ew

No one warned me that could happen

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I anticipated smelly poopy diapers  (and the smellier ones still to come) and diaper blowouts and getting peed on.  I anticipated (to a certain extent) having days where I can’t make it into the shower and everything I’m wearing is something I wore the day before and then slept in AND has spit-up on it.  I did NOT anticipate the baby spitting up on me WHILE NURSING and then getting squirmy-yelly-mad when I insist on a 20-second break to mop us both up.  Ew, baby.  I know you ate that once, but it’s not better the second time around.

(See what I did there, Mom and Dad?  His first word isn’t destined to be “gross”.)

The nosebleed that messed up my morning

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Most mornings, we get up early, go to the gym, work all morning, and then I go for a walk mid-day.  Once it gets and stays hot, I’ll probably switch the order so I can walk when it’s comparatively cooler and hit the air-conditioned gym in the mid-day heat, but for the last couple of months, this schedule has been working.

Today should have been no different, but my nose had other thoughts.  I wasn’t moving all that quickly, and John was planning to stop working early to fly, so he headed off to the gym without me.  I figured I’d catch up and meet him there, but then I blew my nose and now I have to clean up a crime scene.  Okay, fine, that’s not true.  No crime scene.  But plenty of bloody kleenex.  And it took FOREVER to stop.  Like, more than half an hour.  I had to google what to do because I couldn’t remember if I should tilt my head back or forward.  I eventually just sat in front of my laptop, doing work with one hand (I figured I’d start early so I can take off late morning to make up the missed workout) with my head tilted forward (thank you, Google) while using the other hand to pinch my nose shut, periodically switching out kleenex.  Uncomfortable, annoying, and kind of gross.

I don’t think I was ever prone to nosebleeds.  I can only remember two.  The more recent was on my first deployment, sometime in the second half of 2002.  Not exactly recent.  We were in the Persian Gulf, so I assume it was the inevitable result of months of hot, dry air.  The issue wasn’t that it happened, but that it happened right as the general quarters alarm sounded, and I was trying to figure out how to stop the bleeding and still get to my post quickly (in aft steering, which is the very very very back of the ship, several decks down and right at or maybe below the waterline).  (It was a drill, not the real thing, but still.)

The other one I can remember was in Louisville, maybe around age 10?  11?  Before we moved off the base, for sure.  I was out with Mrs. Campbell – no idea what our plans were or why it was just the two of us – and my nose started bleeding in the car.  My shirt got destroyed, so we went to the mall and she bought me a new one.  Maybe we were going to the mall anyway, but why would Mrs. Campbell have been taking me shopping?  Whatever.  I had to walk through the mall in a blood-soaked t-shirt, so there’s no chance I would forget that incident.

Made it!

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We’re here, in our new home, and the massive drive is over. That is a relief (even though it was fun and I didn’t have to work much and we had no responsibilities and we were seeing things we’ve never seen before and where was I going with this?), but the celebration will have to wait until the cleaning is done.  The big rooms are all okay (bedrooms, living room, dining room), but the other rooms are gross. Both bathrooms are grimy and the kitchen is grimy and greasy. Every surface in the kitchen, including drawers and cabinets, is greasy and vaguely yellow. The crew that was in here painting when we saw the place a month ago cleaned up after themselves, but no one cleaned up after the previous tenant.

Wednesday night, we got in after dark, did a quick tour and unloaded the car, walked to dinner, and dropped by CVS for some cleaning stuff. Then we spent the next two hours on the bathrooms so we could shower before sleeping.  Today (Thursday), I worked most of the day, and John spent the afternoon de-griming the kitchen. New appliances, but it looks like the previous tenant spent his three years deep-frying everything he ate.  When I finished working, we headed to the nearest Target (in Seekonk, which in my head sounds an awful lot like a donkey’s heeHAW) to buy the stuff CVS doesn’t carry, like a mop, a bucket, a broom, and some heavier duty cleaning stuff.

At least the house is empty. This would be a whole lot harder with our stuff in it.  And the weather is lovely!  It’s not all bad.

Mostly not-good smells

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My nose was more in tune with my surroundings today, probably as a precursor to the allergies I can see waiting in the wings.

In my kitchen, there are banana peels in the trash can.  I love bananas, but only while I’m eating them.  I don’t want to smell them before or after and heaven help the person who brings a banana into my car.  I’ve got two days’ worth of coffee grounds in the trash, too, but they seem to be losing the odor battle.

Also in the kitchen, in the early afternoon, there’s occasionally the smell of tuna.  It’s awful.  John has been making tuna salad for lunch nearly every day, and I know he rinses out the can even before he eats, but I think some days the tuna water doesn’t make it all the way down the drain right away.  Ugh.

In yoga today, the woman next to me was wearing a light perfume.  It was vaguely flowery, but still very much a perfume, and it was too much for an hour supposed to be spent in deep breathing.

The great outdoors tried to make it all up to me.  It’s spring, trees are blossoming, and people are doing yardwork.  The combination of some fragrant flower, newly cut grass, and the gas mower doing the cutting smelled fantastic.  I’d buy a candle that smelled like that.

Outbreak

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On my way out of the office, I sneezed as I stepped off the elevator.  My eyes watered, and my nose tickled because I was suppressing a second sneeze, and I could swear people were looking at me like I was Patient Zero.  Dudes, it’s allergy season!  Besides, I didn’t sneeze ON you.  I didn’t even sneeze AT you.  Maybe I should have.  Next time.  Watch out, starers.  I’m coming for you.

Slowly, with lots of wheezing and sniffling.

Like a zombie.

And just as terrifying.

Bad end to a long day

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After a somewhat stressful day, I had a long drive home (in a good way – it was calming, not frustrating), and I was already to relax for the evening until I moved to get out of the car.  That’s when I realized I must have stepped in gum in the garage downtown, because my left shoe was practically glued to the rubber floor mat.  Gross gross gross ew EW.

I slipped my shoe off and left it on the front porch, went inside, and googled how to get rid of gum.  No time to waste!  It has been a LONG time since I had to figure that out.  WD-40 worked like a charm on my floor mat (Let it sit for a minute or two, then use a paper towel to wipe it away.  Repeat as needed.  I only had to do it twice.), but I’m still waiting to see how my shoe remedy will work.  I wrapped it in a plastic bag, pressing the plastic into the gum, and put it in the freezer.  Supposedly, the gum will come off with the plastic bag.  We’ll see.

To add insult to injury, while I was outside cleaning my floor mat, I got three (THREE!) mosquito bites.  Because mosquitoes are the devil.

Update: The plastic bag thing didn’t work at all.  Stupid gum.

I won’t promise not to post pictures, but I’ll give you fair warning first. And there will be no pictures this time.

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My toe is infected.  Left big toe.  It doesn’t hurt (it hurt a ton on Tuesday, less on Wednesday, and not all now), but the toenail is lifted away from the toe a little, and apparently it’s gross underneath.  (According to John.  I don’t bend that way, so I can’t see.)  The doctor says I’m going to lose the nail, which is also gross, but at least it’s delayed grossness.  Right now, from my point of view and most of the rest of the world’s, my toenail is still attached, looks normal, and is a pretty cotton-candy pink.  How did it happen?  No idea.  I wish I knew so I could avoid whatever caused it.  The doctor asked me if I run, I said yes, and she shrugged and said it happens.  Not helpful.  Also ew.

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