FlipSide:Starting October 29, 2001

A journal of the trials, tribulations, and triumphs in the life of a woman in the 21st century.

Last Updated : Sunday, November 04, 2001 10:25:28 PM -0600

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Monday, October 29, 2001

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Hello, and welcome to Monday. What a busy week we have planned for my exhaustion and your amusement. Tonight is the Juliet Lowe (the girl scout founder, don't ya' know) birthday celebration and skating party for Rhiannon and then, grocery shopping. Tomorrow may be a free day, although it looks like daycares is having an evening Halloween party. Then, of course, Wednesday is Halloween and my little costumed freaks will be hitting the mall to extort sugar of all sorts from the businesses therein. Thursday is . . . something I'm sure. And Friday is, well, Friday.

Not to harp and complain, (but, hey, it's my damn page, I'm entitled to do it if I wanna) but I have been having trouble with my asthma again. I am loathe to use my albuterol for mere shortness of breathe, as sometimes the cure is worse than the disease. The albuterol tastes awful and has a tendency to give me the shakes and makes my heart race. Usually it gets rid of the shortness of breathe, but not always. Lately the trouble has been at night. First I get very warm, then the shortness of breathe kicks in, the then I have trouble sleeping. Lovely combination that. I had it for three nights last week. This afternoon I also was having shortness of breathe, so I finally gave in and took a hit off the albuterol inhaler. Aside from the vile taste, the Parkinson's like shake, and the pounding heart, it seems to be working somewhat. I sometimes wonder if I think too much about my breathing when I get like this and it compounds the problem. However, there is nothing more frustrating (and frightening, for that matter) than constantly feeling like I can't catch my breath. I am not even 35 years old, for Chrissakes, I'm too young for this crap. A couple of my friends (yes, I know, in their expert medical opinions) think the problem could be hormonal due to the timing, which is just ducky. I'm too damn young for that too, thank you very much. Hopefully this will pass in the next day or so, or I am going to have to go see my doctor. This is just not something I can tolerate. Then, of course, the paranoid voice in my head (not to be confused with the to the pessimistic voice, the childish voice, or the cranky bitch voice) says that this is something more serious than mere asthma. Luckily, the other voices tend to drown that one out most of the time.

(ed - Lovely. The voices are back... JUST ... SAY ... NO ... COMMENT ... ARGH! -- jd)

Speaking of doctors, I just found out my health insurance premiums are going to be going up another 25 percent next year, which is mild compared to many companies 40-50 percent. Still, OUCH.

Tuesday, October 30, 2001

Wednesday, October 31, 2001

Thursday, November 1, 2001

Repeat the mantra . . . I love my daughter. I love my daughter. I love my daughter. I love my daughter.

It seems someone was in rare form this morning. Little Miss Attitude was alive and well. Naturally enough, since she has been up past bedtime 2 out of 3 nights this week, Rhiannon wasn't particularly wild about getting up this morning. After making some semblance of an attempt to eat her cereal this morning, she crawled into bed with me. It took several prods by her mother to get her to rouse herself out of my bed. (Actually, she was still in it when I headed for the shower. Apparently it was the lack of my elbows that got her out of the bed.) After she got her eyes blinking in unison, she headed back to her room to get dressed.

After whining awhile about the lack of choice afforded by her uniforms (exactly the point, my dear), she chose the ever stylish ensemble of navy blue pleated pants, white polo shirt and a navy blue cardigan sweater and immediately started packing a bag of "changing clothes" for after school. (And, of course, one must be very picky as to just what is suitable for afternoon-wear at daycare. Apparently she expects Joan Rivers to show up at some point and aspires to make the best dressed daycare list.) Since her hair still resembled something the cat would cough up, she was told that before she packed changing clothes, she needed to complete her morning toilette. She ignored me and incurred the wrath of her father (and, believe me, you do NOT want to incur the wrath of a sleepy disheveled gorilla first thing in the morning) who promptly took away her bag of clothes. After pissing moaning whining and wailing, she finally composed herself enough to present a civilized face to the world.

By this time, her father had left and Jack was happily munching upon the Tomato-Basil Turkey and Cheddar cheese sandwich I had made him for breakfast while making my lunch. Since she properly abased herself for her lack of decorum, I directed her brother to return the bag of clothes to her. She promptly returned to her room to find just the right outfit for those all-important 3 hours at daycare. THEN she had the gall to throw an absolute tizzy when she finally emerged from her room and I wouldn't take the time to make her a sandwich. Hey, she chose what she wanted to do with her time. Besides, she had already had the opportunity to eat. Sigh. So I sheparded a happy almost 5 year old and a sullen 8 year old to the car. Since Rhiannon was pouting in the back seat, the ride to daycare was going along quite nicely, thank you very much. Then, about 3/4 of the way there, an air-raid like siren began to wail in the backseat. It would seem that in her Zen-like concentration on her starvation-induced hissy-fit, she forgot her bag of changing clothes. Which led to yet another diatribe about her uniform. Sigh. I finally got to daycare, looked at Rhiannon's teacher and said "Good Luck with this one." And on top of it all, I missed my bus. Grrrrrrrrrr . . . repeat the mantra.

I took my first spinning class yesterday. No, it had nothing to do with weaving. Or any fingers be extended and . . . well, I'm sure you all know what I mean. Spinning, for those of you who are unaware of the term, is a fitness class consisting of around 10 individuals on stationary bikes being led through a "bike ride" by an instructor. Today was an endurance ride. You bet your sweet bippy. My legs survived quite nicely, thank you. My arms were a little sore from supporting the weight of my upper body over the handle bars, but the truly sore part of my anatomy was my sorry behind. Them bike seats just aren't created for an arse the size of mine. Our instructor told us to pedal standing when we needed to relieve our posteriors. However, when you do that, it raises the intensity of the exercise (and gets your thighs to screaming epithets at you after a while) so you can't do that too often. However, I did enjoy it greatly and plan to take a class again. I think. We'll have to see if my ass is on speaking terms with the rest of my body yet.

(ed - I'm not that stupid. I wouldn't even THINK of putting a comment in here. -- jd)
Ahem. And just what is this if not a comment, DEAR?! Discretion being the better part of valor, he quite the field...

Halloween night was spent at the mall. Not the big ole Mall of America, but little Burnsville Center. By the time we got there it wasn't very busy, but a friend of mine who was there earlier said it was pretty busy around 5. Apparently the little hoodlums were hitting up the mall, then heading out to collect from the neighbors too. Very enterprising. My kids hit a few doors in our building before we got to the mall, but that was it. And they still made an impressive haul. Much of the candy will end up thrown out or taken to my office, I think. They just don't need that much sugar. I had proof of that this morning, I think. Of course, the highlight of the evening (besides the guys in bad drag hitting on the blonde at the juice kiosk) was the pet store. One of the workers who was handing out candy apparently got bored and pulled out beagle and Pekinese puppies to enthrall the kids. Many a kid went home that night begging for a dog. I suspect that store will have a few sales in the next couple of days.

(ed - not to us... yet. -- jd)

Jack: "I got 2 Snickers and some M & Ms!"
Rhiannon: "I gotta rock."

The three amigos... Or a happy Jack, whichever...

And John's costume was . . . A refugee from Halloweentown perhaps?
The kids are cute, though.

Friday, November 2, 2001

Gratuitous Kid Shots...

Saturday, November 3, 2001

Hey, it's not like you're reading me over the weekend anyway. ; )

Sunday, November 4, 2001

Well, yet another weekend has rolled by and I find myself asking "Where in the $%@# did my weekend go?"

Saturday was your typical run-around kinda day. We did manage, however, to take in a cheap showing of Shrek. And I mean cheap. As in $8 for the entire family to get into the theatre. Gotta like that. And it was a very funny fractured fairy tale. Shrek reminded me a great deal of John. Rude and crusty looking on the outside, a softy on the inside. Oh, and emits noxious fumes.

Today was Sunday worship. THE BEARS WERE ON LOCAL TV!!! (Oh, yeah, we went to Mass too.) The Pack was on too. And both won. Not in pretty fashion, but hey, that's the NFC Central for ya'. Especially the Bears. Aaah, based on groans and expletives coming from the bedroom, the Yanks must be winning the World Series. Hehehehehehe, all it right in my sports world. Well, not quite. The Hawks got beat yesterday by Wisconsin. But that's quibbling.

Tonight's supper was Shepard's Pie and Beer Bread. Sounds like a dinner of ex-champions, doesn't it?

BEARS ARE 6 AND 1.

THEY STILL LEAD THE NFC CENTRAL!!!

Chicago Bears, Team of Destiny.

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Copyright © 2001 Ann Dominik. All rights reserved. Complaints about the technical details of this page can be directed to the abused geek who takes care of it for me, and is grossly underpaid for what he does, he thinks. No reproduction without written permission. The opinions and content of this site are my own, and not the responsibility of this site's host, my employer, my pets, my parents or anyone else you may care to blame. Please respect my opinions and I will do the same for you. I may on occasion publish e-mail to me; if you do not wish your mail to be published, please write CONFIDENTIAL or DO NOT PUBLISH at the top of the e-mail. If you would prefer to remain anonymous, please note that as well. If you're incapable of reasoned civilized discourse but feel compelled to correspond with me, I'll be happy to filter your mail out after a few choice comments regarding your ancestors, upbringing, and the likelihood of your family tree not