Cat barf

I am tired beyond my capacity to even articulate it, but I can't go to bed. Not yet anyway, because I am waiting for the damn sheets to finish drying.

I got a text from Heidi right before I left work saying that there was "serious barf" on the bed and that she needed me to start the cleanup process. When she said serious, she wasn't kidding. Mia had gotten sick on our bed (as she has done several times in the last few weeks, always necessitating a complete changing of the sheets.) I started the washer at 5:30PM. It is 11:12 PM and the goddamn mattress pad is still drying. It really needs to hang out on a clothesline as it gets all bunched up on itself in the dryer and just doesn't dry right. I thought it was dry earlier and when I went to put it on the bed just now, it was so NOT dry I'm not sure how I thought it was earlier.

Truth be told, I'm so sick of cat barf I could just barf myself. But with five cats, cat barf is kind of a fact of life around these parts. And with Mia especially. It's kind of hard to get mad at her for barfing considering her terminal cancer. It doesn't make it any easier when you are trying to go to bed and you can't because a cat has unceremoniously puked all over your pillow and bed sheets 5 hours ago (FIVE!! Why are we still waiting for these sheets to dry?) but you try to put it in perspective. At least we're going to be afforded the luxury of being alive for what is hopefully a lot longer. No matter how you slice it, Mia is at the end of hers. We don't know when the end will come, but we're enjoying every single day we get with her because it really is a gift.

Even when she barfs all over the bed.

So for now, I'll keep cleaning up her sick because one of these days she won't be around to get sick anymore and we'll say "remember how Mia always used to barf?" and we'll laugh about it.

But right at this moment, I just want to sleep. And I think I'm going to go try now.

Sick sick sick

I've spent the vast majority of this weekend sick. After Heidi got rather violently ill on Wednesday night (documented in glorious Technicolor here), I figured that I was pretty much a goner. But I have managed to avoid what appeared to be certain infection in the past, so I thought perhaps I'd get lucky again and somehow dodge the bullet. I even floated the theory that perhaps you needed two X chromosomes to get it, based on the fact that Anna had had pretty much the same thing a week prior.

No such luck. I woke up Friday morning not quite feeling right, but chalked it up to a bad night's sleep. Heidi warned me that was how it started. She said that if I couldn't shake the tired off, I needed to come home. I didn't. I pushed through the day and honestly, I didn't really feel all that bad for most of the day. We even went out to Perkins on Friday night and had I been really sick, that wouldn't have even sounded good. But even as we pulled into the driveway for the evening, I knew that I had begun the steady decline that would pretty much come to define the weekend.

Fortunately, my sickness never approached the horrific lows that Heidi's did and for that I am truly thankful. There was a tense moment at 2AM on Saturday morning that had me hugging the toilet bowl (and momentarily forgetting where I was) but it never actually came to actual puking. Being sick is never fun and the first 12 hours are always the worst. Those 12 hours are always followed by the sliver of time in which you feel so much better than you did you can hardly believe it. Unfortunately, that time is followed by 48 hours of "would-you-just-hurry-up-and-get-well-already." That's the time period I'm in right now.

I'll be going to work tomorrow, no doubt about it. My energy level is back up to about 90% of usual and there's no real reason to miss. Yeah, I'm ticked I got sick on a weekend - who wants to get sick on a weekend? - but rather than dwell on the negative, I'm going to try to put a positive spin on it. This weekend saw me spending more time than usual on the couch in front of the TV. I blew through 5 episodes of The X-Files (including "Bad Blood" - man, this season is just about the best yet) and we watched more Simpsons episodes than you can possibly imagine. I also spontaneously napped several times yesterday for a combined total of several hours which was pretty much what my body needed.

The funny thing is that I think my body was in need of this kind of a weekend anyway, sick or not. We had grand plans for this weekend - plans that included shipping Anna off to Camp Grandma while we got together with Jeff and Caryle. The plans with Jeff and Caryle fell apart first and then an unexpected trip to the hospital for Heidi's grandfather cancelled Camp Grandma. And even if these cancellations had not occurred, the combination of my sickness and yet another snowstorm would have vetoed the entire weekend. In the end, I'm glad I stayed home. Not that I wouldn't have loved to have done all those things, but I think that in being sick, I finally gave myself permission to do that which I like to do the least - stop and take care of myself.

The only thing worse than being sick on a weekend is not taking anything away from it. And I did. So you see, being sick isn't all bad. Just mostly. (they mostly come at night...mostly.)

Indoctrination FAIL

Heidi summed this up so well on her blog, I am cutting and pasting it right here because there are a lot of people that read me that may not read her blog

Anna saw the Obama address today: her class and several others went to the Media Center to watch. Her comments on it were that it made her late for lunch and so she only got to eat two things and was hungry all day. I asked her if she liked watching him talk, and she said, enthusiastically, yes! Then I asked her what he talked about. "I don't know," she said. "My back hurt from where I had to sit and I didn't pay attention."

So much for the indoctrination of the second graders. Or at least this one.

I caused a bit of a shitstorm on Facebook the other day when I posted a link from Politifact which examined Obama's school address and the furor that surrounded it. A person from my high school days chimed in declaring the awesomeness of FOX News which brought out MY liberal base. Everyone was pretty respectful for the most part, although I admit to gritting my teeth and having to work to be nice. But 44 comments later, I had to put an end to it because it was just people saying the same thing over and over again and honestly, I was tired of policing it. I had better things to do!

Seriously, of all the trumped up faux controversies...

P.S. For all wondering, the bat tested negative for rabies. Peace of mind is currently running at $40.30. Anna is relieved that shots are not in her future and frankly, so am I.

There's a bat on ice on my front porch

Yes, you read that right.

Anna came downstairs crying tonight saying "Dad, there's a bat or something on my bed!!" I was certain that she was incorrect and overreacting. This is way past Heidi's comfort zone so it fell to me to go investigate. Sure as shootin', there's a bat on her headboard bookcase. It looked pretty dead to me, but still. I have to admit, that bats are outside even my comfort zone, but it was time to, as my brother would say, man up and take care of the problem. I got an empty ice cream bucket from the basement to go up and trap it. I was nervous that as soon as I tried to scoop it in there, it would take off flying. Fortunately, it didn't move a muscle as I shoved it into the bucket and put the lid on. Then I put the bucket in a cooler with ice packs and put the whole thing on the porch.

I called Iowa Public Health as I couldn't remember if there's a time frame in which you must test a bat for rabies after it's died. They called me back and were very pleasant. They said that the way I describe it, it doesn't meet their criteria as a human exposure, but if I want to have it tested, I'm certainly more than welcome to take it to Iowa State and pay somewhere between $35 and $50 for it. This is absolutely happening. There's no way of knowing if there was any exposure to us - chances are VERY slim that there was any kind of bite that took place, although bat bites are so small you can be bitten in your sleep and not know it. The last time this happened to us (2002), Department of Natural Resources and the Department of Public Health both discouraged me from having it tested. I bucked both of them and took it to the disease lab in Iowa City.

The shithead was rabid. We all got the rabies series, which contrary to popular belief is not 82 shots into your stomach or your penis. It's a 5 dose series in your deltoid, but still, fun times.

So you can see why I don't mess around with bats and guessing whether they may or may not have rabies. As I am so fond of saying when it comes to rabies, you guess wrong and you guess DEAD. That is not hyperbole or overreaction. It's the truth.

The fortunate thing is that even in the unlikely event that we all have to get rabies shots again, its an abbreviated course of 2 shots which is still 2 shots too many for Anna's taste. But this is one area where I am immovable.

We are behind on Blair's rabies vaccination through an oversight on our part. So he's going in to the vet as well tomorrow morning, no questions.

Suddenly, I'm very glad I traded into the evening shift tomorrow because my morning is going to be full up, as Tinky Winky might say.

However, at least we have new Bananarama to listen to tonight to balance out this bat ridiculousness.

(image via)

Oink

I was doing dishes earlier today, looking pensive and Heidi said to me "What are you thinking about?" to which I answered, "Well, if you want to know the truth...swine flu." Bet she didn't see THAT coming.

I've been reading a lot about the outbreak of swine flu that seems to have started in Mexico City and has so far spread to 5 different states in the U.S., confirmed in 3 countries and suspected in up to 6 more. When I first started hearing rumblings of it a couple of days ago, it was hard not to jump to the worst case scenario. For those of you that don't know, the worst case scenario is The Stand in which a superflu wipes out pretty much the entire population of the world. But since we all know that's just a story, and I've actually had a couple people ask me what I think of this from a health care professional standpoint, I thought what the hell, even though I am not super-qualified to speak on it. After all, I'm neither a virologist or an epidemiologist.

The simple fact of the matter is that, despite what the government and the news media are telling you, no one knows what's going to happen. Right now, things are not pointing toward widespread mortality from this particular strain of swine flu. There could be significant morbidity, but that is something we're just going to have to wait and see on. It doesn't seem to have a high mortality rate - only 20 confirmed deaths in over 1400 cases - and everyone in the U.S. that has tested positive for the virus has recovered or is recovering. So that's good.

What's not so good is that I really do think that this is going to be a pandemic influenza. That does not mean that it's going to be Captain Tripps and it's the end of civilization as we know it. We've had flu pandemics before and the last one was the Hong Kong flu 41 years ago which was not particularly lethal (at least not compared to 1918-1919) but they do happen. It's also true that we are well overdue for an influenza pandemic. There's been some speculation as to how much immunity the flu vaccine from last fall will provide, which is likely none as this combination of existing pig, bird and human influenza viruses is novel.

The part that bothers me the most about this is how the media is treating this, which I would say is borderline negligent in its attempts to whip up mass hysteria. All mainstream media outlets are guilty of this, but two that I frequent are especially bad. The Drudge Report has multiple scary headlines as links, and the Huffington Post (which really, in my mind IS the liberal version of the Drudge Report and because of that is annoying me more with each passing day) has equally scary headlines in 48-point red font. This helps in no way or form and the only reason they're doing it is because it makes good copy and for our mainstream media, news and entertainment are completely indistinguishable from one another so why should they bother trying to differentiate now.

I think the real story lies somewhere between the OMG-scary-might-as-well-jump-off-a-bridge-now attitude of the news outlets and a minimalist "oh, it's no big deal." Yes, this is a big deal. No, it's likely not the end of the world (although I can't wait for some religious wacko to try to blame the swine flu on gay marriage. You watch. It'll happen.) But we're likely to see quite a few people get sick.

So we don't know what's going to happen with this, and ultimately, we can't control it. Worrying is just wasted energy.

In the meantime, here's the Google Map tracking cases of swine flu. And if you want to read a great book on the 1918-1919 Spanish influenza pandemic, here's the link, although now might not be the best time to start reading it!

I find your lack of posts disturbing

But Lord Vader, there's a reason for the lack of posts. Actually several. But really, at this point I would have been strangled by the Jedi chokehold, right?

I have been sick for over a week now. Not knock-down, drag-out sick. Not sick enough to miss work. But sick enough to be so fucking annoyed by it I can't even begin to describe it. I wake up every morning feeling pretty good, but it's a downhill spiral from there. About midday, my legs and arms start hurting and by the evening, my eyes are hot as if I have a fever. But, as we all learned from House, tests don't lie and I am not feverish. Last night, I woke up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat. So I'm hoping that I have turned a corner. I mostly just want to feel better and, as Heidi pointed out this morning, my biggest problem is just that I am the most impatient sick person there is. We'll see how tonight goes.

We lost our internet service for approximately 30 hours this week. It was kind of like the night the lights went out in Georgia only without all the murder and lynching and whatnot. A bad modem was to blame - after 5 years, it decided to give up and went to modem heaven. We now have a brand spanking new DSL modem that Qwest expressed to us (for free, no less) and after some initial issues with getting it hooked up, we are all reconnected. Of course, the Macs found the network right away and had no problem. My PC, on the other hand, continued in its tradition of being a gigantic pain in the ass and refused to see the wireless network. I stood on my head and sprinkled pixie dust and moved the wireless antenna a fraction of an inch and suddenly, there it was. The night we were without internet gave us a close approximation of what it must have been like for Ma & Pa Ingalls on the prairie. (btw, if anyone can tell me WHY the lights went out in Georgia that night, I would be forever grateful. It has always been a mystery to me.)

Someone referred to the extension of the Sticky & Sweet Tour as Sticky & Sweet 2: Electric Boogaloo. I love it!

We are all shuffling off to see Coraline in 3D this weekend. I finished the book last night (I was the only one left in the family to read it) and it sounds like it will be worthy. It was scary in parts, but not too scary for Anna. She is over the top excited for the movie. Even though it will be expensive, what a fun family outing it will be.

I did that 25 Random Things meme on my Facebook page, and one of them detailed how I am still a little bit scared of The Exorcist, especially the scene toward the end of the movie during the exorcism when for a few seconds, there is an image of Father Karras' dead mother sitting on the bed bathed in white light. It is not scary (certainly not as scary as Regan turning her head all the way around and cussing at her mother) but it has ALWAYS creeped me out, such that I usually avert my eyes when the scene is coming up. Well, thanks to this isn't happiness, I saw the photo of that scene (see it here, I can't bring myself to put the picture on the blog) quite unprepared to see it. It's like someone sneaking up on you and punching you in the back of the neck. (Heidi, if you saw this picture, you saw the scariest part of the movie.)

And to wash that nasty picture out of my brain, here's a great photo of Madonna that I had forgotten about. How I loved the cowgirl phase.