Drains, Push-Ups, and Harry Potter

A few days ago I noticed the drain in our kitchen sink acting up.  I chastised it by running the garbage disposal repeatedly, but with great gentleness, as the garbage disposal frightens me.  If whirling blades hidden in a dark, dirty cave that are somehow hooked up to both water and electricity don't scare you, well, I tip my hat to you.  You are made of sterner stuff than I.  Also, on a completely unrelated note, kindly make an appointment with your friendly neighborhood head shrinker at your earliest convenience.

Shockingly, running the disposal did not fix the problem, even when intermingled with prayer in varying doses, to the extent that by this morning there was standing water in the tub of the dishwasher and the sink drains were crankier than ever.

I had a counter-full of dirty dishes, but thankfully I also had three children sitting around, handily home for summer break.

I put on my Supervisor hat and loaded each kid down with two arms-worth of dishes and sent them upstairs to the bathroom.  (I had carefully scraped every last crumb of food into the trash, for any of you who are miraculously 1. still reading this, and 2. worried for the future of my bathroom drains.)

I used a bucket of soapy water to wash the dishes, the bathtub faucet to rinse, and my three favorite indentured servants to dry, cart downstairs, and put away, rotating assembly-line style.

Maybe halfway through, when my back started screaming at me from all the hunching over and twisting and I was unpleasantly reminded of pregnancy, as I am anytime my back throws a toddler-worthy tantrum, Caedmon chimed in, "Isn't this fun?"  The other two agreed:  "It's like an adventure!"  "I've never washed dishes upstairs before!"  I zipped my lips before any negative sentiments could fall out, skip gaily over to our children, and suction themselves to those sweet, naive, sheltered bodies.

By the time we were done, big crock pot put away and everything, the exotic chore had lost a bit of its luster even for the kids, although Adelaide remarked, "This all gives me a lot of sympathy for people who lived a long time ago.  We just did some dishes and it was so much work."  I agreed and then we all decided a break had been earned, being 21st century sloths, ourselves.

I, at least, have a semi-valid excuse for any slow movement today, as I had a severe asthma/allergy attack last night after supper.  It was very strange to experience one during daylight hours, as they usually strike in the middle of the night.  The perk to this was that two texts to Derek from the bathroom and he was rabbiting out of the house for liquid Benadryl, which is the fastest acting allergy med according to my doc, and a drug I should ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS have on hand, also according to my doc.  Ha, ha, whoops, sorry, Dr. T!  *laughs, gasps, wheezes, passes out because I can't manage to follow doctor's orders.*

The dross lining is that I scared the kids, to the extent that both the boys clutched me, crying, when it was clear I wasn't actually going to die.  I'm not sure what triggered the attack- the only two novel foods at supper were a barbecue sauce and the blackberry cobbler.  I had taste-tested the sauce at the grocery store, though, and I've had all the ingredients in the cobbler before, if not combined in that precise way.  Well, this was my first time with frozen blackberries as opposed to fresh, I guess.  Either way, boo.

Oh, but good stuff has been happening, too, because despite what I may have led you to believe over the course of this post, our lives are not a Greek tragedy.  Although if it were, our children would make a darling chorus.

Derek has been doing push-ups with a living, breathing, wriggling fifty-pound weight on his back.  This causes delight on the part of the weight, exhaustion on that of the pusher-upper.

Adelaide has been doing exactly what you're supposed to do when it's summer, which is read in a hammock.

But it's a falling-apart hammock, so she also earns the label "daredevil" with this practice.

Really, I think it's just a desperate desire to be away from her loud brothers for five seconds, especially whilst re-reading the Harry Potter series.  She's still impressed by my ability to finish most of the sentences she begins reading aloud from the HP books- tell me, when will she stop thinking the things I can do are fun or cool?  It feels inevitable, but I can't predict its arrival.  She is an accomplished eye-roller, if that helps.

Speaking of Harry Potter (I feel like I say that a lot), I just love Harry Potter jokes.

The end.

Injurious

It's front porch season.  Hallelujah.

While I love how this kind of weather beckons each member of our family outdoors, it also means that our children are finding new and inspired ways to wage war against one another.  

I got a call from Derek while on a run recently.  He wasted no time in saying an incident had occurred, please come home.  Thankfully I was less than a mile from our house, so I was able to dart right home, up the stairs, and into the bathroom, where Atticus was bent over the tub, face covered in blood.

I quickly looked him over, saw the giant goose egg on his head, found the source of the bleeding, and overall decided that the actual wounds were much less concerning than their cause:  Knitting needles, thrown at him by his sister in a fit of pique.  

By the time I got there, she was more upset than he was, yet still managed to inform me between sobs that yes, she had thrown her knitting needles at her brother, but that she never thought they would actually hit him; she had no idea her aim was that good!

Caedmon didn't have much to say about the whole thing, but still maintains that "Atticus deserved it," as he has informed a number of people.

At this point Atticus the Injured has mostly healed, although he had two relatively deep holes in his scalp for days.  No telling on any emotional injuries.  

Speaking of running (were we?), I've found the perfect design for asthmatic runners:

Ideal t-shirt design would also include a little pocket for our inhalers, of course.  

My peonies had a short season this year, and one bush didn't bloom at all.  I still managed to bring a few indoors.

The kaleidoscope container planting at Reiman Gardens has been changed again:

Succulents!

Kaleidoscopic succulents!  

And last but not least, I have finally found the most perfectly thoughtful gift for my sister who, when we were children, couldn't sleep for terror of her china doll, even after it had been removed from her room, her closet, anywhere within crawling-up-onto-her-bed distance.

Baby is angry.

For My Next Half Marathon

Not that I'm definitely doing another one, you understand.



Things I would do differently:

• Carry my inhaler while running.  Do I have allergies?  Yes.  Do I have asthma?  Yes.  Have I had asthma attacks before on runs?  Yes.  And yet, stupid, idiotic, imbecilic, insert-your-own-favorite-adjective-that-describes-a-complete-ignoramus ME didn't carry any of my two dozen inhalers.  I know why:  I haven't had a running-related attack for a couple months now, have never had an attack during one of my long runs, and took an allergy pill before I left the house, thinking that would be enough.  Oh, Lawdy, WAS I WRONG.  Right around mile two I could feel my lungs tightening up, and for the next four miles couldn't draw anything deeper than a very, very shallow breath.  This sucked.  I almost gave up and walked close to the beginning of the attack, but saw a lovely, lovely friend of mine standing on the sidelines who cheered wildly when I yelled her name and she saw me, and this helped carried me through.  I kept running, I did not walk.  I saw her again just as my demon lungs were opening up and begrudgingly letting some oxygen back into my system, and I felt so much better after my Lori/oxygen hit.  

• Bring an allergy pill with me to the race, take it thirty minutes prior to start time.  I left the house so far in advance of the race, and was so nervous and, well, running so much, I believe I burned right through it, so it couldn't cover me through the whole two and a half hours I needed it to.

• Try to enjoy the course and the running itself a bit more.  This is one I can keep in mind for next time, but I really don't think I could have done it this first time.  I was so overwhelmed with the thousands of runners around me, the crazy, intense (but positive) atmosphere surrounding the whole event, and my own jangling nerves I really don't remember a lot of the details of the race itself.  Somehow over two hours of running went by incredibly quickly.  

Things I would absolutely do the same:

• Rely on my running guru the Magnificent Mindy for advice and my training plan.  I whined, she listened.  I freaked, she stayed calm.  I said, "I'm thinking about signing up for a half marathon," she said, "LET'S DO THIS.  Here's what you're gonna need."  I freaked out again, she bought me coffee.  I was one and a half miles into the actual race wondering what malevolent dissociative personality apparently lurking in some forgotten corner of my brain had signed me up for this, and there she was on the sideline, hugging me fiercely when I trotted over.  Running gurus for the win.

[I would just like for everyone to know that I wrote all of the above last night, and am now forcing myself to finish this post before I have a single cup of afternoon coffee, freshly ground and brewed and staring me right in the face over there on that kitchen counter.  I am a cruel, cruel task master.]

• The half marathon training plan detailed in the book Train Like a Mother.  This is the book and the plan within its pages Mindy prescribed for me, and while I may not have stuck to the letter of its law every single day, I definitely stuck to its spirit, using it as a general guide.  The morning of the race I woke up, my brain decided that it was Crazy Time, and I convinced the part of me that was still waking up that I was not ready.  I had trained all wrong, all wrong.  This was going to be the worst morning of my life, and I had brought it all on myself.  Having ample past experience, I managed to beat back most of the Crazies by the time I was starting the actual race, but there were still some trace doubts floating around in there- until my asthma attack.  The fact that I was able to keep running through four miles of not even really being able to breathe- then run seven more good, faster miles after?  I chalk it all up to a great training plan that had me physically and mentally ready.  Well, that and God.

• Ride down to the race with the Amazing Anne.  (If you haven't given all your friends alliterative mental nicknames, I don't know what's wrong with you.)  She's done all this racing stuff many times before, so she knew right where to park, had a loose pre-race routine in place, plus she's kind and funny and knowledgeable and fast.  Hoo.  We lined up together, knowing we weren't going to be running together, because, well, she is fast and I am slow and we are both okay with that, but man.  Seeing her take off was so fun; it's always enjoyable to see someone do something really well and with great proficiency, except for maybe this guy:

The six-fingered man:  Really good at torturing people.

• Focus on the cheering crowds and their homemade encouraging signs.  Among my favorites:  "Run fast, you will:  May the 'course' be with you."  "You're doing all this for a free banana?"  1st person:  "Go, Becky!"  2nd person:  "Go, Karen!"  3rd person:  "Go, random stranger!"  "Worst. Parade. Ever."  [Terribly unflattering candid head shot of a shaved head Britney Spears] "If Britney can survive 2008, you can survive 13.1." "I bet this seemed like a much better idea three months ago."  Yes, many of the people were there to cheer on their loved ones, but they also didn't hesitate to cheer for every other runner who passed them.  The nicest people ever may be found on the sidelines of a marathon, I'm now convinced.  

I'll probably think of a bunch more over the coming weeks, but for now:  Coffee Time!

I Feel Like This Doesn't Bother Me As Much As It Should

It's almost the middle of February, and you know what that means:  I'm finally getting around to sending our Christmas Thank You's out!

I know.  It's terrible.  And while I do feel bad about how late they are, I take solace in remembering all the times my aunt Sherry would randomly hand me a (handcrafted, unfailingly adorable) gift and say things like "This is your Christmas gift" (it was June) or "Here's your sixteenth birthday present" (I was eighteen), except her excuse was a little more legitimate: quilting and sewing and such takes buckets of time.  Writing a Thank You card does not, unless you're me (or Adelaide), who can turn even the simplest of tasks into something ridiculously time-consuming.  And I loved getting those gifts from Sherry!  It gave you the sense that any day could erupt into a spontaneous holiday, that unexpected quilted penguins might be lurking around any corner (which is more whimsical and less menacing than I just made it sound).

I had set aside one day last week as The Day I Would Get All Kinds Of Things Done, chief amongst them completing at least three Christmas Thank You's.  At this point I feel I should clarify that these Thank You's have been half-done, sitting on the kitchen counter for at least a month.  I usually have all three kids color a picture for each person who was generous enough to send them a gift, then I include a hand-written note, which is all a great idea in theory but in practice generally means that many of our family and friends receive two pieces of paper scribbled with crayons but missing the note from me explaining what that's all about.  I don't worry about this too much; I think anyone receiving something in the mail with our return address on it instinctively knows that they're about to have a little bewilderment injected into their day.  Martha Stewart with her scented stationery and perfect handwriting I am not.  (I actually don't know if she possesses either of those things.  With Martha I always assume the worst, and by "worst" I mean anything that is better than what I am capable of, and by "anything" I mean everything.)

Unfortunately, the afternoon of my would-be productive day was hijacked by a particularly vicious asthma attack.  After I'd more or less recovered, I decided I could still complete the notes for several of the Thank You's, this despite the fact that anything more than four hits off my inhaler makes my hands shake pretty bad.  I'm also halfway convinced albuterol somehow affects brain function, namely that it speeds it up, but not in a way that makes you good at debates or improv; instead it sends your brain down rarely-wandered paths at higher speeds than normal, then tells you to write it all down in this here letter you're sending to your Mom's husband's parents.  (Dear Dale and Mary:  I'm sorry.)

We still don't have all those notes done.  Valentines for school?  Yes.  Thank You's associated with Christmas?  Nope.

Wherefore Art Thou, Fluocinonide?

A while ago I came across a blog post that was entitled something like "Your Life Might Be Better Without Prescription Medication."  I chose not to read it because I decided I didn't want to spend the rest of the day angry.

For the next several days, however, at odd moments my mind would touch upon that unread post and stew.

It's easy to think no one needs meds when you've never suffered from a chronic condition.

I wonder how many people I know would probably be dead with prescription medication?  Let's see- one, two, three, four...

How about I invite the author of that post to come show me how to get through an asthma attack without my inhaler?  I'm sure she'd be super helpful coaching me through deep breathing exercises and "centering myself."  (I have actually had someone suggest this to me before.  Upon learning about my asthma- you know, the sudden inability to DRAW SUFFICIENT AIR INTO MY LUNGS, he wondered aloud if I'd ever tried taking a deep, soul-soothing breathe to help get my system back on track?  I had nothing nice to say and so kept my mouth shut and instead tried to communicate my utter loathing through a flat stare and arched brow.  I'm pretty sure he got it.)

I just knew this was going to be yet another poorly researched post on the idiocy of Western medicine and a general spewing of terrible grammar and bad syntax.

Now, before you get your panties in a twist, let me be clear:  I totally get the whole "We don't need as many meds as we're currently ingesting" movement.  I really, really do.  I can see the wisdom in trying every other- often natural- avenue to good health before turning to medication as a last resort.  This is generally what we practice with our family.  So disengage those negative emotions you feel rising before you have a stroke and potentially need (gasp!) medication.

I did eventually read the article.  It wasn't at all what I had expected.  For the most part, the author was talking about taking meds to prolong your life for a short time- often at the cost of quality of life- and about taking one pill after another, treating the side effects of each drug with yet another.

That's a whole different ball of wax.  I didn't agree with everything she said, but I could certainly understand where she was coming from and respect her decision-making process.


Strangely enough, through the whole thing, the one prescription I thought I really wouldn't want to live without (including even the potentially life-saving inhalers and EpiPens) was my beloved Fluocinonide.

Oh, Fluocinonide.  If I were a poetess, I'd write a sonnet in perfectly balanced iambic pentameter to you.  Because I don't want your feelings to get hurt and make you feel invalidated, I'm going to make sure everyone knows how to pronounce your lovely name (say "flew-oh-SIN-oh-nide").

Do I need the Fluocinonide?  I suppose not.  Does it greatly improve my quality of life?  Oh, yeah.

Fluocinonide (okay, that's way too long for me to keep typing.  It needs a nickname:  maybe Flo?  Nidey?  Can you tell nicknames aren't really my thing?) is a topical ointment for eczema.  It's really been on my mind here lately because I've been so busy manual labor-wise, which obviously involves heavy use of my hands (and anytime you're working with your hands a lot, you're also having to wash your hands a lot, and as far as eczema is concerned, prolonged exposure to water is the devil) where my eczema is concentrated.  While this isn't exactly devastating as far as chronic conditions go, it is annoying to sit down and try to write a letter only to have the paper smeared with blood and ooze all because I had the audacity to try and bend my fingers around the pen, causing my skin to crack open and the blisters to burst.  No one wants to receive that letter in the mail.

As long as I have that ointment (and put it on every night.  I've discovered that it doesn't actually help just to have it, you also have to apply it.  Because I'm brilliant like that.), I can function completely normally.  I can curl my hands into fists without wanting to cry.  I can bathe my kids and wash their hair without pain.  I can garden and cook and write letters and type this post, all because of beautiful, greasy prescription Fluocinonide.


Do you have any meds you can't live without (literally or maybe just my-life-would-kinda-suck-without-this)?  Or do you think I'm going to hell in a handbasket for not just using prescription meds, but writing a blog post about my love for them?