woman who reads too much

05:32 pm: Best news I've had in a while.
Tai's lump turned out to be a subcutaneous hemangioma, which is weird -- very weird, even -- but Not Cancer.

Also weird: the lump was a couple inches above where Tai's right hind leg meets his torso. The vet stuck a needle into it twice, trying to get some cells to examine, but found nothing but blood. That evening, Tai stopped using his right hind leg. The vet we saw the next morning kept explaining arthritis and orthopedic injuries and conservative versus aggressive treatments, while I kept screaming JESUS CHRIST IT'S A MAST CELL TUMOR GET IN THE OR. (Not out loud. My outside voice was saying the same thing, only calmly and rationally.)

I mean yes I see that there's nothing unusual about sudden lameness in a nine-year-old ninety-pound GSD mix, particularly one who has just acquired a large, playful packmate, but How Coincidental Is It that this happened right after the vet punctured his mysterious lump?

As coincidental as a coincidence, apparently!

While he was under for the mass removal, they X-rayed his hips and knees. Beautiful joints for a nine-year-old ninety-pound GSD mix, apparently. No arthritis, no torn ligaments, balls solidly in their sockets. They also cleaned his teeth. So he's all set for a long, happy old age.

Tags: dogs, tai

11:03 pm: Blog for choice day
This is a painful anniversary for me. Nineteen years + one week ago, I was nearing the end of my first pregnancy. I was fretting over the phrase, "An active baby is a healthy baby," because my baby was not moving as much as he used to. I told my doctor that at each of the previous two visits. Each time, he listened to the baby's heartbeat for fifteen seconds, and told me the baby was fine.

January 17, 1991, I had what I now recognize as a high blood pressure spike, followed by a migraine. I think that was when my baby died. January 18 I learned that the baby was dead. January 21 I checked into the hospital for induction of labor. January 22, I had had a baby, but I didn't have a baby.

I was so bewildered, that week. None of the reading I had done -- and, you know, I read a lot -- was helpful. The only relevant sentence I found was in Our Bodies, Ourselves: fetal death in the first two trimesters was called miscarriage, but in the last trimester, when the fetus was viable, it was a stillbirth. That helped: what I was about to have was called a stillbirth. My childbirth prep instructor was helpful, but she didn't know any more than I did how my situation differed from a normal labor and delivery. My doctor (Steven Tippin, M.D., family practitioner and liar) told me that an induced labor and delivery was safest for me.

I don't know whether Dr. Tippin was lying or just ignorant. I know he lied to me about other things, during and after the procedure, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that he was telling me falsehoods without even knowing that they were false.

The truth is that the safest procedure, for my life and my future fertility, would have been a D&E, dilation and evacuation, what the ignorant authoritarian fundamentalist assholes who killed Dr. Tiller call "partial birth abortion".

Now, if I had been given all the information and allowed to make an informed choice, I probably would have chosen something similar to what I actually endured, because I hate hate hate being interfered with. Nevertheless, I am furious that some ignorant authoritarian fundamentalist asshole decided that I did not need to be informed or to consent, because he knew what was best.

And all you ignorant authoritarian fundamentalist assholes who want to base the law of the land on your fantasy of lazy crazy sluts who can't be bothered to have a baby and can't be bothered to get an abortion before the third trimester: the terrorism you endorse has no effect on your fantasy sluts, but it has real, life-altering, permanent effects on people like me.

04:38 pm: Major recall of veterinary anesthetics.
Thanks to jonquil for pointing to this news. Boosting the signal, just in case.

Two of my dogs are scheduled to go under anesthesia. Aiko will lose two testicles and probably two molars and gain a microchip Monday morning. Tai has a lump. I'm having a hard time talking about it. He's going in two weeks from today, unless someone else cancels a big-enough time slot earlier.

I have a call in to my vet to ask about their anesthesia.

09:46 pm: good day
Cheesecake for breakfast.

First season of Slings & Arrows from the library.

Good company on the walk.

Met someone on the way. I pulled my dogs in, of course, but she stopped and said, "I bet they're good dogs." They're very good, I assured her, so she patted them and told me she was ninety, though one of her knees was only a year old, and she walked around this block five times every day.

Holiday card from oursin.

Scraped some linoleum off daughter's bedroom's floor.

Sleepy dogs.

Have decided to call this house the Curate's Egg, because parts of are indeed excellent.

I wish you a happy new year.

06:00 pm: puppy puppy puppy
Here is actually the best picture I've managed to take of Aiko. He isn't very good at holding still, especially when you are pointing something at him.

He is as sweet as he is beautiful. Aged two-and-a-half, he's still a puppy. He chews things. But he's so lovable, only Kitsu can bear to scold him.

Tags: aiko, pics

10:31 pm: phew!
+ Aiko slipped out the front door tonight. He dashed hither and thither, afraid to stay where he was, afraid to go anywhere, very afraid to be caught. Hugh kept his intimidating figure between Aiko and the road. I followed him, sweet-talking. Nixie let Tai out. Tai obeys me, and Aiko feels safe with Tai, so with everyone's help I caught him and brought him back inside.

+ Finals week is over.

+ Hugh and Mungo painted Nixie's designated bedroom with yellow walls and sky-blue ceiling. It is lovely.

- Nixie won't use her bedroom until I deal with the floor.

+ I pulled up the horrible carpet in Nixie's bedroom without much trouble, to find

- horribler stained, stinking carpet pad stapled to disintegrating linoleum over unfinished hardwood.

- Don't know what to do next.

+ Have dog fud. + Have shower. + Have new mask for CPAP.

- Aiko's going to freak when I turn on the CPAP.

Tags: aiko, dogs, house!

08:42 pm: happy happy joy joy
Nixie is going to Reed.

09:56 pm: So, that dog I mentioned last time: it turned out that he does need me.

He's terribly skittish. Afraid of noises. Not just loud noises. Afraid of doors. Afraid of stern looks from Kitsu, which is a rational fear since she thinks he needs a deal of home training.

He's very beautiful, playful, affectionate, and submissive. Doesn't lift his leg to pee. Terribly thin. His first night here he was too anxious to eat, but since then he has been eating like a 14-year-old boy.[*] He paces a lot. He has ear mites, and testicles; I must take him to the vet.

He lived two years at a puppy mill, and then two months with a very kind woman who couldn't keep him. She thinks he spent way too much time in a kennel. He's happy with other dogs. I brought my dogs to meet him: his ears and tail came all the way up while he was romping with Tai.

We didn't like -- and he didn't know -- the name his puppy-mill breeder gave him, so we have named him Aiko.

The woman who gave him to me warned me that he escapes at any chance, and runs himself to exhaustion. This would be a problem if I still lived at the dacha, but here, I have a big more-or-less fenced backyard, where Aiko romps happily with Tai.


[*]Speaking of 14-year-old boys, Mungo played in Tuba Christmas today. He plays the euphonium.

Tags: dogs, mungo

10:24 pm: lovely snoo
Lots of snow here, and bitter cold, which was lovely on Saturday and Sunday, when I could stay home with my snoozy dogs, but not so nice today, when I had to get into the car to bring things to my children and my children to things. Also my dogs are suggesting that three days of snoo is quite enough, they need a walk, no, a real walk!

I don't need another dog, right? I don't. But what if he needs me?

11:18 am:

12:19 am: You know what I hate?
what I really really hate? Is when people who mean "I want you to" say "You need to".

Don't do that. Please. Don't.

11:28 pm: Child comes home in despair, says zie is failing at everything important, everyone hates zir, zie wants to die.

You say: you see this really hurts.

You say: the suffering zie experiences is not a good-enough reason to attack zir family members.

You say: if there's anything you can do, you will.

Child is in misery. You can't help. You do not understand.

You say: suppose the worst that can happen happens. If child fails at this, child can do that. No matter what, child will survive. Child will be happy again.

Child says you don't know what you're talking about. Child hates being zirself.

You are at a loss. Child has been triply blessed by being born a first world citizen, in the upper class, to parents who care more about zir happiness than what zie can do for them. Child has been doubly-triply blessed with zir gifts of health, intelligence, and the personality that makes teacher after teacher dote on zir, particularly, out of a class of similarly bright charming UMC children. Child is so lucky to be zirself.


Coincidentally, an lj-friend wrote about her blessed child suffering from a disappointment. I responded:

I'm kind of emotionally retarded, so I don't have any advice, but I can offer sympathy: when you raise kids who aren't afraid to feel what they feel, they feel some really uncomfortable stuff! I find it useful to acknowledge to myself, that I can't fix this, and to the kid, that this really hurts.

I usually say something like, this is the sucky part of being a human being, and not a superhero: sometimes you lose. But the important part is: I get that this really hurts. If I could make it better for you, I would.

My kids are 13 and 17, they're still way more emotionally volatile and expressive than I am, I still find this difficult and uncomfortable. But I haven't frightened them into stifling themselves, so... I think I did as well as I could.

Tags: mothering

10:07 pm: nanowrimo: word count 3102 / 6 * 30 = 15510. Hmph.

Good things: I am watching Calendar Girls. I love it. Everyone should love it.

Bad things: The worst part of being a mom is that when other people are sick, you clean up after them, and then when you are sick, you clean up after yourself.

11:11 pm: news of the suz
NaNoWriMo day 4, wordcount 2645. This is really really good. For me.

House has gutters! and is well on its way towards having interior walls!

Brush pile is mostly trampled and halfway edged, except for the blizzard-relics, which are so big I think I should cut them up for firewood.

Mungo has been leaving the house at 6:30 for Jazz Band, and not getting home before 8:30, because of Theater Group. Meanwhile, Lego Robotics is trying to eat his life.

Nixie is even more overscheduled than Mungo, but manages it more independently. She has applied Early Decision to Reed. With her GPA, ACT, SAT, and AP scores, and her extracurriculars, and her recommendations, I'm... not even wondering about her other options.

My brane is not working well. Every thing I put into it pushes three other things out. I think this is because I have not been using my CPAP, because the mask is so irritating. I must get a new mask.

Good things: helenish posted a story! Neville/Draco, targets a very particular kink which one commenter called "Oh my god, a Harry Potter marriage of convenience regency baking AU!" I love it.

07:30 pm: Halloween
We've lived here for 21 Halloweens without one trick-or-treater, even when there were two little girls next door. That's how it goes when when your driveway is a quarter-mile right-of-way cut out of someone else's pasture. My kids used to go trick-or-treating with friends who lived in town. This is the first year Mungo (almost 14) hasn't gone; he would have gone if his friends did, but they didn't. He did go to a Haunted Corn Maze with them.

I meant to hand out candy at my house, but when I got there I realized that my lack of gutters + the recent blizzard + the current balmy temperatures = melting snow dripping on the heads of those who mount my front steps. So the better part of neighborliness was to leave my lights off.

I did clear away several big branches the blizzard had broken off the catalpa, which were obstructing the sidewalk, and swept up all the wet slippery leaves. Which means my brush pile, which I had been stomping down and hemming in with cinder blocks, has grown out-of-bounds again. Neighborliness is hard.

Nixie is having a movie night/sleepover at a friend's house. Hugh, Mungo, and I are watching the first season of Battlestar Galactica.

I called my mom back yesterday. She told me she had had surgery for breast cancer the day before yesterday. They caught it early and got it all, so no chemo, no radiation.

It's amazing that I've figured out how to have communication and relationships even as well as I have. Amazing, I tell you. I am grateful for all the help I've had from Hugh, Nixie, and Mungo.

I'm going to do NaNoWriMo this year.

Tags: mothering, mungo, my house, nixie, the dacha

11:25 pm: snow day
Snow! and lots of it! PSD schools were closed today and yesterday. Unfortunately, CSU didn't close until the afternoon, so I had to drive Nixie to her math class. There was a quiz, and Nixie isn't doing well enough to skip it.

The math class -- it's basically the second half of Thomas's Calculus -- is surprisingly difficult. Not because of the material. After the lecture on partial differentials Nixie said she had paid attention, but still didn't understand what they were. So I got a vase and a marker, and drew parallel lines on the vase from base to lip. "This is y=0. y=1. y=2." Then I took a toothpick and surfed it up and down one of the lines. "The partial differential with respect to x gives us information about how x changes while we hold y constant." I put down the toothpick, picked up the marker, and started drawing circles around the vase. "This is x=0."

"Okay, I get it," said Nixie. She glared at how obvious it was. "She's such a bad teacher!"

"No," I said, "I'm such a good one." But I think Nixie is right. Her teacher is really not good at teaching.


About the house: I thought I could have at least a virtual housewarming party this weekend, but no. The plasterer will probably be done sometime next week, and then I can move in. This weekend, I am using Samhain's energy to finish things at this house.

Tags: my house, nixie, the dacha

09:00 pm: for the fairest one
House pictures, as Betsy requested.

First, I must tell you I am already in trouble with the city. I got a citation for "Rubbish -- including branches in back yard." Well! The painter and the electrician left a lot of rubbish, which it was my responsibility to haul to the dump, which I did; but the brush pile in the back yard didn't need to be hauled to the dump. It just needed to be ignored while it quietly broke down in place. In my opinion.

The city inspector's opinion differed. She suggested renting or buying a chipper, or hauling the branches out to the place on Prospect that takes yard waste (for a fee) and turns it into mulch or compost. I wanted to let my branches decompose without the assistance of petroleum products. I was all set to become Permaculture Crusader!, but the inspector turned out to be all reasonable. Though dubious, she listened to my description of hugelkultur and gave me a month to make the thing look less like a rubbish pile. So, my house, from the front: The body is the white vinyl siding. The foundation and the window trim are the mint green I object to. Above the front door you can see the two greens: mint-green numbers against the sage-green fascia. From the side: On the right, you can see the pale sage green I chose. On the left, you can see a couple of the odd things the Apodacas left: the Bathtub (without the Lady), and the rockpile supporting a Geode.

brush pile

brush pile

paint job

colors

Tags: my house

01:55 am: The communication thing.
[In which I am talking to my husband about my reaction to the latest communication from the housepainter.]

Me: "Fine! Here's your money! And keep an eye out for my essay, 'How to turn a disappointed customer into a customer who is VIBRATING WITH RAGE, in five easy emails, each with its own special fauxpology!'"

Hugh: Is that what you wrote back?

Me: ...No. I'm not going to waste a line like that on him. He wouldn't enjoy it.


I should write that essay for you, dear readers, because you would enjoy it, but it'll have to wait until I can look back on it and laugh, because with me, VIBRATING WITH RAGE is more like vomiting with rage, and I would prefer not to.


Earlier, I told Hugh, "The human communication thing. I suck at it. I should stop."
He said, "You can't stop. Well, there's one way you could stop."
I said, "OKAY FINE. I should MINIMIZE my exposure to it."

Not seriously. Except for the fact that I suck at it.


Hugh reads my public LJ posts, and sometimes reads the comments. He is impressed by my kind and helpful friendslist. When I write about a problem and get reams of kind and helpful advice, he is incredulous. "Why don't you respond to them?" he asks. I say, "...."

It's the communication thing. I have some deficiencies there. After I write, I am spent. There is a significant refractory period before I can compose anything new.

Terrible metaphor.


Are you offended, disappointed, or hurt when I don't respond to your comments? Would it help at all if I said something perfunctory like 'Thank you'? Can you suggest anything that would help?


I do appreciate you. I do wish to become better at expressing it.

Tags: boxofdelights user's manual

02:28 am: Well, how did I get here?
Can't sleep. Moping.

The house painter emailed Friday to say that he was done, and to send the final check to his house. I went to the house today and was dismayed. It's mint-green. Unnatural mint-toothpaste green. I picked a pale sage green for the body of the house and a dark green for the foundation and trim. I got the pale green, but the dark green was replaced somehow by this bright toothpaste. I hate it.

So, I'm trying to figure out how did this happen? Which has turned into fretting about what is wrong with me, that over and over and OVER, I think I am communicating with another person, I think we have reached an agreement, I do my part (at least, I think so) and I end up with a hideous mess for which the other person is shocked -- shocked! -- that I am not delighted and grateful.

I'm sure it will be useful or at least diverting to track down exactly where the miscommunication happened. But, face facts, the only thing that all these miscommunications have in common is me. So, I wish I knew, what is wrong with me?

09:02 pm: comfort food
I came home from my house (have I mentioned that I have a house?) in sore need of comfort food. So I boiled some potatoes (well, first I dug up the potatoes) and kale, and smothered them with cheese sauce.

Daughter, who is recovering from flu, ate only potatoes with salt. Son, who is coming down with flu, ate nothing. I left salt out of the cheese sauce, so husband could eat it if he chose, but he is not yet back from evening treatments at the Raptor Center.

I told daughter that when I was a little kid, comfort food was creamed tuna fish on toast. Daughter made vomiting noises.

What's your comfort food? What was it when you were little? Do you ever eat your kid-comfort food now?

01:13 am: 70 million favors
I stayed up till 12:30 a.m. helping Nixie study for her History test. This means she reads me her textbook, and I ask, "Now what do you know about Irish monasteries in the sixth century?" and all too often she says, "I wasn't paying attention." I'm sorry, cordelia_v, she has always found history v. v. boring.

Then she said we had to wash her hair. She has a beautiful ($$$) black/purple/green/blue dye job, so we have to wash her hair with special ($$) shampoo and distilled water, in the sink. "No," I said. "I won't. I can't. It's too late. I don't want to. It's not that dirty. I'll help you tomorrow. Nixie," I said, going to the kitchen to help her wash her hair, "you owe me 70 million favors."

09:01 pm: My dog is special.
My dog Kitsu, she worries a lot. She's a nervous little dog in a big-dog body. One way she copes with her worries is by overgrooming. She has had at least one lickspot in all the years I've known her, usually on her feet. We've gotten through two sets of paw protectors. We also use the Cone of Shame.

This summer her lickspots have been more varied and more persistent. Still usually on her legs and feet, but the most recent two are on the underside of her fluffy tail and at the top of her fluffy left hipbone. I worry that this is the only visible sign of a painful underlying disease. I worry that it's a side-effect of my not grooming her enough: it began in the spring shed, which always makes her miserable, since her undercoat is dense, fine, and curly, and mats easily.

This morning she woke Hugh up by vomiting. Yellow froth, three times. This evening I saw her gagging and got her outside, where she choked up a hairball. Hair sausage, really, but: my dog has hairballs.

I think I must ask the vet for doggy Valium.

10:45 pm: you know you've been married a really long time
when you can't remember which side gave you the Cuisinart.

09:10 pm: house!
So, I have a house! Have I mentioned that I have a house? And I've been spending a lot of time there, catching up on what they call 'deferred maintenance', and saying "What the hell?"

If you've ever had to maintain legacy code, you know just what tone of voice I'm saying it in. Not just "Why did you do it that way?" but "I can't even guess what you were aiming for here."

For example, I've been going around the house, removing plants to give the painters access to the walls. In the top-middle of this image you can see the original stone foundation. To the left of that is the cinder block foundation of the addition. Nailed into the cinder block is a small piece of plywood. What? What the hell? Why?

Tags: house!

01:25 am: happy-making
1. Home-grown potatoes for dinner.

2. Congresspeople who vow to reject a healthcare reform package without a public option. I have no money for politicians, but look at those faces! They look like a representative democracy, don't they? Extra happy to see John Conyers still kicking ass and taking names.

3. urban_homestead. I admire this woman so much. She lives on a teeny-tiny lot in a big northern city, with no car, and exploits what she's got for beauty, for pleasure, and for food for her family. She writes a lot about food, gardening and cooking. You probably know locavores like Stuart in Dykes To Watch Out For? "You'll get used to it." urban_homestead demonstrates every day how sustenance can be sustainable *and* a source of delight. And the way she writes about her children's eating gives me vicarious pleasure without shaming me for having a picky eater. She is many kinds of awesome.

Tags: good things

12:51 am: house! can has! also save the date
I asked for $6000 in lieu of fixing all problems with house. They offered $5000. I said yes. So, house! Will be mine on September 1.

Now I am scheduling people to fix problems. The most interesting question is, when I pull off the very old carpet, will the extremely old hardwood floors be usable? If everything goes perfectly, I will get the HVAC, the rewiring, the insulation, the exterior painting, the gutters, the grading, the fencing, and the flooring done in the first half of September. And then I will ove in.

Whether or not everything goes perfectly, I am planning a housewarming party the weekend of Friday Oct 30 to Sunday Nov 1. If you can be in Colorado that weekend, come!

Also, my Nixie is home! She had a wonderful time at Camp Rivka. And if any of you have teenagers who would like to explore Colorado, I will gladly pay it forward.

12:24 am: Thanks to vito_excalibur I know that David Levine has thought more about RaceFail09 and come to different conclusions.

First, and most important: Taking seriously the possibility that you might be wrong is praiseworthy, and I praise it.

Also, I agree with David Levine that human communication can only be understood in context. I said earlier that PNH's participation in RaceFail09 was like a guy who walked into a room of people who burst out laughing at him because they had been talking about Repo Man and he was carrying a plate of shrimp.

And I contend that this viewpoint-neutral way of talking about communication in context is true. But it isn't complete.

Most people don't get to assume that their context is the context. If you do (and anytime you argue that what you meant is what matters, you do), then your privilege is showing. And you should pull your pants up. Nobody wants to have to look at that.

12:13 am: Inspection objection deadline
We saw the house again.

The inspector got into the attic, where he found 1.no recent leaks, 2.no insulation whatsoever, 3.knob-and-tube wiring.

The furnace and AC work when you find the hidden thermostat. The gas fireplace works when you light the pilot.

The electrician said there's no way to install GFCIs with this ancient electrical panel. Also the 'double-tapping' the inspector noted is seriously, uh, problematic: they've got the 20-amp AC wire tapped into the 100-amp main circuit breaker.

Bids from the electrician:
$1950 for
- new 100 amp electrical panel
- Kitchen & bathroom GFCI circuits
- 2 wired-in smoke/carbon monoxide detectors at bedrooms, 1 wired-in smoke detector in basement stairs
- bathroom exhaust fan
- Fix wiring in basement
- Change exterior box to new weather-proof box

$4000 to replace knob-and-tube

Bid for the HVAC:
$194 to
- Clean and service furnace and A/C.
- Add a 6" firestop to flue, fix top door on furnace.

Bid from the plumber:
$0. He diagnosed a clogged filter, unscrewed it, cleaned it, put it back on, and refused to charge me anything.

Bid for the gutters:
$1391.60 However, he said, if I clear away the vegetation on the house and replace the cove molding with nice flat 2x6, I should call him back to get a lower bid.

This weekend, the sellers plan to make several dump runs. Monday we'll get to see inside the garage and shed, and we'll get bids for insulation and exterior painting. Then we have to give the sellers our request-to-fix.

Beth (my REALTOR®) proposed asking them to fix the sliding door lock, make the wood windows operable, and credit me $4000 in lieu of fixing everything else.

Hugh thought I should at least ask them to pay for all the electric. He said I should find out whether the knob-and-tube (with one not-up-to-code splice) would prevent another buyer from getting a mortgage.

Beth called her mortgage guy, who said the knob-and-tube might be a problem, depending on the appraiser, but the lack of gutters and peeling exterior paint would be a problem.

So I'm thinking of asking them for $6000 in lieu. Hugh says the worst they can do is say no. But what if they'd say yes to $4000, but $6000 makes them say no?

07:03 pm: the thermostat is a lie
The reason why the furnace and AC do not respond to the thermostat is that the visible thermostat is not connected. There is a real thermostat hidden in a cupboard so that the woman with dementia won't play with it. You'd think they might have mentioned.

12:40 pm: house inspection
House has no gutters, negative grade (toward the house) and trees/shrubs/vines right up next to the walls. Therefore has moisture problems, including some foundation cracks and peeling exterior paint.

Sewer drainage is clear. Sewer drain is clay pipe except for one section which has been replaced by cast iron.

Plumbing is mixture of copper and galvanized pipes, but is all good except for one sink which has no water pressure.

Electricity is 100-amp and maxed out. Either thermostat does not work or circuit board is damaged, because inspector could not get either furnace or airconditioning to start.

Many windows, including bedroom, are wood and painted shut.

New gas fireplace's chimney is in good condition, but other chimney is unused/unusable, and may need repointing so it doesn't fall down. Furnace is vented out the side of the house through a wood panel which is a fire hazard.

Crawl spaces need vapor barriers.

Inspector could not get to the attic access because too much stuff was piled in front.

Smoke detectors not working. Carbon monoxide detectors not present.

Foundation subsidence has caused floors to slope significantly to the north. Inspector estimates 2-inch difference in height from one side to the other.

Fence is propped up by sticks.

Outbuildings are inaccessible because locked.

In conclusion: old house is old.