New Month, New Problems

Dastardly May has come and gone. Termites have been treated and should be suffering (if they aren't dead by now). Had a doctor's appointment with a less then stellar test result, but since it came with a "I'm sure it's fine! Let's talk again in a year!" response from the doctor, I'm pretending it's all cool. She didn't even call with the results. She wrote me a very ridiculous letter, which was essentially like you have these abnormal cells you've never had before, but they're probably cool. Or they're cancer. Or they might become cancer. Tomorrow. Or next month. Or next year. Or ten years from now. OR NEVER.

It was so dumb that it was kind of great. I told the hubby that it is going to be fun to explain in every future doctor's appointment that I had these weird results when they go over my history. I'm not looking forward to that. The letter was so long and convoluted that I'm just going to carry it with my insurance card. The hubby, ever helpful, just said, "It's going to be really fun when you get to explain it every year to the doctor who wrote the letter."

We both had a good laugh at that because it's so damn true.

The A/C is working. Cars are starting. Washing machine is still washing. The oven is another matter but let's not talk about that. I'll repeat: I'm glad to have May in the rear view.

June, though, not really living up to its possibilities. There haven't been any outings on our part. No big dates. We can't even make it to the movies where we have a list of stuff we'd like to see. I need to know if they say "You sunk my battleship!" in Battleship.

The hubby had a couple days off for Memorial Day, which made us all hopeful and stupid. We're going to Cold Stones! We're going to The Dog Museum! We're going to be the last people in America to see The Avengers! Woooooo! Happy Wife is going to shower and put on "outside of the house" clothes every day! WOOOOOOO!

Of course, Mav decided to spoil all those plans in her usual spectacular fashion. During my vet's one week off for vacation. For no known reason, she got what 3 substitute vets think was colitis, and it's been a literal sh*tstorm. Heh.

Sorry.

Anywho, she's had a tough go of it since then. When our normal vet got back, he called about 6 minutes after his day started to check on us. I cannot imagine how high my stress level would be without our vet. Mav's been getting better and starts back on her regular food today. She has only very recently started eating her normal amount of food. This is since Memorial Day, and she's almost 100 lbs now, so she's no delicate flower when it comes to how much food she should be eating. At one point, over a 5 day period, she'd only eaten like one and a half cups of food total. In comparison, she should have 6-8 cups of food per day. Yeah.

We can tell she still feels pretty crappy. It's been a long couple weeks. At one point, I slept on the floor of the office next to her in her dog bed because that was the only place she found any comfort.

Fun side note: sleeping on the floor now is a lot different than it was in high school and college, when I was all "It's good for my back!" during the Academic Decathlon state finals in some semi-nice hotel room or at friends' houses back when I had friends that weren't my husband. Back then, a night on the floor was nothing. Now? I need 3 Aleve just to get up and down the stairs the next morning. Next time, I'm going to grab a second dog bed and sleep on that and try not to think about the level of white trash that might make me.

Never one to miss a beat, Mav did gather up some knowledge during her troubles. What my dog learned was how to spit out pills and that pill pockets have been a trick all along. Which is not good for a dog who is on 2 arthritis pills, a thyroid pill and an allergy pill twice a day, all when she's feeling good. Add a bunch of additional pills to those when she's feeling bad.

This is my dog, who once ate an entire bunch of bananas, peels and all. Happily and as if she'd never eaten before. One time while we were at a movie, she managed to eat an entire UNOPENED SAM'S CLUB box of these granola bars with ZERO effects on her digestive system. We came home to a house full of wrappers. It was amazing.

Mav says, "Mmmmm, crunchy!"

Once my parents left out Decon (rat poison) when we visited, and she got into that, and the emergency vet there said that they'd never seen a dog actually chow down activated charcoal. You used to be able to point at really anything and say a couple magic words and Mav would go ahead and eat it just in case. She hasn't been one to eat non-edible stuff on her own, not that we leave much to chance in our house anyway, but unless it's unwatched people food (a Happy Wife household no-no), she's pretty good. She's an eater. She gets that from me, for sure. It used to be if she ever got into her own bag of food, no doubt she would just eat until it was gone. Now, she's totally the opposite. Anyone who has had a dog that is food motivated who suddenly has no interest in food knows that it is a horrible thing to witness. You just get this bowling ball of dread in your stomach.

And we saw no signs she got into a damn thing. We hadn't gone anywhere or done anything exciting. We'll probably never know why or how she got so sick this time. Lord.

So, when the hubby and I have had time together, we've just spent it with her. Lots of soccer on the television and before that, we finished Friday Night Lights and started MI-5 on the Instant Netflix. The rest of the time, the hubby is working. Then I'm just sort of sitting over her like some kind of high school stalker. As long as I'm in a position to see her in the room we're in, we're okay. I have to be able to see her. Because there is no warning if she's gonna puke or have a seizure, not even to her. Which is really sad. I can't imagine not knowing something like that is coming and then boom. It comes on so quickly that she doesn't even have time to get up if she's sleeping or curled up resting. Her seizures are literally seconds long now and are completely different than they used to be. We never know when she starts acting off whether she's just having a senior moment, a seizure, or just crazy dog time. We can redirect her back to us pretty quickly, but it's still scary to watch.

At one point I went from praying "Help Mav, stop her hurting, bring her comfort, make her feel better" to "Just get me through this" and I knew when that happened that we were in for it. I'll never be ready for her to go, but the possibility is always there. Hopefully we're turning a corner and are on the road to recovery for a while longer. Either way, we're still just going to be focused on taking care of her and little else.

I try to appreciate spending all the time with her that I can, and it's more of a blessing than a curse. So the hubby and I didn't get to go out. We still are spending the evenings together and most of the weekend when he doesn't have to work. We can still do little things. The times this past week when I've got no sleep with Mav, the hubby went out and picked up supper. Lately, since sleep hasn't been such a stranger, I've been making nicer-than-sandwiches dinners for us. Last night, I made him lamb chops, filling the house up with smoke (they aren't good unless the smoke alarm goes off!), and fresh salad. It was really nice. Tonight, fresh corn on the cob and steaks marinated in a tasty A1, Italian dressing, honey, and red pepper concoction.

I'm oddly grateful for everything right now. Sure, Mav doesn't feel great, but she's better and she's still here. I have the time and ability to be with her. We have a home, so many life things that we're fortunate to have that make everything easier (hi again, washing machine). The hubby's still working away at a job he likes. The people we care about are happy and healthy and even though some are many miles away, they're still with us. The people we've lost have been gone so long the wounds aren't fresh and we're able to live with it more easily. Things other people are dealing with right now in their lives, the economy, family problems, sickness, death, all kinds of shattering things are happening out there. I know enough to know that we're not immune to that. It'll come and it'll be awful, but right now, we're okay. We're incredibly lucky. I don't have a damn thing to complain about.

I guess the trick is to, no matter how crappy things get or how complicated or how busy, we fit in some little things to make it better. Just about anything can overwhelm me if I let it. I think we're in the bones of the marriage part of our marriage right now, and it's still a great place to be. We have a good foundation, which makes everything so much easier when life from the outside is shaky. When I'm focused on Mav and not on much else. We'll get back to all the extra stuff like dating later. I still have goals. Like to not have a pair of shoes in my closet that I haven't worn. And to make it through the day without eating a fruit roll-up (damn you, Sam's Club!). All in good time, Happy Wife. All in good time.

It's Valentine's Day, Let's Watch The Notebook! HA HA! Also, I'm A Unicorn And You're A T-Rex.

It's Valentine's Day. Oh, how the mighty have fallen!

When we were still dating dating (not married dating), I made the then-future-hubby mixed cds and bought him lots of presents, which I wrapped in wrapping paper that I made myself that highlighted all our inside jokes. Once, I ink-jet-printed out a thousand Battlestar Gallactica scenes and then made speech bubbles for all the characters and glued it to the insides of this really cool clear gift bag. All the characters said all the stuff that we'd joked about while watching the show. It took forever. We still have that bag. We store all our owner's manuals in it for all our appliances and stuff. When I see it now, I laugh and roll my eyes at myself for being such a dork. At the time, I thought I was such a genius girlfriend.

Anywho, I bought the hubby-of-the-future multiple Valentine's Day cards because so many cards expressed all my different feelings every year that I couldn't buy just one. I bought him so many cards that sometimes I'd buy a card and use parts of it to make the mixed cd liners. I remember this one pink card that had a cartoon unicorn and cartoon T-Rex on it and the T-Rex was all, "I'm extinct and you're mythological" and the unicorn was all "We'll make it work." You know, because on paper, my husband and I are super different and in theory, it shouldn't work, but love and all that. That's funny since now sometimes I'm like, "How are we different people?! I mean, really? Isn't it crazy to think about how you and I are two separate people?"

This was back when to make a mixed cd,  you had to use actual songs from actual cds that you actually owned. Oh, the labor.

We got engaged, then married. I bought him more functional Valentine's Day presents like socks. Essentially, the first 4 years together were a slow and steady replacement of all the weary and worn clothes that man owned. Is it a holiday? Look! Undershirts! Merry Christmas! Happy Birthday! This (*holds up tee shirt with holes in the armpits*) is going away! Forever!

I read somewhere once that a guy knows he's in a serious relationship when he no longer has to buy underwear. Ever. Because his girlfriend/wife does all that stuff. And that sh*t is so true. A woman comes in and sees what that guy's been wearing and after the shock's worn off, she kindly replaces everything that he owns so that what is elastic is still stretchy and everything that is supposed to be white is actually white and every hole in every garment was put there by the people who actually made the garments. I mean, the armpit holes I just mentioned? Not just undershirts, no. They were many, they were vast, and they haunt my dreams. I don't know how he left the house before he met me.

I made him romantic Valentine's Day meals. I made his beloved corn muffins in a heart shaped muffin pan. I bought airplane cookie cutters months earlier, then used them to cut out homemade brownies in airplane-software-engineer shapes to end his favorite meal of the time. Usually, I had problems. Set off the smoke alarms, watched half of each corn muffin stick in the pan, had to explain that the brownie was in the shape of an airplane since it looked like a frosted insect of some kind. I cooked a lot the first 3 years of our marriage. I was always trying new things. Which sounds nice but isn't. My husband has always been the kind of person to say everything I've ever cooked was delicious. I've cooked for an afternoon, given him a plate, washed the dishes, then finally tasted the inedible meal myself. I'd have to go find him wherever he was eating in the house and take his half eaten plate from him so that I could toss it all into the garbage before making a frozen pizza. Eff you, Rachel Ray. I have maybe 3 meals still in rotation out of a thousand and those 3 were after a lot of editing.

My point is I used to try a lot harder. Which I know he appreciated but I also think he doesn't really need. Or expect. He's not a holiday guy. If there's something he wants or I want, we usually just talk about it and make it happen. If it's anywhere near a birthday or a holiday, we add, "Happy birthday!" or whatever. Valentine's commercials started coming on the television pretty quick this year. After some swearing on my part about the whole "individually bought beads on a bracelet" thing that is happening right now (REALLY? REALLY? REALLY?), I told him, "You're getting me some chocolate this year" and it's been in the cupboard since Saturday. Actually, he perturbed me yesterday so I ate all the good pieces out of the box and he brought home another, better, more Happy-Wife flavored box last night. No dark chocolate and lots of caramels.

He even bought himself a box of candy full of candy I don't like.

Does that count as his V-day gift? I am saying yes. Since every birthday and Christmas present he's gotten me has been stuff I've bought myself and then said, "Guess what you got me for my birthday!"

Actually, we had a weird day yesterday, hence the extra box of chocolate. I'd voiced my concern over the weekend about the forecast of freezing rain, bad roads, and snow for Monday. The forecast eventually said yesterday morning was supposed to be okay, so instead of working from home like I wanted, the husband, he went in and promised to come home early in the day.

I could tell when I woke up that the husband's brain wasn't functioning properly, and/or he was trying to drive me insane.

He does this thing sometimes where he brings up his empty cans and bottles from downstairs. The recycling is downstairs. If he leaves his recycling out downstairs, I can walk it over into the next room, where I keep the recycling before taking it out. It doesn't bother me too much to carry his damn Pepsi can into the next room. Although why he can't do this is outside my realm of imagination. What does bother me is when he carries that can back upstairs. Which is when he sets it on the kitchen counter. So that I can pick it up and carry it back downstairs. Not a huge deal so I tried to let it go. One day, he did it like 3 times. It drove me so crazy that I grabbed the cans from the kitchen and whirled myself around the house until I found him and then sort of accosted him. My brain just couldn't take it anymore. I needed him to walk me through the thought process that led him to do this. I knew he wasn't doing it on purpose and that there was no thought process but still. Sure enough, it was just one of those "I wasn't thinking" situations that we all have, but my reaction to it was nuts enough for both of us that I didn't get through two sentences before we both collapsed into uncontrollable laughter.

Well, yesterday morning, he left out his dirty breakfast dishes all over the house. A coffee cup here, a bowl with oatmeal residue there. It was like every room I walked into, there were some of his dishes.

He also threw his dirty clothes on the bed I was sleeping in before leaving for work.

On the bed I was sleeping in.

On the bed I was sleeping in.

*Slow exhale, slow exhale, slow exhale* I'm cool. I'm cool. I'm cool. Calm and collected.

Mmmmm-hmmmmm.

I thought he had also thrown a blanket and cat bed off of a shelf in order to put his laptop there (turns out a cat had done the clearing of the shelf and the hubby just took advantage of it).  I was left with a heap of blanket and a cat bed thrown on my desk and my husband's laptop sitting all suspicious right there on the empty shelf.

I was like, okay, I'm gonna ignore this and go watch The Vampire Diaries on Netflix and pretend this didn't happen. He'll be home soon anyway. Right?

The hours ticked by and still, no call that he was coming home from work. He always calls. Every day, when he's done with work, to let me know he's coming home.

Finally, after pausing during appropriate Elena/Stefan/Damon lulls in storyline and checking in with the KSDK weather team a little too often, I called him at work.

Oh, oh, oh. He had meetings all of a sudden. Late day meetings. Oh. Ooooooh. Ooooooooh.

I was all, "Pack it up!" and the weather guy was all, "The evening commute is going to be terrible" and the schools were all "let's send the kids home early" and my husband was all, "But I have a 3 o'clock."

So I said, "If you do not come home soon, you will be taking me to see The Vow tomorrow."

That's the movie with the guy from Step Up and the only girl they seem able to cast in terrible romantic movies. They are in love and they get married and there's an accident and she has selective amnesia (cue every woman who's ever had a bad relationship: What kind of accident exactly was that?) where it seems she remembers everything but her husband so he has to make her fall in love with him all over again. Based on a true story. Of course. So I'm both rolling-my-eyes annoyed while completely aware that it will make me do the ugly snot-factory cry.

The threat of seeing this movie has been incredibly helpful the past couple weeks. My husband has an actual physical, vomit-y, shudder-y sort of reaction whenever I mention it.

"And the later you are, the more inclined I will be to make you watch The Notebook as a nice sort of pre-The-Vow movie when you get home tonight, since I'm pretty sure I own that movie somewhere." I think. I don't know. Probably.

My husband has never seen that movie. So it is excellent nagging ammunition. He likes to talk smack about The Notebook but doesn't even really understand the basic plot of that movie, which actually makes his smack-talking really entertaining for me.

My husband called and came home before the evening commute but after I had eaten all the good chocolates out of the box to make me less angsty waiting for his call. He brought supper and more chocolate.

So I didn't get out any old DVDs. We watched Friday Night Lights and ate Chinese food and laughed as I outlined what I thought his thought process was this morning when he left out all his dishes and used my sleeping silhouette as the dirty clothes hamper.

This Valentine's Day, I'm waiting for my favorite person in the world to call and come home. We'll eat and laugh and have some of our separate chocolates and sit on the couch wrapped in a blanket, dog and cats burrowing into any open spaces around us. We'll watch something on tv that we both can stand. He won't have to learn anything about the Salvatore brothers and I won't have to learn How It's Made. And it will be a perfect Valentine's Day, a day not that different than yesterday and hopefully pretty damn similar to tomorrow. The cats would eat roses. We'd end up with a lobster as a pet if we tried to make a fancy dinner. And I think my husband's closet is full. So, we're good. It's our best Valentine's Day yet.