31 March 2009

Why Do All the Annoying People Live Next to Us!?!

Mood: Frustrated (Apartment living is not the utopia that one would hope)

What I'm Watching: The Osbournes Reloaded (I know, I should be ashamed of myself but I'm totally not!)

Have I mentioned lately just how much I want to move out of this wretched apartment?!? Forget the mold in the bathroom (just how bad can mold growing on the ceiling actually be?), forget the hole in the cabinet under the kitchen sink (after all, it's only been 3 years since the owner promised he'd be back to fix it 'next week'), and let's even forget about the constant rent increases, the thermostat that has absolutely NO markings or temperature readings (it's like having our very own game show...will it be the arctic tundra or the tropics in our livingroom...turn the dial and find out!) and the parking lot that has pot holes large enough to swallow your average midsize car. All of that pales in comparison to the neverending stream of freaking neighbors we've been forced to endure over the past few years.

The latest in a long line of irritating people who have shared our paper thin walls are rapidly pushing me into imminent neck punching territory! Normally I am a very deep sleeper. Tornadoes? I'd be snoring away as we were lifted into OZ. Earthquakes? I did actually sleep through one of those. Home Invasion? Heck, the theives could probably steal the bed right out from underneath me and I'd continue dreaming undisturbed. However, there are a couple of exceptions to the 'deep sleep' rule. I am trained to wake up to two sounds: a phone ringing and the alarm clock. That's it. Two things. Guess what two noises constantly come from the neighbors apartment???

Yep. That's right. Saturday morning around 3:00 am I was awakened by the ringing of the neighbors cell phone. Apparently the neighbor had set the phone as an alarm clock so the phone kept ringing for 3 minutes at a time. Every. five. minutes. FOR. THREE. FREAKING. HOURS!!! Sparky (Mr. 'I can't sleep if the neighbors sneeze too loud') is blissfully snoring away as I contemplate the odds of my being able to actually punch through the wall separating me and the cell phone and disposing of the offending noise by throwing the phone at the offending neighbor to wake him up. After all, if he set the alarm he must want to get up, right? So, actually I'd be doing him a neighborly favor.

People? If you set your alarm for 3:00 am, perhaps you shouldn't stay up until 2:00 am with 30 of your closest friends crammed into your tiny studio apartment. And, if you do decide to set the alarm for 3:00 am you'd better damn well haul your lazy ass out of bed and turn the damn thing off or I'm going to go all Mr. Kool-aid next time and crash through your wall and put your cell phone somewhere where it will become very difficult for you to actually answer it!

27 March 2009

It's all a bit fuzzy!

Mood: Disappointed (my glasses aren't in yet)

What I'm watching: 20/20 (Normally I wouldn't be watching this but the scoop on the fued between Tori Spelling and her mom is too much of a gossipy temptation to be avoided!)

The world is a very fuzzy place sometimes. My eyesight isn't so bad that I can't function but lately I've noticed that my eyesight issues have gotten a bit (a lot) worse so Sparky convinced me that it was high time for another eye exam. I guess he thinks it's important to be able to read warning labels, properly see road signs and avoid hitting little old ladies in the crosswalk (I totally missed her by at least 5 feet). So, I went in for my exam. Turns out I'm farsighted with an astimagtism so I definitely need glasses. (bi-focals? Really? What am I, an 80 year old grandmother??). They were also kind enough to confirm that I do have extremely bad depth perception. (Duh. No one with good depth perception freaks out as much as I do when a tennis ball comes within a mile of her head and don't even get me started on parallel parking!)

So, we plunked down a good chunk of change and I picked out a pair of frames that both my loving husband and the clerk assured me are NOT heinous (how cruel is it to make a person whose eyesight has just been confirmed as bad pick out a pair of frames that will be part of their face for the next several years?).

My glasses were supposed to be in today but the delivery didn't come so the world is still a bit fuzzy around the edges so consider this fair warning if you see a silver Ford Fusion coming in your direction!

23 March 2009

A Monday Mini-Blog

Mood: Thankful

What I'm Watching: Table for 12 (It's the first episode but really? The idea of two sets of twins and one set of sextuplets is making me really grateful for my currently child-free, blissfully silent home!)

It was 6:58 this morning when my loving husband and I decided to re-enact one of the more famous scenes from Home Alone:

It started when I rolled over, bleary eyed, half asleep, trying to focus on the clock on my bedside table when suddenly I realize something is very, very wrong. 6:58? No, that can't be right. I close my eyes, blink hard and look again. Nope. Still 6:58 am.

6:58??? Scott is supposed to be on the road to work at 6:50!

"Scott!!! We slept in! Get up!"

After the world's fastest showers, I doubled checked the alarm clock. It was set right, it was turned on, the time was right, but it still failed to awaken me with its insistent, annoying buzzing. Yes, it's cute, with brightly colored numbers (really? They don't need to be bright enough to bring in a 747, but that's an issue for another day) but an alarm clock is really only useful if the alarm actually sounds at the set time!!!!

Luckily, Scott made it to work on time and no speeding tickets were incurred in his flash flight to the office, but what a start to a Monday morning!

22 March 2009

MIA

Mood: Tired (again...it's a theme in my life lately)

What I'm Watching: The Soup (it's a condensed version of all the reality tv I didn't have time to watch this week....kind of like a twitter version of the inane. I LOVE it!!!)

Since I've been MIA from my blog lately, I thought I'd give a quick run-down of what's been keeping me occupied lately.

1.) My poor hiney. I had to have a colonoscopy. Dude. Seriously. A colonoscopy. *shudder* I had some *ahem* symptoms that required further 'study'. By further study the doctor meant that he was going to shove a 5 foot tube up my backside at 6:30 am on a sunny Wednesday morning. No big deal, right? WRONG. So VERY wrong. Like Angelina Jolie frenching her brother wrong. First, there's the prep. Now, everyone says the prep is the worst part. Basically you drink sewage flavored with an entire container of salt and wait for it to *ahem* cleanse your system. I have to say that I wasn't a huge fan of running to the bathroom every five minutes while my system cleanses itself of things I ate in junior high but it wasn't as bad as everyone said when compared with the actual procedure itself.

Now, let me clarify and say that most people (my loving Sparky included) have absolutely no issues during the procedure itself. The nurses give you a lovely drug called versed and it is supposed to both make you extremely sleepy (so you will hopefully sleep through the procedure) and give you amnesia so that you have no memory of anything having happend (because honestly? Who wants to remember having a five foot tube shoved up where the sun doesn't shine?). However, it seems that there are a few select people for whom this medication does not work as intended. Guess who falls into that special category? That's right. Yours truly.

Some interesting notes from the Operating Room:

1.) When the nurses think you're out (or should be out considering they gave you enough medication to down a bull moose), they have very gossipy conversations. I heard all about their love lives, their friends, their vacation plans, etc. HELLO. Shouldn't someone be paying attention to the person lying on the table?!?

2.) Whenever you see doctors performing procedures on tv the music piped into the OR is always a soothing classical mix so you'll just have to imagine my surprise when I found myself singing along with Gwen Stefani to Hollaback Girl. Shut up. Yes, I know the lyrics and the doctors and nurses totally deserved having to listen to my sleepy, off key rendition.

3.) Everything the doctor says when he's feeding a million foot long tube up your hiney sounds terrifying.

4.) There are some 'bends' in your colon that make navigation a bit 'difficult'...by 'difficult' I mean I now know what it would feel like to have Freddy Krueger trying to claw his way out of my insides so I sincerely hope that the OR rooms are soundproofed because I tend to be very vocal in my displeasure when it comes to pain.

The good news is that everything is fine, meaning I have no cancer...just some minor hemorrhoids (which the doctor showed me pictures of as though I wouldn't believe him when he told me. Or, honestly as if I would recognize my own hemorrhoids in a line up. Dude? Don't want to see the inside of my colon). The doctor says that it's likely from having a job where I sit all day. That's right. My job is officially a pain in my ass!! I always knew it but it's nice to have it medically confirmed.

2.) A Souvenier from the germ factory: In a cruel twist of fate, Sparky and I picked up a nasty case of the stomach flu from the hospital on the day of my colonoscopy. Collectively we spent the next five days in and out of the bathroom in what appeared to be a preparation for our next 20 colonoscopies. Instead of celebrating the good 'no cancer' news, we were cursing the germ factory that is the hospital and the fact that our crappy little apartment only has one bathroom.


3.) Better Living Through Pharmaceuticals: As long as I was at the doctor's office for my hiney issues I decided I'd mention that I was occasionally (every day) having (raging) panic attacks and possibly (probably) a bit (a lot) of depression. Not really sure why except that there does seem to be a sanity shelf life for the women in my family and I guess mine has expired.

The doctor being mostly nice (when he's not shoving a fifty million foot tube up my backside), prescribed some medication to help with the situation. Unfortunately the first medication he prescribed worked a little too well (the words 'bad trip' and 'talk her down' were used by the ER doctor Sparky consulted). It took 24 hours for the effects to wear off and I couldn't be left alone because, well, I was on what amounted to a 'bad acid trip'. After that experience I honestly cannot understand why somone would willingly take drugs and do that to themselves. I mean, for the love of God, I couldn't figure out how to use a pen or sign my own freaking name.

Since then, we've been trying to tweak the combinations of medications to make me happy (but not too happy...wouldn't want to lose the frustrated sarcasm that is the essence of me). So far, it's working fairly well; however, the side effect is that it turns me into an infant who needs a nap every night around 5:30. The doctor says that this will pass as my body adjusts but really? A nap? I haven't taken naps since I was like 2.


....So, there you have it. My life over the past month in a nutshell. Exciting, no??