Some of you have asked for updates on the Hamster brood in the house. So far it seems the babies have all survived. The adolescent hysteria and shrieking rodent sounds I heard over the phone appeared to have been greatly exaggerated. It seems the hamster mother was merely eating the afterbirth and moving the babies around. I still intend NOT to be the primary caregiver for these critters. Among my blog readers I have those who are sensitive toward the rodents and those who are sensitive toward me. I still love those of you advocating for the rats.
My family refers to my blog pals as Freaks in the Box. It's a term coined by Logo's husband but adopted enthusiastically by my crew. I must say there are times when the freak level astounds even me....but proving my own freakiness...I like it!
Case in point, Hilary seems like such a lovely, artistic, mild-mannered, kind, and caring blogger, and she is indeed all of these thing, as demonstrated publicly by her wonderful blog as well as encouraging words regarding Calyspo she took the time to email me. But let me tell ya, the gal can fly her freak flag high when she thinks it will cheer up a person who is feeling frustrated or burnt out. Don't believe me? Read this link she emailed me. Really. Go read it now and come back. I'll wait. Just don't drink anything while reading it. I won't be responsible for you spewing your beverage on your monitor.
As I perused my email, I also found the images below forwarded to me by Cricket, via Suldog. If you happened to read through my comments you may have seen Cricket's suggested recipe for Curried Hamster. This is all just deliciously demented.
Oh, and I have to thank you, Hilary and Cricket, for basically creating my post tonight and Suldog for helping them pass things along...and I'd like to thank Diana for providing rich blog fodder...the creators of Photoshop...my mother for not eating me when I was young...and the academy of blog arts and freakiness.
5:45am: Wake in panic because after spouse's alarm went on AN HOUR AGO he reset mine for an hour later rather than 30 minutes later.
5:50am: Drag self from bed. Do the various stretches necessary to lubricate the joints of a body that has been through 4 car accidents and one zipline incident.
6:00am: Enter living room where spouse is watching reruns of "Married With Children." Roll your eyes over the programming choice and consider banging your head on the wall because you've had the argument for the last 7 years about the generally distracting nature of the TV being on when certain offspring are getting ready for school. Since last year it's been specifically about the wonderfully edifying nature of this particular program and the merits of beginning one's day with the image of Al Bundy's hand down his pants.
6:15am: Bid adieu to spouse and offspring as they depart for the bus stop and work.
6:23 am: Listen to the sound of a bus pulling away as you pour yourself some cereal.
6:30am: Receive the first text of the year informing you of forgotten papers/lunches and requesting delivery. Curse a blue streak because there is no one in your house you need to censor yourself for. (This is where I should have stood my ground and simply refused to acknowledge the text or respond with something akin to, "Tough luck. Have a great day." In my weakened state I did not do so. Damn fool that I am.)
6:45am: Finish breakfast and peruse email a few minutes. Amuse yourself with thoughts of delivering the forgotten items in your ratty bathrobe and with your hair standing on end as a deterrent to future requests. Opt for a 100% rate hike in delivery charges to offspring because you don't have time to run there and come back to dress for work. (Yes, I really do charge them for forgotten items. The first year I made enough to pay for a one hour full body Swedish massage at the end of the year. I sent the kids a thank you note afterward. They had conniptions.)
7:00am: Take a tepid shower because the water heater is still not fully rewarmed since the children drained it. Dress, gather lunch for work, make bed, gather forgotten kid crap.
7:45am: Depart for school. Dodge deer, squirrels, dogs, students & parents, school buses, construction vehicles, potholes, tourists, and one impossibly slow delivery truck on the way to school and proceeding on to work.
8:15am: Arrive at work. Survey the fallout from missing all but one day last week due to hospitalized child. Give thanks for an understanding boss. Apologize to coworkers. Listen to the insanity that was work last week.
8:30am: Breathe deeply, smile, and greet the first patient who shows up 30 minutes before we are technically even open.
9:00am-Noon: Work.
Noon to 12:30pm: Wonder how long the last patient will linger before you can have the weekly staff meeting before you can have lunch.
12:30-1:00pm: Staff meeting where the doc's make note of the highly entertaining new patient who followed you from your former office because she got wise to their dubious practices and went looking for you specifically. Laugh at Dr. Hubba Hubba because said new patient is now trying to play matchmaker for him after taking pictures of him with her phone to text around to all the available laydeez.
1:00pm-1:45pm: Lunch.
1:45pm-3ish: Work while trying not to be completely skeeved out by a coworker who got a rather realistic looking fake moustache out of a bubble gum machine and who is now sporting it while calling herself "Bruce" and conducting herself in a manner which makes Al Bundy look like the epitome of a gentleman. It's like a car wreck....extremely disturbing but impossible to look away. When the topic turns to other areas where people may sport fake hair and whether or not anyone would wear a wig down there define the word "merkin" for you coworkers. Astonishingly, they will not marvel at your vocabulary or breadth of knowledge but will insist your awareness of such things indicates great unwellness.
3ish-5ish pm: Work. Take a call from Calypso announcing she made it through the entire day but isn't sure she can do the same tomorrow. Listen to the list of roadblocks she encountered while trying to get her medical excuse accepted and the further documentation she needs to be allowed to carry a fricken water bottle from class to class.
5ish-7:00pm: Continue with normal duties and prepare for the next day. When Milton comes in for his appointment thank him again for the conversation of a week ago and let him know how timely a thing it was. Bask in the big smile that crosses his face when he realizes the impact he had.
7:00-7:30pm.: Discover your numbers are off when balancing the drawer. Rectify that. Complete office cleaning. Lock the door behind you and depart for home.
7:50pm: Arrive at home and realize you forgot to leave a note for anyone to put the frozen lasagna in the oven earlier. Pour yourself a bowl of cereal because that's all you have time for before taking the kids out to dump $98 on binders, folders, notebooks, pens, pencils, highlighters, jump drives, etc because each teacher has his or her own idea about the supplies required for respective classes and woe to the student who has a folder rather than a binder or vice versa but no one can let you know until the first day of school what their particular preferences are.
8:00pm: Depart for aforementioned shopping expedition.
9:15pm: Return home. Have what looks like the amount of paper responsible for the deforestation of Brazil handed over for parental signatures and information to be filled out.
9:30pm: Threaten to take off at the knees, by way of a million paper cuts performed with this ream, the son who is harping over the speed at which you are filling out papers...because so help me God this day started with you forgetting your crap which meant I forgot to leave a note asking for some food to be heated up so I inhaled cold cereal in order to have time to drag us all to the store and pick over the remnants of school supplies and stand in line with a zillion other frazzled parents. And WHYYYYY did I do this???? Because I am a human mother who is following the meaning of life, which is to love, rather than adhering to the hamster way and eating my young because they are annoying me!
I'd like to thank everyone for the prayers, positive thoughts, encouraging words, and expressed concern for Calypso. It's been a long week. After a couple days in the hospital on stronger antibiotics via IV she began to improve and the infection was brought under control. She is now home and continuing to recover from that. However, the whole episode seems to have reactivated the mono she had at the beginning of the summer. It has all left her feeling about as vigorous and robust as a piece of wilted lettuce. Monday is the first day of her senior year...in a building which is under demolition construction. It is sure to be chaos for everyone in that building.
God bless her, she so badly wants to do well this year and wanted to work hard at a job to earn money to finance her own after school goals. I've been so proud of how she got her act together in the last half of the previous school year and how much initiative she showed in getting the two jobs she held this summer and in doing them well. I feel awful for her in this whole set back (now that the fear in the lack of answers we were getting earlier in the week has abated). She's going to need to listen to her body though when she gets tired and let herself heal. So continued prayers and good thoughts for her as she recovers would still be appreciated.
Last Monday at work I was getting understandably hysterical phone calls from Calypso before we figured out what was going on. During her hospitalization I got another set of hysterical phone calls from my other two kids. Just a couple days before Calypso became ill Diana had acquired a hamster...a hamster we shall call Houdini for her amazing ability to escape her cage or her ball...a hamster we would later come to discover was also pregnant.
On the day of the hysterical calls it seems she escaped...to the outdoors. After realizing the rat Houdini had left the building Diana looked in the cage and discovered 7 babies. Call #1 was the "What should I do?" call. I said to put the cage on the patio and hope Houdini heard/smelled/was lured back by her babies. That worked. Panicked call #2 was the "What do we do next because the Internet says disturbed hamster mothers get upset and eat their babies?" call. I have a child in the hospital and I still have some questions about her well being and what comes next for her. To say I was less than concerned about 7 hamster offspring would be a fair assessment. Diana was flipping out in the background about the violent deaths these things would face with their mother. Isaac was tapping away on the computer trying to search out what to do for the mother and babies. In the distance I could hear what I thought was the pained shrieking of neonate hamsters being eaten.
I suggested they take the whole lot of them back to the pet store and ask for advice. They did and were advised to hand nurse the hamsters or find another nursing hamster. This was reported to me during hysterical phone call #3 as Diana continued to panic over the potential for the babies being eaten and how she didn't want to take the bloodthirsty Houdini with her to school. Having reached the end of my tolerance for these shenanigans I listed the facts for my unglued child.
I did not purchase Houdini as a pet, not did I sanction her acquisition. this was a unilateral decision on Diana's part.
I was not assuming any responsibility for said hamster.
Diana has been a hunter since age 12 and has reached her hands into the steaming carcass of a large white tail deer buck to eviscerate it after having ended its life.
Seven newborn hamsters each roughly the size of my thumbnail seem far less problematic.
Did I mention I will have no part of caring for these things?
The circle of life/survival of the fittest comes into action here. Put the babies with their mother and she will either nurse them or eat them, either way the problem is solved.
Just in case there is any question, these creatures are your responsibility NOT mine. They will be returning to school with you.
Diana was less than happy about the prospect of caring for eight hamsters in a dorm room. "Yes, my dear, and what have we learned in this experience?"
Yes, between hospitalizations and rapidly multiplying hamsters (and I haven't even mentioned the football practice schedule and Isaac's continuing issues with his knee or various contributions of insanity from Mr. Lime because those are posts all by themselves) it would seem my life is a three ring circus. I'm just not entirely sure if I am the ring master or merely a bewildered onlooker.
EDIT: (Monday 6:25 am in response to Hilary) The babies have survived thus far. When my mother came to visit she wanted to see them so I took her into the room where they are being kept. I dared to make eye contact with the new mother who looked pleadingly at me. Bad idea. Must not be beguiled by those beady eyes....
Well, Calypso is in the hospital again. She will be there at least a couple of days. She is disheartened and tired. I won't lie, so am I. I have to give a shout out to a nurse manager who finally took me seriously and sought out the answers no one else was giving me. She advocated with me for Calypso to see a competent doctor who carefully answers questions and made the decision to admit. I'm thankful for all of that, but I am still very tired. I'm reminding myself to continue to be aware of the good things happening in spite of the things that are wearying and worrisome. To that end here is a conversation I had with a patient who had no idea what I was going through at work yesterday (hysterical phone calls from a child and me trying to chase down doctors and answers while getting the run around). Thanks to all for the prayers, good thoughts, and well wishes. I'd appreciate any you'd continue to send our way.
The patient, we'll call him Milton, is currently going through a series of exercises to strengthen himself. One involves holding in each hand pulleys which are connected to the weight machine. He then must make a shrugging motion as he lifts. It was the end of the night, my cleaning night at work, and I was scurrying around gathering the garbage.
Milton:(exercising very deliberately as he checks his form in the mirror) Hey, Michelle, ask me a question!
Me:(giving a confused look) Huh?
Milton:(grinning like the Cheshire Cat) Ask me a question, any question at all!
Me: Uh...ok. What's the square root of 49?
Milton:(with an exaggerated shrug in his exercise and an impishly quizzical expression) I don't know!
Me:(bursting out in laughter as I continue gathering trash) Good one, Milt! Ya got me!
Milton:(giggling like a kid) Ask me another one!
Me:(chuckling and still working) What's the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow?
Milton:(smiling ear to ear and giggling as he shrugs in exercise again) I don't know! Ask me another! Ask me another!
Me:(laughing and dumping another bin into the big garbage bag) What's the meaning of life?
Milton:(pauses in silence then looks over his shoulder at me)
Me:(looking up to see if he heard my question)
Milton:(seeing he has made eye contact drops his voice to a gentle tone) That's easy...to love.
Me:(struck to my core) You're absolutely right, Milton. Thank you, first for the laughter, then for the truth. You made my night.
For the record, if you have an M.D. (or some other set of letters indicating medical specialty) behind your name...
Do not assume my IQ is smaller than my shoe size.
Please give me clear, direct answers to my clear, direct questions.
Call me with test results when you say you're going to call me with test results, especially if we are talking about serious health issues where time matters.
Do not tell me, when I call for the results, that you failed to test for one of the things you suspected in the first place. Seriously???? If you think X, Y, and Z are viable diagnoses and say you want to test for them and they can all be done at the same time, why in God's name would you only test for X and Y, particularly when Z is the most dangerous and you've already suggested it as a very real possibility?
Do not act surprised when I ask if a certain basic course of action is appropriate. Definitely don't interject, "Oh! Yeah! That's a good idea!" Quite honestly, it does not instill confidence. It just makes YOU sound like the one with a smaller than shoe sized IQ.
And for fuck's sake DO NOT try to bullshit your way through my questions with a bunch of vagaries, speculations, and contradictions of yourself, which clearly indicate either your utter ignorance or your total indifference. I'd much rather have you admit you're not sure and give me the name of someone who can help me. A referral to a specialist who knows the topic better than you is not a weakness. It's called being a professional and making sure a patient is properly cared for. I don't expect you to know everything but I do expect you to have some reasonable problem solving abilities and to know where to search for the answers you lack. Oh, and if it's indifference, then may you suffer every disease and malady to which you have ever responded callously.
And seriously, if I have to see every damn med student, PA student, nurse practitioner student, and curious onlooker before I ever get to talk to your incompetent self I'm going to start charging admission. I know they need to learn but right now I'm just a bit tired of having to listen to them whining about not knowing what to do and needing their hand held.
I'm tired, frustrated, and kinda angry.
I know this is a somewhat cryptic post and I apologize. Tonight I just need to vent and I'm sorry. This week I may or may not be around much depending upon what sorts of answers I can get, how far I have to go for them, and in how timely a fashion I get them. It's not me, it's one of my children, so the mama bear in me is stirred up. My poor girl has had one horrible summer in so many ways and I hurt for her. Prayers welcome.
EDIT: Shoutout and big thanks and praise to Moose, who shows more competence and genuine concern all the way from Alaska than what I'm getting locally.
If you saw these two people in the street, which would you wager could tear a phone book in half?
I'm pretty sure you wouldn't gamble on me.
I'm significantly smaller, weaker,
and I have that left hand, Janita, which was demolished 4 years ago.
Well, I'm pretty pleased to say that not only did I best the big guy with enormous hands, but I also bested another guy who is a 3rd degree black belt. They each tried and failed to produce any results. The black belt had even boasted that he knew the "technique" required. When they both failed I took the phone book and set out to see if I could discover the "technique." After my first inch or two of success I began giggling.
Then I tore a few more inches and giggled more.
I actually shocked myself when I got to a certain point and it became apparent I'd really be able to rip the entire thing
.
Let's give it up for the short, overweight, middle-aged moms with a bum hand.
Oh yeah, I admit...
after succeeding I went into the office where the two guys were and held out the rent phone book as I asked,
Many moons ago when I was but a young Lime in my first semester of college I had a class with a notoriously infuriating professor. One day in my dorm as I struggled to digest some of his assigned readings in order to produce a well thought out paper I ranted to myself about the stupidity of the man. Suddenly a head poked in my door frame to ask if I was alright. I assured the inquirer that I was fine, merely aggravated greatly over the assignment and the maddening excuse for a class with such a disagreeable professor. I went on at length before taking a breath. Then the fellow in my doorway nodded and said, "Yep, Dad can be like that." There's no back pedaling from a situation like that. The best you can hope for is for the floor to open up and swallow you.
Flash forward to Tuesday at work. A couple enters. The husband waits for his wife's treatments. He begins discussing a rental property he is hoping to sell and describing where it is located. I say, "Hey, I used to live in that neighborhood! What's the address of your property?" He gives it and I recognize it as the other half of the duplex in which our family used to reside. He informs me he used to own both sides until he recently sold the side we lived in.
I declare, "Well, I'm glad to know some good people bought it because I really didn't like the guy my husband decided to sell it to." He asks how long ago we sold it. I tell him and he says, "Oh yeah..." His wife interjects, "You sold it to my brother."
(Background) Therapy Girl had a brief moment of tears when she realized one of the talismans of her son who died two years ago is falling into disrepair. She and Records Girl and I had a couple of minutes where we gave her some encouragement. She recounted how in the days just after his death she walked around numbly wondering why other people were still living lives so calmly, "Didn't they know her son had died?" Then she laughed and mentioned how a woman attempted empathy at that time by saying when her ferret had been stolen she felt the same way. Much laughter follows.
After the morning rush dies down.
Records Girl: I am so glad it's not August 13 any more. If I had to hear you tell one more patient it was National Left-handers Day when they asked the date I was going to hurt you.
Lime: But you'll never forget the date for National Left-handers Day again will you? And just wait until it's Talk Like a Pirate Day!
RG: There's a Talk Like A Pirate holiday?
Lime: Yep. September 19th.
Therapy girl :(poking her head around the corner and asking incredulously) How would you even know that???
Lime:(matter of factly as if it is as natural a celebration as one's birthday) Because I celebrate it.
TG & RG burst out in hysterics
TG: Well naturally, of course.
RG: You are insane.
Lime:(smiling with pride) Thank you.
Phone rings
Lime:(answering and giggling) Hello, XYZ Chiropractic. Lime speaking. How may I help you?
Caller:(with mock indignation) And WHAT are you laughing at?
Lime:(who recognizes the caller's voice and knows her to have a good enough sense of humor to handle the response) Arr, lassy. I be laughin' over Talk Like a Pirate Day.
The caller concludes her business and Lime hangs up.
TG rounds the corner with an overly serious look on her face.
Lime:(in exaggerated sympathy) Aww, are you ok? You look like someone just stole your ferret.
TG and RG nearly fall over in a fit of laughter.
Bemused Patient:(after listening to the above conversation and chuckling through it during her workout session) You guys really need to take your act on the road.
Lime: Ladies and Gentlemen, give it up for the hot new band The Stolen Ferrets touring all the finest chiropractic waiting rooms in the area to promote their latest album "Don't They Know?"
The crowd goes wild
EDIT 9:19 am: Because some people think I made up Talk Like a Pirate Day. Check here.
Cooper did an awesome list of 10 foods that define who he is. I'm totally stealing this one.
1. Peach Preserves. Cooper had this on his list and it definitely makes my top ten list as well. When I went to Maryland earlier this summer I specifically went to the Amish market so I could get some. Here's why.
2. Funny Cake. It's a Pennsylvania German dessert. It's cake in a pie crust with a layer of gooey chocolate. My mother, who is not especially comfortable in the kitchen, made this all throughout my childhood. She taught me to make it when I was about 10. Until a few years ago I never met anyone outside my family who made it and virtually no one outside my home county who even knew what it was. My father, who is not given to offering praise no matter how deserved it may be in any circumstance, will unabashedly praise my funny cake and say it is the one thing my mother knew how to make well. I provided pictures and a recipe at the end of this post if you are curious.
3. Roti. This East Indian flatbread became much beloved during my time in Trinidad where I learned from a few friends their different techniques and secrets for making it properly. It's a dish I have made regularly since coming back to the US 16 years ago. It's one of the few things Diana has asked to learn how to cook because she loves it. Calypso also requests it frequently. Both of the girls have asked how they will have the necessary utensils and cookware for making it when they have houses of their own. Not to worry, we'll get the platin and dabla one way or another. Here's a roti post.
4. Venison. Mr. Lime has hunted ever since we were first married. I love venison. Given the choice between beef and venison I will choose venison every time. I prefer the taste. I like that it's basically organic and very lean. I love that it's super cheap...cost of a hunting license and a box of ammo. I like that Mr. Lime has friends he can butcher with so we don't have to pay for processing. I do enjoy having a few specialty items from the butcher though like venison pepper sticks or making jerky. I like that putting venison on our table involve activities that build a sense of community. The group Mr. Lime hunts with makes sure everyone in the group gets some meat even if they didn't get a deer that year. Last year between Mr. Lime, Diana, and Isaac, our family took 6 deer, which fed our family and went toward helping feed 5 other families as well. If there is a year we don't do so well, someone will share their bounty with us. Cheap and healthy meat, community building activity...these are the things the anti hunting groups fail to see as beneficial. It's a shame. This post has one of my favorite venison recipes.
5. Pretzels. This is something I took entirely for granted as a kid. I have fond memories of the "chip man" who sold chips, pretzels and licorice whips at the local farmer's market. He'd let the kids have the broken hard pretzels. I really just never imagined they didn't exist elsewhere. Then I went to Trinidad and couldn't get a hard pretzel to save my life. I had friends who mailed me bags of them periodically. God bless those friends. I also know how to make homemade soft pretzels and have done so with great enthusiasm. They are a real treat. Here's a post on that process.
6. Applesauce. When I was a kid I was a picky eater. In order to gag down things I detested I used to smother them in applesauce....things like spaghetti and sloppy joes...please try not to vomit. I no longer need to resort to such a tactic but I do still love applesauce...warm and chunky with a sprinkle of cinnamon...mmmm. Oh, and my kids no longer eat jarred applesauce, they expect homemade.
7. Fastnachts. Geshundheit! No, kidding aside. These are Pennsylvania German potato donuts made every year for Shrove Tuesday. My great grandmother on my mom's side used to make them and my grandfather on my dad's side did too. They are just delicious. I've never perfectly recreated their respective recipes but I still make them most years. Here's a recipe.
8. Christmas cookies. Yeah, I know it's not a single food item since I make several kinds but on a good year I make between 60-100 dozen of them to give away. Chocolate chip, wafer thin cutout sandtarts, Reese's cookies, molasses spice cookies, Russian teacakes, peanut butter cookies, sugar cookies, chocolate nut cookies.
9. TastyKakes. Nobody bakes a cake as tasty as a Tastykake. You can have your Hostess Twinkies, your Little Debbie barf pies, whatever other commercial goodies are out there. Gimme a Peanut Butter Candy Cake or a Chocolate Junior. When my dad came to visit me in Trinidad I begged him to bring me a box of these.
10. Spanakopita. Greek spinach pie with feta cheese all in a flaky phyllo dough crust. Oh yes, please....I've only made this from scratch a couple of times but any chance I get to have it I will take it. In a nod to my ethnicity this is my favorite, non-dessert Greek food, but I won't say no to avoglemono, galaktoboureko, dolmades, souvlaki, or baklava either, or a nice Greek salad....I'm so hungry now.
11. Chocolate. Yes, I know anyone who has read this blog for more than a couple of posts knows I love chocolate but if I left it off the official list you'd all be wondering why. My love for this is best illustrated by a conversation shortly after Diana was born. Someone asked Mr. Lime if I'd had any cravings during pregnancy. He answered, "Chocolate." I countered that I craved it even when I wasn't pregnant. He deadpanned, "But when you were pregnant you DEMANDED it!" Nuff said.
