Mmmm.

Here’s what I have been up to:

1) Still playing Canasta on Pogo as much as possible. I played about four games today before 12 noon or so.

2) Early voting ended today so I made the trek to the library to engage in Early Voting. My home state has a Defense of Marriage-type amendment on the books (during the primary season??? For shame!!!!) so I had to make sure that I voted appropriately. Also, I think my doctor’s relative is running for office so I wanted to vote for him but it turns out he’s not in my district or a Republican or something so he wasn’t on my ballot.

3) Debating changing my Voter Registration to unaffiliated so next time I have the full range of candidates.

4) Gene was out of town all of this week so I went home every day at lunch to let the dogs out and feed them. On Monday, I was sitting on the porch swing and eating a sandwich when the next door neighbor came out into her yard and I complimented her yard (which is amazing). Betty…ugh, I actually can’t finish this story because it was mortifying in a “Geez, I hope the neighbor didn’t just see that happen” way.

5) I baked a cake while Gene was gone. But I started it about a half hour after I’d taken my Ambien that night (which is at least a half hour later than I should have been baking). Furthermore, we didn’t have enough oil for the recipe so I dimly remember googling to see if it was OK to substitute butter. Googled approved it but I have no idea if I actually went through with it and if I did, how did I melt the butter? Unbelievably, I didn’t burn down the house. The cake is delicious.

6) Went shopping last weekend with Denise and bought two pairs of shoes and almost bought a third pair. Still regretting not buying the third pair (although, where would I wear a pair of of red Louis Vuitton knock offs? Nowhere!).

7) While Gene was gone, I watched almost the entire first season of The Good Wife. It’s a great show about a woman whose politician husband gets caught in a sex scandal and goes to jail. So the wife has to go back to work to support her family, but she’s a super well trained attorney and her boss is her old law school love interest, played by the cute boy from Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead. Oh, and the cheating husband is played by Mr. Big from Sex & The City, which basically means it’s a “Hospital Food versus Airplane Food” choice, except the Hospital Food is caviar and the Airplane food is lobster.

Here is what I have been doing:

1) Playing enough Canasta on Pogo.com that Gene wondered if I was playing to escape talking to him. Whoops. No, it is just relaxing. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose, sometimes people accuse me of cheating. I finally made it to Intermediate ranking. YAY.

2) Watched the first 16 (?) episodes of the ABC show Revenge on Hulu. By the time I figured it was finally on Hulu, we only had a few days to watch them. I watched the first 8 or so by myself and Gene joined me for the rest. He’s hooked. Hee hee.

3) Working, of course. Nothing interesting, just the usual. The job and I have established a love/hate relationship. Some days I hate it, other days I’m OK with it. I never love it, but that’s OK. There’s always Canasta.

4) Debating how to ‘spend’ my vacation time. I can ‘carry over’ up to 40 hours (1 week) of vacation per year, and the year resets on my work anniversary (in July). I’m over 40 hours now so I need to spend a little so I don’t lose it. Ideally I’d like to go to spend a long weekend when Gene travels to Atlanta next month but one of my dingle berry coworkers has already asked for the Friday off. Oh well. And at some point I need to go to Indiana because I miss my family. And also our friends we visited in Germany have moved back to America so we’re going to visit them.

5) Took the dogs to the vet last Saturday. How is it that 40 minutes of their time (plus assorted medications) is roughly equal to a week of my salary?

Coming up this week: 1 month follow up appointment after LASIK, shrinky-dink appointment (I shall call him Dr. Awesome), and dermatologist appointment (because I’m worth it. And also completely disgusting). I don’t think I have asked off for the LASIK appointment, whoops.

So, that’s what is new with me. Hope all is well with you as well.

1) I saw two of my dogs eat something I’ve heard of dogs eating but I’ve never seen MY dogs eat. Eeeeeewwww.

2) A wooly worm landed on my shoulder. Aaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeee.

In other important news, Bob Evans still has sliced mush on the menu. I apologize for the incorrect information. Mush fans, please resume eating at Bob Evans.

That is all.

(Actually, PS: Sunglasses are awesome).

(Even better than that, I had the day off of work…yayayay!)

Anyway, my appointment was yesterday at 9:30 AM, way in downtown Cheesecake City, so the alarm actually went off at 6:30 AM. Which is an entire half hour earlier than my normal alarm. Pffht.

And I’d already woken up, anyway. I’d been up since 5. I killed time by petting the dogs and playing Canasta on Pogo. After Gene and I were dressed, we discussed breakfast. “Fast food?” I suggested, eager to just eat something so my Lexapro and the Ativan wouldn’t make me sick.

“B’Evans?” he retorted. For the record, Bob Evans no longer has sliced mush on the menu. There is, however, a picture of a Bob Evans restaurant from another era that looks just like the restaurant near my Grandma M’s house so it always makes me nostalgic (although, I don’t recall ever actually eating there with Grandma M).

I wasn’t eager to dawdle over breakfast (Cheesecake City traffic often sucks) but what the hell, there’s always time for bacon. The waitress, inexplicably, sang us a little song as she brought us the food about her being the Breakfast Fairy or something. It would have been charming if I were 6 or 96, but I’m 35 and a little nervous about my eyes being lasered shut so I would have really just appreciated a “Here ya go!” as she dropped the food on the table.

(Note to Bob Evans: drug testing for servers?)

Anyway. Eventually we got to Cheesecake City Laser Eye Center. I got to sign a long document stating that I would not sue if everything went awry. Apparently, now that I have had LASIK, I am no longer allowed to work in certain industries. They didn’t state which industries but I’m going to guess that aeronautics is on the list.

Apparently the Laser Eye center is the place to go for Botox and Restylane so while we waited I paged through an ad for Restylane. When I get those mustache area wrinkles (shudder) I am totally getting Restylane injected to fix that shit. (No kidding)

Anyway. Eventually it was my turn. I got to wear a blue surgical cap. The nurses put a bunch of drops in my eyes. At some point I got 2 mg of Ativan and some sum of Prednisone. I was really annoyed that the Ativan never made me feel loopy. But then, after one of the rounds of eye drops, I told Gene “this is all so touching!” as I blotted my eyes and I also told him that the prednisone would make my eyes want to clean the house but the rest of me would be asleep. (Har har, prednisone humor).

Oh, and the lady who had surgery done shortly before me had to be wheeled out of the surgery room in a wheelchair. I am 99% sure I exited under my own power.

The surgery itself is the weirdest damn thing. It was done in two parts: the green laser part and the red laser part. The green laser part creates the f-l-a-p (AHHHH!!). The red laser part…I have no clue, except I no longer have f-l-a-p-s so there’s that (YAY?).

At some point after that, another doctor looked at my eyes and declared them good to go. Finally, we got to go home. YAY.

At home, I had an Ambien and was convinced that I wasn’t sleeping except I had to be woken up every hour for more eyedrops. At some point I sent Gene out for chicken fingers. Number of chicken fingers I remember eating: zero. Later, I got another Ambien (why? Dunno). Number of Ambien I remember taking yesterday: three, a personal best.

Dinner was steamed Chinese dumplings and a sushi roll (which is what I always want to eat when I’m sick). Number of dumplings or sushi I remember eating: cloudy, but I do remember telling Gene that in honor of my surgery I would give myself the gift of using a fork to eat dinner. Plus, I’d just spent a lot of money to have eye surgery, did anyone think that giving me a sharp stick (let alone two) was a good plan?

Afterwards, we watched the first episode of The Killing on Netflix. Well, I had giant eye shields on and was supposed to rest my eyes so mainly I listened and fell asleep and opened my eyes once in awhile because Michelle Forbes plays the grieving mother on this show and I really like her. But every time I opened my eyes I teared up (like teary, not like tore) and then I’d blot my eyes and Gene would ask if I was OK so it just seemed easier to rest my eyes. Plus, by then I’d had two Ambien so how the hell was I awake, anyway?

Soon after, I noticed that Gene took an Ambien so I decided I should have another one as well. More drops, then we shuffled off to bed. I couldn’t really walk well but I think it was my usual post-Ambien stumble and nothing special. In the middle of the night I woke up minus 1 eye shield and with eye shield tape stuck to my hand. And with a headache.

(Note to self: Did I drop any Aleve on the bedroom floor?)

Took some Aleve and fixed the eye shield and went back to sleep. Woke up at 6:30 (AGAIN! Worst days off EVER) because I had a follow up appointment where the same doctor looked at my eyes and said I was still OK and I could finally take off my eye shields. Wore my sunglasses home.

So, I guess this is a long way of saying:

Mom, I finally used my birthday present from last year.

And with that, I’ve been staring at this screen too long and everything’s a little fuzzy so….that’s enough for now.

(Except…PS, Gene has been a really excellent helper).

But! I had a great time.

Thursday: Slept in until 9:30. Gene took an exam towards his certification (two down, three to go! Oh and he passed it, yay!) and I went to the Talbots outlet and Old Navy (yes, the treaded Old Navy…I give up; their cheap tshirts are just too irresistible). And then we went home and waaaaaaaaited for Gene’s exam results to come up. (It was a long wait, they didn’t show up until Friday!).

During the long ass wait, I played some (non-twilight) Canasta on Pogo and some huge jerk accused me of cheating. I don’t cheat at any game. Also, I’m awful at Canasta so the idea that I would cheat is beyond laughable. I finally told him that if I were cheating I’d be more likely to win. And then I reported him. I haven’t seem him around in the last day or two so I’m hopeful that…oh, let’s say a hole swallowed him into the ground.

Opened a birthday card from Mom and Dad (thanks Mom & Dad!) and talked to my entire family. I always received a Leonard Cohen book and CD from Bill and Michelle. Yay!

And then dinner and then The Hunger Games, with a 90 minute wait before hand. Gene and I were among the oldest people in the theater and definitely the only people to pass the time by reading. The movie was so good and I’m debating re-reading the books now.

Friday…haircut! Exam results! Appointment at the LASIK guy’s office (oh, that was the big boring mystery: I’m getting LASIK on Friday)! Cake! Other things that I have forgotten.

Saturday: Hung out with Denise, went to lunch and the mall, where I procured more shirts (none from Old Navy, go me!) and received two rollerball perfume bottles from D. (Scents: Daisy Eau So Fresh by Marc Jacobs and Kenzo Amour…they both smell awesome. D is totally the right person to perfume shop with as she knows everything about which perfumes smell good).

Sunday: I don’t remember anymore, except I know that it was laundry day.

Today (Tuesday): worked all day and came home to find that my birthday cake had finally been finished. The Lexapro is clearly not working (because I forgot to take it today?) because I am unreasonably sad about the end of the cake and almost went to the store to buy another. (I didn’t, which is a victory?)

Today, I slept in until 9:30. And yes, it was glorious. Even with the weird dreams (is it from the new Lexapro, the nightly Ambien or has even my subconscious had enough of me dreaming about payroll?). Sleeping in is one of those rare times when I guiltily think “Ya know, if the whole b-a-b-y thing had happened, you’d be awake right now…” and then I roll back over. True story.

Speaking of the nightly Ambien, I am sleeping so well. I have it on good authority from multiple doctors that it is not habit forming to take it every night. My routine is that I take it around 9 or 9:30, then go on Pogo and play a little Twilight Canasta. It’s twilight because I play against a vampire. No, it’s because I’m barely awake by the end of the game. I have also killed a little time linking to people on LinkedIn. I logged into my account yesterday evening before dinner and found that I had a 75% accuracy rate of linking to the correct people. (My only ‘miss’ was from friending the wrong Guy Named Mike at another payroll company. Whatevs, he still accepted me).

Work is…well, it’s work. Nothing new on the new job frontier, but I may change positions at my current place sometime this year. May. I’d rather find a nice payroll manager job somewhere (preferably where I don’t have to actually manage people), but, again, whatevs.

The hounds are lovely as always…Betty, while a tugboat like me, is still the healthiest of the three. Scooby has a permanent case of the Itchies and Sadie has a case of Whipworm. Neither condition prevents them from running around, having fun, and nagging us to death for treats. I’m writing this from the backyard and I just realized I smell something. I’m going to cross my fingers and hope that our neighbors have fertilized something.

(Not that you asked, but our neighbors built a beautiful potting shed in their backyard…it is literally the prettiest structure in our neighborhood. If they had a bathroom and wifi and it were at the beach, they could charge $2000/week to rent it).

Today I turned 35. I’m wearing capris and I just noticed that my left shin looks an awful lot like my Grandma M’s. Off and on, my hands look like hers. I think the lesson here is that I’m finally old enough to moisturize without fear of turning into a pepperoni pizza. Then again, my new bathrobe arrived Tuesday and I was inordinately excited about it. Perhaps I really am just 35 going on 90.

In a little while, Gene and I are going to lunch, then he takes an exam and I go to the Talbots outlet nearby. Then home to chill out for a few hours (perhaps a disco nap?) and then a late dinner and The Hunger Games. We have to get in line about 90 minutes early.

Tomorrow, I have an appointment that I’m looking pretty forward to. Maybe I will update afterwards with a small piece of good news. Then again, maybe I already told you about this and you’ll all think, “What? Your boob job? Yeah, you already told us about this. Loser.”

(It’s not a boob job. If there were a Salvation Army for extra boob I’d be the top donor).

(Also, Hi Dad and Bill and sorry to make you read the last few sentences).

Saturday I’m hanging out with Denise. I don’t know what we’ll be up to but there’s a better than average chance salsa will be involved. Fingers crossed!

(Yes, I priced going to Indiana for my 4 day weekend but it’s $500 to fly up and also I have many plans including cake and the Talbot’s outlet down in Cheesecake City and the Hunger Games midnight showing, so no dice)

I wanted to go somewhere for our 10th anniversary in July but we couldn’t decide between a vacation and spiffing up the house so instead we spent all our money on purses and going to dinner so now, we’re doing neither.

I hate being responsible. It sucks. I want to be all “Fuck yeah, let’s go to Hawaii and pay for it with credit cards!”* and “Sure, the Visa will pay for the after-insurance part of a round of IVF”** or “Screw it, I’m going to quit my job and let Gene support me and spend my days drinking glasses of red wine”*** because, really, I’m going to be thirty-fucking-five in a week and what the hell has being responsible gotten me?

* We don’t have any credit cards (D’oh?)

** Ugh, don’t get me started. When do I get over this?

*** Whenever I suggest quitting, Gene says “Sounds good, when do I get to quit MY job?”, which is ridiculous as my job is mostly a (mania-inducing) hobby.

If you’re guessing that it’s because Silver Dog is broken, you’re wrong. Actually, I just needed a username and password from White Dog because I had it saved here and haven’t logged onto that site in the Silver Dog era.

After we bought Silver Dog, I spent a little time on Apple’s website to look into trading it in. I was close to doing it, but I just couldn’t. I still have my first laptop, too, BTW…it hasn’t turned on in four years, but I guess this is how those hoarders on TV get their start.