March 12, 2006 | Filed under: I'm a Dork, Is She Still Talking?, The Fam

Yep, I’m sick. Which is bad for me, but good for you, as this means my body is forcing me to take a break from my typical run-from-one-end-of-the-day-to-the-other lifestyle and giving me more time to write. For example, yesterday instead of volunteering with the Junior League, spending the afternoon with a friend, going to a fundraiser dinner with another friend, and then going out for a going-away party, I did my volunteer thing with the Junior League, had lunch with two friends, stopped by to see a third, attempted to take a nap, ran errands, and stayed up past midnight writing this. See? Considerably less activity.

The getting sick was inevitable, as last week consisted of twelve hours on an airplane, twelve hours sleeping (total), and twelve hours drinking (nightly). You’d really think that a blood-alcohol content of 1.8 would kill any little germs floating in my bloodstream, but apparently not.

This illness is but a minor inconvenience. I routinely sound like a retired coal miner; the attempted nap was ruined by all the coughing; and the mucus is making a decided move northward from my lungs to my sinuses, about which I am not very excited; but, all in all, this is nothing. (See Meningitis.) Rather, you know it’s bad when I’m curled up in the fetal position, on the verge of tears, and about ready to wail, “I want my mommy!”

The funny thing is, when I’m sick, I really don’t want my mommy. In fact, the mere thought of it makes me even more likely to cry. I spent many, many days home from school as a child. None of them was particularly pleasant, and they certainly weren’t bonding times, à la Cokie Roberts. Mom functioned quite well as a sicknurse, with much more focus on the symptoms and treatment than on the patient’s well-being. She would drop off a cup of water, with instructions to finish it within the hour. I’d fall asleep. Ninety minutes later, and five minutes after I’d woken up, she’d bring me another drink and scold me for not having finished the last one. But I was asleep the whole time; when would I have drunk it?!?!? Didn’t matter. So, I would chug the water, hand the cup over, and dread her return visit.

Also, I was not a good one for taking medicine. Children’s Chewable Tylenol? I probably threw up more tablets than ever made it into my system. I have distinct memories of gagging up Tylenol into a kitchen towel. Repeatedly. And then being reprimanded for it. Right, of course, because I am choosing to puke up the only thing that could possibly make me feel better and yelling at me is going to somehow tame this damn gag reflex.

And of course I couldn’t swallow the adult Tylenol whole. So we alternated between the crushed-adult-Tylenol-poorly-hidden-in-applesauce method and the let’s-see-how-many-tries-it-takes-to-keep-the-Children’s-Tylenol-down method. There were a couple of years there where I couldn’t eat applesauce without it having a phantom bitter taste of ground up Tylenol.

As a seven-year old, I promised myself I would be nicer to my sick children. It’s not Mom’s fault, really. It’s just that our family is not known for its nurturing. That gene doesn’t exist in the Irish Catholic female. Or it’s not expressed. (Perhaps if I marry a Jew, my kids will have a fighting chance.) Mom did far better than her mother, whose response to a request to stay home sick from school would have been something like “Are you dead? Fine, stay home, but you’re taking care of the rest of the kids while you’re here. And cook something for dinner, ok?”

By comparison, the one-cup-of-liquids-per-hour rule was compassionate. (Other Rules for Being Sick included Do Not Wake Me in the Middle of the Night unless You’re Bleeding from a Severed Artery and If You’re Going to Puke, Do Not Attempt to Make It to the Bathroom; Stay in Bed to Hurl. I promise you that last one is a good one, as it is far easier to throw sheets into the washing machine than it is to clean the carpet in the hallway at the entrance to the bathroom door.) Still, being sick did not involve homemade chicken noodle soup, or anyone sitting in bed reading to me, and certainly there were no backrubs/hair-stroking/other gestures of soothing. Which, after all, is what all the TV moms did, and it worked like a charm!

I’m sure my mother never knew I felt vaguely neglected. Asking for comfort (or help) is not something I did often. (Still don’t.) But that doesn’t mean it’s unwelcome. And my experience has prompted me to dote on other people when they’re sick, even if they would never ask for the help or comfort and are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves. I don’t know what’s more surprising – that I appreciate the doting of others, or me doing the doting.

Example: a few weeks after we broke up, Nick mentioned that he’d been sick for a couple days, generally feeling crappy, and didn’t know what he was doing for dinner. On my way out for the evening, I took him homemade chicken noodle soup (conveniently prepared earlier that day, not knowing how useful it was to become) and fresh bread from the bakery. And the fact that he was going to experience my doting loveliness and cleavage-showcasing shirt and rue the day he broke up with me? A distant second to my primary motivation of being nice to a sick person.

I’d taken Liz the same homemade chicken noodle soup under similar circumstances. (Only, you know, without the cleavage-showcasing shirt.) And when she had her wisdom teeth removed, I met her for lunch, escorted her to the dentist, filled her pain meds prescription while the doc yanked some teeth out, and then drove her home. Yes, of course she could have done this all by herself, but isn’t it nicer when someone else does it for you? I would pay someone good money if I never had to set foot in a pharmacy again. And DC cabs are annoying enough when you’re drunk and headed home late on Saturday night. I can’t imagine I’d want to deal with one immediately after leaving the dentist. Ick.

But I digress; this is supposed to be about me being sick, isn’t it? Right. So, who’s going to watch Project Runway reruns with me and bring me juice and rub my back while I cough up gobs of phlegm? There could be chicken noodle soup in the offing…

February 10, 2006 | Filed under: I'm a Dork, The California Adventure

I love my house. Really, I do. It’s super cute, with its high ceilings and hardwood floors and built-in china cabinet thing. Nice neighborhood, wonderful neighbors, etc. It’s plenty spacious – 1000 square feet. A Thousand Square Feet! One. Thou. Sand. I’ll never be able to afford that much space in DC! My best shot will be to win that contest they have every four years to see who gets to live in the pretty white mansion on Pennsylvania Ave. (I think it’s put on by the people at Publisher’s Clearinghouse, but I’ll have to get back to you on that.) At any rate, my house is lovely. But, much of the loveliness is due to the fact that it was built in the 1940s, back in the days before “double-paned windows” and “insulation” were invented. Thus, my abode has the heat retention properties of mosquito netting.

Despite all the TV news reports about increased energy costs this winter and don’t use your oven to heat the house and blah, blah, blah, that January natural gas bill came as quite a surprise. $589,236.74 and my firstborn child? What, are you going to have him shoveling coal into the furnace? Are children the alternative fuel of the future?

Being the control freak that I am, I decided to take matters into my own hands. First, I turned down the thermostat, which had previously been set at a very tropical 64 degrees. Then, I went to Lowe’s in search of this plastic wrap for one’s windows that my grandma used to have. Like in 1987. (Yes, I know. I’ve skipped becoming my mother and turned directly into my grandmother. Scary indeed.) Did anyone offer me assistance? No. Because I am a girl in a hardware store, so clearly I am just looking for my husband who is busy picking out whatever home improvement things we need. (Husband? Hah! Owning a home? Double hah!)

As it turns out, they still make this plastic window sheeting stuff. (It is located at the end of the insulation aisle, should you be wondering.) And all you need to install it is a hairdryer, along with the plastic sheeting and special tape that comes in the little box. I can totally handle home improvement projects whose entire tool needs are a hairdryer! And the package promises to increase the R-rating of my windows by up to 90%. Which, according to my calculations, is better than zero. I thought about purchasing every package in the display, but decided that six would do – I’ve got to leave a couple packages for the rest of the Northern California customers taking it up the arse from PG&E.

So, to re-cap, all by myself I (a) found the plastic window sheeting, (b) purchased said plastic window sheeting at the little “Self-Check” station, which I was going to bypass, but the lone checker appeared to be in over his head with this couple and their truckload of 2×4s, so I decided to do the dirty work by my damn self, despite the fact that I know this plastic window sheeting is marked up to cover the cost of Lowe’s labor, of which I have made zero use and (c) installed said plastic window sheeting.

And the February natural gas bill? $50 cheaper, thanks to my $12 trip to Lowe’s. See? I don’t need you, PG&E. I don’t need you, Lowe’s checker-outer-boy and other non-speaking staff members. I don’t need you, friends/family/Internet strangers. I don’t need any of you. (Only I really do. Need each and every one of you in such a deep and profound way that it scares the crap out of me to think about it, so I just don’t.)

(Wow, I can’t believe I just said that out loud. My mom would pay good money to hear me say that. As would my therapist. Wait, maybe Mom can pay the therapist… No, I don’t really have a therapist. But I probably should. But why bother, when I can prattle on about my issues to the whole Internet for free?)

(And seriously? I typed that Very Scary Sentence with my eyes squeezed shut and my head turned away from the monitor, cuz just reading the words freaks me out, so I hope there aren’t any major typos.)

Anyway, back to my normal level of lunacy. According to the additional information from PG&E, my February bill would have been significantly higher than January because rates went up and the weather was colder. So, really, I have only me and my plastic window sheeting to thank. Oh, joyous day of reduced energy costs! I feel warm all over! Though it’s probably because I’ve got six sweaters on under this sweatshirt. And I may very well blow that $50 on a new pair of shoes. But no matter, it’ll keep me from noticing how blue my toes are.