ammogirl

Oh my god, you guys, while you might think buying baby stuff when you have your own kids would be a piece of cake, I am here to tell you, no.

The Walters are arriving tomorrow with their one-year-old (almost) twins and Laurel emailed me a list of supplies and demanded me to pick it up.  Not really.  Actually, what happened was I asked her if she wanted me to pick up some stuff because I hate getting somewhere and having to immediately go find needed items, and THAT’S when she sent me the list of supplies.

Anyway, this list contained basic stuff like baby food, formula, and diapers.  No problem, right?  Well, what the fuck, baby stuff makers, with all the choices nowadays?  I became immediately distressed, what with the wanting to get the right stuff, and while Laurel was pretty specific with her items, “Enfamil Lipil with Iron” comes in 0-12 months AND 9-…some older age varieties.  Do I get the 0-12 kind, knowing the boys will be 12 months on 1 October?  Or do I get the 9-whatever kind, knowing the boys will be 12 months and 1 day on 2 October?

And then do I get small powder, big powder, small liquid, or big liquid?  And how many of those cans do I get?  There is no “servings per container” anywhere on ANY of those cans.  Sure, there’s something about spoons per ounces or whatever, but the weight on the front of the can is not listed in spoonfuls, it’s in grams.  And, holy crapass crap, can it get any more expensive?  Back in the day, when I had to walk uphill both ways through the snow dodging deadly tigers to get MY formula, it was like, seven bucks a can, and I STILL had to depend on WIC to feed my girls (I tried breastfeeding.  once.  I’m sorry La Leche League…not for me).  Seriously.  How do people afford it?

Hey, I’m really sounding a little crotchety old-mannish, what with the ranting against choices in formula and increasing prices of said formula, aren’t I? I’m totally going.  Besides lunch is almost over, so I should probably get up from my creaky rocking chair on the front porch and get back to work anyway.

By the way, I am totally excited to have them here.  Babies!

Tschuss!

Every so often either I or someone else makes a reference to singing, and everytime I think, “Oh!  I have a story about that!” and then I totally forget, because I am officially turning into That Person who forgets EVERYTHING.

Speaking of turning into That Person, I want to take a moment and digress.  I know, it’s surprising.  But I am finding that as I get older that while I care less about some things…that I can’t give an example for, I am caring a whole lot more about others.  Like, with every day that passes, germs are exponentially more disgusting to me.  My work went bowling on Friday for a team-building event, and it made my stomach turn to witness those guys sticking their fingers in the dirty depths of the bowling ball, and then turning around and eating a hamburger and fries with the same hand.  How many people have stuck their fingers in those holes?  Like, what if someone had been scratching the inside of their ear and then grabbed the ball, thus transferring bits of earwax into the holes?  And then the next person touched that earwax, and then ate their food?  WHAT THEN?  And don’t bother bringing up the ultimate of bowling grossness: rental shoes.  I’m talking about things that I acknowledge as a bit over-the-top on my part, and over-the-top does not include bowling alley rental shoes, which you, as a normal person, should already find too gross for words.  If you don’t…ahem.

There are actually more issues I’m getting worse about and want to discuss (read:ramble on endlessly until you just can’t take anymore) such as crowd anxiety and fear of travel, but tangent-y interludes, even when given by people such as myself who tend to have no point anyway, should not take up more of a post than the actual intended subject. So.

No, what I wanted to tell you is this: recently I had come across my journal from 8th grade, and had been paging through it reading some of the funnier bits to the girls, when I came across this gem of utter delusion:

“PS. I’m going for it. It’s time I got my singing career out into the open. Jenny* and I are moving to L.A. when we graduate and she’s going to be the bassist in my band. I’ll be the lead singer of course, and our band will be called

Leathur N’ Lace

We are going to rock! Whooo!”

The Leathur N’ Lace was written very hardcore, by the way, all angles and curves and points.  I read this and immediately was consumed with deep, heartfelt laughter, because hi, I CANNOT SING.  This is not a false statement.  And despite the long hours spent in front of my dresser mirror singing along with Pat Benatar, there was never a point in my life when I COULD sing.  EVER.  How I cultivated and maintained this self-deception I have no idea.

That journal is a cornucopia of hilarity, let me tell you.  And I was awful, much much worse than I remembered, although I do suspect I lied quite often to impress.  Impress who, I don’t know, other than the actual journal itself.  I must have been trying to give myself the rock n’ roll bad-girl image necessary to carry the title of Lead Singer, Leathur N’ Lace.

Anyhow.  Lunch is officially over.  Oh, for the record, I also suck at bowling (see “team-building”, paragraph two).

Tschuss!!

*Jenny, according to my journal, was my best friend for approximately two months in the 8th grade.  Obviously, we never made it to L.A.

I swear to god, I am seriously falling apart.

Now it’s freaking crapass carpal tunnel syndrome in my right wrist. Actually, I’ve been dealing with it since 2005, before I went to Korea, but as I was told the next step in my treatment was steroid shots, I conveniently ignored my constantly numb and tingling hand. Hi, I don’t like shots in my wrist. But right now at work I am very busy, and working really hard, and my entire job is on a computer, and it finally just got to the “do not ignore me anymore” point. As in, I now am very skilled at using the mouse with my left hand, because it’s less uncomfortable to use it. And I’m right handed. So.

When I went in to the doctor today, I tried to play dumb, like I didn’t know what was wrong, but he did this one test on me where he bent my hand a certain way and sort of flicked my wrist and immediately my entire hand fell asleep. That is when he said, “have you been dealing with this for awhile?”(see: military doctors not reading up on patient history) and I said, “Um, uh…well…see, um…sighh…yes.” He asked what the last doctor had said and I told him that the last doctor had maybe mentioned something about shots. Which is when he said “ah, yes, I can actually give you one right now.”

Okay. See, I had heard about these steroid shots to the wrist, and what I had heard was not good. I heard it hurt like a bitch, and this sort of scared me, so I got all anxious with the doctor and started sweating and he tried to tell me it really isn’t that bad, but doctors suck so I didn’t believe him. He left to get the shot, and he was gone a reallllly long time, long enough so that by the time he walked back in the door with all the equipment I got all woozy and very nearly passed out.

He got a little alarmed at that point and asked me if I was going to pass out and I, on the verge of doing just that, said, of course not.

After putting on not one but two pairs of rubber gloves, he propped my hand palm up on a tissue box (state of the art! I know!) and had me let my wrist go limp while pushing up his hand with only my middle finger. This somehow isolates the actual “tunnel”, and after swabbing me down, pow! In went the needle. I flinched hard, because my mind was saying “Oh my GOD THIS REALLY HURTS ahhhhh!” but then I realized that actually, it didn’t. Indeed, beyond the initial needle prick, it didn’t hurt at all, because the shot not only contains steroids, but a healthy dose of lidocaine. Which tends to, you know, numb anything it comes into contact with.

He was very nice about my huge display of babyness, though, and patiently discussed a few issues with me, such as, I have already totally damaged my tunnel (that sounds a little gross, if you want it to) and that unless I stop using the computer immediately and indefinitely, it’s only going to get worse. And the steroid shots are a totally temporary solution. And that to prevent inevitable surgery maybe I should find a new job (impossible), maybe I can just use the computer less (I would die), or maybe I can have someone do my work while I just supervise them (sounds really really good, but…no).

So we’ll see. I really truly do not want to get surgery on my wrist, because while it has a very high success rate for improving the situation, afterwards your wrist is never 100%. However, I guess I’m not really 100% right now, so that doesn’t really make a difference.

Anyway, I posted a picture on my flickr of the ginormous puncture wound the needle left behind. Which, well, you might need a magnifying glass to actually see it. I’m just saying. But it is worse than it looks! Also, I will accept any and all sympathy.

Tschuss!!