Frog and Goat

About a week ago we were stuffing our faces at the local Mexican restaurant when a tableful of teens got up to leave. We were near the cash register and so had to watch each one pay for their meals. I declared to my co-workers that I had become an old lady on the spot because I just wanted to lean over and tell everyone to pull up their pants, get a haircut and quit slouching. The advice was for both sexes.

This afternoon I have a meeting with representatives from our client who have read course content and sent us a review copy of their suggested changes. These are people who are under 30 and have been given a great deal of responsibility but little guidance. I’ve become that person who says things like, I’ll be snacking on children this afternoon. Perhaps I’ll spit out their bones when I’m done, but maybe not.

Minutes ago I was sent a file that a co-worker has referred to as a PowerPoint file for a least 3 days. I received the email and found out it is a PDF file. PowerPoint and PDF are not the same thing. Hand goes to forehead.

We had dinner last night with the MIL. She made the food herself with some help from staff members. Delicious. And, I was so wrong to dread doing it because it was really quite nice.

We had friends over on Saturday to hang out and while they were there they got to witness my muppet lip. The swelling started on the lower lip Friday. I took a Benadryl thinking that maybe this time it would work. It did! My lower lip went back to normal size but the swelling just moved to my upper lip. I went from being a muppet to being Marge Simpson without the cool blue hair. Basically from my mouth to my eyes I was very puffed up. Not quite as bad as Hitch after seafood, but bad enough.

Since we were now positive that I couldn’t trace the swelling to food or other environmental factors (and Benadryl works for me when I have hives), I looked through a couple of books and checked online and have decided that the swelling is related to my thyroid issues. I am a walking hashimoto’s textbook example, let me tell you.

This morning I finally got my lab tests back from blood work I had last week at my GP’s. She gave me the good news that my cholesterol is coming in check (just need to work on the triglycerides now) and as she was wrapping up her message she said “By the way your thyroid levels are hyper. Call me or your endocrinologist.” I just started laughing into the phone. Yeah, no shit I’m out of whack. The symptoms have been building up, but I’ve been ignoring them (bad, I know). Now my endocrinologist will be seeing me the week I get back from vacation. I’ve never had a hyper reading before.

I’m working on two courses at work. One is an unofficial pre-requisite for the other. The first one was supposed to be published online the week after I get back from vacation. The client is in foot-dragging mode so that timeline is crumbling. They scheduled a meeting for late Friday afternoon–who does that? Crazy people who don’t know what they want, that’s who.

Updated: turns out the endocrinologist says my muppet lip is not related to my thyroid but to the BP meds I take. He also said I should stop taking them immediately because instead of a puffy lip it could restrict my breathing.

I just ran out the door to break up a showdown between a stray black cat and a baby turkey. As I sprung into action, I told the mother turkey that I was on it and I made a beeline out the door at super-sonic speeds to chase that cat. The mother turkey barely moved as she watched where her poult flew. Then she kept up her clucking until the poult answered. Not once did she appear to care that a crazy woman just ran outside to chase the cat. She was very focused on her baby.

We’ve been watching two hens and their poults over the summer. Here’s one hen with both of the young poults:

Just recently a third female has appeared with her poult. The three mothers travel together and the third mother always lags behind because her poult’s legs are so much shorter than the others.

And, that damn cat hangs around but doesn’t want to be friendly or take a food hand-out. Now he’s on my list for sure. Don’t mess with my girls!

I didn’t get a picture of the littlest poult today, but it is at least two weeks old because they can’t fly before that time. That little poult flew into the woods and the cat took off for points unknown. I stood there looking worried.

Here’s mama looking around for predators. She had started to cluck by this time so I knew she was worried about something:

I just yelled upstairs that aside from three slices of cucumber that I was in the process of eating that all of the cucumbers have been processed. The better-half wasn’t very enthusiastic. So I walked upstairs and said it again. He managed to give me an atta-girl. When he tastes my pickles, he’ll be more thrilled.

In an hour I will finish making refrigerator pickles with the cucumbers that are now soaking in salt and when I’m done with that, I’ll move the bread and butter pickles I just canned to the dining room to cool off.

Tomorrow, I’m going to process every last zucchini and squash that’s currently picked. I can’t promise that every last one will be eaten or frozen tomorrow because as soon as you stop looking at the plants they shoot out 75 squash, apiece.

The yukon gold potatoes we picked last week are not exactly beauty queens but they are tasty and those mothers are going to be blanched and frozen too. I will be exhausted but the kitchen counters, refrigerator crispers and garage floor will be ours again. At least until Monday.

Here’s a link to an article written by Jimmy Carter about why he broke ties with the Southern Baptist Convention.

I encourage you to read it as it is well written and carefully lays out the reasons why gender equality is very important for how we will move forward as a people. Or better yet, as a species (so no one gets hung up on geographical, political or religious lines).

When I was a junior in college I got into Pink Floyd. I may have been interested in them before then, but that year I wore out Delicate Sound of Thunder. It helped me make friends with the boys who lived on the floor below mine. They were awkwardly geeky too and consequently we spent some Saturday nights wallowing in our misery together listening to Pink Floyd and drinking beer. They both eventually found girlfriends and I kept up my acquaintance with David Gilmour and company.

I first heard this song today and immediately thought about how listening to the Dark Side of the Moon might be just the thing to help a friend get over what needs getting over:

Stop using your speaker phone to bitch at your husband. I can go the rest of my life without hearing you nag him.

Monday afternoon there was a sudden break in my health and by sudden I mean an hour or even a half hour before I was OK, then my nose was runny. It doesn’t matter how quickly I act to stop a cold or an overactive sinus dealy from getting out of control, the damage has been done. I’ve spent most of the week either evacuating massive quantities of snot out of my head or hacking up a lung. Great visual, I’m sure. The worst part has been at night when I spend hours coughing and not sleeping. The better-half has been sleeping in the guest room all week. I should mention that the coughing sounds like a dog barking–it’s loud and guttural. It’s also highly annoying for me and whomever might be around.

Yesterday I left work two hours early so I could take a nap. I figured all my work was done for the week and there was no sense staying at the office to annoy the few folks who were actually trying to work. I ended up sleeping for 1 1/2 hours. That’s a serious nap for me as I’m more of a cat napper.

Last night was so horrible and I won’t bore you with how productive my coughs were, but when I got up this morning, I apologized to the universe for whatever I’d done to piss it off. As if coughing all night wasn’t bad enough, the phone rang at 7:45. Seriously, what is wrong with people that calling my house at that time on a Saturday morning is OK? Furthermore, I was just out in a lounge chair hoping to catch some sleep when a big horsefly buzzed my lip. That’s a sure sign that I’m not quite forgiven and I need to go process some zucchini to pay my penance.

Do you ever feel like you are just talking into the void?

will it answer?

I feel that way on a fairly consistent basis at work. I ask questions and off they go skittering into the void. How many times should you follow up when no one wants to answer your questions?