It's Raining! It's Pouring!

I will start out by saying we eat out too much and know it. But now God has spoken and we will change our ways.
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We went out to lunch with a friend of mine on Monday. We went to valentino's buffet. I was on my last plate of food before desert, when I saw a "string". I pulled it some with my fork and it was a hair. It was not MY hair! I told chuck to get the manager. The manager took away the hair, we assume to hold it up to everyone's head, and then came back to give me a gift card. Does he really think I'll be back there again?
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Tuesday, Charlie and I went to have lunch with Chuck at work. A new Mexican place opened up. It's one of those little places that sells like three things for next to nothing and then a bunch of prepackaged snacks. I was eating my burrito when chuck broke something off of where I had just bit. I asked what it was and he said he didn't know. After two more bites he reached over again and then pulled out a foot long black hair! I was so mad! He clarified that he did not make the food. I told him to go get his money back and just get me some of those premade nachos. They gave him his money, free nachos, and the manager came out to apologize. "I will make them all wear hats now for their hair." That's great, but I don't think I'll be back.
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We went to village inn one day for lunch Thursday. I ordered my favorite, my usual. They usually (okay, always!) screw it up although it is the simplest thing ever. I like the tuna fish salad on sour dough bread and please toast the bread...Then to make things less complicated, I wait until they bring the food to tell them I would like a side of pickles and mayo. Our food comes and they got my order right. Chuck and I were so excited. I get the kids settled, then dig in. I thought I had a mouth full of catfood. The tuna really tasted like catfood smells. I told the waitress to just charge me for the fries, the sandwich was nasty, and we didn't have time to reorder something. She asked me to describe it while the people from the tables around us had started to eavesdrop. I told her about it tasting like catfood smells. She wouldn't let it go. But what exactly is wrong with it, she wanted to know; Someone else had complained earlier, too. "For starters, it shouldn't taste like catfood! The end!"
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I went to my therapist on Saturday. He said it would be great if Chuck and I could socialize without Charlie. I told him we were going on a date as soon as I was done there. So we take Charlie to the inlaws and we head over to Fazoli's for dinner and then we were going across the parking lot to play games at Dave and Buster's with our gift cards. We had just taken the first couple bites of our food when I saw something poking out of my salad. I pulled it and out slid a two inch long hair, thin curly hair! Obviously not mine! I was so upset. I told the nice breadstick man to go get a manager. The manager comes and I explain to him that there is hair in my food and before he can even start his stammering, foot to foot shuffle apology that I had seen twice already in one week, I inform him that we would like our money back, all 10.89 of it. Chuck was impressed that I knew the total, but this is also the guy that was pretty impressed there was hair in my food three times in six days. After getting our money and pointing out the hair so the manager could undoubtedly go hold it up against every head, we sat in the car ranting. We both decided that for about the same price we could share a meal at Dave and busters and then play games or maybe play games while we waited for a table because their parking lot was full.
The games were fun.
The table was ready.
Shawn, our server, was very nice.
He recommends the tolapia.
We think it sounds yummy.
Let's eat something different.
Shawn enters the party room again.
I ask a weird question about people wearing hair nets.
He said everyone in the back did...Had too...They even had a program to encourage it!
I thought this sounded great! They have a program! I don't think Fazoli's has a program.
So we order the talapia. We divide it, we eat it, we love it. I get to the middle of mine and it was chewy. Look down and the middle was raw. Chuck tells me his is chewy too and I tell him not to eat it because it's raw. We eat the rice and sauce though, cause I didn't think they were made in the same pan.
When Shawn came back, I informed him that they should cook the fish longer. He got a manager. They took away the raw fish and gave us free desert. They bring out this whole tray and let us pick one out! We fell for it! They looked so appetizing!
It was great, fantastic, and fabulous! Hmmmm! Bananas! Caramel! Bread! Cream fluff! It was divine, really.
I joked with chuck that it was to make the puking more pleasant. I imagined us calling from the separate bathrooms, "Mine tasted like bananas!" and "Mine tasted like caramel!".
So 12 hours pass and I'm not feeling too bad. Then I start burping rotten eggs. It was endless. I was farting rotten eggs out of my mouth. This nastiness was billowing out of the depths of hell and exiting through my mouth! I didn't want to be me!
I was stinking up our apartment. Chuck kept checking charlie's pants.
I thought that was as bad as it was going to get, but within hours of the first burp, I am overcome with nausea and within twelve I am immobilized by cramps.
Well, momentarily immobilized and then running quickly to the bathroom every minute or ten seconds, where I spent the next seven hours and most of today.
Have you ever had food poisoning and a hemorrhoid? It's not something I would recommend.
I went to the doctor and there's not much they can do except for super strength concrete pills and keep me from getting dehydrated. They did recommend something for my butt. They didn't say how much to use, and I really think they should've sent some kind of limit. I think that stuff is an inch think down there! As of today they don't think I need antibiotics.
Stupid Shawn and his tolapia.
Shawn! I want to s-lap-i-ya for feeding me undercooked ta-lap-i-a!
So no more eating out.
God spoke; I heard.
Ohhhhhh....this has taken me way too long with all the 'breaks'.
I think I got all the spelling checked.
That's as good as it gets today!

Drama King

Charlie is the most hyperactive and dramatic one year old I have ever seen. His tantrums and climbing abilities match any terrible two-er's. He is amazing.
Last week, he thought to throw himself backwards to really demonstrate to me how mad he was that I had said no for the millionth time. He hit his head really hard. It hurt. So now, when he thinks we need a demonstration, he will began to scream and shake, but when it comes to the throwing of himself down, he kneels first, falls to his hands, stops screaming while he gently rolls to his side and then to his back. Once safely in the supine position, he will began to scream and shake again. I try not to laugh too hard, in fear of encouraging this outrageous behavior, but it's hard.
He's the cutest monster ever!

When's your baby due?

This is something I have been asked since the sixth grade.
No joke.
The sixth grade.

I won't tell you the sixth grade story. Too old, too traumatizing. I think most firsts are.
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Three strikes you're out
When I was 16 or 17, I went to my family doctor with abdominal pain. The first thing they ask is the first day of my last period. I didn't know the day but knew it had been a couple of months before. I quickly informed them that there was no way I was pregnant. The nurse asked if I was sure. I was as sure as any virgin could be...except maybe Mary. Anyway, she put me in a room and sent in another nurse, one I had a good relationship with. She was supposed to be my friend. I could tell her anything. I was sorry to disappoint her, but I was still not pregnant. Frustrated, she went and got the doctor. She was my dad, mean and demanding. I must tell her and I must tell her now! My life depended on it!
I was fed up.
"Look, lady, I wasn't pregnant when the first lady asked me. I wasn't pregnant when the second lady asked me. Now you're asking me and I'm pretty sure I'm still not pregnant. There are only two ways I could be pregnant. I would either have had to have sex or immaculate conceptiong. I certainly have not had sex but if I start seeing angels, I'll let you know!"
She did a pregnancy test anyway.
Surprise, surprise. I wasn't pregnant.
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Never again
Many, many years ago, I went in for a bra fitting. As soon as the clerk and I got in the stall, I took my shirt off. She turned around and grabbed her cheeks all dramatically. "When's your baby due?" She was so happy for me...so happy she was clapping. Not known for thinking fast, I reply, "Never." Being so excited and knoweledgable, she declares, "Oh, it just seems like it when you are this far along." Still not thinking the fastest I simply tell her. "Never as in, I've never had sex." She stared at me mistified as I began to tear up. Acknowledgement suddenly struck her face and she began to cry in embarrassment. I then cried because I was a fat cow. I felt so guilty for making her cry that I bought the dang bra. It was over $60 and the most uncomfortable item of clothing I own.
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Here's your sign
Fast forward a couple years. I still have never had sex. I go to the ER because I pooped a lot of blood and, no pun intended, it scared the crap out of me. So I go in and the doctor lifts up my gown and pushes on my belly. For his credit, he didn't seem too sure of the english language, but I still have not forgiven him completely anyway. He asked how many kids I had. Maybe he just didn't hear me say none, because he just kept on squishing and talking. Staring at my belly, he declared that he guessed at least four but probably more. Now that I think of it, he may have not been very bright at all. Upon my rectal exam, he seemed really surprised to find blood inside me. Do that many people fake a bleeding butt to get felt up anally by doctors in the ER?
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The intervention
About this same time, I was about six or so months into water aerobics on the local air force base. My friend Peggy and I went three times a week. A group of vietnamese women "exercised" at the shallow end of the pool. I say exercise in quotations because they did a lot of moving, but it was mostly their mouths. They did kind of shuffle from foot to foot in a bouncing fassion and every once and a while glanced at the instructor. One day I was very early and sat in a beach chair waiting for the fun to start. The group of vietnamese ladies came in and seeing that I was alone, had their form of an intervention. The oldest one was their spokeswoman. Maybe she was the only one who spoke english. I didn't want to inquire. The huddled together and whispered as if I could understand them anyway. The spokesperson stepped forward. "You need see doctor." Okay, I have a lot of health problems, and maybe they noticed my recent problems with a new medicine. "Baby in too long. Must come out." Oh, Lord, please help me.
"I'm not pregnant," I tell them.
They huddle.
The spokesperson steps forward again.
"Oh, yes, baby in too long. Need to see doctor. Go to hospital." She is very serious. The other four women peer at me anxiously. I tell them again that I'm not having a baby. They talk to each other rapidly, frantic that my overdone baby is going to kill me.
"Please see doctor. You have baby. Baby in too long."
They say the third time is a charm, but I still was not feeling pregnant. I tried to make it very clear.
"I've never even had sex!"
They could have been my mother for as much as they believed me.
After one more breif huddle, I was informed.
"You have baby. We know."
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The list just keeps going. I won't tell you about all the times my mom confronted me or the hundreds of store clerks, the most memorable being a manager at walmart that helped me to my car and declared that he hoped to have a big, fat pregnant wife next summer, too. Great!
And the story that made me think of all these others.
Well, first I should say that I haven't lost the weight from having charlie and my boobs are so huge now that when I wear a regular shirt, the front rises up higher then the back by four inches. Yes! My boobs are that huge. Anyway, so sometimes (let's be honest), most times, I am wearing maternity shirts. So everyone asks everyday when my baby is due. Chuck the dear sweet man used to laugh or act offended and inform people there was no baby which just embarrassed who ever asked, me, and any witnesses. So now he just says "not soon enough" and we leave. We can't do that with acquaintances because frankly, in a few months, they will wonder where the baby is and like the vietnamese ladies, have an intervention when they think it has been in too long.
Well at church last thursday a new member asked if I was sure I could watch her two little ones with my little one and the one on the way. She was Korean and there was a language barrier so she didn't understand at first that I was telling her I'm not pregnant, just fat. My friend was standing there looking at me with panic in her eyes and her mouth open to see if I would cry. I started laughing at the whole situation. When the Korean lady finally clued in, she was so embarrassed. She turned purple. I didn't know Korean people could turn purple.

Well, that's a book.
By the way, if you haven't figured it out, I'm not pregnant. If you ask when the baby is due, I'll tell you not soon enough.

Whoa

I was driving down the interstate tonight, dropping a friend off in North O. Traffic in front of us suddenly stopped. We came up on them and there had been a bad wreck. A car had lost control, hit the cement divider and then bounced back into traffic causing at least a four car pile up. I asked a man who was outside his truck if everyone was okay. He said he thought so, everyone was on their phone. I asked if anyone needed medical attention; I have some training. He said he didn't think so. I decided to leave and not be in the way but as I drove away I saw people on the ground. It looked like they were helping someone and hurt themselves. I feel horrible now. I think that I should've stopped. I have gloves and a resuscitation barrier in my purse. I'm overwhelmed with guilt that maybe I could've done something to help. Something must have told me to keep driving, but I love to second guess myself. My stomach is in knots. My shrink says the stomach is a good emotional barometer. I think mine is pointing to guilt.

Sign me up!

So I'm joining the blogging craze. I'm not so sure about giving the link to friends and family. I can see me saying something offensive and making a rift in the family. I too often leave a wake and it's not just because of my size. Well, maybe the size of my mouth.
I ran errands today. Got Chuck a Valentine's gift. He's my husband. I seem to screw up any holiday, especially those that involve gifts. He usually knows what he's getting and in most cases has picked it up for me for some reason or another. My most notorious holiday plans involve me in the hospital, racking up bills the size of a nice house outside of town. I think my last hospital bill was in the 60,000 range. Dollars, not pesos. I have to admit that was high for me. I guess almost dying and being in the ICU is more expensive than being on the general floor and almost dying from malpractice. One year I think I was in for almost every holiday. He told me if I could just screw up Easter and his birthday, then I would have covered them all. It was sad but true. That year, I was barely avoiding hospitalization for thanksgiving, in the ER on christmas day, admitted to the hospital on valentines day, made Easter and his birthday but was admitted again and got out two days before the fourth of July. I think he might know what I went and got him today because I couldn't find the store and had to ask him for directions. He doesn't know I went today, though, so I might surprise him yet!
Charlie is getting over a nasty virus. He puked for three days and now has the trots. His ped said the runs might last up to two weeks. My poor hyper baby just lays around. I'm not accustumed to finding him in the same place I left him. Usually he's three rooms away standing on some precarious perch or down the hall trying to get in other apartments. He's the kind of kid you have to take to the bathroom with you in fear of what he could do when out of sight. That kid has no stranger danger and no preservation instinct. I wonder if he's really smart or really dumb.