A Dumb Brunette Almost Takes Out the Trash

There is something to be said for a good night's sleep.

There is also something to be said for signs that you need one.

I woke up Tuesday morning to the sound of squealing brakes and an engine that seriously needed a tuneup right outside my window. I sat there for a few seconds, trying to figure out (1) what was causing the noise, (2) whether I really cared what was making it, (3) how badly I needed to go the bathroom, and (4) whether I wanted to go back to sleep. I was leaning heavily towards no on #2, not too bad on #3, and hell yes on #4 when the following thought entered my head and answered #1:

"Oh, #*%!. It's the garbage man!"

I had forgotten to take the garbage can around front the night before so I jumped up, grabbed my glasses, and made a run for it. I didn't care that I was in the Snoopy pajamas that my sister gave me for Christmas. I didn't care that the braless twins were swinging freely. I didn't care that my hair looked positively electrified. I just cared that I would have to continue smelling the reek of week-old garbage unless I chased the garbage man down the street. I was halfway down the stairs before another thought occurred to me.

"It's Tuesday, not Wednesday. Garbage comes on Wednesdays."

Embarrassed, I turned around, went back up the stairs, and finally peeked out the window. Sure enough, there was no garbage truck outside, just a school bus. My embarrassment turning to anger, I let go of the blinds and laid down next to the tapeworms that I did not yet know were sharing my bed. It wasn't until sometime later, most likely during my parasite meltdown, that I finally realized another error of my ways.

Garbage is now on Thursdays.

Too bad the sound outside my window wasn't someone hitting one of these:

Or even holding up a roll of these:

I could have so used a do over Tuesday or at least a sign that said, "Warning: Tapeworms! Two inches from your head!"

I Look Like the Wicked Witch, Minus the Striped Socks & Flying Monkeys

You might be wondering why I chose my nose as the flaw of the week for Friday's post. The answer is simple really; I've been staring at the thing all week thanks to the lovely zit that erupted on its tip last weekend. A week later I continue to look like this:
Only not so green. The zit has been making me nuts, so much so that I have actually considered blowing $20 to $40 to order yet another ProActiv kit.

Do you want to know who I blame for that? I blame the celebrities. Every time I turn on the TV, another new celebrity like Katy Perry, Avril Lavigne, or that woman that plays Annie on All My Children is endorsing the products in an infomercial, claiming that those three little steps are the reason their skin is now perfect. On an intellectual level, I say, "Yeah, right." Maybe the ProActiv is helping some, but I doubt it is the only reason their once blemished skin is now perfect. I guarantee you that they're all seeing some Los Angeles Dermatologist who is doing a lot more for their pimples than telling them to call a 1-800 number or QVC.

On an emotional level, however, I want to believe their claims. I want to believe the before and after shots. I want to believe that my skin will look like theirs if I use ProActiv religiously and at the same time forget that I have tried it at least ten times in the past without success. It is the emotional response that I have to keep in check, or I'll end up picking up the phone and wasting money on something I know doesn't work for me.

Believe it or not, my skin was clear in high school. It didn't start breaking out until college. I started seeing a dermatologist then and spent college and most of law school on tetracycline and Differin. Those products worked for awhile and then stopped. When I started the job from hell, I made an appointment with a new dermatologist who I never got to see. Instead, all I got to see was a physician's assistant who couldn't even bother to raise his head and look at my skin. He just looked at the form I filled out, said there was nothing else he could do for me other than prescribe Accutane, and handed me the checkout sheet when I turned the Accutane down. I was so angry at and frustrated by his treatment, I haven't been back to a dermatologist since.

I remember that the physician's assistant told me that there had not been any new discoveries in Advanced Dermatology since the invention of Differin, as far as acne was concerned. I thought he was full of poo then and still do. For instance, some doctors' offices like Celibre in California use lasers for more than just Laser Tattoo Removal and body hair removal; they also use the lasers to kill acne-causing bacteria and shrink the pores. Did the physician's assistant ever even suggest laser therapy? No. If he had, he wouldn't have been able to ignore see 20 more patients that hour.

Anyway, I guess that's my roundabout way of saying that I have tried to do something to my skin, but I can only do so much when the doctors around here are more concerned with seeing a certain number of patients per hour than actually treating those patients. Who does that sound like? Right, my vet. Just add it to the list of reasons I need to move.

It's also my way of saying that, despite all the staring and the willing it to do so, the zit still hasn't gone away. It continues to mock me from the bathroom mirror and to cause me to think of very little else than, "Zit, nose, zit, nose, zit, nose." Just consider yourselves lucky that I didn't come up with the top 10 reasons to love my zits.

Reason #1: Even when I'm out of Charmin, I still have something to squeeze.

See. Mocking my own big honker wasn't such a bad topic after all.

This post is brought to you by your friends at Celibre.com.

It May Be Big, But It Can Smell Bug Spray a Mile Away

I hate my nose. At some point in my childhood, I decided that it was the most hideous thing on my body. I think that my intense dislike may have begun the day my sixth grade teacher moved me, the quiet girl, in between Aaron and Steven, two of the rowdiest boys in the class, because she thought that my calm presence would somehow make them behave. It didn't. Instead, I wasn't in my new seat five minutes before Aaron asked me, "Has anyone ever told you that your nose is the biggest thing on your face?"

They had not, but I didn't tell him that. I just pretended that I didn't hear him and tried not to cry.

In retrospect, his question really wasn't that big of an insult. Technically, unless you're Angelina Jolie or Octomom, your nose probably is the biggest thing on your face. If you're them, however, your lips win hands down.


Just the same, the insult stuck with me. Every time I looked in the mirror, all I saw staring back at me was the gigantic honker. I even used to say that my nose was so big and bulbous I looked like Bill Clinton's love child.

After law school, I maxed out my line of credit with MBNA and got a nose job, a very botched nose job. Even though my surgeon had been practicing for 20 or 30 years, was board certified, and answered every question like he was supposed to, he still ended up being a total quack. Today my nose is a just-as-big, messed up version of what it once was. Thanks to the surgeon sewing that little strip of skin between my nostrils on crooked, my nose now appears lopsided. The bone or cartilage between the nostrils and below the tip peeks out from behind the skin in the right nostril. I have a chunk of scar tissue hanging down inside my left nostril, and there is still a bit of unattached cartilage left on the bridge of my nose.

(A little background info: Surgeon #1 took cartilage from the bottom of my nose and put it on the bridge between my eyes because he said I needed it there for my profile to look like it was supposed to look. However, he in no way, shape, or form anchored that cartilage to the existing bone. As a result, every time I sniffed post-surgery, the cartilage would move in this s-like shape across that part of my nose. My mom used her bonus a couple of months later to pay for Surgeon #2 to remove that piece of cartilage since Surgeon #1 refused to do it. In his own very loud words, "[He] never should have operated on me. [He's] not God." Surgeon #2 thought she had removed all of the floating cartilage, but she had not. If you pull the skin tight on the upper part of my nose, you can still see little pieces of it.)

I will never like my nose, not without additional, corrective surgery, something I hope to have one day. I can't even pretend to like my nose for purposes of Flat Ass Fridays. The hatred is just too ingrained at this point. However, I can see a couple of advantages of having a big nose.

1. If I ever walk into a door, I would more likely bruise my nose than my eye. In other words, there is a lot more padding to work with for the gravity-challenged like myself.
2. I never have a problem getting the end of the neti pot to fit in my nostril.
3. I never have to worry about my glasses falling completely off my nose.
4. Chances are, I'll never be mistaken for someone else in a lineup. The nose is just too distinctive.
5. No parts of my Biore pore strips ever go to waste.
6. Slap a little bit of red lipstick on me, and I could easily play Bozo at your kid's next party when the real one cancels on you at the last minute.
   
   (What the unemployment line looks like for us big-nosed boys and girls.)
7. If you call me nosey, I won't automatically assume that you are accusing me of being annoyingly inquisitive.
8. The tissue companies love me because a bigger nose means more snot and therefore more tissue when the snot runs southward.
9. People with their own nose issues love having me around because their noses always seem smaller by comparison.
   
10. If Walmart won't hire me, I can always freelance as a K-9 drug sniffer for the local police department or the feds because my sense of smell is practically supersonic.
    
    (No, I'm not that hairy yet, but a few more days of dizziness, and I might be.)

I'm sorry, but those are about all the advantages that I can come up. Now I'm going to go grab a handful of old Glamours, cut out the smallest, perkiest noses that I can find, and glue them to my driver's license. It's the only nose job I can afford at the moment.

Deep Thoughts from the Grocery Store Aisle

Despite the dizziness, I managed to make it to Kroger today for some much needed ginger ale. While there, I had the following moments of clarity.

1. People always seem to get grocery store parking lots confused with the Altlanta Motor Speedway.
2. If you're trying to cross from the lot to the store a foot from the crosswalk, no one will stop for you, even if you step out in front of their cars. They may not even stop for you if you're in the crosswalk.
3. The AC is always on in winter and off in summer.
4. You're guaranteed to get a squeaky buggy, even if you pull the first three buggies you come to to the side.
5. Grocery stores like to put the organic produce bags on the very edge of the organic produce display so that, if you're ever in a rush, you grab the wrong bag and get charged more for plain, old, cheap produce.
6. They also like to put the bread that goes out of date in two days on top of the bread pile.
7. The store managers let the fluorescent lights flicker because they know it will give you a migraine and cause you to reach for the most expensive comfort food in the store.
8. When the name brand and the store brand go on sale at the same time for the same price and you decide that you want the name brand, the name brand is nowhere to be found.
9. Grocery stores love buy one, get one free sales because they know that the customer has no way of knowing for sure whether the sale really means that the item is half off or a second item has to be purchased before the price kicks in.
10. They also love to list sales by the pound and then refuse to sell you an exact pound.
11. The more you try to walk around a slow shopper, the more that shopper will push his buggy like he drank his way through the liquor aisle.
    
12. Somewhere along the way, someone decided that making sure there are always groceries on the shelf is more important than making sure those groceries get paid for before they become melted pools of e.coli and salmonella. That's why there are always three times more stock boys and girls than there are cashiers.
13. Bag boys can't seem to understand that, when you put the bread sideways in the bag, the bread will get squashed like a wheat-filled accordion.
14. Cashiers can't seem to understand that food breaks, especially when you throw it at the bag boy.
15. Bag boys will only offer to take the groceries to your car when the car has an inch of junk mail in the floorboard and reeks of dirty dog.
16. When your car is clean and you're too old/sick/pregnant/[fill in the blank] to carry the groceries yourself, there is never a bag boy in sight.
17. If the line is a mile long, there will be something in your buggy that won't scan and will require a price check. It is inevitable.
18. Buggy returns always seem to be a mile from your car, even when you're parked right next to one.
19. Even after buying a backseat full of groceries, the Chick-fil-A inside the grocery store still manages to call your name.
20. The day you run into the grocery store looking like a before shot on What Not to Wear is the day you run into Who You Wish You Didn't Know.

The Monster at the Bottom of the Stairs

I have created a monster.

I was scared it was going to happen. I had hoped that it wouldn't, but in the back of my mind I knew that it probably would.

Who is that monster? Here's a hint.


Bella, who I am now referring to as Spoiled Rotten She Devil, is that monster. Even though she is walking almost normally and has been chasing a wound up Bailey around the house thanks to the wonders of Rimadyl, she refuses to go up the stairs on her own. Instead of walking or bunny hopping up them, she will go to the base of the stairs and wait for me to pick her up. I think that she has gotten so used to me, the Mommy Taxi, carrying her fat behind wherever she needed to go this past week, she has forgotten that she knows how do it herself.

Yesterday when I woke up so dizzy that I had to hold onto both sides of the stairwell to go down, I knew there was no way that I was going to be able to carry her up short of shoving her into my old L.L. Bean backpack and strapping her onto my back. As we stood at the base of the stairs and I listened to Bella whimper, I thought I was going to have to go on ShopWiki.com, use its price comparison feature to find the cheapest stroller on the Internet, overnight it, remove the wheels, and somehow rig it to the railing so I could push her up instead of carrying her up. I was far too dizzy to drive to Walmart and buy one directly.

Luckily, after about the 10th time I said, "1, 2, 3, up," Bella went up on her own. I had to continue the 1, 2, 3 stuff the rest of the day. I have to continue to beg her today because she just doesn't want to do it.

I always wondered why people would push their pets around in those weird looking pet strollers you see in pet catalogs and online. Now I know why. It's not because something is wrong with the pet physically. It's because something is wrong with the pet mentally. In other words, the dog or cat is in the stroller because the dog or cat thinks it is too good to be on the ground or has forgotten what it is like to walk on it.

Of course, I'm worried about what's going to happen when the Rimadyl runs out. If Bella pauses at the stairs, will it be because she's hurting or because the Spoiled Rotten She Devil wants to be carried? Will I need to rig a chair lift out of a stroller, buy a baby carrier or baby sling to carry her around in, or just get used to sore arms and backs?

(This one is cute, but it might be a tad small for a cocker spaniel.)

I'm hoping that it is none of the above. In fact, I hope that Bella continues to walk well and that the Spoiled Rotten She Devil side of her goes into hiding. If it doesn't, can you just imagine me pushing a dog or jogging stroller around the block? My neighbors already think that I'm freak. A dog stroller would probably just paint an invisible "Beware of the Crazy Dog Lady" sign on my head.

Yes, I know that that sign is probably already there.

This post is brought to you by your friends at ShopWiki.com

I Was Too Tired to Take a Memo Monday

To: The World

From: Miss Dizzy

Re: The spinning

Please stop it! I'm begging you. I don't know what I did to piss you off, but I don't think that I have ever been as dizzy as I am today. I'm having to hold onto both sides of the stairwell every time I take the dogs out, and I was so scared of slicing open an artery this morning that I wouldn't even pick up the razor in the shower. Therefore, I apologize for whatever I did to make you lash out at me. Now please, please, please stop the spinning.

____________________________

To: Your Royal Highness

From: Your sister

Re: Your questionable parenting

Look, I know that every now and then you get in these manic type of moods where you think it's okay to stay up all night with your son, giggling, and doing really stupid things like drawing all over him with a magic marker or forcing him to put on one of Mama's old nightgowns from the 70's. I also know that you don't think there is anything wrong with doing so. Maybe when your son doesn't have to go to school the next day you are somewhat right. I say somewhat because I've seen enough episodes of Dr. Phil and Criminal Minds to know that forcing a boy to dress as a girl, even in jest, can only lead to problems down the road. Therefore don't be surprised if His Majesty manages an old hotel one day where the customers mysteriously disappear from their showers and where you'll spend your golden years in a rocking chair in the attic.

Just the same, when your son does have school the next day, is it not proper parenting to have your son call me at 11 p.m. and ask me on your behalf how the two of you can light his farts. I'll tell you what I told him. You're just asking for trouble, the kind that involves his dick being burnt off or his underwear melting to his butt. You're also contributing to his sleep deprivation and, in turn, those bad grades you've been complaining about the past few months. How can you possibly expect your son to make A's when he can't keep his eyes open in class due to his mother's immature antics? He already told me at Christmas that he sleeps through Spanish all the time. I wouldn't be surprised if he's sleeping through some other subjects as well.

Grow up and take some meds already. I'm sure your son and his teacher will thank you for it. I know I will.

____________________________________

To: Chain-Smoking Granny

From: Your granddaughter

Re: Your communication problem

I'm not psychic. I spent all of last week dealing with my dog's own orthopedic problems. How am supposed to know about His Majesty's? Her Highness only calls me when she wants something, like knowing how to light her child's farts. She doesn't call me to inform me of His Majesty's every ache and pain. Therefore, if you want to know if his ankle is better, call and ask him or her. Don't ask me.

By the way, I find it rather rude that you're in Atlanta, albeit on the other side, and you haven't once offered to take me out to eat. My birthday is coming up, just like yours. I suppose it's all for the best though. How many times did you offer to take Mama out for her birthday, only to conveniently lose your debit card and stick her with the bill once we were through with dessert? Uh, more times that I can count. I'll be damned if you do the same thing to me.

____________________________

To: Bailey

From: Mommy

Re: That look on your face

Is the world spinning for you, too, or did you find some alcohol stash that I didn't know I had? The reason I ask is that you look mighty hungover today, and you've done nothing but grunt and groan every time I touch you. If it makes you feel any better, Mommy feels like crap, too. I say we both take a nice, long nap and see if the world got my memo when we wake up.

______________________________

To: Bella

From: Mommy

Re: Your improved health

The tapeworm and hot spot issues aside, I get that you're feeling better today and that your walk is almost back to normal. However, your brother and I don't get to take magic anti-inflammatories/pain killers so we both feel like the big poo today. Could you hold off on hitting me with every toy in the house for about an hour, maybe two, so we can take a nap? I promise, if the world is spinning slower when I wake up, I'll throw the toys and play with you. Thanks.

Disclaimer for new readers: Bella and Bailey are my canine children, not human children. I forget sometimes that not everyone who visits knows that. Here's a pic from Halloween:

Bailey is on the left; Bella is on the right. Sorry for any confusion.

I Want to Scour Myself with Bleach: Random Tuesday Thoughts

Take a look at these two pictures. Do you know what those little brown things are?

Those of you who have followed my tweets on Twitter today already know the answer to that question. For those of you who haven't, let me fill you in. They are dried up tapeworms. I found them on one of the bed pillows, on the sheets, and on the comforter about an hour ago. Ever since then, I have felt like I need to call the CDC and ask if I can use one of their decontamination chambers to get clean. Gross, gross, gross.

Seriously, people. What if I was sleeping with my mouth open last night? What if a whole swarm of them crawled out of the dogs' butts--I wiped both of their butts last night before I went to sleep so the worms had to crawl out of them, not off--across those two or three inches of bed, and into my mouth? What if they crawled a few more inches into my pajama bottoms, my underwear, and a warm, dark place? Someone please hand me an enema, a scouring pad, and a giant bottle of bleach stat. I'm going to need them.

Since the dogs didn't have fleas or worms until they came into contact with my sisters' dogs, I have half a mind to put all the dead tapeworms, a thank you card, and the receipts for the Advantage and tapeworm pills in an envelope and mail it to her. Since my sister isn't the brightest bulb, I doubt that she would get the point so I guess I'll just have to settle for thanking her with my middle finger.

I'm sorry I never got my Take a Memo Monday post done yesterday. I decided to give my blog a makeover, and as usual it took longer than I thought it would thanks to Internet Explorer. It never fails that you can get a design to look perfect in Firefox, Chrome, Opera, and Safari, only to have it look like crap in Internet Explorer. I was up to 1 a.m. trying to figure out why my favicon won't show up in either IE7 or 8. I'm using an .ico file like I'm supposed to. I'm using the language that I'm supposed to. It still won't work. The only thing that I can figure is something got screwed up when I used one of those converter tools to change the image from a .png to an .ico file. Anyway, I plan on doing the post tomorrow.

Have you ever driven down a road in a direction you don't normally drive and suddenly everything looks different? I did that today after I decided to use a free sandwich coupon at the new Arby's that is past Petsmart. The shopping center looked really weird on that side of the road.

I have to catch up on Lost this week, or I will be totally lost on Lost next week. Not that I'm not lost on Lost even when I'm caught up and therefore technically not lost in the sense of being behind. I probably just lost a lot of you on what I just said. Sorry.

I heart Rimadyl. I know that it has killed some dogs. I know it has screwed up some others, but for right now I consider it a rock star drug, mostly because Bella is finally walking on her bad lag. It's not a great walk. It's like a cross between a limp, a skip, and the bunny hop, but I'll take a "skimpy hop" any day over not walking at all.

When I was trying to decide what seamless pattern to use for my background, I kept returning to this image on Stockxpert:

I was going to use it until I finally realized why I kept returning to it:

Yeah, I had a real light bulb moment yesterday. I liked it because it looked my purse. Duh.

Last week I bought new Loreal's facial cleanser, the one with the little scrub brush, at Kroger on sale. I was so excited to use it. Excited isn't the word that I would use now. My face is so dry and flaky it hurts to move it. I'm amazed that I don't look like the Joker. Go, go, go, with a smile. If I had some red lipstick, maybe I would. Instead, I'm just go, go, going with chapstick and a hefty dose of moisturizer.

I hate my right kidney, and my right kidney hates me. Who knew a box of frozen pancakes would be loaded with sodium? Obviously, not me. Now I'm paying for it. I wouldn't mind being the blunt end of an urban legend right now so long as the ice in the tub was crushed--I'm thinking any other kind would hurt--and the wacko I met in the bar took the right kidney.

I got this spam comment today on my blog: "A family began to suspect that someone was peeping into the window of their 16-year-old’s daughter’s bedroom window." It was on post about Bailey eating my blinds. WTH? Did the spammer think "nice blog," "good job," and all the penis enlargement stuff was overrated? While I like to encourage creativity in people, when it comes to spammers I think they need to stick to the classics.

For more random thoughts, be sure to stop by The UnMom.

Sorry for Yet Another Mess

This blog will be messy looking for the next hour. I'm changing the background. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Limpgate Continues

Today is officially Day Seven of Limpgate. I can count the number of times Bella has put weight on her foot since Monday on one hand and still have fingers left over. So far I have tried giving her the Tramadol that the vet prescribed in various dosages, the recommended aspirin, In Clover Connectin (her glucosamine supplement), fish oil capsules, and, because I read it might work on the Internet, blackstrap molasses. So far, none of them have allowed her to walk on her rear left leg.

I think Limpgate is taking just as bad of a toll on me as it is on Bella. I'm tired of having to carry her up and down the stairs twenty times a day. I'm mad, not to mention frustrated, that I can't get anyone to believe me that there is more going on with her than just arthritis and obesity. (Hello, Bella was just as fat and just as arthritic Sunday night, and she was walking fine.) I'm scared that, by the time I do get someone to believe me, it will be too late for whatever the cheapest fix would be (e.g., popping a dislocated hip back into place or splinting a broken bone), that I will be therefore forced to pursue the most expensive fix (e.g., FHO surgery or inserting a surgical pin), and that said fix will make it so I can't pay my house payment next month. Finally, I'm sore and constantly out-of-breath because I'm just not in good enough shape to be lugging around an extra 35 canine pounds.

So guess what I'll be doing sometime in the coming week. That's right. Going back to the vet, whether it be my regular one or a new one. I am not thrilled about that fact because vet visits are never fun, and not just for the obvious reasons. First, the seating in the lobby isn't all that comfortable. My vet has decided that a hodgepodge collection of uncomfortable benches is the way to go in the furniture department. I'm sure that the benches are easier for the staff to keep clean than padded chairs, but they're not exactly easy on the human back or on the pet. For example, if you have a dog that's bigger than 15 or 20 pounds that wants to sit on your lap while you wait, they're going to find it rather difficult to do so because the benches just aren't wide enough for their rear ends. Consequently, you'll find that what ends up happening is the dog will try to fit its entire body in your lap, even if your lap isn't wide enough to accommodate.

Second, there is nothing to do while you wait. You can't read because you either have a dog in your lap or you're having to remain alert so you can avoid things like dog fights or your dog pulling lose from its collar and running out the door. You can't watch TV because either your vet has no TV or, if they do, it's not tuned to anything but a Furminator DVD set on repeat. The latter is what my vet has. Obviously, they've never heard of Direct TV for Business. If they had and if they were smart, they would call the number for commercial Direct TV, have them come and install a satellite dish on the roof, and then turn the TV to Animal Planet or the Discovery Channel. I think seeing other animals on TV would calm both the animals and their owners. If nothing else, it would provide a welcomed distraction from the chaos around them. It's not like the vets can't afford the service. Heck, they charge you an exam or re-exam fee every time you walk in the door, even if your pet is never technically examined. One exam fee alone would probably pay for a month of basic Direct TV service.

Of course, if you couldn't tell from my posts this past week, the vets at the clinic where I go aren't the brightest or the most considerate of the bunch. Why should they care that every other service-oriented office in the area (doctor, dentist, auto mechanic, etc.) offers Direct TV Business programming or cable in their lobbies when they have country music on the speakers? After all, depressing, tears-in-my-beer music is just so much more comforting than animal-friendly TV when you already feel like you're going to throw up in your mouth from the what ifs running through your head. (That last sentence is me being sarcastic, in case you couldn't tell.)

Third, there is always some adult or poorly watched kid in the lobby who thinks it's okay to pet your animal without first asking you whether the animal bites. A little old lady did that to me Wednesday. She just reached down and started to pet Bella without asking me if it was okay first. Now Bella is by no means an ill-trained pit bull, but she is a socially inept cocker spaniel, and she is in a lot of pain. I can't guarantee that, thanks to those two things, she won't snap at a stranger. I would hope that she wouldn't, but I cannot guarantee it. I'm sure a lot of other people, even those with well-trained, well-socialized dogs, would say that their pet behaves quite differently when it is stressed out, hurt, or both. It's just the nature of the beast.

Finally, there are the obvious reasons why going to the vet is no fun--money and the potential for yet another misdiagnosis. All in all, I don't want to go back, but I have to. I'm just hoping that when I do, they'll finally pinpoint the problem, fix said problem, and ensure that I don't have to go back again until Bella's shots are due. I swear I feel like I live there now as is.

This post is brought to you by your friends at Directsattv.com.

They'd Make Sally Hansen Cry, But Tim Allen Might Be Impressed

I'm sorry this post is so late today. I didn't sleep well last night due to another flaw--the world's tiniest bladder--and that flaw's dislike of the soup I ate for supper last night. Consequently, I'm so exhausted today that it took me awhile to come up with some flaw that didn't involve me urinating.

What I finally came up with was my nails. They're a hot mess, and the cuticles are even worse. I tried to take a picture of them, but the battery on my camera died mid-shot. As it turns out, all those videos I made the other day of Bella's limping sucked the last bit of life out of the lithium batteries, and I haven't felt like going to Walmart to get more. I've seen all of Walmart I care to see this week.

My nails haven't always been a hot mess. They actually used to be rather nice. In high school, I wouldn't even leave the house unless my manicure was perfect. Then I went to college, got assigned to the admission's office for my work study, and quickly learned the kind of damage that filing and data entry could do to nails and cuticles. After college came law school. I was lucky if I got four hours of sleep a night during that phase of my life. There was no way I was going to cut that amount down to three hours just to do my nails.

The neglect continued at my last job. I rarely did my nails because I found that, when I did, the polish quickly chipped due to all the typing I had to do. Plus, too much length made typing rather difficult.

Fast forward to now. The neglect continues, and I really have no excuse for it other than I just don't feel like doing anything to them. Most days I feel bad about that fact, but not today. For one day only, I'm going to celebrate the hot mess with the following:

The Top Ten Reasons Why I Love My Short, Unpainted Nails or Why You Should Love Me for Them

1. You'll never have to wait for my nails to dry before you can go out or to sleep.
2. A pair of garden gloves can last me forever because I'm not afraid to go sans gloves and get dirty, unless it involves unidentifiable animal remains.
3. I'm also not afraid of paint, ink, white out, paper edges, heat, hammers, or any other object or substance that might ruin my non-existent manicure. In other words, if you need a hand, I'm willing to lend one, maybe even two.
   
   
4. If you go on a road trip with me, I can guarantee that you'll never be sickened by the smell of acetone and nail polish in a closed car. Gas or other foul smells, on the other hand, I can't guarantee.
   
   
5. You'll never be distracted by or annoyed with me for talking with my nails. I had a classmate who did that at Rollins. I always felt like she was trying to conduct an orchestra with those two-inch tips instead of trying to make a point. It was all I could do not to reach over the table and rip those acrylic suckers off.
6. Ditto on that nail drumming thing some women love to do.
7. I rarely misdial a phone number or scratch a chalkboard due to having nails longer than my attention span.
8. Unlike Chain Smoking Granny, I never have to worry about doing myself irreparable harm in some not-so-comfortable places while cleaning myself in the bathroom. (Have I mentioned that my grandmother's nails closely resemble the nails of Wolverine's brother Victor? No? Think about it though; my grandmother as a mutant might explain a lot.)
   
   
   
9. I'm unlikely to leave claw marks/draw blood in the heat of passion. Of course, that could be a bad thing if you're into marking and/or blood, but, hey, I'm not judging. To each their own.
   
10. If Donald Sutherland ever stops by, tells me that I'm the Chosen One and there are vampires, leaves me in a graveyard to prove it, and the next day throws a knife at my head,
    
    
    and if I thereafter respond by punching Mr. Sutherland, you won't hear me say afterwards, "I didn't even break a nail."
    
    
    No, I'm sure that whatever I will say will be a lot more colorful.

Tomorrow, however, I am going to swallow my pride and my Flat Ass Friday delusions; grab the cuticle cream, buffer, and emery board; and make my nails and cuticles more of a warm mess than a hot one.

When you're done reading this post or doing your own nails, be sure to check out today's post from Cheryl at That Girl is Funny. The link to that post should be with MckLinky below. Flat Ass Fridays was her idea, and she's been writing some really great posts for it. She even wrote one before I could today. I'm guessing that means she didn't eat soup last night like me.

Thursday Thunks Returns!

Actually, it returned last Thursday, but the prompt was posted on the Thursday Thunks blog sometime after I checked for it. Dumb me. I forgot to check the blog a second time.

1. Pants on the Ground...

Pants on the ground. Looking like a fool with your pants on the ground...

In defense of flat butts everywhere, "pants on the ground" is not always a fashion statement. Sometimes it's just a matter of DNA and of forgetting to wear a belt. For instance, my sister got my nephew, who has inherited the flat behind gene, a pair of wide-legged jeans for Christmas. Even though His Majesty put on a belt to jump on his new trampoline, he took it off when he came inside. On the way to fridge later that day, he accidentally stepped on the hem of those wide-legged jeans and literally had pants on the ground. I laughed; he just turned red and yanked them back up.

Moral of the story: if you see pants on the ground, don't automatically assume that person is a fool. He could just be posteriorly-challenged.

2. To compliment Kimber's question from last week.... have you ever fallen down the stairs?

Not all the way down. Every now and then I'll slip down a few steps and catch myself. I'm all coordinated like that.

3. Have you ever written to a company about their product? Ever called them?

All the time. I'm pretty much the Queen of the Complaint Letter. In fact, I just called In Clover, the company that makes my dogs' joint supplement, yesterday. However, it wasn't to complain but to ask a question.

4. Your dog/cat/snake/iguana/pet skunk (or just fill in your pet's species) goes to the vet. OK, you take them to the vet... most pets wouldn't go on their own. The vet tells you that your species has cancer. Do you:

a. tell them to pull out the needle and put them to sleep on the spot
b. take them home and let them live out their life until the end
c. same as b, except you don't let them get to the suffering stage
d. go full steam ahead with cancer treatments

Either C or D, based on the type of cancer and whether the vet thinks chemo would do any good. For instance, the pekingese I had growing up developed cancer. Her vet told us that she only had six months to live with or without chemo. Because of that, my mom decided to forgo the chemo, but she did pay for three different surgeries to have the tumors removed over the next year or two. That's right; I said year or two. As it turns out, the vet was totally wrong on the time estimate. Prissy lived another six years, not six months, and she ended up dying from a stroke, not from cancer.

5. What is your favorite comfort food?

It used to be chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. However, due to my increasing issues with lactose, my favorite comfort food has now become Warm Delights' chocolate caramel cake,


followed at a close second by Purely Decadent's line of non-dairy ice creams.


I actually just finished a pint of the company's chocolate cherry ice cream yesterday. (I think Purely Decadent calls it a dairy-free dessert instead of ice cream, but if it looks like ice cream, tastes like ice cream, and can be eaten during periods of PMS like ice cream, it's ice cream. It just isn't ice cream made from cow's milk.)

6. If your child was put in jail for putting a gun in their spouses mouth and pulling the trigger (even though the gun wasn't loaded), strangling them, and breaking their arm, would you post bail for them?

Seeing as my children have four legs and fur, doing all those things without opposable thumbs would be a mighty big feat so, yes, I would bail them out of the doggy jail.

If I ever have human children, maybe I would, but maybe I wouldn't. I guess it all depends on the situation. Innocent until proven guilty, right?

7. If elephants had wings, how many feathers do you think they would have on each wing?

It wouldn't matter. Per Walt Disney, they would still have to have a feather in their trunk to fly.


8. Is there anything growing in your refrigerator right now?

No, but give me a few more days, and the answer could be yes. (The bag of baby carrots and leftover bowl of vegetable soup need to go.)

9. What did you do with your Thursdays while we were on a break?

I had to look at my archives for this answer--a whole lot of nothing. I think I only wrote one Thursday post while Thursday Thunks was on hiatus.

10. Would you donate to the Kimber Ark Building Fund and donate wood? She is about to float away after all.

I have a few boards leftover from my privacy fence in my storage room in the backyard. The only thing that they're being used for is spider condos. If Kimber can use those, then sure I'll donate them, but she'll have to pay for shipping. This week's vet drama is breaking me.

11. If I were to send you a letter and I wanted to put a little heart sticker on the back of the envelope, what color sticker would you like it to be?

My favorite color--purple.

For more answers to this week's Thursday Thunks prompt, be sure to check out the links here: Berleen's Turn to Think Your Thunker.

Bella's Anatomy, Take Two

Bella didn't sleep last night. She cried and shivered all night long. Consequently, I didn't sleep either. I basically just closed my eyes for an hour or two at a time.

When we finally got up this morning, she was still shaking. I didn't care that it had not been technically "a few days" per the vet's orders. My dog was hurting. I was willing to pay for an x-ray so, dang it, they were going to do an x-ray. They weren't going to make her suffer a few days more. I decided that I wasn't even going to do the nice thing and make an appointment. I had an appointment Monday. They didn't do anything during that appointment other than look at me funny. This time I was going in as a walk-in. Take that, Dr. I'm in a Bad Mood.

So that's where I spent my morning--at the vet's--again. It took them 30 minutes or more to get the x-ray machine to warm up enough that it would take something other than a white shot of Bella's leg. The good news of that x-ray? Bella didn't tear her ACL repair. The bad news? They really don't know what's wrong other than arthritis. Great.

I hate to say it, but I think it would have been better if that x-ray had shown that she had broken her leg or torn something because at least then we would have a definite reason for why she could walk on her left leg one minute and couldn't the next. If we had a definite reason, we would have a definite game plan on how to treat it. Instead, we're continuing with this take a pill, wait a few days, and see nonsense. I'm tired of nonsense.

On top of that, they didn't give me any new pills to try. Dr. I'm in a Bad Mood told me to continue with the Tramadol and supplement it with joint supplements and aspirin. That would be fine if the Tramadol actually did anything for her; it hasn't. It just made her shake all night.

That shaking raises another issue. Were the shivers due to the pain or the meds? Dr. I'm in a Bad Mood said it couldn't be the meds. It had to be the pain. Too bad the patient handout sheet that she didn't give me and that I had to get off 1800PetMeds.com and DrsFosterandSmith.com disagrees. What I read there makes me seriously reconsider giving it to her when her 12 hours are up.

First, it seems the FDA hasn't approved Tramadol for use in dogs. Vets just use it off label. Did she tell me that? No.

Second, it's closer to morphine than a NSAID and can cause seizures in humans and pets. Again that's something the vet never told me.

Third, you can't quit it cold turkey. If you do or your dog does, you or your dog will most likely have withdrawal symptoms worthy of that detox episode of House or Celebrity Rehab. That is, your dog could experience one or more of the following symptoms: anxiety, nausea, diarrhea, tremors, chills, and breathing problems. Uh, hello! Bella had tremors and chills all night long, even though she took a pill around 10 p.m. and the heat was running nonstop. That can't be good. Did the vet tell me that either? Nope.

Fourth, you can easily overdose on Tramadol. Here are the signs of overdose that I was never told about: drowsiness, shallow breathing, slow heartbeat, extreme weakness, fainting, or coma. Do you want to know what scares me about those signs? By the time they happen, it's probably too late AND I WASN'T TOLD ABOUT THEM.

The only thing Dr. I'm in a Bad Mood told me was to watch for diarrhea and hives. That's it. Wow. Way to inform the owner there. If I had not had the foresight to go to these sites and not continue to blindly trust my veterinarian, I would have never known the kind of danger this drug poses to my dog.

Bella is finally resting now, but it's not because of the Tramadol. It's because I gave her two doggy aspirins, a Connectin supplement, and a fish oil capsule around 3 p.m.. Those three things helped her, not this narcotic that is considered a controlled substance in a handful of states. I think, given the serious nature of the withdrawal symptoms, I'm not going to take her off the Tramadol cold turkey. Instead, I'm going to give her half of one tonight and a fourth two times tomorrow. Friday, I'm going to try to not give her any at all, up the dose of Connectin to 1.5 pills (there's all kinds of anti-inflammatory herbs in the Connectin), and continue the aspirin and fish oil pills. If she's not better by next week, they're going to have to find something wrong with her that's more concrete than arthritis (the arthritis was there Sunday and she could walk fine), or I'm going to have to find a new vet.

My Week Really Isn't Going as Planned

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Allison Maslan, author of "Blast Off!". All opinions are 100% mine.

I was going to get so much accomplished in the job hunt department this week. Those plans have gone out of the window thanks to Bella's bum leg. All I have done since Monday morning is run her to the vet, sit at the vet, run back from the vet, shop for an arthritis-friendly dog bed, make a dog bed, carry her to the dog bed, carry her to her food, carry her outside, carry her up the stairs, and so on and so forth. In other words, I have worked as a dog maid, butler, and chauffeur all week long.

Unfortunately, Bella doesn't pay me a penny to do those things. Neither does anyone else so next week is going to be all about the job hunt. I just wish it was a simple one. I know that I probably won't be able to find a job doing what I want to do for a living--writing--because I don't have a journalism or English degree. Whether I'll be able to get a job in what I'm trained to do--law--is also questionable thanks to my longer-than-normal stint as a law clerk. Walmart and the Waffle House is looking more and more like where my two degrees and I will be come March. There's a smart use of a $200,000 education for you.

I would say I need a career coach, but that's way out of my budget at the moment. I can, however, afford a career coach's book like Blast Off! from Allison Maslan. In Blast Off!, Maslan tells how she achieved her life goals and then gives you a step-by-step plan on how you can achieve your own goals or what she calls your "Big Picture Visions." The book was just released yesterday on Borders, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon's websites. While Blast Off!'s list price is around $24, it is available on Amazon for $17.95. You can also purchase a Blast Off! workbook to help you track your progress in achieving your goals and Blast Off! audio CD's. If you could use a little help deciding what you want to do with your life and how to achieve it, you might want to give the book a try.

I could definitely use the help, but right now I'd settle for a dog that could walk without assistance. I think I need to make that one of my Big Picture Visions--spending less time at the vet. I practically live there now. Then I'll move on from there.

I Have Dogs on the Brain & Matt Bomer on My TV: Random Tuesday Thoughts

I'm pissed off at the veterinary world today because Bella seems to be in more pain today than she was yesterday. Does this look like I'm making up her limp?





Sorry about the bathroom context, but it's the only way I can get her to stand up to take the videos. I took them this morning so I'll have proof that she can't put weight on her back foot when I go back to the vet Thursday or Friday. I'm going to take more footage today and tomorrow once I figure out how to turn on the time stamp. Then I'm going to shove it in that moody woman's face, assuming I get her again, and say, "See, I'm not crazy." I'm also going to tell them that I'm sick of being told to wait a few days every time I know something is wrong with my dog and they won't believe me. That attitude is the reason my baby woke up this morning and screamed bloody murder when I tried to pick her up. It's the reason she has shook all day today, even on pain killers, and it's the reason she is having to scoot across the floor because she can't stand up on her own.

On a similar note, which may go against the randomness of Random Tuesdays, what was with the stare down the vet, the receptionist, and vet tech gave me yesterday? I was just sitting there, quietly minding my own business, when they all turned and looked at me like I was Michael Vick waiting with one of his pit bulls. Do they think I'm abusing Bella? I'm not. The dog is just clumsier and more allergic to the world than I am. Is it because she's fat? Well, guess what. The people who were staring at me weren't exactly size 0's themselves. I've tried to get Bella to lose weight, but, as with humans, it's a lot harder to shed the pounds than it is to put them on. Plus, it's hard to exercise her when she's constantly injuring her legs and/or feet, thereby impeding her mobility. Do they think I'm abusing veterinary prescriptions? I'm not. Give me a cup. I'll pee in it to prove it. Do they think I suffer from Munchausen by Proxy, i.e. do they think I hurt Bella or make up illnesses just so I can get attention? I don't. If I want attention, I just blog. Duh.

Here's another not-so-random thought. (Sorry, I'll try to be more random in a minute.) No one sells memory foam dog beds in brick-and-mortar stores anymore. They used to, when I didn't want one. Now that I do, I can't find one. The ones online start at $80, and those are the super-thin ones. To get a thick memory foam dog bed, you have to pay at least $150. I'm not paying that much. I finally gave up searching today; drove to Big Lots; bought a thick, twin-sized, memory foam topper for $30; drove back down to Walmart; bought two $15 dog beds; came home; cut the memory foam into sections; and made my own version of an orthopedic bed. The beds ended up costing me $30 apiece in the end instead of $80 to $150. I guess time will tell if they'll be as supportive as the overpriced ones I saw online.


I missed All My Children today because of all my running. I will have to try to remember to watch it at 8 p.m. on SoapNet so I can see Amanda and Jake finally realize that they were giant size idiots for not counting backwards nine months and thus figuring out that Jake, not David, is Trevor's father. I guess those soap opera MCAT's and medical boards must not have any math on them. Otherwise, Jake would have never become a doctor.


White Collar starts back tonight. Yay! I hope I remember though. USA is confusing me by moving the majority of its original dramas out of their normal Friday and Sunday night time slots. I think Psych returns tomorrow, too. I should probably go ahead and set the cable reminder because I'll forget it as well.

I think I need to wear a rubber band around my wrist and pop it every time I get the urge to pick at my lips. My poor lips look like I went to a spa and got an acid peel from as esthetician who was so nearsighted she couldn't tell my lips from my face.

The Firefox popup reminder is making me nuts. I want to flip it off every time I see it. Should I go ahead and upgrade to 3.5.7 or whatever the newest version is, or is it still too buggy to use?

I bought a box of Cherry Coke Zero the other day because Kroger was having its buy three 12 packs, get one 12 pack free sale, and I didn't want to look like a freak by buying all Cokes. They're not as bad as I remember them being. They're not as good as regular Cherry Cokes, but they're definitely better than Diet Cokes.

I need to remember to work on my sister's throw pillow and my grandmother's trays this week. I gave the unpainted trays to my grandmother for her birthday last year. Now this year's birthday is coming up in about two weeks, and I still haven't done anything with them. I keep putting them off because I figure she'll just lose the finished product in that mess of a house anyway so why bother rushing? Well, now the why is here unless I want to regift them.

I bought Captain Dee's while I was at Big Lots because we don't have one in this town. Since I'm allergic to fish, I'm going to have to dope myself up on Benadryl tonight before I eat it so I don't beak out in hives. I know that sounds nuts--drugging yourself up so you can eat something that you know you are allergic too--but a person can only take so much chicken.

For more Random Tuesday Thoughts, be sure to check out the UnMom's blog and all the links to random thoughts underneath.