they really do hiss

December 7, 2009 7:40am

Oh are my sinuses driving me crazy this morning! My head feels like it’s swelled to the point of explosion! Hopefully this sinus pressure is not a harbinger of the day to come. Other than taking the truck in to be serviced at 9:30, I don’t really have any plans. Cody has a doctors appointment this morning, and then he’ll be heading off to work at the clothes bank at church, which means I’ll be spending the majority of the day alone.

I’m not too concerned about this morning, as I will have my DS to keep me company at the dealership while the truck is being worked on. I remembered to grab my ear buds and put them on the counter so that I won’t have to listen to Faux News while I’m playing Sudoku, too. While I’m not a fan of that channel, I’d be just as irritated if they turned it to any other politically slanted news channel. There is no reason for the dealership to set the channel to something that slants in either direction. Local news, the Today show, hell The Food Network, would be better suited for that type of environment.

All things considered, I had a pretty nice weekend. Cody and I finally went out for his birthday dinner on Friday night. He decided on Bahama Breeze, so twisting my arm was definitely not necessary. We had a nice meal, and managed to settle for only two appetizers instead of the usual three this time, which saved me almost $10, so that was a plus. That money was then spent anyway, and then some, since we stopped at TJ Maxx after dinner.

Saturday didn’t start out so hot for me. I was a little down, and we had to clip Vanilla’s nails, which required tranquilizers. I don’t like giving the dogs medications if I can help it, but holding that dog while Cody clips her nails is like wrestling an alligator. She is solid muscle, and way stronger and more flexible than I am. We waited over an hour to clip her nails, and even though she was only a little clumsy, we thought they would start to wear off and forged ahead. That dog scratched me pretty good a couple of times, but we finally managed to get them taken care of. I felt horrible, as she was so obviously scared out of her mind and I had her pinned down in various positions. I felt horrible afterwards and did my best to make up with her, and then I realized that the drugs were really starting to kick in. I felt awful, because she looked frightened as all get out. You can’t explain to dogs and small children what’s happening to them in those situations. All they know is they feel very wrong and can’t do what they usually can. They don’t know why their legs don’t work like they’re supposed to. It tears me up to watch her go through that, so I was babying her quite a bit and trying to soothe her so she could just fall asleep and let the drugs run their course. On top of that, Cody and I realized we had put that dog through hell unnecessarily, as we could have just waited another 45 minutes or so and had a much easier time. She still wouldn’t have wanted us to do it, but at least we wouldn’t have had to be as forceful with her.

I was starting to feel a bit sleepy, and since neither of us wanted to leave the dog alone, I suggested a little 30 minute nap. I should have known better. I’m not sure if I get sleepy when I’m depressed, or if taking naps makes it worse, but when I’m having a bad day, all I want to do is sleep. The only problem is sleeping tends to make it worse, as I can’t seem to force myself to get out of bed, and then my feeling of lazy uselessness starts to creep in and compound the problem. Needless to say, by the time Cody managed to get me out of bed, I was pretty far gone.

Never fear though, cause I had the perfect solution: Chipotle and Target! We headed out for dinner at one of our favorite spots for some yummy burritos, and then after a couple of quick stops at nearby pet stores for aquarium stuff, we headed to Target. We had some household stuff to pick up, and I wanted to look at all the Christmas stuff to try and shake myself out of my funk. It seemed to do the trick, for that night at least, and my happiness was compounded when we stumbled upon Superman briefs! You know we had to buy them. We need more underwear like we need holes in our heads, but these weren’t optional. I had been looking for these for ages, but they don’t tend to make underwear like this in adult sizes. While they’re not the exact pair I would want, they were close enough to be a mandatory expense for the both of us.

We then headed off to the other side of town to meet up with R and J at Truffles for desert. I love Truffles, but it’s such an expensive place! Thankfully, R and J usually insist on treating us when they invite us. Between genuinely enjoying taking their friends out for dinner/desert and such, and knowing we have a hard time justifying that kind of money for a slice of cake or whatever we order, our paying when we go there is usually not an option.

Sunday morning was definitely a treat. Cody had already let the cat out of the bag that he had decided to become an “official” member of the church, but there were several people that still didn’t know. Including our Pastor, who did a double take when he saw him heading for the front of the sanctuary at the end of the service. I was overjoyed, and my friends at church knew it. I could never have imagined how quickly and fully Cody would be comfortable and active in the church when I started going about 7 or 8 months ago. A lot of people who have gotten to know me since I started attending know that I have always gone out of my way to make sure Cody didn’t feel pressured to attend or participate in any way, so the fact that he is now more active in the programs at church than I am, particularly the outreach programs, is overwhelming to me and they all knew it.

We then had a nice lunch a couple blocks up the street with a small group of friends from church, which was an especially nice treat, as our friend R decided to treat Cody and I along with a couple of other friends. After eating, we headed downtown to University Circle to check out CircleFest, which was a neat little holiday festival put on by the businesses, museums and such in the area. We saw a large display of Christmas trees that had been decorated by local businesses, which was really cool, and then headed to the Botanical Gardens for a quick little walk through.

I stopped to take a picture of a little case full of Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches, which are admittedly a little gross, but they were behind glass. A young lady came up and asked if I would like to take a better picture and held out her hand, in which there was a cockroach. Now, these things are huge and creepy, but I just assumed this was an employee of the Gardens since she was carrying it around to show people. Turns out it was just a young lady who had found one creeping around and was being kind enough to walk it to an employee who could make sure it didn’t get trampled. Somehow or other, this girl got spooked and jumped, which may or may not have been instigated by my Pastor, and the cockroach went flying and landed at our feet. I was certainly startled by the young lady’s shriek, but didn’t panic. Then someone pointed out the cockroach was headed for my foot. I looked down, and this little fucker was making a bee-line right for my boot and I absolutely lost it. I shrieked a couple of times like a little 8 year old girl and went running and hopping to the other side of the crowd. Everyone was delighted with my performance, and a few people were kind enough to try to get me to repeat it by suggesting I may have a bug on me at various points during our little excursion.

Thank God it’s time to get ready to go take my truck in. I need a shower twice as bad after remembering that story!!!