Today's word is...

Slug.

That's what I feel like. I (somehow) managed to not get any caffeine until just a few minutes ago. And it's dark and rainy. And I'm tired anyhow. And Kerri and I split a large pizza for lunch. The goal was to get the large and have leftovers for tomorrow or whatever... there's not much left - and I thought (as I started my second slice) that I should dig out the Lactaid from my purse (extra cheese and all that)... Guess what I didn't have?

I spent the morning on the air (not really, I was babysitting the automation. The automation was on the air). Ok. I spent the morning reading email and checking my bloglines and playing spider solitaire. (It's a hard knock life for us...). I have discovered another blog to read ('cause I needed another one): Crazy Aunt Purl. She is not crazy, she's fabulous y'all. I wish I knew her in real life and had been there to talk (and drink) with her. She makes me (almost) want to live in California. Don't tell the husband, he wouldn't like it. But I wish, oh I wish we were neighbors.

So I've been doing that thing I do when I find a new and established blog - I read from the very first post and catch up to the present time. I did that with Wendy and cried my eyes out when her cat died. I wanted to send her flowers. And The Yarn Harlot's daughters grew so fast that I wanted to cling to mine to keep her small.

But mostly today I just sat. And sat and sat and sat. And then it was time to pick Bean up from camp and I got wet because it reallyreallyrained from about the time I found my keys to the time I got in my car. So now I'm damp (but caffeinated thanks to a trip to Quik Trip - don you just looooove QT? Clean bathrooms, every pop in the world on tap and they have everything you could ever need and they're on pretty much every corner. Why do people live in states that don't have them??) - but I digress. So I'm damp and I'm sleepy despite my caffeine and it's so quiet here. I really, honestly could curl up under my desk right now and sleep for a few hours...

But I will resist. I will find something to do for the next 30 minutes and then I will be on the air for just a little while and then I will go home - where a fabulous dinner is cooking itself in my crockpot. I woke up 5 whole minutes earlier than I needed to and put chicken and K.C. Masterpiece in the crock pot and when I get home I'll make mashed potatoes and corn. AND my whole house will smell like BBQ Chicken for days.

(Ahhhhhhh.)

And then I'm going to "pajama up" and form a bed nest and watch Windfall and the rest of the Felicity DVD I got from Netflix yesterday.

Ain't nuthin' but a slug thang.

How sad...

Not my usual topic... bear with me.

So Andrea Yates was found innocent (?!?) by reason of insanity today. I'm really sad about it. Sad that it happened at all, sad that her husband was so oblivious (and so, so stupid). Sad that she had such problems and didn't get help and kept having babies. Sad that she is not being held responsible for it.
Don't get all in a fit about it... I know that she's not being released, just moved to a mental hospital. I know that post partum depression is a real and serious thing and that there were a lot of contributing factors. I know that the knowledge that she did such a horrible thing to her own children is something that she will carry with her whether she is in prison or a hospital or home. I know.
But there is nothing innocent about her. There is nothing innocent at all about deliberately and methodically drowning your children. She will probably spend the rest of her life in a mental hospital. But she might not. She might be "cured" and go on to have another family which frightens me more than I can even say. It happens, though. People do terrible things to their children and the children either die or are taken away and then they just have more kids and it all starts again. I'm not saying that people can't learn and change, I just don't really believe that they do.
The whole situation makes me so unbelievably sad. There are so many horrible things in this world - so many people who deliberately hurt or neglect children. I just don't understand it. I don't understand what makes people so hateful and evil and I don't know what makes our society say that under some circumstances that can be pardoned.
That's really all I wanted to say... maybe that's all I really can say.

(Note to self: must stop listening to the news).

Some knitting... and a funny drug story.

So here's an actual finished object. A close-up of the second washcloth for Kerri's new house. Yay me. The first one is the opposite color scheme of this one. I have two more balls of yarn for Kerri, so at least 2 more - and her house is almost hers - closing is on Monday. Everyone send serious good-house vibes to Kerri on Monday.
Nothing new on our house front. We haven't even looked at anything yet.

Next...
The Log Cabin baby blanket:


When is it done? Anyone know?
It's about receiving blanket size now - I'm thinking a few more rounds. I bought some yarn to make one for Bean - there was a sale on the cotton yarn that you use for the washcloths. Apparently people are using that yarn for these blankets too... I thought I'd give it a shot. I bought bright colors: lime green and hot pink and bright blue and yellow... I'll post a picture when I start it.
I really need to finish this one first. AND sew in the frickin ends.


Now on to the funny drug story... I know that drugs aren't funny. I know. But remember yesterday's drug test drama? I drove across town and picked up a letter from my doctor saying that I was taking the meds for migraines and that I was not a crazy addict. I drove it back across town and went to the corporate office of the Hospice. I brushed my hair and made sure I looked innocent and nice and drug free... and I seriously AM. (Hell, if I were on drugs I wouldn't be so freaked out about this. I'd be all mellow).
I figured that if I made sure to do it in person and I wasn't just a name on a positive drug test it might help. So I walked inside and asked for the "program integrity" person. The receptionist said I should sit and wait... and wait... and wait. Seriously? I would have brought in my knitting if I'd known I was going to have to wait so long. I practiced sitting still and calmly and tried to radiate clean living, and mentally went through my purse trying to remember if there was a sudoku book or something at the bottom.
After about 30 minutes I thought, "My hands are sort of dry and itchy, I'll put some lotion on them."
Here is a picture of the only lotion that I have in my purse right now:

Sorry about the fuzziness of the picture. It's a small bottle.

Of COURSE Hempz lotion would be in my purse. Big 'ol pot leaf on the front and everything. (It's really good lotion!! Try it... unless you're trying to prove to someone that you are totally NOT a drug person.

I decided to just go dry and itchy.

The woman finally came to talk to me. She said she thought my note would be sufficient. She's supposed to call me - so far nothing. The whole thing is funny at this point. It sort of has to be. I have done everything that can be done at this point and if it's not good enough then so be it.

Investigation?

Remember a few weeks ago when I had to take a drug test for Hospice? Remember how they said if I was on any prescriptions I should let them know and it wouldn't be a problem?

It's a problem.

I got a call today from the "program integrity" person because barbituates showed up in my test.
-Yes, and I showed him the prescription for that.
-What are you taking that for?
-Migraines.
-And how often do you take it?
-Maybe 4 or 5 doses a month.
-Uh-hummmm

Now I need to have my doctor fax a letter stating that I am, in fact, entitled to take these pills for migraines, and am not, in fact, a drug stealing criminal who wants to work at hospice to steal morphine. It doesn't have to SAY all of that, necessarily, but it should at least imply that. Says the "program integrity" person, that should be enough for their investigation. Surely I can understand that their drug policy is rigid. Of course I can understand that. But I'm due to start this program in SEVEN days, and everyone has a placement already, and WHAT IF THEY DON'T WANT ME ANYMORE???????

I guess I can beg for placement at my mom's hospital. They actually have a program that would work for me.

I'm already full of anxiety about this Hospice thing, this in not at all helpful. I would take a xanax (for which I have a freaking prescription, by the way) but I don't want it to show up on a test.

Day OFF!!! dayoffdayoffdayoff.

Yesterday was bee-you-tee-full. I slept in... well, we both slept in. It was great to wake up with the husband and see a smile on his face. Usually waking up involves a lot of swearing and grunting and whining. We woke up, we stretched, he got up and roamed the house. I knitted. In bed. I love it when the only reason to get up is to pee, get another diet dr. pepper and go back to bed.
We ended up going to lunch together and then I went back home (and got back into bed with Netflix - "Weeds" and "Felicity") and he went to run errands. The plan was to go see a movie later in the afternoon. My husband is not a movie-goer. He hates how expensive it is. He hates how much actors get paid, and how they act in public (though sports guys? ok with him. who knows what makes his mind work??). He doesn't even really watch tv. So to find a day when he is actually suggesting a movie is like finding that Lucky Charms guy. I knitted and watched my shows and dozed all day and finally we decided to check movie times. There was a showing of Click at 9:45 and a showing of Clerks II at 10:00. Who can decide between those?!? Rather than a coin toss, we decided to call my friends Michelle and Joel to see if they were free and what movie they wanted to see. She was tired and Joel was going to go see my brother's band play. Wha?!? I'll go see my brother's band play. I called my parents and found out where they were playing and we went, felt really, really old, and watched the band. I even wore my band t-shirt. I felt cool (not really - I felt old and fat). But I have a green sharpie scribble that sort of looks like a graffiti tag on the back of my hand so NOW I look like I'm still sort of cool. (I did make sure not to sleep on my hand. I've woken up with marker on my face before. Not a good look - sort of takes the "coolness" right out of the mark on your hand).
We ended up at Buffalo Wild Wings (the husband's favorite place to eat, not so much mine). I completely kicked his ass at trivia. Then a bar fight broke out - let me rephrase that. It was a bunch of white frat boys who (seriously) were wearing polo shirts with the collars up. (Hello, the 80's called, they want your look back). It was more like a bar-posturing contest. Like reruns of Roadhouse had been on tv earlier in the week and these drunkity drunk babies had to act it out. One guy was all, "hold me back bro, hold me back" and another guy was all "what the fuck?" I started humming tunes from West Side Story.
The "hold me back" guy was taken outside by his friend. He had changed lines, though. On the way out he had moved on to "What the fuck is his PROBLEM?" I'm thinking, lover's spat? We go back to our trivia game. I'm still kicking ass. We hear, coming from the other side of the bar - the frat-boy side - "Bwock,bwa- bwa, Bwock". I looked at the husband and said, "Bwocking. That's never a good sign in a fight." Which made him laugh. We paid our ticket and went out to the car... and noticed the "hold me back" guy and his friend lurking in their truck. As we left the parking lot we saw the other group of guys come out. We circled around, parked a good distance away and smoked and watched. Nothing really happened. There was a lot more posturing and a lot more of me humming, "when you're a Jet, you're a Jet." Finally a girlfriend got involved, "I cold kick your ass myself, and your ass, and yours." In a really high-pitched, drunk girl voice. The "what the fuck" guy proclaimed that he was a "grown-assed man" and didn't have time to fight a "punk ass" like the "hold me back" guy, and we decided it was time to go home.
All in all it was a fun day.
I seriously don't understand the drunk at a bar mentality that leads to fights. The posturing and the "you disrespected me by looking at my girl" thing and the whole "my dick is bigger than yours" thing. As a girl, I don't find it particularly interesting or attractive. But then, I'm not the girl they're trying to interest or attract, and my husband is more likely to sit in the back and heckle with me than get involved.
Note to self: teach Bean about the frat boy and how to avoid him.

Joy, oh joy.

It's only supposed to be 90 degrees today (joy)... it's about 10:30 and with the fan on I'm actually a little chilly. Ahhhhhhh.
I'll be working most of today because I am OFF tomorrow (joyjoyjoy). Andie is taking pity on me and working this Saturday and part of Sunday. She is going on vacation with her family for a few days and she has promised to learn the automation so that I can take a "good chunk of time" off. I want to dance around... but we'll see. Things get busy and sometimes stuff like that doesn't end up happening. I used to take two weeks off at the end of every summer to be home with Bean but I haven't been able to do that for awhile.
Bean's last week of camp is next week. I still am not sure what I'm going to do with her when my practicum starts. Nine is too young to stay home alone for that long - especially when I'll be across town and the husband isn't able to leave. She thinks it would be fine... she says she'll probably sleep until ten or eleven anyway and then I'll be there to pick her up just after noon. In theory that sounds good, but who wants to bank on the fact that everything *should* be ok with your child?? The husband will actually be home on Mondays so I really just need to figure out what to do about Thursdays and Fridays unil school starts. Maybe my mom can help... I could ask my sister - we're moving her into an apartment close to me soon - but I am really worried about how her boyfriend is going to react to the fact that we're moving her out. It's a really bad situation and I'm worried for my sister and her kids. I hope it's all a very peaceful and calm series of events but somehow I'm doubtful. I just don't want Bean to be over there until we're sure it's safe.
It's going to be fine, right?
In knitting news...
I went over to K's house yesterday for conversation and knitting... I'm almost done with the second washcloth. They're nice to knit - easy and relatively fast. I have some sock yarn for Bean but I can't get past the heel. It uses the wrap and turn short rows and then you're supposed to pick up the wrapped stitches as you come to them. Sounds simple, right? Sure it is. I've done this stupid heel about six times and it's never quite right. I frogged it a few nights ago and I think I need to buy size 2 dpn's. I've been using size 3's and the pattern calls for 2's, so maybe using the wrong needle has turned the Knitting Goddesses against me.
The Natalie coat (I haven't forgotten about Natalie) uses wrap and turn short rows on the bust so I really need to figure these out before I can make more progress on it.
My fuzzy red sweater is moving along slowly: here a row, there a row, everywhere a row, row. It's just really hard to want to knit a big fuzzy sweater when the temperatures are above 100 degrees!

It's almost eleven... it's time to take a shower and go to work.

I have to stop having dreams.

I haven't even gotten up yet. I'm not dressed. I'm just watching judge shows in the dark coolness of my bedroom. The sun is climbing (a quick peek at the weather channel shows the current temperature at 94) but so far the a/c is keeping up with it nicely. I'm getting up in a bit. It's Thursday and I'm going to my friend K's house (yay!!). I've been missing her. We all get so busy and it's important to nurture friendships. Anyone ever played The Sims?? If you don't call a friend or invite them over they stop being your friend and you can't advance. Anyway, a few hours at K's house means some knitting will get done and some good conversation will be had. What's not to love about that??
Speaking of nurturing friendships...
Strange dreams lately. Last night I dreamed about my friend D. I have known him since we were seven, but I haven't seen him or heard from him in a few years. There was some serious drama with his wife that I heard about from her mother and after that his cell phone was off and he doesn't respond to email. His parents still live in town, and I figure if he wants to contact me he will... so for the most part I don't worry about him. He's a big boy and it's been a long time since we have been the kind of friends who sit on the phone for hours. But last night I dreamed that he was at a restaurant and I was so happy to see him. I cried and carried on with emotion I didn't know I had. I'd like to think that if I saw him I would be cooler than that. We used to be "call at 2am kind of friends," when I had my first miscarriage he sat up with me all night and just let me cry. In college, when his girlfriend left him and slept with his best friend he called me and he came over and we drank cherry kool aid with vodka. Once he married the girl who broke up with him and slept with his girlfriend we sort of lost touch. They moved to Oregon and she was not my biggest fan - and vice-versa, though I did try to respect the fact that she was his wife. Shit, we were all 18.
There is not a D-shaped hole in my life, but where did the emotion in the dream come from? In college and just after, dreaming about D meant he was sure to show up within a few days - it was creepy. Now it just means that something reminded me of him and ~poof~ there he is. (Odd thing... in the dream when I asked him where he had been he said he had moved to France and had two more kids. I think that was Johnny Depp, and while I totally wish I had been friends with Johnny Depp like I was with D, it was not to be so. Besides, D and I were mostly platonic). I hope he's not still in the military, though. I hope he's ok. The XXX says I can call his unit and see if they have any information, and actually, I could call his mom, but right after the whole drama with his wife I left a few messages and he didn't call back. My email has been the same for almost ten years, too.
Time for my least favorite part of the day: take whatever emotional crap my dreams brought up and just let it go. I'm so bad at letting people go in the first place, and when I have dreams with certain people in them I feel like I have to let go all over again. It's never ex-boyfriends. It's always people who were important to me and who are not a part of my life anymore.
Time to get up.