I held down the fort quite nicely while Kirk was on his TDY to Turkey. All was well and I made the mistake of thinking, “this is going okay, after all!” Then it happened. That fateful night I took Trixie out for her last nightly constitutional of the day. As I looked back to the front porch I saw IT.
And it was staring at me.
Now, everytime I tell this story this spider gets bigger, but suffice to say it was at least as big as a bear paw (the pastry) or a really big quarter. And the look on his tiny face was menacing. His look said, “I can take you. Fear me”.
So, surveying my options I quickly realized that the other two doors leading into the house were locked and my only option was climbing into a window. The window on our front porch leads to the bathroom and it is a tiny window. I feared that I would be ensnared in a Winnie the Pooh in the honey tree siutation, so I opted out of that one. But, I remembered that Katy and Claire’s room is not far from the front yard. I reasoned that I could go to Katy’s window, knock just lightly enough to wake her, but not hard enough to wake Claire, (shyeah, right!) have Katy open the window, hand the pooch up and over the windowsill and shimmy in myself. Forgetting, of course, that the window is too high for me to climb into unassisted and maybe Katy could hand me her trash can and I could invert it and use it as a step-stool.
Perfect plan.
Except for one thing.
I don’t dust the outsides of the windows. (Oh,yeah, you can all just gasp now in shock and horror. Good for you, if you go around dusting the outside of your house……in a stated that popularized the term “duststorm”.)
I now realized that it was likely that I would be forced to pass through a spider web, possibly FULL of spiders just to aviod the one on the porch.
Plan B. We will RUN AS FAST AS WE CAN to get back inside and I will leap over the spider. I explained to Trixie how we would have to get a good running start and leap over the spider at just the right time to clear his nasty little body to get ourselves to safety. We discussed the velocity necessary to jump over the spider, but not crash into the front door. We argued about arc and just how high the arc needed to be to complete our plan safely. I explained our plan, complete with sign language and some translations into Spanish. (Trixie, is, after all, from Panama and I can never tell how much English she has picked up. Spanish is her first language.) So, sure that Trixie understood we now attempted some practice jumps.
There we were, leaping all over the front yard like a chubby sprite and her faithful canine companion. Confident that we were ready to execute the jump of a lifetime, one that would undoubtedly deliver us from fear, we began our run. We ran full-out to the porch and, as Trixie approached, it was obvious we spent too much time in negotiating the physics of the jump and not enough time in practice. That intrepid pup ran right past the spider. She never even attempted to become airborn! As she passed the spider it jumped onto her right rear paw. I saw it and gasped. My first thought was, “oh, Trixie!” but my brave pup just shook the spider off and went inside. Brave indeed. I knew now that just being in her presence was going to make ME braver still just by virtue of proximity.
I had the courage to jump. I knew I could do it. I ran, I leapt into the air, completing my arc with as much grace and fine form that one would assume of a chubby woman in her 30’s. I landed a little too close to the front door, with the door handle in my grasp and quickly retreated inside.
To keep this from happening in the future I decided to keep a supply of coffee cups on our front porch. Kirk came home three weeks later to find 5 mugs, each trapping a scary spider within.
04 March 2009
11 February 2009
the Great Potato Race
I distinctly remember our first microwave. Its size rivaled the console televisions of the 1970’s, its dimensions imbuing it with the ability to cook within it’s depths an adult turkey. When I told my brother’s wife that we could now bake a potato in only six minutes in the new contraption she asked me, full of incredulity and, I’ll admit this to you now, a concentrated air of superiority, “why would I bake a potato in six minutes in a microwave oven when I can so easily bake it in only an hour in the conventional oven?”
Why, indeed.
I mentally envisioned both of us on a culinary countdown, me in front of our new microwave oven, she in front of a conventional oven, a contraption she was only casually acquainted with in the first place, glaring at each other as we raced to the potato-cooking finish. I would laugh triumphant as my tuber emerged, fully baked, from the microwave in only 6 short minutes, while she stared pitifully into her oven and awaited her potato's slowly-heated conclusion.
She had, until this point, only made the Noodles of Ramen and various incarnations of Some Beef Dish. What she did was create a concoction of hamburger, one egg, and a generous helping of Lawrey’s Seasoned Salt. If it was a meatloaf she as crafting, she put it in a loaf pan. If it was Salisbury Steak, she put it in the shape of a patty. It was culinary craft of a whole new form. I feared that if I ever were to eat breakfast in her home I would awaken to that meat in the outward appearance of bacon strips.
Quite possibly the scariest thing about her kitchen, though was that from the time she married my brother in 1984 to the time of this writing in 2008 she has had the same bottle of dish soap in her kitchen window. I never figured out if it was a decoration or if she simply forgot to use it. Every dish I retrieved from her cabinet had a film of grease on it at least a millimeter thick. It was like being on a tiny and terrifying roller coaster just attempting to keep the dish within my grasp as I hoisted it from cabinet to countertop. She once returned from a trip with my brother after I had house and kid-sat for them. She rushed to the kitchen window, noting the reduced quantity of detergent in the Dawn bottle and shrieked, “what have you done?!” I had taken every dish out of the cabinet and washed it with soap.
She holds a grudge to this day.
Why, indeed.
I mentally envisioned both of us on a culinary countdown, me in front of our new microwave oven, she in front of a conventional oven, a contraption she was only casually acquainted with in the first place, glaring at each other as we raced to the potato-cooking finish. I would laugh triumphant as my tuber emerged, fully baked, from the microwave in only 6 short minutes, while she stared pitifully into her oven and awaited her potato's slowly-heated conclusion.
She had, until this point, only made the Noodles of Ramen and various incarnations of Some Beef Dish. What she did was create a concoction of hamburger, one egg, and a generous helping of Lawrey’s Seasoned Salt. If it was a meatloaf she as crafting, she put it in a loaf pan. If it was Salisbury Steak, she put it in the shape of a patty. It was culinary craft of a whole new form. I feared that if I ever were to eat breakfast in her home I would awaken to that meat in the outward appearance of bacon strips.
Quite possibly the scariest thing about her kitchen, though was that from the time she married my brother in 1984 to the time of this writing in 2008 she has had the same bottle of dish soap in her kitchen window. I never figured out if it was a decoration or if she simply forgot to use it. Every dish I retrieved from her cabinet had a film of grease on it at least a millimeter thick. It was like being on a tiny and terrifying roller coaster just attempting to keep the dish within my grasp as I hoisted it from cabinet to countertop. She once returned from a trip with my brother after I had house and kid-sat for them. She rushed to the kitchen window, noting the reduced quantity of detergent in the Dawn bottle and shrieked, “what have you done?!” I had taken every dish out of the cabinet and washed it with soap.
She holds a grudge to this day.
08 February 2009
Our New Menu
Usually I just scrawl the menu on the back of a junk mail envelope, but today I decided to actually type it into Word, with accompanying grocery list. Here is what's cookin' at our house:
Family Menu February 9-22, 2009
Monday Asian flank steak, jasmine rice, stir-fried vegetables
Tuesday Oven fried chicken, mashed potatoes, corn, peas, bread
Wednesday Braised sirloin tips, sliced onion potatoes, green beans
Thursday Grilled pork tenderloin, sweet potato casserole, crunchy parsnip cakes
Friday Black bean soup, sweet potato fries ***Family Game Night!!!
Saturday Egg rolls, fried rice, chocolate cake (Happy Valentine's Day!)
Sunday Dinner: the Sequel (leftovers)
Monday Beef kebabs, sweet potato casserole, green peas
Tuesday Cheesy pasta and broccoli
Wednesday Indian grilled chicken, basmati rice, aloo gobi
Thursday Beef brisket, herbed potato wedges, green beans
Friday Beans and kielbasa, cornbread ***Family Game Night!!!
Saturday Crockpot chicken alfredo, broccoli
Sunday Dinner: the Sequel
Family Menu February 9-22, 2009
Monday Asian flank steak, jasmine rice, stir-fried vegetables
Tuesday Oven fried chicken, mashed potatoes, corn, peas, bread
Wednesday Braised sirloin tips, sliced onion potatoes, green beans
Thursday Grilled pork tenderloin, sweet potato casserole, crunchy parsnip cakes
Friday Black bean soup, sweet potato fries ***Family Game Night!!!
Saturday Egg rolls, fried rice, chocolate cake (Happy Valentine's Day!)
Sunday Dinner: the Sequel (leftovers)
Monday Beef kebabs, sweet potato casserole, green peas
Tuesday Cheesy pasta and broccoli
Wednesday Indian grilled chicken, basmati rice, aloo gobi
Thursday Beef brisket, herbed potato wedges, green beans
Friday Beans and kielbasa, cornbread ***Family Game Night!!!
Saturday Crockpot chicken alfredo, broccoli
Sunday Dinner: the Sequel
06 February 2009
Stoichiometry of a Pea
So, Sunday night I was at work when my mother called to tell me that Claire was throwing up.....and had been for awhile now. We started the count at 3 rounds of vomitting. I came home and found her still upchucking. I freshed up her pj's and threw her in the car, along with everything that could possibly fit in my backpack. In it I shoved: another pair of her pajamas (unmatched, but who cares), a package of baby wipe refills, unopened. A ziploc bag for when I open the baby wipe refill, an extra pair of her socks (more than likely similarly unmatched) and the biggest handfull of fresh diapers my small hand can grab in an urgent hurry. I strapped her into her sweet flowery carseat, tucked bathtowels all around, under and over her so she could barf on something more easily laundered. (I'm planning ahead. I'm not careless!)
We spent mere moments inside the ER before being seen. I apologized for coming in "just for a kid vommitting" and said that I "knew it wasn't an emergency." The Dr cut me off right there. He said, "she only weighs 26 pounds. 26 pound people can deydrate really fast, it IS an emergency." So, that made me feel a little better. It made me feel like I didn't have to keep apologizing to them, because, really, who would you rather see at 1am this cute snow-bunny looking kid or some whiny-ass crybaby with a gunshot wound?!
exactly.
So, he gave her some Phenergan, which didn't work. Next, he gave her some Zofran, which she promptly refused to take. They crushed it into a powder and I tipped her head back and he said,"you need to let us put this in your mouth". The only word I heard from her all night was right at that moment, "okay". She took it and threw that up, too. I had half a backpack full of clean bathtowels for her to throw up in. The nurse who was helping us watched me dodge Claire's projectile stomach contents with our fine linens and I explained, "by your third kid you no longer think letting them puke all over you is the sign of a noble mother." By the end of our little excursion she had vomitted over 11 times in 3 hours. I'm glad we went.
They decided to send her home anyway with a script for Phenergan suppositories. And this is where our stoichiometric nightmare began.
Wouldn't you know that they were not going to work effectively for this particular bug becuase that part of her anatomy was currently under attack as well. So, I called in a Rx for Phenergan gel.
Evil stuff, that is. Apparently they put the ENTIRE PRESCRIPTION (SIX DOSES!!) in one syringe. Do you know how to do THIS sort of stiochiometry inside your head?
Claire weighs 26 lbs (which is how much in kg?) and her dose is 1/2 of a 12.5 mg suppository. Now, her Phenergan gel Rx is for 0.025 ml of gel, or, as the Pharmacist told me, "a pea sized amount". Have you ever tried to visualize a pea sized amount of a liquid? I am trying to imagine,......if a pea were to ever want to be a liquid, how far and how fast would it spread and would it still occupy the same mass in space? (As I tried to figure this out in my head I chanted to myself, "BE the liquid pea, Cyndi, BE the liquid pea!")
So, the next day Jake comes down with it and I am told to use Claire's suppositories, as her dose was half of a whole suppository and Jake's dosage would be one whole one.
Big Mistake: Jake is now facing Montezuma's revenge as well, so suppositories are out of the question. As I drive back to the pharmacy to pick up his Phenergan gel I wonder how 12.5 mg of the solid suppository translates to 0.50 ml and how to compare this in a more "apples to apples" way. I mean, if someone could show me the diameter of a average pea and then I could convert that to the mass of gel in ml.....maybe.
So, I challenge all of you science geeks to ponder me this:
What is the mass of an average green pea and how would half of it's mass end up as
.025 ml. I am arguing with no one, it's just that us enquiring minds would like to know. Oh, and that I accidentally gave him DOUBLE THE DOSE as I was trying to squeeze the tiny syringe and read it (upside down, mind you!) at the same time. I panicked and wiped it off, while calling poison control. She was all, "Dude, you, like, totally did what I was going to tell you to do. I mean, he is gonna' be like totally fine. Wake him up every 15 minutes or so and if you are stressed out about, like, anything, just totally call us back." She also explained that Jake could start having hallucinations. I had a feeling that my friend at Poison Control had beat us to 'em.
DUDE. She like totally helped and I think we are totally going to be like the best of friends now.
Totally.
We spent mere moments inside the ER before being seen. I apologized for coming in "just for a kid vommitting" and said that I "knew it wasn't an emergency." The Dr cut me off right there. He said, "she only weighs 26 pounds. 26 pound people can deydrate really fast, it IS an emergency." So, that made me feel a little better. It made me feel like I didn't have to keep apologizing to them, because, really, who would you rather see at 1am this cute snow-bunny looking kid or some whiny-ass crybaby with a gunshot wound?!
exactly.
So, he gave her some Phenergan, which didn't work. Next, he gave her some Zofran, which she promptly refused to take. They crushed it into a powder and I tipped her head back and he said,"you need to let us put this in your mouth". The only word I heard from her all night was right at that moment, "okay". She took it and threw that up, too. I had half a backpack full of clean bathtowels for her to throw up in. The nurse who was helping us watched me dodge Claire's projectile stomach contents with our fine linens and I explained, "by your third kid you no longer think letting them puke all over you is the sign of a noble mother." By the end of our little excursion she had vomitted over 11 times in 3 hours. I'm glad we went.
They decided to send her home anyway with a script for Phenergan suppositories. And this is where our stoichiometric nightmare began.
Wouldn't you know that they were not going to work effectively for this particular bug becuase that part of her anatomy was currently under attack as well. So, I called in a Rx for Phenergan gel.
Evil stuff, that is. Apparently they put the ENTIRE PRESCRIPTION (SIX DOSES!!) in one syringe. Do you know how to do THIS sort of stiochiometry inside your head?
Claire weighs 26 lbs (which is how much in kg?) and her dose is 1/2 of a 12.5 mg suppository. Now, her Phenergan gel Rx is for 0.025 ml of gel, or, as the Pharmacist told me, "a pea sized amount". Have you ever tried to visualize a pea sized amount of a liquid? I am trying to imagine,......if a pea were to ever want to be a liquid, how far and how fast would it spread and would it still occupy the same mass in space? (As I tried to figure this out in my head I chanted to myself, "BE the liquid pea, Cyndi, BE the liquid pea!")
So, the next day Jake comes down with it and I am told to use Claire's suppositories, as her dose was half of a whole suppository and Jake's dosage would be one whole one.
Big Mistake: Jake is now facing Montezuma's revenge as well, so suppositories are out of the question. As I drive back to the pharmacy to pick up his Phenergan gel I wonder how 12.5 mg of the solid suppository translates to 0.50 ml and how to compare this in a more "apples to apples" way. I mean, if someone could show me the diameter of a average pea and then I could convert that to the mass of gel in ml.....maybe.
So, I challenge all of you science geeks to ponder me this:
What is the mass of an average green pea and how would half of it's mass end up as
.025 ml. I am arguing with no one, it's just that us enquiring minds would like to know. Oh, and that I accidentally gave him DOUBLE THE DOSE as I was trying to squeeze the tiny syringe and read it (upside down, mind you!) at the same time. I panicked and wiped it off, while calling poison control. She was all, "Dude, you, like, totally did what I was going to tell you to do. I mean, he is gonna' be like totally fine. Wake him up every 15 minutes or so and if you are stressed out about, like, anything, just totally call us back." She also explained that Jake could start having hallucinations. I had a feeling that my friend at Poison Control had beat us to 'em.
DUDE. She like totally helped and I think we are totally going to be like the best of friends now.
Totally.
11 January 2009
New Year's Resolutions
This year I resolve to get in worse shape than I was in last year.
This year I resolve to drive to the bathroom and, in other words, get even less physical activity in my day than ever before.
This year I resolve to do one push-up and/or crunch.
This year I will increase my intake of dark chocolate and decrease my intake of dark, leafy greens.
This year I will drink more hot chocolate and less skim milk.
This year I will have more sex, more leisure and less work. One must balance ones’ life after all.
This year I resolve to never wear pantyhose or anything tight or constricting. I have one life to live and I do not intend to meet death with a tightly cinched waistband.
This year if I want to play hooky from the homeschooling moms get-together and stay home and tap dance on my back patio I will and if anyone wants to say anything about it I will quickly transfer that phone call to my dial tone.
This year I will not waste my time with snooty stuck up know-it-all’s. If I don’t enjoy your company then I won’t spend time with you. (except for my friends that I really WANT to see, but don’t have time for: good luck figuring out which group you belong to!)
This year I will not freak out if my kindergarten-aged son doesn’t read Shakespeare and diagram sentences. I will remember this year that childhood is fleeting and stopping to watch a possum eat your cat’s dinner on the back porch is a joy to behold and should NOT be rushed!
This year I will take a moment to record my two-year old pointing to her brother’s screwdriver and shouting, “snoospida!” That voice, this moment,…..my heart!
This year I resolve to drive to the bathroom and, in other words, get even less physical activity in my day than ever before.
This year I resolve to do one push-up and/or crunch.
This year I will increase my intake of dark chocolate and decrease my intake of dark, leafy greens.
This year I will drink more hot chocolate and less skim milk.
This year I will have more sex, more leisure and less work. One must balance ones’ life after all.
This year I resolve to never wear pantyhose or anything tight or constricting. I have one life to live and I do not intend to meet death with a tightly cinched waistband.
This year if I want to play hooky from the homeschooling moms get-together and stay home and tap dance on my back patio I will and if anyone wants to say anything about it I will quickly transfer that phone call to my dial tone.
This year I will not waste my time with snooty stuck up know-it-all’s. If I don’t enjoy your company then I won’t spend time with you. (except for my friends that I really WANT to see, but don’t have time for: good luck figuring out which group you belong to!)
This year I will not freak out if my kindergarten-aged son doesn’t read Shakespeare and diagram sentences. I will remember this year that childhood is fleeting and stopping to watch a possum eat your cat’s dinner on the back porch is a joy to behold and should NOT be rushed!
This year I will take a moment to record my two-year old pointing to her brother’s screwdriver and shouting, “snoospida!” That voice, this moment,…..my heart!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
