There’s no other way to say it.  I don’t know how I ever did it when I held down a 9-5 job, or even crazier, when I was a teacher and my kids regularly got me sick.

I broke down and went to the doctor yesterday.  Mostly because my teeth hurt.  Yes, I said my teeth.  Turns out (surprise, surprise) whatever I caught seems to have mutated into a sinus infection.  The sinus pressure was so bad that even my teeth were hurting.  So much so that I wasn’t even able to sleep the previous night.

Lucky for me, my doctor is absolutely awesome.  She got me right in and gave me the wonder drugs.  So now, merely one day after taking my meds and I already feel better.  Better still, the horrible sinus pressure and aching teeth have ceased.  So now I’m just dealing with explosive sneezes (the kind that make you pee and hurt your throat – TMI, sorry) and that nasty cough.

The plus side…I get tons of soup!!  We first went to Jerry’s on Saturday for the official Jewish Penicillin – man that place is crazy expensive!  Then I moved on to chicken tortilla at Islands (the best!).  Had won ton soup with hot mustard from Frontier Wok on Sunday to help clear sinuses (it didn’t work).  Then yesterday I made my own pot of (kick ass – if I do say so myself) chicken noodle.  We’ll probably have some leftovers tonight since I still don’t feel like cooking anything else.

Okay, no one really wants to read about the trials and tribulations of someone’s illness so instead I’ll talk about something totally cool…when I went to visit my dad, I made sure I brought some of the important family documents home with me. So I now have, in my grubby little, germy hands,  my great-grandmother’s birth certificate (in Latin), her baptism certificate (in Hungarian), and her Ellis Island paperwork, along with other too cool for school family documents.  I think it’s so fascinating to see how the spelling of the family names changes from document to document.  If only our scanner would upgrade to leopard compatibility already I’d show you just how cool it is.

And finally, tomorrow, I’ll be able to participate in my first Wordless Wednesday in God only knows how long.  I’m so excited by this, you have no idea.  It’s the simple things I tell ya.

If it is, then I’m just so wrong!

I got tired the other day of coming home time and again to find out that the dog (and his partner in crime, the cat) were getting into the trash.   If (and this is a big if), if I remembered to fully close the closet door, we were fine.  Sadly, that didn’t account for the hubster remembering to secure the door.  It also didn’t account for the fact that more often than not, the trash was over-flowing. I’ve now realized that it was so often over-flowing due to the poor design of the container.

So after 1) the pupster devouring an entire chicken carcass (this was a couple weeks ago – no ill side-effects) and 2) picking up the trash far too many times for my taste, I broke down and headed out to the mecca, Bed, Bath & Beyond.  As much as I love those shiny Simple Human cans, I just couldn’t bring myself to spend the money – especially not knowing if it would even fit in the little utility closet we have.  So instead, I picked up one of their less expensive, plastic versions.  With a lock!!!  Yes, it has a little lever you can slide to actually LOCK the lid so certain little, four-legged household members would be deterred.

Needless to say, I love my new trash can.  I mean, I full on, puffy-heart, l.o.v.e. the stupid thing.   The lock, what a joy!  The shape, is perfect.  Not only does it actually hold our trash (meaning it can hold a full week’s worth of garbage, not a mere couple of days worth like the other piece of shit can we were using), but the design seems to stop the little guy in his tracks (at least for now).

Who knew a simple trash can would make my day?

5:00Am this morning the phone rings.  I answer it, no one there.  I turn over, it rings again.  I realize from the caller ID that it’s a GA call.  Uh oh.  I answer it. It was one of my dad’s neighbors.  My dad was just taken to the hospital.  Needless to say, there was nothing I could do since it would be hours until anyone would be able to give me an answer.

I finally, 2 hours later, fall asleep after my mind is spinning and spinning in every which direction.  First attempt, he’s still in ER and hasn’t been admitted.  The operator transfers me, the ER gal transfers me and after 2 or so minutes of ringing, I hang up and start again.  This time I get a gal in ER and she tells me that he’s being admitted and he’s okay, but she can’t tell me more over the phone.  I explain that I’m in CA and there’s no other option but to do it over the phone.  She double-checks and finds out that he’s admitted upstairs.  I get transfered.

The 3rd floor nurses station answers and transfers me to his room.  He sounds fine (though it’s a very fuzzy connection).  Turns out he had a neurological stroke of sorts that took place in the part of his brain that controls balance.  He doesn’t know much more as he hasn’t yet seen a doctor.  So I have to call back towards the end of the day to see if we can get any answers.

What a horrible way to wake up.  And what a horrible feeling.  It’s not like I can just pick up and head over there (I tried a while back to get a last minute flight for my maternal grandfather’s funeral and it was over $1000).  Toss all this in with the waves of guilt for not being able to take care of him (or in his case, throw money at his problems that still wouldn’t fix anything – long story) and I’m just all in a funk.  Is it any wonder that I have a migraine coming on?