The kids have been home all week, driving me and the pets absolutely bonkers. I never thought I’d see it, but the kids actually wore the cat down so hard that she slept on my bed for several hours in like, kitty fetal position. She was out cold! Normally she’d wake up when my camera turns on (it makes a tinkling sound) or when I take pictures of her using “burst”, but when I did it, she just opened her eyes at one point, gave me a dirty look and got comfier. Pics:

She’s cute and I love her.
Here’s the song “My Cat” by Jack Off Jill.
(Embedding disabled by request. Boooooo!)

Dinner is finished, the dishes are being done. Blake and I ate so much we feel like barfing, although I’m probably the only one who really might. Xmas 2011 was an unmitigated success.

As previously mentioned, Ronny and Alex slept over last night and we all did presents this morning, followed by a big breakfast, Pokemon and eventually, napping. Ronny and Alex didn’t stay the afternoon because Alex’s dad was making turkey dinner at their house so they left about the same time as when I laid down to sleep.

After I woke up, I messed around on Pinterest for a bit and checked my e-mail and then Blake and I went into my office and watched Rise of the Planet of the Apes which I thought was just okay. I wasn’t as blown away by it as some of my friends were. I think I just really hate James Franco and I thought the ending was sloppy. When it was over I was like, “that’s IT?” because it seemed like there should have been more movie at the end. I mean, I guess they tied it up at the end with the epilogue during the credits but I still felt like there should have been more. While we watched the movie, Blake and I made paper snowflakes, which I’m going to use to decorate the living room window. (But we have a lot more to make before I can do that.) During this time, the turkey was cooking.

After the movie, we all kinda went and did our own thing. Wes played his new Phineas and Ferb video game, Blake played his new Star Wars game, Madison coloured with her new Prismacolour pencil crayons (she now has more of them than I do! Brat!) and I ran around taking pictures of things, which I’ll share with you now.

This is No Drought by Lush, which Wes got me. It’s a dry shampoo.

You put it in your hair if you don’t have time to wash it, so it soaks up your hair’s oil.
It smells citrusy and wooooonderful!

This is Northern Lights soap, also by Lush:

Madison says it smells like Windex.
I disagree but I don’t know what to say it does smell like.
I just think it looks cool.

This is my new book, from Blake:

 I have no idea what it’s about but I’m betting it’s awesome.

Little known fact about me (?), I collect quartz crystals.
I don’t think Lisa knows that, but she got me a couple.
These are all of my little ones.
I have a bunch of large crystal wands too, but these are my little ones:

The two on the bottom left are the new ones.
The bottom crystal is actually a rusty amethyst, which I also collect.
(She also gave me the tin.)

This one’s kinda neat because it’s cut for the express purpose of rubbing in your pocket with your thumb:

She gave me two other stones too, that are supposed to be for “healing” but I think that’s bunk so I gave them to Madison. Lisa also gave me a book on “nutritional healing” all about using vitamins and herbs to heal yourself but I think that’s bunk too and a little insulting, I think, considering the nature of my illness, so I don’t really know what to do with it. I’ll just smile and nod and say “thank you”. She got Blake some weird mustard that he’ll probably really enjoy, which is a first (usually he gets chocolate, which he doesn’t like), so he’s happy. I got him the new(est) Bastard Fairies EP.

This is my new crock pot recipe book.
I flagged a few recipes…

This is happening tomorrow:

And this is my favourite gift, from Madison, because it was the most thoughtful.

I *love* Atomic Fireballs and Lemon-Heads.
They’re made by the same company and are pretty much impossible to find up here.
Madison and Blake went to a specialty candy shop to get them.
The Whistle Pops I remembered from when I was little and I’d told Madison about them and she found them at this shop.
There are also “party snaps” in the box, which are those gun powder things you throw at the ground and they make a snapping sound.

This is Wes with the wolf toy that Lisa got him.
In case I haven’t mentioned it, he’s obsessed with wolves.

Here’s the lovely young lady of the house…

Here’s my beloved…

This is what he was drinking while he made mashed potatoes and gravy:

Gobble gobble, motherfuckers!

Mashed potatoes, whipped smooth…

An Xmas feast…

And finally, mooches…

Hoover has had a crusty nose ever since we switched him to diet dog food.
He’s lost weight, which the vet is happy about, and she’s not worried about his nose, so I’m choosing not to worry either.

And that was Xmas 2011.
It was a lot of fun, but I’m glad it’s over.
I think it’s time for tea and then bed.

For Wes the Pokemon Freak for Xmas:

Sorry the picture is a bit blurry. I took about 50 pictures using “burst”, trying to get one that wasn’t blurry, and literally only 3 were acceptable and this was the best of the bunch. It’s pretty easy to make, as long as you have a steady hand. I used Sharpie Poster Paint marker for the mouth, nose and eyes, then I just used my finger in metallic red acrylic paint for the cheeks and white acrylic paint for the dots in his (her?) eyes. Its ears are made from yellow glittered cardstock from Michael’s and I painted the tips of them black, on a slant, like in the pictures I found on Google image search. For ear shape, I just free-handed it. I THINK I DID AN EXCELLENT JOB.

Behold! Our 3 feet tall Xmas tree!

It’s a pretty sad little Xmas tree, if I do say so myself, but it kinda fits our very small, very sad-looking house. Actually that’s not true, I think our house looks happy from the outside and EXTREMELY lived-in on the inside. Every square inch of our house is covered with STUFF. That’s why we need a new house, there’s nowhere to put our stuff and there’s zero privacy – from our neighbours, nor from each other. (I totally read that in my head as “our chudders”. Madison used to say “our chudders” instead of “each others” [say it fast, "eachudders"] and we still say it all the time.)

This is one of my prized possessions:

She was my great grama’s angel, back when my great grama actually had a big tree. (When she got older and couldn’t set the tree up herself, she bought a pink, white and silver, pre-decorated, 1 foot tall Xmas tree that I hope, with all my heart, to inherit one day. But I probably won’t. :o() She’s not antique, yet, but she’s probably really collectible being from the 50′s or so. Another decoration I remember from the same era that my great grama also had was a weird, red pointy thing that said something something “Sputnik” on the box. That’s probably worth something today too. That I would part with, probably, the angel I never will.

The tree is set up directly to my left, on the other side of the room, which is only about 2 feet away so I’ve had a little while to sit here looking at it and contemplating the state of things. As I mentioned previously, Phil & Lisa are mad at me and if I had to put money on it, we won’t be invited to their house next year for Xmas and I can hear Blake now saying “you don’t know that!” but yes I do. I’ve known Lisa for over half my life at this point and she’s very sentimental. She also holds grudges, she’s passive-aggressive and she can lay a guilt trip on you that would shame the staunchest of Jewish mothers. Whatever they end up doing for Xmas THIS year, is also what they’ll end up doing NEXT year, as it’ll become the new “tradition” because we are now unreliable for tradition despite having legitimate reasons for not going up North this year. I would be willing to put money on this. (Although it’s possible that Lisa is reading this – she’d never tell me if she were – and just because I’ve written this and I think this, she would then do the opposite and expect us next year.)

The thing is, well…one of the things, is that Lisa is now the matriarch of her family and she’s pretty young to be one. Her brother Paul and her (for all intents and purposes) sister-in-law Sandy do things with Sandy’s family for Xmas, at Sandy’s house. Sandy not only has a living mother, but also a son who is either already married or engaged and who has a toddler. As far as Xmas is concerned, they are their own little unit at Paul & Sandy’s house where Sandy is (despite having a living mother), the matriarch. She’s the one whose house it is, she’s the one who does (most) of the cooking, therefore, she is the matriarch and as we all know, Xmas is a matriarchal event. I mean, please correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s how it’s always been in my lifetime and that’s also always how it’s been in the other families I’ve observed (boyfriends’/Blake’s family). Sure, it’s “traditional” for the “man of the house” to carve the bird, but it’s the lady of the house who cooked it, who set the table, who put up the tree, who hung the mistletoe, who put the wreath on the front door and told the husband to put up the lights. She’s also the one who wrapped the gifts, with the exception of her own, which is the modern age, usually comes in a gift bag.

My point is that since the death of her own parents, Lisa has struggled to be the matriarch of her family and to create her own traditions. Since we were in the same boat (sort of…) at the disowning of  everyone in my family but my mother (and sometimes her too), we started going up North for Xmas. It just made sense. We had little kids, they had little kids and we were all in mutual agreement that it was all about the little kids.

But now our kids aren’t so little and neither of them believe in Santa anymore*. My sisters are 7 and almost 3, they have a few years left of the whole Santa thing and while I normally like my sisters for the most part, I cannot STAND them on Xmas and I’m not a huge fan of my parents either when it comes to them at this time of year. To put it mildly, they are spoiled brats, 365 days a year. That’s Lisa’s prerogative, of course, and none of my business, but I don’t think I should have to put up with it and neither should my husband or my kids. Raili antagonizes Wes. They get along on Xmas Eve, they get along on Xmas morning – that is until the presents happen. Raili is so spoiled the rest of the year that she disregards her mountain of presents and spends the rest of the morning driving Wes crazy, who only wants to play with his presents in peace. Madison gets stuck playing babysitter while Phil and Lisa make dinner, which sucks for Madison because Madison actually can’t stand kids and doesn’t want any of her own. The kid has zero maternal feelings whatsoever. (It can be said that Madison was a pain in the ass when they were up North while I was in the hospital this summer but that can easily be dismissed as Lisa expecting Madison to keep the kids occupied and make her job easier and Madison resenting it. That’s not to say Madison isn’t a pain in the ass, she is, but I think Lisa expected Madison to make things much easier instead of much harder when she agreed to take them. Also? Lisa was a total pain in OUR ass while we were in the fight of our fucking lives, wondering when we were going to pick the kids up and when we finally had a vague idea of when the kids could come home, she only met us half way between her house and ours.)

The fact of the matter is, it’s stressful for all of us to go up there, with the possible exception of Wes, who is fast outgrowing Raili and who has zero interest in Rachael. It’s been stressful for me since Day 1, it’s become stressful for Blake in the past couple of years because he can’t stand watching Raili and now Rachael becoming more and more bratty by the year due to absolute and total parenting fail, and then of course every year, Phil is a total asshole to Lisa, yelling at her in front of us for not parenting correctly meanwhile he won’t get up off his own ass and do anything and then – and then! – we agree, at Phil’s urging, to stay Boxing Day and sometimes the day after that and guess who fucks off to go snowmobiling with Paul early Boxing Day morning? Oh that’s right, my father who is SO GRATEFUL to have his family together at Xmas.

Long story short, I’m not seeing why we keep up this tradition except to secure Lisa’s place of matriarchy and I’m sorry but I grew up in a 5 generation deep matriarchy and it’s fucking stupid! I’m not saying that tradition is stupid, not by any stretch of the imagination, but I think maybe, after a few years of false starts, it’s time we start creating our own instead of blindly following Lisa’s for the sake of…nothing?

And before I get into tradition further, a lot of this has to do with the fact that Lisa and Phil did not go through this thing with us this summer. They were not present. My mother? She was present. Blake and I were talking about it last night and he said that Phil and Lisa can very easily put things into the categories of “their shit” and “our shit” and my REALLY FUCKING SERIOUS ILLNESS was most definitely put into the category of “their shit”. My mother was incapable of making that distinction. Therein lies the difference. Doing my mother’s house for Boxing Day has been a tradition since I was about 11. We don’t do it on Boxing Day anymore because it’s just too much at one time to do 2 Xmases back to back with the kids, but it’s still a tradition, it still feels the same (to me anyway) to do Xmas with my mom 3 days after Xmas as it did when I was 12 to do it Boxing Day. It may feel different to my mom, who still has Xmas dinner at her mom’s on Xmas Day despite the fact that my mother loves Xmas more than any other day of the year and (I think) would really love to host her own Xmas dinner one day, as she has her entire life because of that goddamn “M” word again: matriarchy. But I don’t know.

All I know, as I look at my great grama’s angel on my itty bitty tree, is that maybe, just maybe, I would like to decorate my own tree with my own decorations next year. Because really, what am I supposed to do with the ornaments my kids bring home from school every year that I’ve been collecting them since they were small, give them to Lisa to put on her tree? Because what’s the point, I’ve always wondered, of putting up our own tree when we don’t have Xmas here and we don’t really have room for one? I could give them to my mom and my mom would probably appreciate them, but my mom’s got very specific tastes when it comes to Xmas and decorating a tree (we, the kids, would decorate the Xmas tree in the afternoon and my mom would re-decorate it after we went to bed, I’m sure she would deny this, but one year I saw her do it and I know she wasn’t the only mom in the world who did the same thing) and I think my kids’ homemade ornaments would be best served on my own tree. And I think the best-tasting turkeys are free ones from our grocery store, lovingly prepared by Blake with mashed potatoes made by Madison and green beans microwaved by Wes. And fuck it, we can clean up the mess tomorrow.

This year plans haven’t been finalized, but this is how I think things are going to go (and it’s no big deal if they don’t): Deanna is coming up tomorrow around 1pm. She’s bringing the kids presents because she’s a nice person. She’s also bringing up presents from my cousin Haylie because she’s a nice person too. After work, Alex and Ronny are coming over. We will sit in my office or living room and shoot the shit until Deanna has to drive home to Uxbridge. Then Alex & Ronny will go home and we’ll have dinner like we do every night. We’ve invited Alex & Ronny to sleep over on Xmas Eve but I’m not sure yet if they’re going to. The idea is that they’ll be here Xmas morning (which can happen whether or not they sleep over, but I’m sure the kids would appreciate it if they were here as early as possible) and we’ll all have a big breakfast together. The kids will open presents (as I’ve mentioned, Blake and I aren’t getting each other anything and we don’t exchange gifts with Ronny & Alex – although I am making something for Alex and giving it to her on Xmas, but that’s only because she’s my friend and I like her and she’s going to be here on Xmas and I can’t get it done by tomorrow, it’s not an Xmas gift), I don’t know if Ronny & Alex will exchange gifts with each other. No big deal to us either way. After breakfast, Wes and Madison will do the dishes and Blake will get started on the turkey while Alex and Ronny and me do whatever in my office. Then later we’ll all eat Xmas dinner, Alex & Ronny will go home and the best part? We won’t have to stress out our dogs or ourselves and, if they choose, when Ronny and Alex have their own house or apartment, they can choose if they want to host Xmas for their family OR they can come to our house OR any number of things because it doesn’t matter! We’ll be doing what we do, the more the merrier, but no big deal if it’s just us. THE END.

See how easy that is? No guilt trips. No “well they got us X last year so we’d better spend Y on them this year”. No annoying brats (for many many years at least). Happy dogs that won’t barf on the way anywhere and who won’t have to sleep on a dirty blanket on a cold, concrete floor (and people who understand that there are 7 members of our family, not 4). OUR *OWN* LEFTOVERS (turkey and stuffing is probably my favourite food, followed closely by turkey sandwiches with mayo and pepper). A reason to put up our own tree and decorate it with our own ornaments. A reason to make our own ornaments (and not just to give them away). And that’s just the stuff I can think of!

And if Lisa wants to be the matriarch of her family, she can be one! And Phil can put all the pine nuts he wants in his own stuffing and feed his own family as many casseroles as he can come up with.  And they can trim their own tree with all the ornaments that Raili and Rachael come home from school with. And they can believe in Santa Claus. And Phil can go snowmobiling Xmas Day and Boxing Day and the day after that and the day after that and the day after that…! And they can all put up with each other and I don’t have to feel like shit on the one holiday where I’m supposed to feel anything but! THAT’S WHAT I WANT FOR XMAS! NOT A FUCKING TOASTER OVEN!

So once the dust settles from this year’s festivities and we survey how things went, this is probably what’s going to happen and I won’t lie to you guys. The majority of the reason for this is because A) where were they when I was pretty fucking close to death? and I’m sorry but if you weren’t there for me then, you never will be and if you never will be, then fuck off and B) you don’t pull this passive-aggressive bullshit on me when I have no other fucking choice. Lisa didn’t reply to Blake’s e-mail for 3 or 4 days and then replied with “oh by the way, your shit’s on a bus, Merry Christmas”. Compromising, like maybe them coming here for Xmas this year, didn’t even enter the equation. Or even saying “that’s okay, we understand, hopefully next year will be better!” Nope, just thinly veiled animosity.

So fuck it. I’ll spend my pre-Xmas afternoons making hand-painted ornaments for my son for my tree. Fine by me.

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(*Wes only this year and only because we told him. We didn’t have the money for “Santa presents” this year, or stocking stuffers and we knew there would only be maybe one more year of him still believing anyway so Blake told him. Also – and I’ve always thought this – why should Santa get all the credit for what *I* do? That’s retarded! We work hard to give our kids a good Xmas and to get them the things they want, some mythical being shouldn’t get all the cred. and cut into our Xmas budget. And don’t gimme that Jesus crap being the “reason for the season” either, grace has never been uttered in this house on any occasion.)

SICK.

Thanks, Bel. <3

Just thought I’d share! Again.

Today has really really sucked. First of all, I woke up at 4am with diarrhea. Again. And I decided that since I was up, I might as well eat an apple stick. To the uninitiated, an apple stick is this awesome apple pastry, like strudel, that comes in the shape of a tube about an inch & a half in diameter by about 6 or 7 inches in length with chunky sugar sprinkled on top. They are DELICIOUS and only available at one chain of stores here, which happens to be the type of grocery store we have here in town. The ones Blake bought me yesterday were baked yesterday so they are EXTRA DELICIOUS. So yeah, that? Was the highlight of my day. It was pretty much all downhill from there. Sort of. Bittersweet may be the better term, but when you wake up with urgent shits and fail to make the bathroom, and that trend continues throughout the day, it’s a little hard to be Miss Mary Sunshine.

A couple of weeks ago Blake got me salmon steaks from the big, good grocery store in Barrie that I love so much because it’s humongous and it has an actual meat counter, not just a tank of lobsters, not just a deli, but an honest to god meat counter with kickass steaks and kickass salmon steaks.

Blake bought two of them, which the butcher wrapped in butcher’s paper and I told Blake to freeze them without knowing they were wrapped together in butcher’s paper. I am the only person in this house who will eat fish (the kids will eat shrimp, according to my step-mom, but I’ve never seen it) because the kids don’t like it and Blake has a possible allergy to it where he doesn’t like it and it’s been known to give him the shits/make him throw up so he’s more or less avoided it his whole life so I was kinda pissed when I saw that he froze BOTH of them in the butcher paper when I have a hard time eating ONE, you can’t refreeze them after they’re thawed and you should eat them within a day of thawing naturally, immediately if defrosting in the nukrowave. So once I realized they were frozen together and spazzed on Blake, we asked the kids if they’d be interested in trying it and they said they would be, so we decided that in order for them to try it, I would pretty much have to wait until a weekend to have mine, which was fine.

Well today was that day.

As it turned out the steaks were individually wrapped in plastic inside the butcher’s paper so I basically spazzed on Blake for nothing (how was I supposed to know?) and much to my surprise, considering his lifelong aversion to all things that swim, when I asked him to cook them for me, he agreed and since he’s a million times better at cooking EVERYTHING than I am, he cooked them perfectly (just fried in olive oil with salt & pepper) and I absolutely loved mine. The kids weren’t so much fans, but they both tried it. Wes thought it was disgusting while Madison was more thoughtful about it (“good, but the aftertaste ruined it”) and much to my surprise again, Blake said he was going to try it. He said it tasted really good but at the end of his trial his gag reflex got set off, so he only had that one bite. He didn’t feel sick afterward though and he doesn’t have the shits to my knowledge so maybe with some practice we can get him eating salmon steaks with me because they are delicious and very very good for you.

After lunch we internetted for a while when suddenly I got it in my head that I NEEDED fizzy Skittles. I love fizzy Skittles. Hell, I love non-fizzy Skittles too. So Blake went to the store to get me fizzy Skittles and berry Skittles and a slush. A cherry slush.

So Blake got those and came home and then I sent him out to get pumpkins so we can carve them tomorrow and I can bake the seeds. The seeds make me poo fantastically so I’m very much looking forward to eating them. Not too firm, not too runny, just perfect poos. I highly recommend pumpkin seeds if you have any type of poo problem. As Blake (and Madison) were getting pumpkins, Wes and I were eating Skittles and I was washing them down with my slush.

This was a mistake.

Blake and Madison come home. I’m internetting and eating Skittles. Washing them down with slush. Blake started playing Arkham City and I got tired of eating Skittles so I put them away and continued my internetting for about half an hour, maybe 45 minutes. Then I started screaming for Blake to find my bowl (it was in my office) because I was dangerously close, without warning, to puking all over myself, my computer and the bed. He ran and got my bowl, I grabbed it and filled that thing within centimetres of the top.

My vomit tasted like cherry and Skittles and had the texture of salmon steak. It was the sickest thing I’ve thrown up so far. And I don’t know why I barfed it all up, I followed all the rules:

1. Eat things that aren’t very greasy. Check.
2. Eat them slowly. Check.
3. Eat small snacks, spaced out throughout the day. Check.

I’m even wearing that godawful girdle binder Dr. Hanrahan wants me to wear to keep my guts squished in and aligned. Blake picked it up this morning and it’s horrible. My waist isn’t long enough for the stupid thing so it’s either digging into my hips when I sit or digging into my underboobage. And the fucking thing was $50! If anyone would like to help us out with the expense of that because we’re down to one income and ran out of donated money about a month ago, there’s a donation button on the bottom right-hand corner of my site. I hate to sound like I’m begging and I’m not really, this was just an expense we weren’t prepared for at a time when there’s no money for extra expenses. And not that one has anything to do with the other but I’m going to thank everyone who donated before, here, because I’m on a lot of drugs and can’t remember if I already thanked everyone in a previous post while I was still in the hospital. I honestly have no idea how we would have gotten through until now without those donations.

Blah. I’ll shut up about money now. This post isn’t about money.

Tomorrow Blake’s going to look at the binder and see if we can use Madison’s pinking shears to take an inch & a half or so off of it so it’ll fit properly.  My guts really hurt when it was first put on this morning but throughout the afternoon it started feeling…almost normal? I mean, it feels like I’m wearing a girdle but admittedly my guts hurt less with it on then without it. Without it I look about 6 months pregnant with a square baby because my guts have drifted out of place to either side of my abdomen, the binder brings them back to the middle and the goal is to keep wearing the binder until I have my wound/hernia surgery so it’s easier for Dr. Hanrahan to make me normal again.

Well, as normal as I get anyway. Physically normal.

No word from the pseudocyst surgeon yet. Waiting, waiting, waiting…I feel like that’s what my life has become. I am *SO* worried that if surgery and recovery (main surgery not the pseudocyst one) don’t happen soon enough I’ll lose my already slim shot at getting my job back. And I’m really really scared about what that means. I can’t just go out and get another job! And Blake’s been putting a lot of pressure on me to do everything in my power to get it back because we’re pretty much fucked if I don’t. And it would be really nice to not have that stress. I’ve never been able to contribute financially to the household by selling paintings because I don’t sell enough of them and I have no idea HOW to sell more of them. I feel like I’m doing everything I can already. It was nice having a job because that meant there was no pressure on me to paint what was profitable, I could paint what I wanted to, but now that’s gone.

Guh. This post is not about money. This post is not about money. This post is not about money.

Alex @replied me on Twitter tonight to tell me that it’s a really small friggin’ world. Siske, my nurse, has told me about her daughter many times before and as it turns out WE KNOW HER DAUGHTER. She’s really good friends with Ronny and Alex and we met her at their wedding! Weird, right? I can’t get over it! She never told me enough to put 2 + 2 together and chances are I wouldn’t have anyway because I’ve only met her daughter once, but it’s crazy to me all the same.

And speaking of Siske, she’s going to have my ass up early tomorrow morning to change my dressing so I should probably finish this post and go to bed. Before I do though, here are some pics from the bed, mostly of Pixel because I thought Phaedie would like them:

I took this pic because Madison claims these toys were sent by someone on the internet but neither of us can remember who or if that’s even true, so if you remember giving these to Madison, please let me know!

I have no idea what she’s doing in the above picture.

And in case you didn’t get enough Pixel today, here are a couple of videos. The first is Madison and Pixel being best friends and the second is Madison and Pixel playing with ribbon.

And last, but certainly not least, I leave you with Blake attempting to sing “Miss World” by Hole while playing guitar. Enjoy and goodnight!

Jen.

I hate to bring this up again, but…

Apparently she’s lost a shit tonne of weight due to not living with Jesse the junk food monger anymore and she’s back in beauty school. Basically she’s got her life back in order.

Here’s the thing: I genuinely miss Jen as a friend. She was a very good friend to me, she just did something that was pretty unforgivable, at least in the version I was told.

It’s been 2 years since I’ve spoken to her and every time Blake runs into her, I agonize over whether or not I should be straight with her and say, “Hey, listen, this is why we’re not friends any more and I don’t know what to do about it because I miss having you as a friend but that’s pretty unforgivable.” At least give her a chance to tell her side of the story.

However, knowing Jen she won’t take any responsibility for what happened. None of it will be her fault. And then we won’t really be anywhere except kinda where we are now, except at least she’d know that I know what happened. Is that better?

The last time I had this conundrum was the end of August, when she reached out to say that she’d been on my site and that she saw I’d been sick and that she was glad I was doing better. That post was previously friends-only, but I made it public for the sake of *this* post. Back then a few friends seemed to think that having a friendship with her again was possible. Others said that what she did was unforgivable, to just send a generic response and leave her in the past. My best friend, Alex, was in the latter group and being my best friend, her opinion carries a lot of weight.

I think about having friends over and how uncomfortable it might be to have Jen and Alex and Ronny in the same room, with all of us knowing what Jen did and I feel like putting this whole thing out of my mind, but Blake keeps running into her in town – it’s inevitable in a town this small – so this question just keeps coming back up: should I let Jen back into my life?

Blake thinks I should, but he doesn’t have the passion for animals that I have and can forgive someone doing something so fucking stupid. He can see where she was coming from.

I think enough time has going by that maybe, just maybe, I could forgive her for what she did, as long as I heard her side of the story. I mean, let’s look at the facts:

- She didn’t clean out the guinea pig’s cage which lead to infected sores on its stomach and it was suffering.
- She didn’t want to take it to the vet because A) she was broke and B) she didn’t want to get charged with animal cruelty (she wouldn’t have been, probably, but I can understand the paranoia, especially in a person who smoked a lot of pot) or be judged as a bad pet owner.
- So, she tried, with the help and support of her friend, to end the animal’s suffering without incriminating herself in any way.

I can understand this chain of thoughts. Was it stupid? Absofuckinglutely.  Was it cruel? No doubt, but here’s my next question: Was the cruelty intentional? I don’t think so. I think that’s the exact opposite thing they were trying to achieve. I think that Jen was presented with a novel scenario by her friend Carolyn who probably said something to the effect of, “I know how to put it to sleep and I know how to get the material to do so and it’ll be totally harmless!”, which would be a very attractive proposition to someone in Jen’s situation.

So was this an act of animal cruelty or an act of having too much faith in your friend? Yes, she neglected the guinea pig, that’s all on her and yes, she knew what she should have done (take it to the vet for treatment, obviously), especially in hindsight, but like I said, it probably seemed like a good idea at the time.

Who among us hasn’t done something monumentally stupid that you wish you could take back? If she told me that this thing she and Carolyn did was monumentally stupid and she wished she could take it back, would that be enough to forgive her? I’m asking you, the reader, my friends, would that be enough? What if she added that she didn’t speak to or have anything to do with Carolyn anymore? Would that be enough?

I’m thinking that might be enough for me. Maybe. A person grows a lot in 2 years, especially in their 20s, and from Blake’s reports, she has. She’s not the same old, pathologically lying Jen. Or at least that’s the case by the sounds of things.

If we were to have a relationship again though, it would have to start slowly. Like, we’d add each other on Facebook and interact that way for a while. Then she’d come over and we’d go from there.

My big fear in all of this is Alex. Alex not understanding how I could forgive Jen. Alex not wanting to be here if Jen’s here. ALex feeling uncomfortable if Jen’s here. Alex, being my best friend, is my #1 priority and if she says “you’re crazy, she doesn’t deserve our forgiveness” (because it is very much *our* forgiveness, not just *mine*), then that’s it, she doesn’t deserve our forgiveness. End of story.

So I guess that’s where things stand. I think Jen’s side of the guinea pig story is worth hearing and of course posting, since Jesse’s side was posted publicly and then I guess we’d go from there – unless the overwhelming response to this post is that I should continue to ignore her, with Alex’s opinion being about 75% and “other” 25%. (No pressure, Alex…) And of course, opinions on the matter don’t have to be public, you can e-mail me: Sunny@SunnyCrittenden.com

And now I think I’m going to stop writing and go work on my sketchbook. Have I mentioned how much I love my Inktense pencils? Because I do. I love them immensely. I want to live in a sexless marriage with them only to have them get fed up with the sexless part and leave me for another woman, but dammit, it would be glorious while it lasted, the art we could create together…*sigh*

Inktense pencils and domperidone. This is my world. This is my life.

So we didn’t go to Mother Mother. Saturday afternoon I threw up and I just didn’t feel up to going so we didn’t. I didn’t feel up to doing anything else, so we didn’t do that either. Then Sunday was completely uneventful. I basically sat in bed and read the entirety of Hyperbole & a Half. I’d read some of her blog posts before because people would link to them on Facebook and various other places but I’d never really checked out her site. This had me laughing so hard my guts hurt because y’know, they’re all out of place and stuff (click to enlarge):

Anyway, it wasn’t entirely a horrible way to spend a weekend. Arguably, Mother Mother would have been a good thing to do Saturday night but my logic was that A) I didn’t want to puke in public, B) I don’t particularly like the new album which I assumed they’d primarily be performing from, C) I didn’t want to take my 9pm meds in a dark club with a $5 glass of Coke (it would take me two, minimum, to get them all down) and D) I just flat out didn’t want to go.

Anyway, enough about that, it’s in the past. Let’s look at the present!

I took some more stupid “Scenes From the Bed” pictures today, some of which are pretty graphic and one of which Blake actually took because I don’t possess an ethereal body with which to take a picture above myself. Was that a tip off? That’s right kids! Today was Siske day and we took lots of new cheese pizza pics!

But first, here’s Blake being retarded with an extra medallion. These are the tubes that connect to my vac dressing and then connects to the vac machine.

Cute Lucky is cute.

This is my set up.
I think it’s all pretty self explanatory.
It’s not usually lit up this much but Siske needs the light to change my vac dressing.

Medical supplies all over the bed.

More medical supplies.
Siske likes to make a mess all over me.

This is my cheese pizza wound stewing in gauze soaked with acetic acid, which is basically vinegar.

I’m going to use a cut tag here for the squeamish.

(more…)

So my brilliant idea of doing a series of photos from my bed in the living room hasn’t been going so well, mostly because the lighting in here fucking sucks, but also because really? Not much happens from my vantage point and my four-legged subjects don’t often cooperate.

After this post I think I’m still going to take pictures from the bed but unless there are some really interesting ones, I don’t think I’m going to bother cropping and posting them. So here are the first set of pics, you decide if they’re interesting or not:

In the pic above, you can see my loving husband Blake, the towel my nurse uses so I don’t get soaked with saline and blood while she changes my vac dressing, my barf bowl (because my stomach is VERY sensitive now for reasons no one’s too clear on) and my awesomely blinged out mouse.

More Blake, because I love him. <3

I bet I’m on Facebook more than any other living person on planet Earth. And I don’t even play Farmville.

Blake’s guitar. Mine’s beside it (black Hello Kitty Strat! that I totally don’t know how to play!) but you can’t see it from the bed.

A somewhat blurry Lucky laying in front of my walker.

Madison and Blake. I forget why they were both looking at me.

My living room night table. We’ve got (from L to R):
- My super awesome wake-up light
- Tweezers
- Bottle of Tylenol 3
- Kleenex
- The remote for the fan
- Floss
- My glasses
- My phone
- Glasses cleaner
- Glasses case
- (At the back) TV remote on a pile of books
-  Shotglass containing hydromorph contin and colace
- Freezie mug likely full of limeade or 5-Alive
-  Mirror
- To the very right, beside the mug, you can see part of my vac machine

Exciting stuff!

Vac dressing from my vantage point.

Wes playing video games on some website called Poptropica.

And last but not least, the window I can’t see SHIT out of due to all those damn leaves!
Although even if the leaves weren’t there, I don’t think I’d see much but a field.

So there ya have it, scenes from my bed.

In other news, this week I stayed home by myself for the first time while Blake went to work. He works from home on the days Siske comes so he can wrangle the dogs if need be and help clean up afterward or get things for her after she’s put on her sterile gloves – stuff I can’t just do myself. Then on the days Siske *isn’t* here, he goes to work in Toronto and with the kids in school, that means I’m left to my own devices.

I was really nervous about the prospect but I stayed home by myself for 2 days this week and nothing bad happened so I’m not as worried about it as I was before. My big fear was someone coming to the door because I can’t go down the stairs to answer the door and if it was something like a heavy Amazon box, I wouldn’t be able to take it from the delivery person and put it somewhere because I just don’t have the strength. Also? I wear a hospital gown 95% of the time, which is open in the back and isn’t the most flattering thing in the world and I don’t exactly want strangers to see me in it.

But no one came to the door and Blake put a note on the door telling delivery people to just leave the packages at the door, so I don’t have to worry about it.

My other big fear was falling but now I know I can get up if I fall (as long as there’s something to hold onto and really, that’s everywhere) and really, prior to getting sick, how often did I fall in my own home? Like, never. So why would it be any different now? It’s true that I’m a little unstable on my feet just because I’ve only been walking on my own for about a month, but I only fell once at the hospital and that was after I’d been walking on my own for only a few days. Sooooo, I’m not really worried about falling anymore.

My first day home alone kinda sucked because I woke up to no internet. I instructed Madison on how to reset the modem by unplugging the power cord but she DIDN’T FUCKING LISTEN (which has been a problem with her recently) and she pulled out not just the power cord but the ethernet cable too, which she only loosely plugged back in so long story short, the internet could have come back on 5 minutes later but I wouldn’t have known about it because she fucked up the cords. It was only by fluke that I hobbled out of bed and checked them myself at around NOON and found that she hadn’t plugged the ethernet cable back in and when I plugged it in, I had internet seconds later. I could have killed her because really, the only thing I can do from this bed is use the internet or watch TV and I don’t watch TV very much, especially not during the day, so I ended up letting the hydromorph win and I took a nap instead.

But then! After I woke up and checked all my internet stuffs, I got hungry and I wanted Kraft Dinner but it was on the 2nd shelf in the kitchen cupboards and I can’t reach that shelf without a chair. So I got a chair and I put it right below where the Kraft Dinner is and I went to stand on it but my muscles aren’t strong enough yet to propel myself on one leg and onto the chair. I was afraid I’d fall and hurt myself if I attempted to do anything further so I put the chair back and got a fork, which I used to knock the Kraft Dinner onto it’s long edge, then I dug the fork into the seam of the top of the box and pulled and then I could reach it that way. THIS IS BECAUSE I’M A GENIUS.

I feel like a moron saying this, but making Kraft Dinner took a lot out of me. And then when it was finished cooking, I took about 5 mouthfuls and didn’t want any more.

On Blake’s way home he stopped at the “good” grocery store where they make the best pre-made salads and he got me a caesar salad to have the next time he went to work.

So on my 2nd day home alone, I figured I was all set for lunch because I had this caesar salad where all I had to do was add the packet of dressing, the packet of croutons and then shake it up but after I did that and took a bite, I immediately felt nauseous because it was just so gross. It’s not the salad’s fault, it was a perfectly good caesar salad, it’s just that apparently I don’t like caesar salad anymore which is just one more thing to add to the list. Blake ended up eating it that night for dinner and meanwhile the only thing I could find in the kitchen for lunch that I actually felt like eating was grapes, so that’s what I had for lunch that day.

Again, that day was pretty uneventful. All I did was nap (twice, because I take the hydromorph in the morning, then again at 2pm and it makes me sleepy – most of the time I fight it off, but if I’m bored, or more to the point, depressed, I just let sleep take over) and refresh Facebook and Google + about 5,000 times. I also posted a lot on the Camwhores forum. (By the way, I have 10 free trials, no credit card necessary, to Camwhores if anyone wants them. All you have to do is comment with your e-mail address, one that’s never received a free trial before, and I’ll send it to you. First come, first served. An added bonus to these free trials is that even after it expires, your account remains active, albeit in a limited capacity. You can still see the cams, just not the full archives, you can still chat on the tagboard and you can still post on the forums. I’m not sure if you can vote, I think so though. The only thing you really can’t do is see the archives past 12 images or watch live or archived streaming shows. Anyway, like I said, comment with your e-mail address and I’ll send them out!)

I think next week we’re going to do the same as this week with Blake working from home on Siske days and going into the office on non-Siske days. I’m not worried about this at all because nothing’s going to happen. I’m still uneasy about being alone with Siske though because I can’t wrangle the dogs (what if one got out? that would be a nightmare!) and the least we can do is clean up after her because we appreciate what she does for me, although technically I believe it’s her job to clean up after herself. Plus there’s the fact that she’s basically a stranger and I don’t feel comfortable with strangers in my house at all, but especially if I have to be alone with them. Eventually I’m going to have to get over this because Blake IS expected to be at work every day, it’s just that today is not that day. This week is not that week. I don’t know when it will be, maybe the week after this one, but we’re playing it by ear.

Tomorrow night we’re going to Toronto to see Mother Mother. When I was in the hospital, I was worried that I wouldn’t get out in time to go to this show and then when I did get out, I didn’t think I *could* go to this show for a number of reasons.

1. The show is at Sound Academy which is a big but essentially shitty venue because the floor is level so if you’re short and at the back, you can’t see anything and with my walker, I would have to be at the back. There IS a platform with tables and chairs on it but getting a table is next to impossible and there’s a big column in your way anyway. Also I wouldn’t be able to stand on the platform because I need my walker.

2. For obvious reasons, I couldn’t be in the pit or even in the crowd.

3. I can’t stand for long periods of time and there’s nowhere to sit, period, let alone somewhere to sit and still be able to see anything.

4. What the hell would I wear? Because my guts are swollen and all displaced, I look about 6 or 7 months pregnant and I don’t exactly have maternity clothes I could wear!

But Blake being Blake found a solution to most of these problems. He called the venue and asked about wheelchair accessibility and as it turns out there is an area to the left of the stage that’s sectioned off specifically for gimps like me and when Blake explained that I can’t stand for long periods of time, they said there would be a chair waiting for me when I got there. Problem solved. We’re going to get there early so there’s not too much of a crowd and we’re supposed to ask for a specific person when we get there who will get me set up in the designated area.

As for what to wear, I think I solved that problem when I went to see my shrink earlier this week. I have this awesome pair of black, drawstring yoga pants that my mother-in-law got me years ago that I absolutely love so when I went to my shrink I wore those, tied below my belly because there’s a hose connected to my (normal) bellybutton region which is totally in the way, and then I paired it with a grey, v-neck t-shirt that Charlie got me from Old Navy (which you can see in my recent cam pics) and over top of all that, I wore this grey, knitted hoodie with faux fur trim on the hood that I have. Casual but classy. Normally I would NEVER wear anything that casual to a show, that’s usually when I pull out all my Free People clothes, but right now I don’t really have much of a choice. I’m fine with it, though. Totally not a big deal. After everything I’ve been through over the summer and the indignities imposed upon me, I honestly could not give an entire shit as to what anyone at this show thinks of what I’m wearing.

So, with all problems solved, we’re going to see Mother Mother tomorrow! And while I was mopey today and basically decided not to go, now I’m thinking it’s a good idea. And so does my shrink and Siske. My shrink prescribed me more Ativan, which I’ll get Blake to pick up for me tomorrow and with that and a bit of lipstick, I should be pretty good to go!

And I think that’s all I’ve got in me for tonight. Have yourselves a lovely weekend and I’ll probably write more on Monday.

This morning I had a rude awakening.

I woke up, peed, brushed my teeth, washed my hair and then I went into my office and sat down at my computer and within seconds, Blake messaged me saying that some of the kids at school had told Madison that they’d seen our dogs on the street and then he told me that Madison was out looking for them.

So I checked the house and Hoover was here but Lucky wasn’t.

For those who don’t know, my dogs are VERY important to me. They are my other two children, especially Lucky because he’s more my dog while Hoover’s more Blake’s dog. So with Lucky missing, I was very distressed because when the dogs get out, which happens sometimes because our gate blows open, they always come back because they know where they live so for him not to have come back meant that potentially something bad had happened to him.

Madison comes into the house without Lucky so she grabbed his leash and went looking for him again but came home empty-handed. We sat outside and cried for a little bit because we were scared he was hurt in a ditch somewhere, then we heard the phone ring and it was a local ring so Madison ran into the house to answer it.

It was the vet’s office and they asked if we had a dog named Lucky, so I said “yes” and asked if he was alright because if he was hurt, someone would probably take him to the vet. She said he was fine and that he was at a person’s house right around the corner from us.

So, Madison went to get him and thanked the girls who had him profusely and brought him home. Now he’s exhausted and sleeping under the couch in my office while Hoover sleeps ON the couch in my office.

To be honest, if the girls hadn’t have brought him to their house he would have come home eventually, but I’m grateful they kept him safe because I was FREAKING.

So happy ending. Yay! Blake’s going to bring home a $20 bill and I have note cards here with dogs on them and he’s going to drop it off for them after he gets home.

Last night we got 5 pictures out of 19 done for The Fiction Project. I started at around 3:30pm and it took until 10:30pm to get them done, but if I do a few each night and then on the weekend, I should be ready. The only problem is that the book should have a cover but I don’t know if I’ll have enough time to make one. It wouldn’t be the end of the world to not have one, but still…

In yoga on Monday, I found a new thing to hate. It’s called “chaturanga” and it fucking SUCKS becaude I have no core or upper arms strength to speak of and I’m also afraid of breaking my toes. Watch this girl’s toes when she does it:

Yeah I’m not doing that one any time soon. She had us try to do it like 5 times and I cheated every single time by lowering myself down all the way because there’s no way I could hold myself in low plank that long or even AT ALL. Plus, I hate plank with a burning passion because I just can’t hold myself as long as she tells us to so fuck THAT.

Speaking of FUCK THAT, I found a button on Etsy that says “FUCK YOGA” that I’m seriously considering buying because that’s my general yoga attitude until I’m there and doing it and then I feel fantastic afterward. But getting to class is always a big “if” because I never want to do it, it sucks, and I hate it – that is, until I’m actually doing it, then I’m glad I went.

So as I’ve mentioned, my friend Amy works for a non-profit teen drop-in centre called The Neutral Zone, which is a safe haven for kids who need one and they’re in a contest with the Bank of Ann Arbor to win some much needed funding. That’s where you come in.

On Facebook, go to the Bank of Ann Arbor’s fan page and vote for Teen Centre Inc. (The Neutral Zone) by selecting them and answering the question, which this week is ““Give a shout out to your favourite Sweet 15 Charity”. Vote every day for them by adding the app until May 12th so they can get a higher ranking and therefore get more money. If you do this, you would be doing a HUGE favour to me and my friend Amy and the kids that are helped by having this safe haven to go to.

It only takes a few clicks every day and it’s 100% for charity. Please help us! Don’t think of it as helping a friend of a friend who you don’t know from Adam, you’re helping out a children’s charity. Thanks in advance. GO TEAM GO!

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Help RAPS win $25,000!

Yep another one. Now I know what you’re thinking, that I’ve already got you clicking for The Neutral Zone but this is equally as important to me and so is the person behind it.

My friend Phaedie loses one of her friends at least once a week. That’s because she works for a high-capacity cat sanctuary in Richmond, British Columbia, run by the Richmond Animal Protection Society, and unfortunately feline leukemia and feline AIDS is a part of the job, especially when dealing with such close quarters.

To keep cats out of shelters, people need to spay and neuter their pets and that’s what RAPS is aiming to do with Pepsi Canada’s Refresh Project contest. Their aim, with the $25,000 to be won, is to help low-income families spay, neuter and vaccinate their pets in order to help curb the already problematic business of sick, unwanted pets.

So how can you help? It’s easy. Click here and vote. You can sign in using Facebook connect so it really does only take 2 clicks and you’d be making a world of difference for animals and their people. Plus you’d be making Phaedie and I incredibly happy.

We need to try and get them to #1 or #2 as only the top 2 spots receive funding. I know people don’t have money to give to every charity that comes their way, but if you’d normally be clicking on Farmville crops anyway, please use your mouse-fingers for this as well and help make a difference in the world. Thanks.

The contest voting is until June 30th, it’s a daily vote and I’ll be posting every few days to remind you to vote in case you forget.