Crunchy Thoughts

You would think I would have copious amounts of time to sit about and write blog posts while being on maternity leave, but I have managed to keep myself busy with other parts of life. There was also the most horrible sickness I think I’ve ever had, a foul thing known as mastitis, which had me convinced one night that we were all Vikings and the books were levitating off of the shelves.

Nothing like a little delirium to start off your month.

I had mentioned that the hospital tried to kill me while I was there with Sam. It did almost seem like deliberate negligence, especially after my first experience with them when Lydia was born. While in the hospital with Lydia, I was very impressed with, of all things, their hospital food. It was tasty, filling, and above all, they took extra care to avoid my many food allergy pitfalls. With every meal there was a printed ticket that listed every food item I had received, the caloric content (not that I wanted to know those pancakes were 800 calories), my name, room number, and a list of my food allergies I had verbally told them when I was admitted. The entire time I was there I saw nary a nut.

When Sam arrived and I got set up in my room, I was looking forward to all the feasts they would bring again. Oh boy! I now pronounce us Ready To Eat!

The next morning I’m met with a resigned food lady by the name of Rhonda, who has come bearing me breakfast. Rhonda has brought a big plate of EGGS, toast sitting in the egg juice, sliced up CANTALOUPE, a banana, and a NUT BRAN MUFFIN. No spiffy ticket to be seen. No smile, no good morning. Here is your Plate of Death; enjoy.

Being nice and optimistic, I attributed the mistake to a delay in the transfer of information and hoped for better tidings in the future. At lunch, Rhonda showed up again with a mediocre plate of some version of Mystery Meat and a nutty dessert. No spiffy ticket. She gives me the option of choosing tomorrow’s breakfast — EGGS! or cereal, muffin and banana — I go with the non-lethal choice and mention the reasons for doing so. Dinner brought more Mystery Meat sans ticket.

A non-ticketed breakfast came with a slight detail that ol’ Rhonda failed to mention — the muffin was covered with nuts. Come on, lady. When my regular nurse came in I reluctantly mentioned to her that I needed something else to eat as a quarter cup of cereal and an unripe banana just wasn’t going to cut it, and did I mention that I CAN’T EAT NUTS?? This was the morning after The Laughing Incident and I was already feeling a bit beaten up.

Rhonda saunters back in and asks with a sweet voice that reminds me a bit of Professor Umbridge from Harry Potter, “You don’t like my breakfast?”

“I have a nut allergy,” I deadpan. I’m in the process of being put on a gurney to go be wheeled to some test. She asks what I would like and I go for pancakes with bacon, which I finally get to dive into around 10:30 that morning.

Later that day I’m in the room with my sister and Ken when Professor Umbridge Rhonda saunters in with lunch. It some meaty pile of I-don’t-know-what with a dessert topped with nuts. NUTS! We all have a giggle while I poke at the few good tidbits, joking that when Rhonda comes back to get the plate she will ask why I didn’t eat her dessert.

“Do you want me to leave the dessert for you?” Rhonda asks sweetly as she picks up my food tray an hour later. You’re kidding me, right? Mental or sadistic, this one.

I knew better than to look at Ken or Cathy; it was all we could do to keep from busting into laughter. I had to swallow many potential sarcastic replies and just say, “No, thank you.” Laughter had about killed me the day before and I wasn’t eager to test it out again so soon.

The weekend came and Rhonda does not torture people on the weekends. There was a different food lady who, though nicer, still had not seemed to have gotten the memo. There were more eggs and nuts tossed at me. I had long since given up on educating them and was relying on family and friends to toss food at me.

On Sunday morning I actually met the Weekend Food Lady. Our paths had not crossed before since I had either been in the shower or the NICU whenever she showed up with the egg and nut assortment. She asked how I enjoyed the food. “Well, truthfully,” I replied, “I haven’t been able to eat much of it, since I have some food allergies. I’ve tried to list them out but the information seems to get lost.”

“You know, I saw that on this ticket,” she replied, gesturing to some piece of paper she had, but shrugged, as if to say she just didn’t know what to do with that kind of information.

Oh ho ho really.

Well, I guess if I ate some nuts and went into anaphylactic shock, I’m in the right place! Nothing like a hospital to cure what ails you.

Earlier this evening I think I got a few people curious by tweeting that Renton did the nastiest thing ever. So nasty, in fact, that I wasn’t sure if I could write about it . . .

Well, I’m over that, so if you still DON’T want to know, then read no further. Seriously.

Early this morning Renton birthed one of his small children after much strain and consternation. We rejoiced since each small child means no vet trip. Unfortunately all the strain got to him and he barfed in the basement. Hey, at least it was in the basement this time!

So before I got Lydia up for school I ambitiously went downstairs to take care of the barf, lest Lydia be amused by it. Being pregnant did not help that endeavor and I quickly tossed the messy paper towels into a little trash can near the litter box and hightailed it back upstairs. Eww eww eww.

This afternoon I arrived home with a very thirsty Lydia, who had been chanting, “Juice. Juice. Juice,” all the way home. As we rounded the corner to head up the basement steps, I see that the little trash can is knocked over. “Odd,” I think, “maybe Steven accidentally knocked it over.”

But the messy paper towels are missing, save a small little piece . . . and I used a LOT of paper towels this morning to clean up all that barf.

Do you see where this is going?? Oh yes.

Apparently Renton was feeling quite peckish after clearing his system earlier, and really I’m quite thankful he was all cleared out and ready to go, because that fool cat ate FIVE PAPER TOWELS. I hope he enjoyed them.

I know that they have already gone all the way through his system because as Lydia and I began to go up the stairs, we were met with the sight of his, err, leavings there on the landing. Pure paper towels, all balled up into the form of little small children, just how his body likes to make them.

Not only did those paper towels go all the way through him, they did it in less than 12 hours.

This is the point where Lydia and I both started screaming, “Ewwwww!”

This evening, Renton has been in the best mood I have seen him in years. He has been thoroughly cleansed this Holy Week. I just wish the sight could be cleansed from my memory.

You know what would be really tasty right now? Potato salad! Or lemon meringue pie. Maybe some cake. But alas! It is not meant to be, for I have been bestowed with the horrible scourge known as the egg allergy.

I’m no stranger to food allergies — a cashew hasn’t passed through my lips since age six — but I’m almost 30 and having new allergies just pop up is a bit weird, but here we are. I was just peachy until a couple of weeks ago when I scarfed down a scrambled egg Steven cooked up for me and I immediately felt the closing in of the throat and itchiness of the ears that usually has me checking the ingredient list for nuts. I have to pop a couple of Benadryl and end up sleeping it off for five hours. The next day, I take two bites of cake and the whole thing starts over again — what is this rubbish?

At the doctor’s office, they hem and haw a bit about if and when they’re going to do a skin test on me. They couldn’t do it that day since the Benadryl is still in my system, but, by golly, they can take blood from me! Great, I’m an excellent giver of blood, just don’t swab my throat. Deal? Deal.

So in walks the nurse to perform the vampiric service and she is the picture of nervousness. She meekly asks, “Do you have good veins?”

“I have great veins,” I reply. I have never had anyone miss on the first try with me, and I have had COPIOUS amounts of blood taken from me in my lifetime, with between being pregnant with Lydia and Auburn University Medical Center’s bloodthirsty ways. I bet I could take blood from myself. Lisa, if you’re still reading, you should stop now and continue after the Line of Happiness.

Meek Nurse scoots up to me and checks out my right arm, slightly bruised from a (successful) blood draw the previous day (strep throat issue). She goes to the (equally as good) left arm. “I think I’ll go get the pro,” she muses, and leaves the room.

In walks Pro Nurse, who had been fetched from her lunch. She also avoids the right arm and goes towards the left, pokes around for what seems a very long time, then starts thumping me, like she can’t find the veins that I can clearly see on my arm. As I watch in horror, she moves toward the left side of my arm, thumps there, and I can tell my her actions she seems to think she has found a vein that I know isn’t there. She swabs the area with alcohol.

Oh God.

She strikes, but all she finds is pain. She wiggles around the needle a bit (so THAT’s what people talk about) but no luck. She finally retreats, defeated, and I convince her to go for the exact same area that the strep throat people struck yesterday. She has success on the second round. Amazing.

A week later and I am still sporting the bruise from that unsuccessful little stunt.

AND, they lost that blood draw and had to do it again today. Successfully. The first time.

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Today I finally got the skin testing for the eggs, which told me what my throat and ears already did two weeks ago. Why is another matter. Like I said, it’s odd to suddenly strike up a food allergy as an adult. I seem to remember being told as a kid that I tested as a slight positive for egg once, so a decidedly temporary condition could be enhancing the allergy.

Since eggs are in vaccines, they did a test to see if I could tolerate the flu and H1N1 vaccines, but it’s a no-go for those, either. They were nice enough to give me a bottle Tamiflu and a “good luck!”

Here’s hoping my weird old body rights itself. Until then, I will definitely miss cookies, nougat, and chicken salad.

My hair is irritating the spit out of me. What in the hell am I supposed to do with this hedge of thick, wavy nastiness? Where are my pruning shears?

I hate the constant misuse of the word ‘literally.’

The bill will not literally hit Capitol Hill unless it is dropped from an airplane and lands smack on the dome at terminal velocity. KABAM!

I really never thought that this would be a problem, or at least one that would irritate me. As a girl, I was raised to believe that girls are TOTALLY AWESOME and can do as much, if not more than, boys. Back then I thought it was great that while us girls could wear both pajamas or nightgowns, boys could only wear pajamas. Ha.

I still think us girls are quite kickass and I certainly know there are many perks to belonging to the gender. I just don’t think I should have to give up my respect or the desire for others to take me seriously just to have a guy hold the door open for me.

So I’m a woman — that puts me with 50% of the population. Amazing. Why is it so odd if I want to shove on some boots and get in the mud? I can see the wheels turning. Why is she driving that truck? Why isn’t she a guy? Why does he have boobs?

I hinder myself as much as anybody, though. Steven says, as only a husband can, “your problem is you’re too nice.” Nice. Curl your upper lip up and squinch your nose when you say it and you’ll see why I need to dial down the nice. Nice asks for people to walk all over you.

But what am I to do when I’m driving down the road and some large truck begins pacing me in the next lane? I refrain from looking over for a while because, hey, no need to be rude. Maybe he just needs the office number off of my work truck.

When I finally sneak a peek — curiosity getting the better of me — I see the driver doing this cutsie open-and-closed hand wave at me.

Geez, what the hell am I supposed to make of that? I don’t KNOW this dude, and I certainly don’t WANT to know him. Is he being a smartass? Is he flirting? He wouldn’t freaking do this crap if I were a guy; I know that much.

When I finally turn left and he speeds ahead, he is still waving at me from his side mirror.

I just hate crap like that because now all I have is second-guesses and assumptions as to what this goofball was intending. I don’t want to get so jaded that I immediately pull out the Gender Card — it’s best if that card does not get worn and faded before its time — but what else can I think? It’s certainly not an isolated event. I can’t even count how many times I’ve been honked at by large trucks . . . but why honk at all?

Why can’t I drive down the road in peace? Why can’t I ask the rental sales guy about a piece of equipment without him getting unnecessarily technical just to see if he can talk over my head? Why am I “that little landscaping girl” at almost 30 years of age?

I have got to make myself heard over my petite stature.

A 4-way stop sign is supposed to be a simple concept.

However, when half of the people around here are Southern Gentlemen and the other half are Yankee Imbeciles the concept is just lost.

Never never never never NEVER get your rings re-sized when you’re pregnant.

Never.

Buffalo Wild Wings. A sports bar-type place where people go to have tasty adult beverages, maybe some wings, and watch whatever sports game happens to be on. There’s always somebody playing somebody else.

Steven, Kevin, and I go there last night for some dinner. I get there first, grab a table, and feel like I have sat down in Chucky Cheese’s. There is a gaggle of about ten kids, ranging from 3rd to 6th grade by the looks of them, sprinting all over the restaurant, yelling and screaming. What the hell? I don’t even think I’ve seen kids in Buffalo’s before!

Kevin and Steven arrive soon after and we order our food, kids running behind our chairs. We spy out the parents that belong to these hellions, sitting at a large table in the restaurant, having a happy hour and not caring what the kids are doing.

By the end of our dinner, I’m begging Kevin or Steven to stick out their foot to trip up one of the kids. Give them some carpet burn and something to scream about, I say. The waitresses were definitely pissed off. After one kid almost ran one over, I saw her mime putting a gun into her mouth to another waitress, as if to say, “Shoot me now.”

When we left — and we had been there for probably a good hour and a half — those kids were still there.

My God. If you are gonna go to Buffalo Wild Wing’s for some booze and wings, you do NOT bring your ratty-ass kids along unless you’re gonna make them sit their butt down and watch Daddy drink his two pitchers of beer! A restaurant is NOT a daycare center. A kid can NOT be a kid at Buffalo’s or any other normal restaurant — only Chucky Cheese’s, man.

Everywhere else, you gotta behave politely like the grown-ups tell you to, or the crazy redheaded lady in the corner will beat you silly because SHE JUST CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE.

When you go to the beach, you’re bound to see some scantily-clad flesh. For some people, what would be the point of a beachy retreat if you weren’t going to see some booty?

Once when I was a kid a lady walked down the beach in an absolute thong. We are talking dental floss up the crack here. Our family still talks about that event.

So when we came back out to our staked-out piece of sand after lunch on Friday, we didn’t think much of the three girls who had decided to sun their already perfectly bronzed bodies not five feet from our stuff. As my sister and I sat there in our umbrella shade, though, our eyes kept sneaking glances their way, and our tongues started wagging in catty whispers.

Their evenly toned skin, the curve of their hip bones, their flat stomachs . . . these were Hot Girls™, and they were way too close to our stuff. How rude. How brazen. How tactless!

The more we watched, the more comical we found them. They would flip to tan their other sides at the same time like bacon on a griddle. Hot Bacon. We surmised that they must be sorority girls from Alabama, due to the way they butchered “Sweet Home Alabama” when it played on their beach radio.

That evening we were determined we would get out to the beach early the next day and stake out our place so the Hot Girls™ wouldn’t get so close to us. We didn’t need to see that silliness. “No Hot Girls™!” was the chant that evening in our condo.

That next morning Steven and I claimed our spot with chairs and a rather large umbrella and settled down for the day, Hot Girl™-free. About 30 minutes later I hear some giggle-gaggle commotion behind me, turn around, and . . .

Oh. My. God. They MULTIPLIED.

About ten Hot Girls™ converge on a spot a short distance from us. Well, it’s all I can do to stifle my giggles. The scene is just hilarious in its absurdity. They begin to oil each other up. I watch as one of them rubs tanning oil all around another one’s crotch. It is an adolescent boy’s dream come true. They all undo that top tie on their bikinis, tuck it down, and lay on their backs with their legs propped up in the exact same pose. Synchronized Hot Girl™ tanning: Barely Legal.

Later on, two more straggler Hot Girls™ join the gaggle to create a full dozen Girls that would, as a group, flip sides, pop up their heads to check out a guy, go for a quick squealing dip in the water, and surreptitiously try to show more skin than the others by pulling down their tops and bottoms as far as they could go without exposing the absolute goods.

The Hot Girls™ made their last appearance Sunday morning and by the afternoon they had scattered, presumably for the drive back to Tuscaloosa before Monday classes. Finally, we were Hot Girl™-free, even if only for an afternoon.

I do hope they are pleased with their almost lineless tans. They certainly gave our family something to talk about for the next few years.