired.  Go to bed.  Why are you still up?  Don’t you have to get up early?  Again?  So go already.  Stop typing.  Why does the dining room look so clean?  Oh, John swept.  Man, that makes quite a difference.  I bet if I dusted it would look even better.  “Hey soul sister, ain’t that mister mister on the radio, stereo….” Ohmygod shut up already and go to bed.

We can thank Spokeit for putting the Train song in my head, although lately that hasn’t been hard.  I hear it everywhere, and while it seems like it’s in danger of being overplayed, I still like it.  But “shut up already and go to bed” is the part I’m going to listen to, so good night.

Collapsing now

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You know, I didn’t run 10 miles today, but I’m completely exhausted.  Getting up at 5:20 on a Sunday morning is not natural.  It’s evil.  But it was a good day.  Beautiful morning, once the sun came up.  John did great, beating his time from the Army 10-miler by 4 minutes.  Come back tomorrow for more about today, including pictures.  Going to bed now.

Short Saturday post

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This is getting to be a habit.  The short posts on Saturdays, I mean.  We had a nice leisurely morning.  I ran six miles (takes me forever to do that) while John mowed the lawn.  I got back in time to help him pull up dandelions in the front yard.  Ate a quick breakfast, took a quick shower, and then we went to DC to pick up his race packet and have lunch.  DC was mobbed, of course, since it’s the weekend of the Cherry Blossom Festival, but we got a good parking space on the south side of the Mall, right at 12th St.  And then realized we had to walk to 4th and F to pick up the race packet.  Not the best planning.  Had lunch at Elephant and Castle (mobbed for lunch even though it was 2:30), and then headed home.  It was much later than we planned, but I guess that’s how it goes.  I went to Costco to pick up Roxy’s medicine and then bought new shoes from the Naturalizer outlet nearby.  I might still check out Nordstrom’s tomorrow since they carry Dansko and Sofft.  The Clarks outlet was disappointing.

A recap of my day is not the most exciting reading, but it’s all I can think of at the moment.  I’m tired and we’re getting up at 5:20 tomorrow morning.  I’m going to bed.

Oh, the cherry blossoms are all gone.  Not out here (there are lots of cherry trees still blooming around here), but in DC, they’re all green now.  I’m sure that’s a huge disappointment to the thousands of tourists in town this weekend.  It was a beautiful day, though, and DC looks great in spring.  The sky was almost a September blue.

Busy weekend ahead

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Eventful, at least.

Okay, you got me, there’s only one event, but I have things to do!

I spent most of today finding out what I’ll need to be able to do everything this weekend.  I got shoe recommendations from my friends online and found stores that carry those brands, I talked to the vet about how to switch Roxy’s medication correctly so we (hopefully) avoid seizures, I picked up the new prescription from the vet, and I figured out how we’re going to get to DC and where I’ll watch the race with Erik and Margaret (who I’ll be emailing soon) and where we’ll meet up with John again for Sunday’s Cherry Blossom 10-miler.  So tomorrow, I’ll buy shoes, John will do homework, we’ll pick up Roxy’s new medication, and we’ll run down to DC to pick up John’s race packet.  Quick trip.  And we’ll drive, of course, not run.  That’s for Sunday.  And then, we’ll get up absurdly early Sunday morning (so I’m sleeping in tomorrow, but I will run at some point during the day), drive to the nearest metro stop, metro in to the race, have a late breakfast with our friends, and come back and finish our Sunday at home.  Hopefully being lazy.  And at some point, we’ll mow the lawn.  And maybe mulch a flower bed or two.  Or not.  That doesn’t sound very lazy.

Pardon me while I announce what is obvious by now.  John is running in the Cherry Blossom 10-miler Sunday morning, so anyone who reads this and is in the area is welcome to join me, help cheer on John, and then have something to eat.  I wish you were all nearby.

John walked in the door just a couple of minutes ago, almost too tired to hug me hello, so I’ve started the rice and I have to go stir up my stir-fry.  He needs to eat well and get plenty of sleep for the next couple of days.  That should happen every day, for both of us, but you all know how hard it is to make that happen.  We’re better about the eating well.  Not so good about the sleep.

Somebody stole my sandwich!

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I wish I was kidding.  I mean, who does that?  I spent today and yesterday in a really nice new building in Crystal City, teaching a training class with a coworker for backup.  I brought my lunch yesterday (turkey sandwich and an apple), but I ended up getting something else at a deli downstairs.  Today, I didn’t bring anything, since I knew my lunch from yesterday would still be in the fridge.  I had a lot of work to do during the lunch break, so with about 20 minutes to go before class started up again, I went to the kitchen to grab my lunch.  Before I even left the kitchen, I looked in the bag and saw my apple, but no sandwich.  WTF?  I checked the fridge.  No sandwich in the fridge.  Who would steal a homemade turkey sandwich?  Maybe something from Subway, but a stranger wouldn’t know how I make a turkey sandwich.  What if I put something weird on it?  Or what if I had to take medicine with food and I’d mixed my mystery medicine in with my sandwich?  WHY WOULD SOMEONE STEAL MY SANDWICH?  Or why only the sandwich and not just throw the bag and apple away or something?  I don’t get it.  I can’t imagine stealing someone’s lunch like that.  Maybe if it was packaged, like a Smart Ones frozen meal or something.  But something homemade?  It wasn’t even exciting.  Turkey with mayo on bread.  How exotic.

So I had an apple for lunch.

I want a new drug

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My prediction about not getting a full night’s sleep last night came true, unfortunately.  Around 11pm, John nudged me awake because he heard Roxy start convulsing downstairs.  We rushed down there in time to get her seizure pillow (an old (and now disgusting) throw pillow) under her head.  John went to get stuff to clean up after her, and I sat down on the floor next to her to keep her head on the pillow and keep her flailing legs from driving her into a wall.  The seizure ended after 20 or 30 seconds, but her breathing was still really heavy (expected) and her legs still made occasional twitching motions, like she was trying to swim (she was on her side).  Within just a few seconds (maybe 10 or 15), she started convulsing again.  In only about 20 minutes, this happened again and again until she’d had a total of four, maybe five individual seizures, with those twitches and tremors in between each one.  At the start of the fourth one (or fifth – I couldn’t count that high last night), I left John with her and dashed upstairs to find my jeans and shoes.  If she can’t stop, the emergency vet is the only place to go.  After that last one, though, while I was on the phone with the emergency vet, she stopped.  We weren’t sure it was over, but after ten minutes or so, she got up and started her recovery routine (wander around the house and bump into things until she comes out of it).  The emergency vet suggested we bring her in, of course, but when I tried to get them to tell me what they could do, they couldn’t really say.  If she was convulsing and unable to stop, they could inject her with anti-seizure drugs, but only in that circumstance.  Otherwise, they’d just watch her and then call a neurologist in the morning.  We decided, since the seizures had stopped for the moment, that we could just watch her overnight and drop her at our normal vet in the morning(WAY more affordable) for observation during the day.  Which is what we did, and I’m glad, since she didn’t have any more seizures, I felt comfortable having her where I know they know her, and it only cost $23 for the day instead of the hundreds the emergency vet always charges.  Short story (too late, I know): she’s fine for now.  We did finally do a little more research into the cost of switching her medication to zonisamide, and here’s where Costco totally made my day.  Our vet had heard that Costco sold zonisamide for less money than other pharmacies (like CVS), so I finally called today.  We have several near us, so I picked one and called.  We’ll need 500 mg a day for Roxy (they come in 100mg capsules), so a month’s supply is 150 capsules.  The guy at the Costco pharmacy looked it up and told me it would cost about $30.  For 150 capsules.  My jaw dropped and the guy had to ask me if I was still there.  I voiced my disbelief (So formal.  🙂  I said, “Really?”), and he said that if we’re Costco members, it would only cost $27.  That was the first I’d heard that I don’t have to be a Costco member to use the pharmacy, but let’s not get sidetracked here.  I hung up the phone with the Costco guy and called CVS.  Maybe the medication came way down in price or something.  I asked CVS to price the same dosage, same number of capsules, and that pharmacist told me that 150 capsules of the generic brand would be $289.  To actually get the brand name, it would cost over $400. Seems a little unreal, right?  So I called a different Costco pharmacy.  The woman at this one got the same $30 price as the first Costco pharmacist, but agreed with me that it didn’t sound right.  She double- and triple-checked it, though, and came up with $30 as the price for 150 100mg capsules of zonisamide.  Roxy’s medication change just became affordable.  So now we have to figure how best to wean her off the phenobarbitol without an increase in the number, frequency, and intensity of her seizures.  But yay for Costco!

Also, yay for Curiosity!  Check out her award-winning stick-people drawings (here and here).  While I’m at it (finding good stuff online), I went through Steps 1 through 5 just reading this post. Of course, then there’s this.  Twisted and hilarious.

And now I really need to find something light to eat.  I’ve gone past really hungry and back into who needs food territory, but that doesn’t mean I should not eat at all.

Not as bad

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Today was not as bad as yesterday.  Different, certainly.  And I kind of forced it to be better.  The day still started too early, and I was still on my feet all day, but after I collapsed into a chair during our lunch break, my coworker brought my sandwich to me, unasked, so I could spend the entire break off my feet.  He’s a nice guy. I had already decided not to run today (SO hot outside), so that automatically freed up some time once I got home, but unfortunately, about an hour of it was taken up by work stuff that came up during my commute.  (It kinda sucks when your whole team is spread out across all four time zones.  We all rely on each other, and that means we have to be available when the guy in Seattle needs help (for example).)  I’d planned to take the dogs to the dog park, but by the time I was free to go, it was almost sunset (when the dog park closes).  So that was out.  I spent some time with them in the yard, but it’s not the same.  (For them.  It’s about the same for me.)  Anyway, I forced my day to be better by making sure I had time to myself (and I ordered Indian (my favorite) for dinner).  I thought I’d make it Internet time, but it turned into TV time instead.  I watched a couple of shows John has never been interested in.  He gave up on Flashforward after the third episode (I should have), and he never even started Cougar Town.  Stupid name, but I like the show.

I’m having DVR priority issues again.  Why does every show I want to see come on Tuesdays at 10?  We record Southland and The Good Wife every week, and we want to keep up with V, but it comes on at the same time.  So annoying.  We’ll have to resort to hulu.com for V, I guess.  (Yes, we watch a lot of TV.  Someday, I’ll list our shows by night they get recorded, which is a mostly meaningless piece of information to me.  I don’t care when it’s on.  I just want to make sure it gets recorded so we can watch it later.  The DVR is the greatest invention EVER.)

Anyway, it’s after nine and I need to head in the direction of bed.  Which reminds me…I’m expecting my sleep to be interrupted tonight.  John said Roxy had a seizure this morning before he left for work.  Normal length, and it was a cluster (one followed by another), and if she follows her pattern, she’s already a little overdue for the next one.   We’re still investigating switching her to a new medication.  We’re looking for other (cheaper) ways we can get it.

Oh, was that John’s car door?  He mentioned he might get out of class early tonight…

Yeah, not his car door.  A neighbor’s.  I’m tired and I need to go to bed, but I just started to browse through my regular sites and I miss having time to play on the Internet. Yes, I’ve said it before, and yes, I could have this evening if I’d skipped all the TV, but it’s too late now, and I’m tired.  So, Internet, I’m sorry I’m neglecting you.  Forgive me?

All I can do is complain

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This is a problem.  But I need to get it out of my system.  Feel free to skip this post.  EVERYTHING SUCKS.  That’s a little harsh.  LOTS OF THINGS SUCK.  I have to get up absurdly early (5am is absurdly early) to get to work, where I have to stand all day in dress shoes (I’m going shopping this weekend for better shoes), and the only time I have to run is in the evening, which sucks both because I ache from standing all day and because it’s been unseasonably warm these last few days, and running in the heat is NO FUN.  The weather will cool off around Friday, so I have that to look forward to.  But I didn’t get home until after 6, and I didn’t get back from my run until almost 8, so we only just finished dinner (it’s 8:45), and it’s basically time for me to go to bed (after I shower) so I can get up at 5am tomorrow and do it all over again.  THIS SUCKS.  And the alternative to the DC commute thing is to be out of town for weeks and weeks on end.  NOT OKAY.

There is one thing I can do to try to make things better, and that particular thing will start happening over the weekend.  And next week.  Soon.  I just don’t expect change to happen quickly.  UGH!

Well.  I feel better.  Thanks!

Stocking up on Easter candy

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John has a weakness for Cadbury Creme Eggs.  Since Easter candy started showing up in stores, I’ve bought a handful every week for him.  I figured today would be the last day to get any (and Wegman’s was, for once, a disappointment – no Easter candy in sight!), so after the grocery store, I headed to CVS to add a few more to the stockpile.  An employee met me at the door, directed me to the candy aisle, and then helped me find the last Cadbury display.  John owes that guy.  His stash of creme eggs should last him quite a while.

We watched Up last night.  Such a good movie.  I don’t know what took us so long to see it.  I need to add all Pixar movies to my birthday list.  We have a couple (Toy Story, The Incredibles – love The Incredibles), but I’d like to have the others.  We’re watching Inkheart right now.  Well, we were watching it, but we took a break ’cause John’s mom called.  I’d never heard of it, but we noticed it on HBO yesterday, and it has Paul Bettany in it (we like him), so we recorded it.  It’s…entertaining.  Not good.  Kinda dumb brain candy.  Paul Bettany’s good in it.  🙂  Huh.  I just looked it up at imdb.com and found out that the woman playing Brendan Fraser’s wife was Colin Firth’s girlfriend in Love Actually.  The one who cheats on him.  Hate her.  Who would cheat on Colin Firth?  She must be stupid.  (And fictional.  What’s your point?)

Roaming the Internet when I should be outside

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Thanks to this post at Three Word Chant! (punctuation theirs), I think I’ve found my new favorite place to go for a chuckle.  Check this one out.

I found that link because I’m in the middle of organizing my bookmarks.  Again.  (And that means I have to go to every single bookmarked site to see if I want to keep it.)  When I organized them last time, I put all the blogs I read in one folder, in alphabetical order.  When I have free time, I go through the list in order.  But I’ve had so little free time lately that I haven’t been getting far down the list, and I’ve inadvertently been missing some of the sites I used to read daily just because their names start with letters in the second half of the alphabet.  Then I feel bad for neglecting them because that reminds me of always being stuck at the back of the line (for lunch, for assemblies, for field trips) in the elementary school because my last name started with an S.  Now my last name starts with a B, but that hardly matters ’cause no one asks us to line up in alphabetical order anymore.  Anyway, I’m over that, but I don’t want to treat my favorite blogs the same way.  So now, my favorites are in a Daily Blog folder, separate from the rest.  Yes, I play favorites.  And I need to update my blogroll, but that will have to happen on a day that’s not so beautiful.  Because why am I inside?  It’s gorgeous out there!

I have to shower (ran six miles this morning – go me!) and then go to the library.  I need books on CD for my super-long commute (now that I’m not carpooling anymore).

Also, I am totally losing my mind.  There was something else I planned to write about, but I have NO idea what it was.

Lying to your kids and the dog park (not related)

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I went for a long run this morning – yeah, this morning.  It was awesome.  I don’t have to be downtown most Fridays, so I enjoyed sleeping until 6:30, running in the cool morning breeze, and watching the sun rise.  More like squinting ’cause the sun wasn’t high enough for the brim of my hat to block it.  But it was nice.  On my way back, while trudging up the hill to the house, I saw my across-the-street neighbors packing the trunk of their big SUV.  I asked (unnecessarily, ’cause duh) if they were going away for the weekend, or, after a glance at the overstuffed car, a year (like I can talk).  Mr. Neighbor, rather than half-shouting his response across the street like a normal person would, walked over to me and told me, in a low voice, that they’re taking the girls camping, but first, they’re going to surprise them with a day at King’s Dominion.  Now that is a very cool surprise.  And from the look on the teenager’s face as she put her stuff in the car, she’s going to be way happier about the day at the amusement park than the camping.

John got stuck in horrible traffic on his way home from work, so I took the dogs to the dog park around 6:30.  Riley had a wonderful time, as usual, and Roxy stuck to my heels like she was glued there, as usual.  I met a nice family who’d just adopted an adorable dog.  The dog is about a year and a half, a rescue, and the prettiest little thing.  She’s about Roxy’s size, black all over, with long, thick, golden retriever-ish fur.  They adopted her last Saturday and this was their first time with her at the dog park.  They (mother, grandmother, daughter, son) were all really nice.  I’d like to run into them again sometime.

Censoring myself

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I discarded a post that went into detail about the annoying verbal habits of a coworker of mine.  SO annoying.  But that’s the sort of thing that can get me in trouble, work-wise, and I decided not to post it.  I’m applying the lessons I learned from Dooce.  Who was in town yesterday, incidentally, because she was invited to participate in a forum on workplace flexibility at the White House.  She planned an informal get-together last night, and much as I would have loved to be there to meet all these people I’ve been chatting with, the timing didn’t work out for me.  Sad.

You know, it’s hard to avoid writing about work sometimes.  I just deleted a couple of sentences about John’s work situation.

Well, since I can’t manage to think about much else, I’m going to quit.  We watched an episode of Castle tonight, but it took nearly two hours to get through it.  We took turns pausing it to vent about the day.  We do feel better, though, and we were able to finish the episode.  (Oh no for Beckett!)   I love that show.