Annabelle Speaks

A Cure For My Cranky: Meet Oliver

I don't know about you, but I find kids to be a great cure for a cranky day.  Meet Oliver, our friends' 5-month-old.  Have you ever seen a baby with better eyebrows?  HONESTLY.

Who wants their teeth done by the Marquis de Sade?

Despite the fact that I have the world's nicest and most gentle dentist, the first thing on my mind as my biannual cleaning approached was that dentist song from Little Shop of Horrors.  If the sound of dental instruments makes your skin crawl (as it does mine), might I suggest you don't Google that song and watch it on YouTube to refresh your memory of it?  That is a memory that need not be refreshed.  Trust me.  See?

GAH!  Sorry about that.  I couldn't help myself.

My dentist is nothing like that.  When I first went to see her last October (after a seven year break of no dentist appointments at all, such is my fear of dentists), she wasn't at all judgy or lecturey (those are totally words, shut up).  Hell, she all but followed me home she was so in love with me and my teeth and how awesome they were.

This time started out just as smooth.  I remembered to take a good dose of Xanax before the cleaning so as not to scar the poor dental hygienist with the non-stop full-body clenching that was the highlight of my last cleaning.  (THE SCRAPING NOISE.  I cannot deal with the scraping noise.)

But towards the end, it went a bit downhill.  I mentioned that I had been having a bit more sensitivity in one tooth than normal - mostly to cold, but also to pressure/chewing.  The pain-level I was describing wasn't concerning them, but they did a few cursory tests like blowing cool air on one tooth at a time, and when they hit the sensitive one I all but FLEW out of the chair.  The dentist and hygienist both disagreed with my assessment of "sensitivity" and put that right in the "pain" camp.  And that was "a lot more than a four on the pain scale of 1 to 10".  Who knew?  Anyway, after some x-rays and a few other tests it seems I have a fractured tooth.  Delightful.

Oddly, the level-one fix for this is not to do anything to the fractured tooth at all, but to grind down the opposing tooth so that it doesn't put pressure on the fractured one when I chew.  My question: don't I need the pointy bits on that opposing tooth?  Aren't those important?  It would seem not, as she sanded off what felt like half the tooth.  I go back in a week for a reevaluation to see if we need to do the level-two fix, which would be a crown on the tooth.  Just what I need - more dentist appointments.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go look at lolcats or something to get the images from the Little Shop of Horrors dentist out of my head.  Gah.

---------------------------------------------------------------

P.S. Anyone who lives in Chicago and is looking for a dentist, Dr. Lani Basco is made of all awesome things.  Seriously.

Banana Accessories (Not A Euphemism, I Swear)

I love Unclutterer for many reasons, but their Unitasker Wednesday feature is very near the top of the list.  There are some damn strange unitasker products out there.  A recent favorite was the Microwave French-Fry Maker because SERIOUSLY?  Who has that kind of space?  Craziness.

While neither of the unitasker items I found at my grocery store take up much space, they do raise the question, "Who thinks bananas are a complicated enough food to require multiple unitasker gadgets?"

Once upon a time, our hero, Mr. Unitasker Lover, was slaving over a hot stove room-temperature counter-top.  Whole SECONDS passed him by as he sliced up a banana for his morning cereal.  How much nicer my life would be if I didn't have to painstakingly slice off individual bites of banana!  It would save so much time if I could do this all at once!

SOLUTION:

Our hero's banana-slicing problems a thing of the past, he found himself with a new problem: what if he only needed half of the banana?  Would the other half go to waste?  OH THE HORROR!!  Clearly multi-use food storage options were inferior.  Foil?  Tupperware?  Plastic wrap?  NOT GOOD ENOUGH.

SOLUTION:

And Mr. Unitasker Lover and his banana appliances lived happily ever after.

Skype This: My Parents Weigh In On SYTYCD

Since my parents discovered the wonders of Skype, my computer has been ringing off the hook.  Er, off the desk?  Whatever.  They call a lot.  And they entertain me.

*************************************************************

Mom:    Who's your favorite on So You Think You Can Dance?  I really liked that salsa dancer they got rid of a couple weeks ago, too.  I think that was a mistake.

Dad:    Did the salsa dancer dance with the Tostito dancer?

Me:    *eye-roll*

Dad:    I heard it was a match made in heaven.  Or Mexico.  Or Mexican heaven.

Me:    I like Alex the best, hands down.  I loved the hip-hop dance he did last week.

Mom:    Me, too!  I've always loved Snitch.

Me:    You mean Twitch?

Dad:    At least she didn't call him Switch.  Or Schnits.  Or Snatch.

Me:    Dad!

Dad:    What?

Bush Fantasy: FULFILLED

*tap tap tap* Is this thing on?

The thing about skipping a day or a week or two weeks of posting is that it starts to feel like I'll never in a million years catch up to everything I want to write about here, so why bother, you know?

Since I last posted I've been to Vegas, spent a night in the emergency room with a delightful case of kidney stones, gone to my family reunion in Wisconsin, visited my in-laws for a weekend, taken the final exam in my spring night class and the midterm exam in my summer night class. Who has time to post with all that going on?  So I'm going with a sort of highlight reel.

VEGAS

Previously the furthest west I had been was Mt Rushmore in South Dakota.  Flying over the desert I and the majority of the other passengers were all but glued to the windows watching the mountains passing below with a level of concentration normally reserved for brain surgery or celebrity gossip magazines.  T, ever the observant one:  "Only midwesterners.  OMG SAND!  LOOK GUYS!  SAND AND ROCK!  Woah.  Cool."

GRAND CANYON

We also took a day-trip to the Grand Canyon while we were out west.  It was beautiful and breathtaking and blah-blah-blah you-know-this-and-can-see-it-anywhere.  We did the skywalk(loud music on that site), which was a neat experience, mostly because it came with the built-in entertainment of some really awesome people watching.  While I thought it was all beautiful and super-cool, I had exactly zero of the stomach-turning nerves that so many other people experienced, even when T and I leaned back over the railing just because we could.

(Note: Yes, there is totally glass behind us.  Whatever - we were still totally brave.)

In other mother-heart-attack-inducing-news, there were no railings keeping people like me away from the edge of the canyon.  So I was able to do stupid things like this.

WAX MUSEUMS ARE SUPER COOL

We spent part of an afternoon at Madame Tussuad's, which is noteworthy only because I got to fulfill a very specific fantasy.

FINALLY, INDEPENDENCE DAY

After the craziness of the last few weeks, I've spent the majority of the holiday weekend relaxing by myself.  T is in North Carolina helping her friend Marie pack for her upcoming move to Wisconsin, I don't have any tests or assignments due in my night class, and I finally have time for picture sorting and laundry washing and food cooking and book reading and highly important napping.  Now I'm all caught up again, and HOPEFULLY I can stay that way for at least a week or two.

So, what's new with you?

Too Tired To Title This Post - Just Come Look At Pictures, Okay?

We spent Memorial Day weekend up in Minnesota this year, same as every other year.  I read three (and a half) books, ate way more than is at all reasonable, sat on a boat, and generally had a grand old time.  T caught the biggest sunfish of the weekend, which was a big win. 

My big win was giving up on fishing altogether and spending my time on the boat reading.  Maybe I should have gotten a picture of me on the boat, smiling and holding up the huge hardcover book I just finished?  I'll try to remember that for next time.

Before we went "up north" (translation: anything at least an hour north of the metro), we spent some time in "the cities" (translation: Minneapolis/St. Paul and the surrounding suburbs).  One evening we went to the iris gardens near-ish my parents' house, and it was SO PRETTY.

The garden was only about 30% in bloom, but even the not-quite-yet-ready flowers where beautiful to look at.

Short of spamming you with pictures for a week straight there is no way I could show you all the different types of iris they had - every color imaginable (and then some more).

This was really basically just someone's yard, not really a formal garden at all.  Can you imagine this being your yard?

Somehow the fact that it isn't a super formal and organized garden makes it even more beautiful.

In summary - it was a spectacular weekend.  Who could ask for anything more?

___________________________________________________________________________

 

Unrelated side note:  Somehow it escaped my notice that when I reply to your comments here on the site (vs in email) you don't get email notifications telling you that I replied.  Oops!  So, uh, if you asked me a question I totally answered - but only on the site, not in your email.  Anyone know how to make replies email out to the original commenter?  Else I suppose I can just reply via email, which is fine.  Sorry if you thought I was ignoring you!

I'd Pretty Much Always Rather Be Napping

We had a very, very busy weekend at Casa Annabelle.

 Clearly.

 
Medication withdrawal (me) and never-ending shingles pain (T) meant that the weekend was full of naps and reading (me) and television (T) and more naps and I think maybe another nap or two.  I love weekends.

Speaking of naps, in a little over 48 hours T and I are flying to Minnesota for a weekend of relaxing at The Lake, along with many ACTIVITIES that my mom so loves to plan.  Just this morning she emailed out a fill-in-form/schedule for food requests, and I expect a phone call sometime tomorrow asking about what games I want to play when, and how many puzzles I want to do, and what trees we are going to fell, and how many times we will be going out on the boat, and how she can't wait to show me how good she has gotten at fly-fishing, and what color they are painting the spare room, and what type of crackers we are going to have on hand, and how many bottles of water we need for the car ride and and and and and...I'm already needing another nap just thinking about it.  (Note:  I love my mom, even if I sometimes want to spike her water with Xanax.)  (Additional note:  Pack extra Xanax.)

(By the way, I feel safe announcing to the Internet at large that we are going out of town because the friend who is caring for our apartment and our cats has a second degree black belt and could kill with her bare hands.  She can also ride a unicycle, though I'm pretty sure that is less of a deterrent to would-be-robbers.  Point being, if you want to rob us, you should probably wait until T and I are back in town.  Just saying.)

If we're lucky, I might even return with pictures or something.  Pictorial proof that I can, in fact, bait my own hook when fishing, I can shoot a BB gun at soda cans, and I only panic a little when someone makes me ride the four-wheeler.  Or maybe I'll just read for a while and then take another nap.

Not That Final Four

I've been slowly tapering down my antidepressants for several weeks now (in a doctor-prescribed manner, calm down), and I'm down to my last four days of pills.  Four days!  My old-person pill organizer is emptying out, and I don't have pills to refill it.  So strange!

I'm making an attempt at an antidepressant-free life for a number of reasons, the main one being that I just want to see if I can do it.  Two and a half years into this particular chapter in my particular story and I'm doing pretty damn awesome.  Yesterday I was walking outside in the sun and I noticed I was just...happy.  Not about anything in particular, just a nice, peaceful, comfortable-in-the-moment kind of happy.  It sort of blew my mind.  That is more than I ever thought possible. 

None of the chaos and fear and darkness in my head is actually gone, mind you, but I've found the volume knob and can mostly turn it down to the level of background noise.  And I while I believe I needed the medications to find that volume knob the first time, I don't believe I need them as a daily tool to keep from losing track of it again.  At least not right now.  And so I'm trying to go without.

My only real worry at this point is physical withdrawal, because OF COURSE one of my meds is known to have one of the worst withdrawal periods of any antidepressant (and they all suck royally).  So far I'm managing - just a little dizzy-constant-headache-body-ache-owie sort of thing and difficulty sleeping.  The real test will be next weekend, after my last pills.  Based on the mini withdrawal I had a few months ago when I switched meds around, I fully expect to see little aliens soft-shoeing around the bedroom in the middle of the night, so that should be fun.

Hopefully I'll come out the other side of this okay - and I can head on into the next chapter of my life pill-free.

I've Got A Pocket Full Of Sunshine. Or At Least A Pocket Empty Of Rain.

After listening to a night full of thunder and pouring rain I knew getting to work was going to be a giant pain.  I walk about 3/4 of a mile each way on my commute to work, and while my foot is in a cast that means that if it rains I need 3,247 layers of socks and plastic and whatever else I can wrap around my foot to keep my cast dry.  It is not a fun process, to say the least.  So it was with great joy that I viewed the radar just before embarking on the epic quest of trying to keep my cast dry.

Here's hoping that weather magic works again when it comes time to leave work.

The Pizza Tasted EVEN BETTER Than It Looks, If You Can Believe That

NOM.

 

My recent plan to focus my energies on improving my physical health this year has been going well.  I've cooked food from scratch, vastly reduced my pre-packaged-treats, and have all around been paying more attention to what I'm shoveling into my mouth.  I still sometimes have popcorn for dinner, yes, but popcorn is "whole grain" which totally counts as health food and don't even try to tell me that it doesn't.

 

Exercising has not been going well, because, well...let me just show you.

 

 

Yes.  AGAIN.  Foot-gate 2009 has become Foot-gate 2009/2010.  Last fall I had casts 1.0 through 1.3, and I'm currently on cast 2.1 (2.0 was last week).  This cast will notbe followed by three months of physical therapy, because no matter how much I like my physical therapist my insurance is up, and I am cheap.  Actually, I have most of the equipment I need at home by now, and I can do most of it on my own, but it is a huge pain in the foot (har har).  The cast is just to immobilize everything and get the swelling to go down before I make another go at the various exercises I'm supposed to be doing.

 

I did try a pilates DVD last weekend to see if maybe I could find tolerable exercises that could be done in a cast, but somehow laying on the floor in the living room screamed CUDDLE TIME to the cats and I had a LOT of company there on the rug.  On the plus side, they are warm and fuzzy and who needs exercise?  The DVD lady was annoying anyway.  Exercise is overrated.  Naps are far more important.