Not-calm.com

Reload the cannon, Smee!

2012-05-18T06:01:46Z

Here's what I wanted to do at 8:30 tonight: Sleep. Soundly. Here's what I did instead: had moderate success on the third batch of rice crispy treats that we used to make the above pseudocake for tomorrow night's cakewalk.

Here's how that happened: Wednesday I was napping and Sophie appeared at my bedside. Mom. I hafta make a cake tomorrow after school.

That's fine. You don't have to ask me to make a cake after school. I'm pro cake-baking in the afternoons.

It's for the Fantasy Fair at school. For the cakewalk.

Okay. Hey! I have an idea -- what about a vanilla cake with white frosting and then you take some freezer paper and cut a stencil of a flower in it and then after you frost it you take edible flowers and chop them up and sprinkle them into the shape of a flower on top?

No. (Actually, she cut me off after "I have an idea --") It has to be pirate-themed. You know, like the Fantasy Fair is? So. . . I'm thinking, like, a cake in the shape of a pirate's face. . .

I thought for just a moment about how very badly that could go. Last year she placed either second or third with her incredible tropical themed cake with fish and palm trees, and this year she would like to do better than that. Plus? Girl watches Cake Boss in her spare time. I ran all the stereotypical pirate things through my head as cakes: Peg leg? No. Hook hand with sleeve? No. Treasure chest? No. Rum? Rum cake? Sadly, no. Cannonball? Why not? So out loud, I said to Sophie, How about a cannonball cake? Or a bunch of little cannonball cupcakes?

OMG, MOM! Not cupcakes, though. One BIG cake. Let's make it out of rice crispy treats!

BRILLIANT. YES. LET'S. We can make a licorice fuse, and I'll get red and orange fruit roll ups for the fire.

Her eyes glazed over as she thought about the possibilities. By the time we started putting things together, we'd decided to do a chocolate glaze over the rice crispies, and our nanny had upsold me from using a bowl as a mold to make a half-cannonball with a flat bottom, to filling the bowl twice, smashing the half circles together and making it a full-on sphere.

Backing up a little: Before we put things together, I walked to the store for Rice Crispies and chocolate chips and marshmallows. I found some readymade chocolate glaze, which I knew was a poor choice, but just walking to the store was about all the exertion I was up for, and I didn't want to see if Soph was patient enough to melt chocolate in a double boiler. Then I scouted around for red and orange fruit roll ups. I had a box of strawberry ones in my basket when I saw these babies. Cherry / orange WILDFIRE fruit rollups! Hopefully no one heard my OH, HELL YEAH!

Okay. So the first batch Sophie made, mostly. She at least helped when I didn't think she'd end up with melted marshmallow on her skin. And we got the cannonball shaped and I made the fuse (awesome!) and I put it all together. The fuse kept drooping over, but that was okay. I thought about having it come out from the side, but figured the top would make most sense, even though it made it look like a bomb rather than a cannonball.

Sophie helped me microwave the bottles of chocolate glaze and we poured it on and things were looking sort of okay. At least the chocolate stuff was dark. I noticed as I was holding the licorice fuse up out of the path of the chocolate that the hole I'd made to hold it was a little bigger, so I poured chocolate in, hoping to shore things up. Then we stood back to admire our work, and the entire thing split in seventeen different ways and we laughed, sprinkled some mini marshmallows on it and the kids got forks while I rescued the lit fuse. I mean, LOOK AT THIS:

It's indistinguishable from an actual lit cannonball fuse, I know!

Lesson learned. You cannot rush the RKTs. Even if you're very tired and want to go to bed. Before starting the second batch, I sent Nate to the store for chocolate chips because I just couldn't live with the plastic bottled topping. Way too gross, and also $4 down the drain. While he was gone, I googled "molded rice crispy treats how to" or something and got the stellar advice from someplace that if you want your RKT creation to be smooth, you should pulse the Rice Crispies in the Cuisinart for a sec first. So, I did that and I knew as I added the melted marshmallow and butter that it was another poor decision on my part as there was clearly only enough to make an 8 ball, not a cannonball. Sophie was smart enough to go out and play basketball, at least. I didn't even finish mixing before dumping batch number two into the garbage and handing Nate a ten to go get me more cereal.

The third time was sort of charming, really. Nathan was interested by this point, and I showed him the bowl and how I was putting the two parts together to make a circle. This time, I grabbed a paper straw to hold the place of the fuse so that we could put the whole thing in the fridge to set and make the opening for the fuse and not crack the entire cannonball into bits. When it was ready I added some shortening to the chocolate chips (I usually use veggie oil, but I wanted to be sure that it would set) and got everything melted. We coated the cannonball in chocolate, awkwardly and lumpily. I halfassed smoothed things out with the back of a spoon, but between the texture of the cannonball (lumpy) and my mood (excited, but not enough to give it 100%), things came out only okay. I should have sent Nate back for black food coloring, but I'm not sure the grocery store had any. I know that they have black frosting pens, but I didn't feel like experimenting on dyeing the chocolate.

As I went to put the fuse in, I pulled out the straw, and Nate said, Why don't you just put the licorice OVER the straw, Mom? And I was all OH MY GOD, thank you for being such a genius! And we finished up and looked at it and Nate said it looked like a caramel apple, and Alex said it looked like a bomb. So, I grabbed a plastic plate and a sharpie, looked up pirate quotes and pirate fonts and came up with the Captain Hook quote, because it is VERY important to me that people know this is a cannonball. A crazy-expensive, off-color, likely inedible, but lovingly made cannonball that better freaking take second place or better tomorrow night. If anyone asks, Sophie made it. It was more than mostly her idea, and she did make the one we accidentally set off. Next time, I'll stick the fuse on the side, use dark chocolate (or get black candy melts?) and do a better job with the marker. And, in case you ever find yourself in a similar situation, bleach spray will get a shitty looking skull and sword drawn in sharpie marker off your plastic plate. I hope I rinsed that well enough!

**********************************

Quick update on my health, thanks so much for asking after me.

Surgery went really, really well. I was in my room with Scuba and awake a little after noon. I felt fine all that day, even though I couldn't have anything more than ice chips and a few sips of water. The next day was hellacious. Awful. Painful. Still no food. And then at 3 in the morning on the next day, I finally farted (a very ladylike tiny little fart) and things started looking up. You laugh, but I was getting IV dilaudid for gas pain. I'm trying to put it behind me. It was terrible, and hopefully the last time that a bunch of grownups will cheer for me because I tooted.

Anyway, my mom came up on Saturday to stay with me, and Scuba brought the kids for a visit Saturday afternoon. I got tons of flowers and Mother's Day cards and handmade vases from the girls. The kids were so good and so sweet. They left at suppertime and Scuba took them for burgers and fries and to the IMAX 3D version of The Avengers. I'm still jealous. Scuba went home, planning to return Sunday before his week long trip to Dallas for work, and my mom stayed with me Saturday night. Sunday morning, Mother's Day, when the doc came to check on me, she asked if I'd like to go home, so we got the hell out of there, but not before Scuba's parents surprised us with a visit (and presents!). They literally got there just as we were going, and got stuck helping us carry all my stuff downstairs. Luckily, the hospital is in San Francisco and it was one of the most gorgeous days there will be up there this whole year, so they were able to go enjoy it.

I'm sore and I get tired easily and I'm not eating anything very interesting, but I already at one week post op feel a million times better than I did before this surgery. In fact, the change is so dramatic that I find I'm tearing up several times a day in this bewildered kind of gratitude. Surgery was so scary and horrible sounding to me for so many years. And, honestly, it was scary and sometimes horrible, but it worked and I'm getting my life back and I am so grateful. Scuba and I are planning a little southern California road trip for later this fall when I'm more steady on my feet. Used to be the idea of a roadtrip brought more stress than anything else, but now I've got the luxury of worrying about what to pack. I hope my surgeon is prepared for my follow up visit next week. I haven't seen him since the surgery (he left the day after) and I'm going to have to do my best to not do the whole Tom Cruise on Oprah thing. Really, I Feel! That! Great!

Okay, I am sort of name dropping. Whatever.

2012-05-10T03:25:44Z

Sophie's puppysitting, so this little guy is just visiting, but OOF I wanna KEEP HIM.

Scuba is driving me to San Francisco tomorrow morning at the crack of freaking crack so I can check into the hospital at 6:20 in the a.m. for my takedown surgery. It'll take us a little over an hour to get up there and park and hoof it from the parking garage to admitting, so I guess we'll leave at 5. All day long today I've not been allowed to eat, and I cannot properly stress how much this has broken me. I can't focus or remember what I need to. I'm staring into space 38% more than usual. I'm TOTALLY NOT READY to go to the hospital. I have a ton of stuff to do still, but when I try to do anything I get confused and distracted. Girl needs a cheeseburger, like, NOW.

I've got a to-do list for today, and it looks like this:

Send thank you notes from first surgery - HAVE TO DO THIS
print photos for Soph's fifth grade thing
set up email autoresponder out of office message
get astronaut costume for Willow and get props out of bin with Dad's NASA stuff
Frozen lasagna and pizza for next week for kidsuppers
clean fish tank
20 minutes
NO FOOD
BECAUSE OF SURGERY
DO NOT FORGET THIS
laundry - as much as possible
pack for hospital (bring the stuff)

Yes, it really says, "bring the stuff," and I know what I'm talking about there, but when I was at the photo printing place waiting for pictures and checking my to-do list, I saw "20 minutes" on there and I got VERY NERVOUS because I only put super important shit on my to-do list for today, and "20 minutes" was ringing exactly zero bells.

I got the photos for Sophie's thing and drove home trying to figure out what the hell. I made my list this morning, but, still, nothing. Finally, as I was trying to figure out how to set up my out of office reply, I remembered what "20 minutes" was and slapped my forehead.

Turns out, it was a reminder to exercise today, which I did when I walked the girls to school this morning. One mile in twenty minutes. Done. Anyway, I wanted to share this NYT article that Susie Bright (who my mom and I got to hang out with at Grace Davis' house and who is onfire smart and full of creative energy and a gorgeous, fantastic woman who also put me just ONE DEGREE away from the whole entire cast of Six Feet Under, which nearly makes me faint) linked to, because reading it made me feel so much better. Basically it says that humans' bodies work better when they're doing something active for at least 20 minutes a day. I've been horribly sedentary since my surgery, partly because I was too tired or too weak or too sore to exercise, so I just didn't do anything. But, hey, I can do 20 minutes of something unsedentary even the day of or after my next surgery, so thanks to Susie I'm going to be healthier this time around. I'm really tempted to take my walks around the neighborhood wearing this shirt, but it might wreck all the girls' playdates, so I'll have to really think about it.

Okay, then. I'm off to take the "20 minutes" off my list and get my things (and the stuff) packed for tomorrow. Then, I'm going to take a xanax so I can fall asleep because if I stay awake much longer I will go to the kitchen and start eating and then they'll cancel my surgery. So. Hungry.

If we're not already friends on the FB, let's be. I'm lazy and there more often because it's right there on my phone and easy to coordinate, even when I'm about to pass out from HUNGRY. xo

I miss the earth so much, I miss my wife. It's lonely out in space.

2012-04-25T05:33:19Z

It is so pretty here. Even with the ugly, pointy, flipped insideout umbrella trees on the right. What are those called, anyway?

This morning I was driving home from the school drop off run with my cup of coffee in my left hand and my iPhone in iPod mode hooked up to the stereo in my right. (I drive with my mind.) As I came to the stop sign where the Jingle Bells Lady got a ride with me that one time, a few things happened: I hit random on the iPod; I saw a mattress, an old kitchen cabinet, and a For Sale sign on the lawn of the Jingle Bells Lady's house; Rocket Man came on; and I remembered something my stepmom said on the phone a couple of days ago.

Remember all those hats your dad had?

Of course I do. (Especially that one that my brother and I got him for Christmas that one year. We were shopping at the mall with no idea what to get him, and we found this forest green rainproof sort of fedoraish hat. It was rad. He loved that thing.)

I had to give them all to the Goodwill.

(I didn't say anything. I was trying not to cry.)

You remember where he kept them?

Yeah. They took up the whole top shelf of the coat closet by the front door.

They did. I just. I. Ihadtogivethemallaway.

I know. I know you did.

So there I was on this perfectly gorgeous morning, looking at this woman's things on her lawn and her house for sale and hearing this song that I know must be more about drug addiction than about going to space, but my dad, oh man did he ever want to go to space, so that's where I imagine him now. In space. And the song goes, It's lonely out in space, and I was thinking of those damn hats and it was like he just died all over again.

Here's what I tell myself to try and feel better: At one point, everyone was just a tiny little egg just like all the other eggs inside an ovary, surrounded by a body. And when that egg left its ovary for the bigger world outside of it, as far as the other eggs were concerned (not that I think they think, but, this doesn't have to make sense because it's how I feel better) that egg was gone. Forever. But, instead of being gone forever, that egg changed drastically and started growing into a person just a few inches away from the other eggs, but totally beyond their perception or imagination. And, as the egg became not an egg, but a person with muscles and bones and blood and a heart, that person only knew the world of being where they were -- in water, inside someone else's body, a body that they couldn't imagine or understand. And, (I've written about this before) as they grew, they became aware of being surrounded by something alive, something, maybe, about the way she sang at night or laughed made them feel secure. And then came being born and leaving the only universe they'd ever known to exist to live so very differently here on the earth.

It only stands to reason (in my mind) that we just keep growing and moving on to bigger places that we're already inside of but can't even begin to imagine, right? And, so, because of all this and because my dad was so drawn to space, that's where I think of him. Not the him that I knew, but the energy part of him. I don't think we get to keep our memories when we die. I think those are lost when our brains stop. How could we ever go if we wanted to be with everyone here? But I hope there's something there, some sort of impression left. I hope my dad is cruising through space finally and all that time he spent here wanting to get there has left him feeling overjoyed about it. Of course, if the whole traditional hanging out in the clouds with winged angels and being in paradise heaven with your nearest and dearest turns out to be true I won't argue, but if I think long and hard about it, I'm not super hopeful there.

Anyway, this morning I was just gutted all over again. I came home to my empty house and in the living room the kids' computer was on screen saver mode, and all these gorgeous images of space were hanging there for a few seconds before moving to the next one and I don't care how stupid or crazy it seems, I found myself standing there crying looking for my dad in those pictures. Or at least looking at them and hoping that's what he was looking at, too.

Willow's next project at school is this really fun wax museum thing. The kids all pick a famous person and then dress like them. They line up in rows in the cafeteria and the teacher puts a colored round sticker dot on them. They can't talk unless someone presses their button, then they recite a speech about who they are. Soph was Amelia Earhart. That kid behind her is probably Einstein, but I like to think of him as Mark Twain.

Today was the day the kids got to pick their person. Willow's going to be Sally Ride. My dad would have loved that. Would have helped her write her speech over the phone. When I'm really daydreaming, I think of how great it would have been if he'd never gotten sick and was out here visiting us and helping her do this report in person. It's really not all that healthy, but I can't stop doing that kind of thing. I've got a bunch of my dad's old papers and binders from NASA and lots of photos of the shuttle and of space to set her up with as props. It'll be good.

By the way, people may think I'm unbalanced with all my theories, but the sharks know I'm on to something. SEE? (Contains an f-bomb so maybe NSFW)

It's an evil plot against me, I'm sure

2012-04-20T00:34:25Z

I got all these things in the mail today: Two of the same religious kooky junk mail letters that I'm askerid to open (it looks like a prayer to Jesus for financial blessings, so you just KNOW they're going to be asking you to send them money TO ANSWER THEIR PRAYERS), a Prilosec sample, and a Sundance jewelry catalog. I took Prilosec ONCE. Then I had to take a ton of Benadryll because I got hives and my throat started swelling and itching and closing. It's like the mailman is conspiring with P&G to murder me. I generally recycle catalogs before even opening them, but when I get a Sundance catalog I sit in a little sunbeam in a room with no distractions and I carefully fold down the edges of all the pages that have pictures of pretty things I want to own. This is so pointless, because Robert Redford clearly doesn't relate to normal people who can't grock spending $498 on a pair of studded wedge sandals that are described, I shit you not, as down-to-earth, but I cannot seem to help myself. I figure if I just kinda let the universe know that I'd like to own those things, then maybe one or two of them will magically fall in my lap or show up at Ross Dress for Less or something.

Is it just me, or does your inner voice (or whatever you call it when you are thinking to yourself) go through changes and have different kinds of personas and stuff? Mine, inexplicably, sometimes is male. Not just generically male, but (this is embarrassing, no?) an actual, real-life TV character. For awhile it was Don Draper, not that I wanted to be some kind of man-whore (OMG, did you see Mad Men last week? Don has come SUCH a long way and I'm so proud of him. Really.) but, and you can ask Scuba about this, I was drinking Old Fashioneds and internally I was very charming and witty yet gruff when I thought about things in my Don Draper (or, sometimes, Dick Whitman) inner voice. My inner voice was also drinking a ton and smoking so that I didn't have to. I half expected to wake up with a 5 o'clock shadow some days. A few weeks back, Scuba and I started watching a new show called The Killing. So naturally, now I'm thinking in Agent Stephen Holder voice, (which means a lot of daaaaamn and snap! and thinking of my mom as moms) and let me tell you that shit is FUNNY when you're flipping through the Sundance jewelry catalog, but I'll spare you the transcription.

Okay. So I've gone over the whole thing about how having your colon removed = MAJOR THIRST all the time, because the colon's job is to absorb water and salt. My problem is that plain water upsets my stomach. My theory is that the water hits my belly and my brain is all RIGHT ON! FOOD! and it tells my stomach to make acid to digest the food, but there's nothing to digest so I just get queasy and ill. I need a little something in my water - any sort of flavoring seems to stop that reaction. I fully understand that my theory is dumb, but it's all I've got. When I first got home, and even when I was still in the hospital, Scuba was buying me cases of this awesome stuff called Hint with watermelon essence in it. Fancy, right? But now I've switched to Smart Water, because it's got electrolytes and I am so tired that I need an extra helping of those and for some reason it is mostly okay on my tummy. I ran out of water today, and I also wanted to get some sweet 1015 onions from Texas so I could make this, so I went to Whole Foods. While I was there, I started smelling the food and I stopped dead in an aisle, certain that I'd faint if I didn't eat, now. So I went to the deli and they had mac and cheese and I got a small container, that cost $4.98. This is just stupid, but I bought it anyway, because I had to. Then I saw that they have this fancy water that I've had once before and love but never buy because it costs even more than Smart Water. So I grabbed a bottle of that and I went with my expensive gluten free pasta to the checkout. (They didn't have the onions.) And the whole time I was in line I was debating, in Agent Holder voice, whether or not I should tell the woman at the checkout that I was buying crazyexpensive mac and cheese and shishi overpriced water because I just had my colon surgically removed four weeks ago today and I'm thirsty, but only for special kind of water, and I normally wouldn't pay five bucks for a few bites of mac and cheese, but I'm just so hungry all the time, because I didn't want her to think that I was the kind of asshole who would pay $2.39 for a bottle of fucking WATER. But, you know what, I AM that kind of asshole (snap!) so I just paid my thirty bucks for five things and got the hell out.

Feed me, Seymour

2012-04-18T02:05:52Z

Udi's makes the BEST gluten free bread, but it's little so a girl has no choice but to make two grilled cheese sammiches at a time.

I am hungry ALL the time, but I can't eat very much at once so I'm eating ALL DAY LONG. I know, call the whaaaaambulance. Today, though, I forgot that I have to eat six times more than I used to, and I took my lunch break at 2:30 so I could go to the bank and the pharmacy. I was driving to the bank, three hours after I'd eaten last, when suddenly I had to eat. Immediately. I was so hungry I got all shaky and almost threw up. I was right near my favorite Mexican restaurant so I pulled in and asked for a plain quesadilla and chips and watermelon agua fresca to go. I was so sad to not have any salsa or guacamole. So sad! Especially when they asked me seven times if I was sure that I didn't want any salsa. Sad.

I don't think I'll be like this forever and ever. I hope not. It's enough of a pain having to stop and eat so frequently when I'm at home. I'll have to bring a portable mini fridge if I want to leave the house for more than two hours.

My second surgery is scheduled for May 10th. I can't tell you how relieved I am to be so close to being done with the operating part and getting on to the getting well part. Hmmm, except I just realized that surgery = no eating. I cannot fathom that at the moment, but maybe that's just because it's been an hour since I last ate.

I'm starting to feel better, have a little more energy. Yesterday was my first day back at work, and I was able to put in a full day, cook an easy supper, and do some laundry before I had to take a nap at 7:20 p.m. I'm getting there.

Post op

2012-04-10T05:16:26Z

If you're a good patient at Kaiser in San Francisco, the nurses will let you escape from your floor and go up to the top of the hospital where you can check out the panoramic view of the city. It doesn't look like much in this photo, but it was quite lovely considering I spent eight days in the same room without a view. The good thing about my room was that it was private and quiet, AND the TV channel package included AMC so I got to watch the season premiere of Mad Men, even though I had to really focus and squint at the TV to keep the picture in focus and I didn't remember any of it later on thanks to the button on the dilaudid pump I was pushing every ten minutes plus.

My mom stayed all day long and then slept in the room with me the first few nights, but I don't think she actually slept much. Scuba came up every day, too, and even brought the kids a couple days after the surgery. I don't remember falling asleep mid-sentence while talking to them, but Nathan thought that was pretty funny, the little shit.

I've had a ton of help since I've been home. Scuba stayed with us for the last ten days and made meals and shopped and took care of me. I needed it. Badly. This has been much more difficult than I expected. By the two-week mark I was getting really cranky that I was still feeling so tired and having pain. It's only been two and a half weeks now, and I had to spend nearly all day in bed after going to visit with an ostomy nurse this morning. It's horribly frustrating, and I'm using up all my willpower by staying just this side of not being depressed and freaked out. I can see how it would be so very easy to be resistant, to get pissed off and depressed and focus on how unfair it is to have to deal with this. To look at myself in the mirror and feel mutilated and freakish and broken and disgusting. But I also see how little that would help me in anything other than the occasional small doses, so I'm all Ms Silver Lining (And Shit) (excuse the pun, please) over here as much as I possibly can be. When all else fails, I take comfort in the fact that my old jeans fit, I magically have a waist again, and I have left over dilaudid.

I hurt. I'm exhausted. I'm going to feel better eventually, though, and the thing is that in some ways I'm already better off than I was before the surgery. I'm learning how to take care of myself, what I can eat, that it's BAD to forget to take the massive dose of Pepcid I'm on twice a day, and it's even worse to eat too much at once. One thing I'm encouraged to eat is marshmallows, so I am stealing the kids' Easter Peeps without apology. As it turns out, for me, dealing with my own flipped inside-out small intestine sticking out of my abdomen isn't as icky as I thought it would be. The skin around it is pretty sore, but I can handle looking at it, touching it, and caring for my unhappy skin and all that. There have even been some points of humor, but unfortunately they're too gross to share (though poor Jenny has heard a thing or two).

My mom's taking me back to see the surgeon in San Francisco this Friday, and I'm hoping we can talk about the date for my second surgery. It may be further away than I'd like it to be, but it's coming, probably just about the time when I'm actually feeling good again. I'll spend this week resting and reading and hanging out with my kiddos who are on spring break, and then next Monday they're back to school and I'm back to work. I'll have to wean off the naps by this weekend, but I'm really ready to jump back in. I'm not cut out for all this lounging.

Here goes

2012-03-22T11:21:46Z

In about an hour and a half, my mom is coming to pick me up. I watched a YouTube video last night of a guy who was a few hours post surgery. He seemed pretty okay, and he still had his morphine rig, so I guess I can do this thing, too.

I'm trying to stay as calm as possible, and am about to accept a little pharmaceutical help to get that way. Here's something that's making me laugh this morning: I have no idea what to wear!

I woke up an hour before my alarm went off. Walking past the kids' empty beds kinda made me sad, but Scuba is still sleeping in my room, so I'll go squeeze on him till I feel a little better.

Back soon! xo

Answer: about four pounds

2012-03-17T00:39:47Z

Non-commercially lifted from someecards.com.

Well. Not for me, it isn't.

Here's a confession that's sort of horrible: I'm feeling kind of gleeful that I'll lose some weight after my surgery. When I told Scuba that I was glad that at least my bonus prize for going through all this would be hundreds of dollars worth of jeans that fit again, he was all, HI. Maybe focus on your HEALTH, you dork. And I was like, Hmmm, I wonder how much a colon weighs? Super sad and inconceivably shallow, but true nonetheless.

I keep trying to say more about this, but it's not coming out well. So I'll just leave it at that.

Nom nom nom

2012-03-14T05:55:47Z

The plum tree bloomed early this year.

So I have been eating like I've only got a week left to eat, which is sort of accurate. It's not that I won't ever eat again after my surgery next week, but I will have to go quite a few days in a row on IV nutrition and a liquid diet before I graduate to Jello and Ensure. It's gonna be a long long time before I can eat a whole apple (skins=bad) or any pineapple (fiber=bad) or popcorn (things that get stuck in your small intestines and cause bowel obstructions=bad) or chocolate (the universe? HATES ME). I'm told to expect significant post-op weight loss from the not eating and the loss of part of me that does things like, you know, absorb water and salt and nutrients and stuff. I figure, Why not just go into it with a little extra junk in my trunk, right? This line of thinking has led to sneaking cake from my children, eating bread AND pasta for dinner, putting both cheese AND mayo on my sandwiches, all three of them today, honestly, and beer on weeknights. Okay, I'm lying. Beer on weeknights happens independently of any stress eating. Also, by "all three," I mean all three transgressions and all three sandwiches. Urp.

It's working. I've put on something like six or seven pounds, though on the rare occasion I step on my scale it's sort of a shady walkover maneuver. I'm not sure how much I weigh, but the jeans I usually wear when I'm on prednisone don't need a belt and when I went swimming last weekend I wore a skort, so there you go.

Last time I was at the dentist someone (my dentist) inadvertently told me about a man who had his colon removed and then got an infection and then died before ever getting discharged from the hospital. And, up till the autopsy, they thought the infection killed him, but really he had a blood clot. In my dentist's defense, I pressed for details on the man's death, and he didn't have any clue I'd just scheduled my surgery. He was appropriately horrified when I told him. Statistically, I know I'm much more likely to die in a car wreck on the way to the hospital than I am to die from a post surgical blood clot (if there's reason to correct me here, just don't please), but still I'm feeling a little like I should try to enjoy this week and make sure my loved ones know I love them and all that. I'm not, like, making a video goodbye tape for Scuba and the kids or anything, but I'm also holding off paying the balance on my dental bill till next month. You know, just in case.

It's weird, this waiting. If I feel good for more than ten minutes I start to convince myself that I'm being a little bit hasty with the major organ removal. Then, I have to race to the toilet (again) or I have to take a nap because, OMG, I COOKED SOMETHING, and I realize that it's time to do this, and THEN, then I start panicking again and looking for a way to talk myself out of it. I'm gonna be so tired when i check into the hospital next week that they won't have to sedate me before they put me under. Of course I'll request the Valium anyway. Ooh, or maybe I'll get lucky and they'll give me Versed in my IV, which I remember as putting me directly into the most delicious, high nap imaginable.

I'd like to end with this little PSA for anyone planning jpouch surgery who forgot exactly what the doctor said at that preop meeting, the one where you talked about things that you are still working on blocking out entirely, and is left wondering "How long will I be out of work after my jpouch surgery?" The answer to this question, "How much time should I take off work after my jpouch surgery?" is THREE WEEKS. THREE. At least. Maybe you can go back part time after two if you are a bored overachiever. Yes, I googled and googled that before emailing the surgeon and asking for him to remind me what he'd said. Sigh.

Hanging in there

2012-02-28T20:05:10Z

I have not been myself lately. Not at all. I am depressed(ish) and terrified (very) because in three weeks and two days I'm going to check into a hospital in San Francisco and when I leave five to seven days later, I'll be minus my colon and will have what I sincerely hope is a temporary ilestomy. It may end up being permanent, so I'm trying to be okay with that outcome, too. Just in case. Luckily, a girl can still buy cute underpants and a special belt to wear while swimming (maybe hopefully surfing), so it's not like it would be the end of the world. Right?

95% of the many, many times I think about the surgery in a day, my blood pressure starts to rise and it gets hard to breathe and my shoulder and jaw and diaphragm muscles all kick into action. Half of that 95% of the time I start to cry. About 5% of the time I think about how much better I'll be in the long run, not having constant GI bleeding (from my now untreatable ulcerative colitis) and no longer wanting to go to sleep in the afternoon and at dinnertime. I will be able to go for a walk without the unbelievable amount of stress that causes me right now. I will be able to travel. I will leave behind a huge amount of stress and will save a freaking fortune on not buying so much toilet paper. I can go for a bike ride with my family and enjoy all sorts of things that right now I either cannot do, or doing them is so stressful that it's nearly impossible to have a good time.

It's so frightening, though, all of this. The part where I'll feel good enough to go do things is pretty far off and the time until then is going to be challenging in ways that I have a hard time thinking about. When I was little, I used to have a dream that my abdomen had been sliced open from hip to hip by some bad guy with a sword, and in the dream I'd be trying to put my spillingout intestines back in my body. After my c-section with Willow I was sure that the stitches would break open and all my guts would fall out. So this feels a lot like that, only this time things REALLY ARE going to fall out of me.

I'm having a half of the 95% of the time moment here and am crying. Awesome.

I am lucky, though, to have so much help. My mom is going to stay in the hospital with me full time for as many days as I need her, even though she works and has a whole lot going on at home. Scuba has been so great, taking care of the kids because I'm sick and exhausted, buying us groceries and cooking and cleaning and letting me rest and bringing me pho. This weekend is my last kid-free weekend before the surgery, so he's taking me to Monterey. I might sleep a lot of the time while he goes out to dive or surf, and I'm sure that the beach we hang out at will be the one near the bathrooms instead of one of the prettier, less crowded ones, but it'll be good to take a break from all this stress.

I'm too distracted to read much other than patient blogs and stories of people who've been through this before. That's been really helpful, as was the preop visit with my surgeon. He's a funny guy, and very experienced and confident that I'll come through this all perfectly. I'm not looking forward to waking up in the afternoon or evening on March 22nd in a lot of pain with a drain sticking out of my abdomen and an NG tube to keep my stomach empty so I don't throw up, and - of course - the bag, but if I can hang in there and get through this and then through the second surgery where they put me all back together again, then hopefully by this time next year I'll be looking back and wishing I hadn't waited fifteen years to make this change.

Out the window

2012-02-01T18:43:56Z

I have a stupid sinus infection cold thing. The kind where my heels are connected to the nerves in the sinus cavities in my cheekbones and my face gets a little electric shock with every step. The kind where if I don't keep the Sudafed coming, I'll get an ear infection, so I spend all day feeling like I've had seven double espressos and I'm too hot and too cold all at the same time and both the too hot and too cold make me have gross clammy sweats. My teeth hurt.

I couldn't fall asleep last night, so I watched the last scene of the last episode of Six Feet Under on YouTube and then read a stupid fight in the comments about which is better, Dexter or SFU, and how there's a difference between fact and opinion and it's OKAY to have whatever opinion you want, because that is different than facts, but it's NOT OKAY to try to make other people share your opinion like it's some sort of fact, dude. (Plus, he was wrong. Six Feet Under kicks Dexter ass.)

Then I had to stay awake longer in order to spend some time feeling guilty about wasting my time reading all those stupid comments. And then a little longer to admonish myself for letting the whole thing take up MORE of my time by feeling bad about it. Then I watched the last episode of Mad Men on Netflix, because the new ones are coming in March and I am embarrassed to admit what a huge amount of happiness the thought of that brings to me.

Anyway. The girls are both in the school play this year, and came home from their first dress rehearsal last night with full makeup on. They looked incredible and I am partly dreading and partly waiting with fascination for the day when they are grown enough to put on their own eyeliner and lipstick. I admit that I am jealous of them, of all my kids, for having the opportunity to do things differently than I did. When I was watching that last part of Six Feet Under where Claire drives away from everyone to start a whole new life for herself, I got wistful as hell (again) about the time that I sort of almost went to New York or rural Pennsylvania for college but didn't ever get past the fliers and applications. Instead I got married way too young. Would I change anything? No. I love my kids and I can travel when they're grown. But why was I too chicken to hang out in that space between childhood and adulthood? I don't want to leave anyone behind and drive off in my Prius (mostly), but wasn't the best part about being young the fact that you could? That and the skin that still had elasticity. And the hot body. And the self-centeredness. heh.

May, 1974

2012-01-26T17:46:53Z

My dad in my grandparents' backyard, May 1974

My grandfather, my dad's dad, always made sure to get individual portraits of everyone in the family on a regular basis. He'd make the rounds during holiday gatherings or at our annual summer camping trips and get everyone to give him a few seconds. There are a lot of us, so it was a bigger job than it sounds. He'd send packages to my brother and me in September or so with pictures from the summer and a note inside from him and my grandmother.

I've never much liked posing for photos, but thanks to him I've got pictures of just me from when I was nine, fifteen, nineteen, thirty. You couldn't ever tell him no. Sometimes I was a little cranky about it, but of course now I'm glad to have them. Even more glad to have copies of so many of the shots he got of my dad - from the time he was a baby up until my grandfather passed away several years ago.

When my dad died, I was in Houston with my stepmom. We were sleeping and the hospital called after 1 in the morning, telling us to get there quickly. He maybe died while we were driving there, I'm not sure. He was asleep when it happened, I know, because the next day the funeral director, who'd grown up with my dad, pulled me aside and told me that his feet were relaxed. That his toes were pointed down. People who are awake when they die, she said, have their toes flexed back toward their head. Resisting. That was the nicest thing anyone said to me during that time. Or it made me feel better somehow more than anything.

After the funeral as we were all saying good bye at my grandmother's before going back home, my uncle told me that I'd find myself thinking about my dad all the time, probably much more than I ever did while he was alive. That's been so true. Usually the thoughts are more comforting than painful, but I wouldn't say that I'm coping well with his death. Not at all.

You know how there are events in your life that mark a shift in your thinking? In the way you prioritize things and react to things? This is one of mine: Going to visit my dad in the hospital in early April and seeing him unable to lift his hand up. All my life he was so strong. My brother and I used to arm wrestle him and sit on his feet, holding onto his legs while he walked around the house. He was the guy you'd hand unopenable jars to. He had a great handshake. Seeing him unable to lift his hand up broke something in me, and I felt it right when it happened. I don't know how to say it, but it's something along the lines of The world isn't really how I think it is. Nothing lasts. Nothing is even real. If I think about it too much, it quickly turns to What's the point? That's when I get out the old answering machine that has some messages from him. Hello, he says, this is your Daddy - or Granddaddy, depending on who's listening. And I remember him saying to me, I sure do love you, kiddo, and rubbing his knuckles on the top of my head.

It's hard for me to call my stepmom and my grandmother, even though I so much want to talk to them. I feel like a traitor if I talk to my brother on the phone and we don't talk about our dad. But talking about him sometimes is too hard. I'd like to be able to hurt less, and I know he wouldn't want me to spend as much time grieving for him as I do. But the thought of letting go seems wrong. I love him so much I should always be this devastated, right?

Today is my mom's mother's birthday. Tooty. I miss her like hell, too. We used to talk a lot, and she'd have me tell her what I was cooking, then she'd tell me about a new thing she tried, usually something one of her church ladies brought to her. That's goooood eatin' she'd say. And, my all-time favorite way to describe someone entirely selfish came from her, too. Well, he's just sweet on hisself, that's all.

I miss you both. Save me a seat. xo

This is dark and kind of funny

2012-01-13T19:15:04Z

US

2012-01-13T07:10:43Z

Hey. So. I started this post and was going to write a little about Scuba and maybe spill the beans that we're looking at houses together and have been for the past 8 months or so, when the babysitter knocks on my bedroom door where I'm working and says, Hey, Jen. Uh. You're really not going to like this.

So I walked into the kitchen to this:

And the first thing I thought was how pretty it looked, all that hanging-on broken glass. Like ice. I didn't see any blood, so I figured everyone was okay.

Excuse me if I don't tell this story well. I have had a lot of wine.

A couple of years ago, Nate became enamored with airsoft guns. His friends all had them and he loved them and whenever he had money from his birthday or Christmas, he'd save up and buy one. They were banned from my house, so he had to keep them at his dad's. Until last month, when he bought a crazy-expensive one and was taking it to his friend's house down the street where they'd go out in all their gear and shoot things in the easement behind his friend's house where the power lines run through. For some reason, I reversed my ban, and it was suddenly okay for him to have these things here. When he took the guns to his friend's house, he'd carry them there in a guitar case, just like El Mariachi.

Whenever they got together to shoot things (and each other), they all wore face masks and gear and I figured it was better than him sitting inside watching TV. I mean, it's not unreasonable for a 13 year old boy to want to shoot shit up, right?

So. This year for Christmas Nate got a ridiculous amount of cash. He gave some to me to put in the bank, but he also marched over to the grocery store around the corner, bought himself an Amazon gift card, and ordered some guns.

Today as we were sweeping up glass from all over the inside of the kitchen and the backyard, I started asking him how an airsoft gun could BREAK the glass on the sliding door. He was pretty quiet, basically just telling me that it was his fault, and neither of the two friends he had over had done it.

As we were cleaning, little pieces of glass kept falling out of the door so I took a broom handle and knocked all the loose pieces out, which was - of course- really fun. Nate wanted to do it, but I told him that since I had to pay for the new sliding door, then I would get to finish destroying this one.

The evening went on and I made a run to the hardware store for tarps and duct tape to cover the door until I can get it replaced. It was funny, I called the landlord to let him know and he was all: So is everybody okay? Oh, that's good. You know you're going to have to pay for that. . .

By the time supper was over I had the entire story. When Nate ordered his latest gun, a pistol, he assumed it was a regular airsoft gun like his other ones. When he opened it and looked at the manual, he saw that it took METAL BBs. (here's the part where I think he should have returned it, but instead he went out and bought METAL BBs) He was in the backyard today and had taken a lemon from the ground under our tree and put it on top of the skateboard ramp so he could shoot it. When he shot it, he missed the lemon, and hit a metal bar on the ramp. The BB ricocheted off the bar, went clean through a cardboard box he was keeping his gun stuff in, hit and broke a drinking glass on the backyard picnic table, and then made a 90 degree turn into the sliding door, blowing a hole in the middle of the glass.

So the new gun is history and all the other guns must be kept in the garage and never EVER fired here again. Nate wants to pay for the glass out of his money (in addition to working it off by doing some hard labor around here) but I'm going to get an estimate before we work that part out. I don't think he should have to spend his Christmas and birthday money on it. If he'd earned the money, it would be different, but I feel like it was given to him as a gift to spend on himself, and it would be weird to take it all. He may be reimbursing me for the tarps and duct tape I had to get today, though.

He was pretty hard on himself about the whole thing, but later we were kind of making totally inappropriate jokes about it. I guess that I relate to my kids too much sometimes and when they mess up like this, it's hard for me to get mad at them, even when it's so costly. He knows he has to come straight home from school tomorrow (and for however long I say) and do whatever I ask. And, yes, I'm upset about what happened, but I'm not mad. It could have been so much worse. I kind of freaked out when he told me about the gun shooting METAL BBs - there's no way I'd have let him own the stupid thing, much less fire it off in the back yard, but he's learning as he goes just like the rest of us and Lord knows I've made worse mistakes. Thankfully no one was hurt by broken glass or bullets, and we didn't have a nasty fight to make him feel worse than he already does.

And, thankfully, there was a cheap bottle of pinot waiting for me in the pantry.

Drop off

2012-01-11T16:32:44Z

Some mornings I do manage to get myself dressed before I take the kids to school, but some hasn't happened in a long time.

Sophie has safety patrol all this week and gets picked up by her best friend's mom at 7:45 every day, so it was just Willow and Lex in the car with me this morning. We live across the street from Nate's school, so he never gets a ride, even in the rain.

Willow is going to be nine next month, and is taking the Tween Stage of life dead serious. She's got headphones and Big Time Rush CDs. She sits at the computer watching Big Time Rush videos on You Tube. She hates homework now. And, as of last night and this morning, she seems to have traded her beloved little stuffed monkey (sleeps with it, takes it to school in her backpack, was HEARTBROKEN when it was lost for a couple of days) for a CD insert from a BTR CD that folds out into a poster on one side and song lyrics on the other. She slept with it last night. Honestly. When we got to her school she hopped out of the van with the folded up CD insert clutched in her little hand and I watched her walk off with my all my days of parenting little kids. Yes I'm being melodramatic, but whatever - I'm trading in my last sweet little kid for a surly tween.

Backing up three or four minutes, though, when we all got into the car I thought that it would be fun (and funny since Lex was with us) to put on MMMBop super loud for Willow while we drove to school. Usually Lex rides his bike to school, but one of his two bikes was stolen and they cut his only bike lock, so that's out until we get a new beefier lock. I didn't want him to have to ride his skateboard in the icy cold this morning. Willow doesn't listen to Hansen, but she looooved the song (duh), and Lex was a good sport. As soon as she got out of the car, I handed him my iPod and let him select the music for the rest of our drive. So as we went to the high school, it was The Kinks and The Buzzcocks. We pulled up and before he got out of the car, right in front of God and everyone and a really hot cheerleader, he leaned over and kissed me on the cheek and told me he loved me like he always does when I take him to school. Then I watched him walk off, wearing his button down shirt and tie since there's a wrestling meet this afternoon, and I said outloud to myself, Dude. This is why I wanted to become a parent. Nothing really happened during that little ten minute stretch, but I enjoyed every single second of it.