Category — Totally Off Topic

I’m having a tough time, guys.

I’m stressed, sad and tired. The latest events with our cats is wearing on me. Kramer developed a fever and I took him in to the vet. The way he has his jaw wired in place makes him drool and backwash everywhere, including into his food bowl. He drips and sprays slobbery cat food EVERYWHERE, including the walls, my hair and all over the floor. I spend a good portion of the day cleaning up fish stink and shielding myself from flying cat food.

I feed him meds through a tube in his neck. I’m pretty sure he’s blind in his right eye. The vets have all assured us we did the right thing, his quality of life will be great. They assure us. And the bills pile up. And the guilt, the guilt, the guilt of what I’ve done . . .

I picked up Vincent’s ashes. I sobbed like a child. Seeing his urn meant he was really dead. Really, really dead. Killed. We miss you, man.

(I felt a very strange and very unmistakable presence in the house today. Twice. Like someone walking by, behind me. Definitely a person. Kramer started meowing like Vincent. I wasn’t even drunk.)

We missed a mortgage payment and we’ll never make it up. We just won’t. We’ve never been late on a payment. I have perfect credit. Not so much anymore. Talking to the bank today didn’t help.

We still plan to buy a better camera and somehow, I only feel slightly guilty.

I’ve barely left the house in almost two weeks. I’m so tired that I don’t want to deal with anyone. I have a million things to do around the house and zero motivation or money to do them.

I’ve only exercised a couple of times in two weeks and I’m terrified to step on the scale. I just wanted to lose six lousy pounds by August and I can’t even do that.

I spent a good five hours in the kitchen today, cleaning and cooking and cooking and cleaning. Dishes. Making baby food. Cleaning cat food syringes. Cleaning stinky cat food bowls. Dishes. Cleaning up cat slobber. Spilling an entire can of Coke. Entertaining babies. Feeding. Cooking. Feeding.

Now that I’m staying home with the girls, I’ll never be able to go back to work. Being a SAHM is not legitimate. You don’t get a line for that on your resume. Just because it’s a 24/7 job, constantly on, never rest, only work work work. At this point, I couldn’t act smart enough to get a job anyway.

I wonder if my years-long battle with depression is finally creeping back after my pregnancy euphoria. Dammit. My old shrink doesn’t take our new insurance.

Not that I’ve checked.

I have bags under my eyes. The bags have bags. I feel like shit. I’m lonely. I’m a failure. I want to hide.

I need, need, need. I need help.

I have begun way too many sentences with “I” in this post. <–Stated with complete self-awareness.

Lesson of the evening: Don’t blog and bitch. Because man, that publish button is a bitch . . .

Please consider donating to this extremely worthwhile cause. In Florida, freestanding birth centers aren’t allowed to do VBACs (Vaginal Birth After Cesarean). In other words, the state is telling ladies how and where they can have their babies!

Through midnight tonight, donations are being matched.

True-and-only-somewhat-related story: I went to a Mom’s Night Out with a bunch of other ladies last month. Out of the seven of us at the table, only two of us had vaginal deliveries, one of them being, of course, me — with twins! WTF!

Aside from the dirty fridge, please tell me what’s wrong with this picture.

Oh well. Happy Father’s Day?

And he taketh away.

We just got a knock at the door at 10 p.m. A neighbor. How many cats did we have?

Kramer is alive and purring next to me on the couch. Vincent Van Gogh, the father of the rest of the kitties we have, is dead. Hit and killed by a car.

R.I.P.

Kramer did fine through the night. I talked to the vet this morning. As far as they can tell, he has a fractured palate and broken jaw. His eyes are swollen shut now, but when they were still somewhat open, he did have his vision. Most of all, though, he has his wits about him. He purrs when petted, and rolls onto his back to have his belly scratched. Just like Kramer.

The doctor was actually very hopeful that, with surgery, Kramer could lead a relatively normal kitty life. She thinks he’d be at higher risk of seizures in the future because of his head trauma, but the fact that he actually did well during the first 24 hours was a promising sign. She said they usually degrade or pass in the first day if they’re not doing well.

She recommended he be transferred to an emergency vet about an hour away where they have a dental surgeon on staff. The idea is to have Kramer put under general anaesthesia just one time, to do X-rays and the surgery all at once.

We’ve decided to give it a shot. Financially, this is not smart. But. If he were not going to have good quality of life, if he were a vegetable, if we had to squeeze his belly to make him poop, if he had a feeding tube the rest of his life . . . all that would be one thing. I don’t think it’s smart to save an animal’s life if they’re not going to enjoy their time on earth. But I honestly couldn’t live with myself if we let him go when he had a good chance of having a good, normal life.

Chris is at the other emergency vet right now with a very beat-up looking Kramer. I would post a pic but I can’t look at it so I won’t. I’ll update as I get more news. Please, some healthy kitty vibes, prayers, positive thoughts, whatever would be much appreciated.

I ran over one of our cats this morning. Specifically, MY cat, Kramer, that I had before I even met Chris. I felt it when I ran him over and I immediately knew what happened. He was alive when I last saw him.

Between Chris and I, we spent four hours looking for him. Neither of us had any luck.

Late tonight, Chris was plagued by guilt from watching “The Dog Whisperer” and decided to take the dog out on a random walk. That’s when he found the cat.

They’re at the emergency vet right now. Kramer’s eyes are pretty messed up and his jaw is quite obviously broken. But he meowed a few times and is alive and breathing.

Update when I can.

I went in to go get my crown. 

The knowledge that I had no nerve in my tooth made me feel confident, relaxed even. First, the assistant came in the room. She was wearing black scrubs. I’ve never seen black scrubs. Who wears black scrubs? Morbid. I then noticed all the assistants were wearing black scrubs. The other day, they’d been wearing blue scrubs. I guessed they had a strict dress code. And a clause in the employee manual requiring the receptionist to wear porn star makeup. 

Black Scrubs made small talk about kids. My twins were so cute. Thank you. Did she have kids? Yes, her youngest was 17. Unremarkable, except that Black Scrubs looked to be about 36. Oh, that’s cool. Young mother, probably inspired by an Everest College commercial during the “I’ve Tested 13 Men and Still Don’t Know Who My Baby Daddy Is” episode of Maury, went back to school to become a dental assistant. Made something of herself. Good for her.

She wielded a sharp hook. Wait. Were the assistants supposed to have the sharp hook? I thought the doctors were the ones with the sharp hook. She scraped out the packing that the endodontist did. 

When the doctor finally came in, looking all freshly made up with a bedazzled jewel clip in her long, strawberry blond hair, she pulled the drill out of the lineup of shiny, terrifying instruments dangling from a plastic tray table. Shit, the drill. Shit shit shit. Um I’d forgotten about this part. They needed to shave my tooth shell down to a stump to put the crown on. 

Dr. Sucksdicks applied the drill to my tooth while Black Scrubs held a water pick with one hand and a suction tube with the other. With every passing second of the high-pitched squeal of the drill, my ankles tightened, my breathing shallowed, my fingers curled into gnarled hooks of anxiety. Maybe I should have saved that other Xanax for this. What is she doing? Why is this taking so long? Ugh. What was that, Doctor? Turn my head toward Black Scrubs? Why, can’t you see well? Turn head, open mouth wider to make sure she can see the tooth. Black Scrubs, you’re getting a little energetic with that water there. Is something wrong? Is the drill on fire? Shit, why does it smell like burning tires in here? Oh sweet Jesus, she just drilled so hard that the drill stopped. That can’t be good. Drills only stop when there’s something wrong. Maybe she burned the motor out. Maybe I’ll get moved to another room. Why am I in a different room anyway? Is this the room with the the adrenaline shot that they’ll stab through my sternum when my heart seizes up like that one scene in “Pulp Fiction”? Maybe Dr. Sucked Her Way Through Dental School doesn’t know what she’s doing. Doctors don’t wear jewelry in their hair. It’s unprofessional. Turn back toward the doctor? Lady, are you sure you can see?

The doctor and the assistant are having a conversation but I can’t hear any of it over the sound of the drill. What could they possibly be talking about in the middle of this crucial procedure? Why is Black Scrubs laughing? Why is the doctor laughing? Are they talking about my tooth? “Man, look at the shitty job I’m doing on this tooth.” “Yeah, it looks like a Tic Tac!” “I think I’m going to stuff the root with sardines. That’ll really throw her off. She said she has cats, didn’t she?” “Hahaha! Doctor, you are soooooooooo FUNNY!” From the cadence of their voices, I start to believe that Black Scrubs is Dr. Fellatio’s subordinate lesbian lover. She’s saying coy, flirtatious things like “Yes ma’am,” with that bubbly emphasis on the “ma’am” that suggests clandestine weekend  shopping trips to Restoration Hardware and Ikea in the next town over so no one recognizes them, because their relationship would definitely be interpreted as a conflict of interest and possibly sexual harrassment if things got all “Fatal Attraction,” which I could totally imagine since Black Scrubs obviously had a child young because of deep-seated Daddy issues.

Ugh. Why is she still drilling? Can’t they tell I’m getting freakin’ lockjaw? Turn back toward the assistant? Jesus H. Christ, will you make up your mind? Can you please quit squirting water into my sinuses? Shit, the drill stopped again. I need this tooth stump, Doc. You know this. Holy shit, why is the assistant suctioning something in the middle of my tongue? Oh God, she must suctioning up a chunk of tooth. Crap, my freakin’ tooth is gone. There’s no going back. I have to pee. I should have gone pee before we got started. I hope this doesn’t take much longer. The ole Kegel muscles ain’t what they used to be. I think I just leaked. Should’ve worn a pantyliner. Shit. Burning tires. I smell burning tires again. Come on, Doc, lay off the drill. Why is there shit spraying on my forehead? What the hell kind of dentistry is this?!? You have nice tilework out front! You’re supposed to be a good dentist!!!

Finally, the drilling was done. Black Scrubs squirted something awful-tasting on my tooth then stuffed my mouth with gauze. “I’m just going to stuff some gauze in here because this stuff tastes really bad. It’ll stop the oozing. Your tissues are oozing.”

My tissues. Are oozing. Sob.

The doctor and assistant proceeded to take 3D photos of my tooth. I shit you not. The data would be translated to the milling machine to magically make a crown to fit my Tic Tac tooth. They sent me to the waiting room while my crown was milled on site, on demand. Neat. 

After an hour, the receptionist informed me that they were having problems with the milling machine and could I come back later that afternoon? Wow, really? Problems with the machine? That didn’t sound good. 

And it wasn’t. Four hours later, at 5 p.m. on a Friday, I was called back to the office. Dr. Fellatio put the crown on top of my tooth stump and it was immediately apparent that it didn’t fit. 

Dammit.

Fortunately, they’re taking me in on Sunday so I don’t have to worry about childcare. Unfortunately, the temporary crown they put on has already broken into a billion pieces and I’m chewing overcooked pasta with swollen gums and a smudge of white bone that used to be a tooth.

I had a root canal today.

Ugh.

For months, the very last molar in the very back of my mouth on the bottom left has been acting up. I ignored it until the tooth finally gave up the subtle cues and started screaming BITCH PAY ATTENTION TO ME.

I haven’t been to the dentist in years. I could have called the last guy I went to, but I felt like I was being spammed every time I went there. “Buy the $200 Pulsonic 4000 toothbrush or your teeth will ROT!” “Try our gold-plated floss for only three payments of $34.99 or your teeth will ROT!” “Invest in a commemorative DVD of your dental visit or your teeth will ROT!” “Quit smoking or your teeth will ROT!”

Instead, I did what any rational woman would do: I called the dentist that had the tasteful tile work on the sign out front.

Tasteful Tilework Dentistry was a converted house in the historic district. The waiting room had plush leather lounge chairs. Colorful arts-and-crafts windows. Restored original hardwood floors, polished to a high shine. The receptionist had the eye makeup of a porn star. The doctor herself was so cute, it was kind of hard to believe she was actually a dentist and I wondered how many dicks she sucked to get her degree.

Anyway.

They took a couple of X-rays, which were immediately displayed on the flat-screen TV hanging on the wall. Luxe. Then, the dental assistant took out what looked like an electric toothbrush, but it was actually a camera to take a picture of my tooth. Well then. She snapped a few pics of my molar, which also displayed in high res on the TV.

You have to understand that the last time I went to the dentist, it was a novelty to have a Walkman playing Amy Grant to drown out the drilling sound.

Within five minutes, Dr. Adorable was able to tell me that I had a pocket of infected disgust surrounding the root of my molar. I would need to start up on antibiotics and either pull the tooth or get a root canal and a crown.

I’m only 31. I might be unemployed, and I might not be able to make the mortgage payment this month, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to be missing teeth this young.

But a root canal? Really?

You see, I’m not what they call a “good patient.” I’ve had a root canal before and it wasn’t pretty. I was trembling so hard that the doctor wouldn’t work on me. He sent me away with a prescription for horse tranquilizers and told me to come back another day. I took a pill and came back. Nothing. Two pills? Nada. Three pills? Okay, now we were getting somewhere. I sat in the doctor’s chair and promptly snored my way through the rest of the procedure. When I woke up, he told me he’d had to prop my mouth open with a roll of tape to do the root canal.

So.

This time, Dr. Sucked Her Way Through Dental School gave me a couple of Xanax to make it through. Within 20 minutes of taking the first pill, my legs felt like lead and I couldn’t put on my pants, but I was pretty sure I was going to FREAK THE FUCK OUT when I got to the endodontist. So I took another.

I’ve obviously never taken Xanax before.

I vaguely remember waking myself up with my own snoring while the doctor ripped nerves out of my face.

An hour-and-a-half and $385 later, I’m the proud new owner of an empty shell of a tooth.

I have to pump for 24 hours to clear out the Xanax, but believe me, it’s been totally worth it.

This post hurts to write because if there’s something that’s a testament to a woman’s womanliness, it’s her ability to cook.

I really like to cook. Correction: I really like to think I can cook. Much of my 20′s was spent watching hour after hour of the Food Network. (Holy shit, a channel where all they do is cook all day long? God bless America.)

Just recently, I rediscovered the wonder of the Food Network. Did you know they have a hi def channel? I watch it a lot.

Anyway, I get it. Via osmosis, I’ve learned how the different seasonings harmonize, how to pan fry meats, how to cook once and eat twice, etc.

So far, I’ve tried:

• Buttermilk Pecan Chicken – This was just a bad idea, in retrospect. However, marinating chicken breast in buttermilk is really the only way to go.
• Blue Cheese Stuffed Fillets – Not horrible, but the butter blob you stuff into the meat just kind of disappears into the ether
• One Pot Chicken Over Cheesy Rice – Tasteless is the best I can describe it. That, and gross. Also, what’s up with Emeril’s mug shot? Creepy.
• Black Bean Salad – This would have come out awesome had I realized that the canned corn was already salted. The end product came out tasting like I’d taken a big lick of Guy Fieri’s sweaty forehead. (I love you, Guy.)

Tonight, I came dangerously close to crying because the goddamned pecan-and-panko breading for the chicken breasts ONCE AGAIN stuck to the stupid frying pan. WHY CAN’T I GET THE BREADING TO STICK TO THE CHICKEN.

Considering I usually follow the recipe as stated, is it possible that every single recipe I’ve tried just happens to suck? Maybe it’s my pots and pans. Maybe it’s my electric stove. Maybe it’s my oven that smokes when I turn it on because I really need to clean it.

It’s me, isn’t it?

I honestly don’t understand what fails in the translation between the recipe on paper and the horrible execution of the cooking process. It’s remarkable. I mean, the food is edible (tonight’s semi-raw chicken breasts notwithstanding). But the flavor sucks.

In the end, I really just feel bad for my husband. He knows better than to say anything because, at this point, he’s just trying to avoid rickets and scurvy.