Bad Day 134--Bad good news

So the good news is that I don't have celiac disease which means that I can make my delicious cream cheese and tarragon stuffing with regular bread and I don't have to make my own pie crusts, which I hate making because pie crusts are hard to make well but easy to make hard.

The bad news is that celiac was one of the better options and now I still don't know what is making me sick and my next test is a month away which means a whole month where every day I google my symptoms and conclude that I have toxic shock syndrome. OK, that was Child 3 that thought she was in toxic shock. But I have spent a lot of time looking up my symptoms on various medical websites and I am completely freaked out because none of the alternatives are good ones. (And confidential to Sunny who reads this blog, thanks for the tip about symptoms. That's what my next test is for.) This is why I miss Husband, OK, one of the reasons why I miss Husband because it's his job to help me not freak out.



Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I am determined to make it as normal as possible, but I need help, so Artemis came over to help me cook and chop. Tomorrow, since her husband Adonis has to work, she is going to come over and help us eat it because I will be able to eat about the same amount as a sick toddler, so we can expect a lot of leftovers. Children, I hope you can make up the slack because without me and your dad, we'll be serving Turkey for the next six weeks unless you all man up and eat like you've never eaten before. (Yes, Child 2, I realize you're not a man. It's just an expression!)

Fiona Apple fans are having a worse day than me.



She was supposed to be starting a tour in South America, but she canceled the tour because her dog is sick and she doesn't want to leave her. Obviously, she loves her dog very much because she wrote a four page letter about it and posted it on facebook. So thank you, Ms. Apple, for reminding me to be grateful that I didn't buy tickets to your concert. If The Dog ever gets sick, you can bet that I would not cancel my concert tour, not that anyone would ever pay to hear me sing. I hope you find a way to repay all those disappointed fans.

Bad Day 133--Who says it's the best in the world?

Today is not a good day. It's not a purple day because I'm not sad, but I'm not feeling great and I got some upsetting news. No, Husband is OK and the girls are all fine. I just can't talk about it on a blog until I can speak to Husband and I can't talk to him tonight because he's flying around Afghanistan. Right now, I hate that whole country.

To make myself feel better, I'm going to go to bed and dream about this:



That's Bali, for those of you who don't recognize it. I took this picture and it's my happy place. I might replace it with Santorini, but whatever the case, it's my new substitute for chocolate.

There aren't many people having a worse day than me, but this fake Santa in the UK might be close.



He was rappelling into a mall, which is a bad idea in and of itself, when his beard got caught in the ropes and he was stuck. He had to wait until someone else rappelled down and rescued him. So thank you, Santa, for reminding me never to go rappelling while wearing a beard, which will never be a problem. The rappelling might happen someday, now that I'm no longer afraid of heights, but I will never ever grow a beard. I promise.

Bad Day 132--I'm not sure how this happened, but I'll take it!

Child 1 is trying to ruin my new purchase but I'm not letting her. One of my favorite vacations we ever took was to the hill station Sapa in northern Vietnam. We'd been living in China and wanted a break from the foul-smelling air and Sapa was clean and fresh and smelled heavenly and apparently of patchouli, although I never knew it until on the cruise when they gave me a pedicure, they used this lotion whose main scent is patchouli and it smelled just like Sapa so I bought it. Now Child 1 says it smells like fabric softener. I told her only if fabric softener smells like a Vietnamese hill station.

So I have been afraid of heights my whole life. It was a really good thing that our drive through the hills of Vietnam was in the dark, or I might have gotten out to walk. When I was little, we used to drive from Texas to Arizona which involved a lot of mountain passes, some of which were really scary because my Dad hated freeways and always took the back roads and I spent the entire time on the floor of the van with a blanket over my head yelling "is it over yet?" I had nightmares for years that Dad drove us off a cliff. Seriously. Years.

This is a picture of the road my Grandpa would always tease me that he would drive me down someday. I told him I would get out and walk. I threatened that a lot. But honestly, who would want to drive down that?



Fast forward to when I was an adult and Husband first took me to Hong Kong--a trip he had owed me for years after Korea tried to kill me and we didn't get to go even though we had tickets because I was in the hospital and then we went home to America. So he had this idea that we would take the funicular up to Victoria Peak. (Go ahead. Look up "funicular." It is actually a word. I'll wait. . . . Are we good now?) He thought it would be very romantic and it would have been, if I hadn't been sobbing the whole way. One well-meaning British gentleman looked at me and said "it's not that bad," and I seriously wanted to punch him right in his smug British face because that is the stupidest thing ever to say to someone having a panic attack. Of course it is that bad or I wouldn't be crying! Seriously. Hmph.

So when we went to NY last summer, I was looking up at the Empire State Building and it didn't bother me, which was weird because another of my most terrifying memories was driving in between the World Trade Center towers and thinking they were going to fall on me and no, that wasn't a premonition because I thought the same thing about the Statue of Liberty. So why didn't standing in the middle of Times Square frighten me anymore? Now fast foward again to Santorini where we took a bus up a bunch of switchbacks and Husband was certain I was going to freak out but I was just enjoying the view. And then we took the cable car down and I wasn't scared. At all. Husband was a little nervous, but I was completely fine and not bothered a bit.



See? Beautiful view, isn't it? It was really weird, but I seem to be cured. Who knew that sending your husband to Afghanistan could cure your biggest fear. Husband now says I'm ready for roller coasters, but I'm not so sure because there is still the whole nausea thing that I'm not sure would be helped by being whipped around, but maybe. We'll have to see.

My friend "Genevieve" is having a worse day than me. She has been experiencing the worst move ever. I told you that she was moving to Armpit, China, and it's not going well. First, the pilot wouldn't let her cat on the plane so her husband had to stay behind in Korea until they sorted it out while she went on with the 5 children, one of whom is a very tiny baby. Then the next day, she slipped on the ice and hurt her back. And she doesn't have a car and doesn't speak Chinese and is running out of groceries. So not fun. Genevieve, any time you need to run away back to America, you can stay with me and I will feed you all the chocolate you can eat (or all the chocolate I can't because someone should be enjoying chocolate.) Seriously, just come back and move in. The Dog will get used to the baby. Eventually.

Bad Day 131--Jet Lag is not a myth

I am so tired. Too tired to change the channel from this reality show which is horrifying and fascinating me at the same time. So I'll just blog instead.

Two of the children are sick. Well, actually, one is really sick and has a fever and I know she's not faking because she had no idea about the fever until she came to me and said she had a headache and she was burning up. The other is faking, I'm pretty certain because her symptoms are quite vague. I am the type of parent who would rather err on the side of caution and not send a child to school who might actually be sick. The problem is that they all know that and two of them take advantage of that fact. The other feels guilty when she doesn't go to school when she actually is sick and I have to force her to stay home. (Yes, she's that kid, but she's delightful so don't judge.) So now I have to decide if I should let the obvious faker cry wolf and stay home, or should I force her to get up and go. I guess it will all depend on how I feel at 5:30 am tomorrow when it is actually time to fight the get up and get your clothes on and get to the bus or I will lose it battle. I imagine, given the way I feel tonight, that I might not have enough energy to force the issue. I'll let you know.



Sorry, Ferris. I think your parents actually knew, they just were too tired to fight it and since you weren't failing any classes, they didn't care.

Fabulous Niece 1 returned home today and we will miss her. The girls had a lot of fun with her and it was nice to see her because we don't get to nearly often enough, and since she really does live on the opposite side of the country, she does have an excuse.

Since I have to finish watching this horrible reality show which I shouldn't watch but can't stop watching the train wreck, I'll get right to the bad days. This family in Texas is having a worse day than me. They have been arrested as a family for armed robbery, in part because of their bad fashion sense. Somebody recognized their ugly orange vests when they robbed a Home Depot and now they will probably get to wear a lot of orange in the future because that is the color of choice for prison uniforms. So thank you, family robbers, for reminding me that there are lots of other things we can do for family activities and being arrested isn't my idea of togetherness.

Bad Day 130--What you missed

Seriously, that cruise ship had the worst internet ever. Dial-up was faster and worked better. I couldn't check e-mail the entire time, so forget facebook and blogging the last day was impossible. Thank goodness for the guest bloggers!

But this is what I was doing instead of blogging.

Venice.



Polignano a mare.



Corfu.



Santorini, which I think was my favorite.



Ephesus.



Olympia.



So there you have my vacation in a nutshell. As Husband put it, we saw a lot of old stuff. It was amazing and relaxing and I'm so glad I went in spite of the fact that I was still sick, but I discovered that gelato in the afternoon really helped with both nausea and flagging energy from not eating much because non-gluten lunch is hard to find unless it is a salad which I ate a lot of. The ship was really good about gluten free food except for the desserts which were all cakes and tarts so I had sherbet instead every night and the other people at my table felt very sorry for me. And it was so, so, nice not to be in charge of anything--not even cooking and that my only responsibility was to relax and enjoy being with Husband. We haven't had that much alone time together since Child 1 was born and it was magical.

So who was having a worse day than me last week? Pretty much everyone because that was the happiest I have been in a long, long time.

Oh, and I got a job AND Husband will be home for Christmas so it was a very, very good week.

Bad Day 129--Only connect!

So I'm back on land where they have internet and I have already heard from several people about the missing post, including, through the grapevine, Sister 1 who insists that I must make it up. So tomorrow I will blog twice because tonight I am very, very tired having just flown eight hours across the Atlantic to return to the Children and fabulous Niece 1 who made me gluten-free cupcakes as a welcome home! We will totally have to borrow her more often.

The flight wasn't bad. It was very smooth and I sat next to a delightful 80 year old lady from Maryland who had been on the cruise with us and she was so funny that it made a very long flight seem much shorter. And the food was way better on the way home and I actually ate the whole dinner! And there wasn't a rice cake in sight.

So, except for the sobbing when I had to leave Husband to go to the airport, which was only partly me this time, it was a pretty good day. The children are all alive. We drank some homemade butter beer, and The Dog is beside herself with giddiness that I am back. I even missed her a little, but only a little. And not the walking in the freezing cold morning part. Or the barking. Or the jumping on me. But the lying on a cushion in my room and sleeping part is nice and I missed that a little.

I loved the guest blogs. They were excellent examples of how smart and funny my children are. And Child 3, absolutely no way on this earth ever to the acting contract, and we hear from Niece 1 that there is a national helium shortage, but we'll see on the warning siren. Do they make ones that won't go off in the house?

These brown pelicans are having a worse day than me.



There they were, minding their own business in North Carolina when Hurricane Sandy blew through and took them all the way to Rhode Island which is very far if you you have to fly there by flapping your wings. So some kind rescuers are going to fly them in a plane down to Florida where they can enjoy a nice long rest.

Speaking of rest, the jet-lag is killing me so I will sign off. Extra post tomorrow.

Bad Day 128-- Mom, I Stole Your Blog!- Child 3

Hey, Child 3 here!
So, I just finished my homework, and now I'm watching a movie.
And today I got another free shirt for track.

I'm really mad at my mom for not taking me on the cruise.
Now I'm running out of ideas, so I'll just make a list of odd
things I want for christmas....

- An indestructible turtle
- A fish that doesn't die
- A bunch of play-dough
- A stunt barbie
(Not that I like barbies)
- An easy bake oven
- Anything that is sparkly
- A snowball maker from Justice
- A hot tub
- A pie (with whip cream)
- Balloons (enough to fly)
- Helium (enough to fly)
- A bouncy house
- A trampoline
- A warning siren
- An acting contract

See? A list of ODD things I want for christmas!

Everyone at the veterans day parade in midtown texas is having a worse day than us.
Because there was a deadly train crash at the same time it was going on.