In Which Dirtbunny's Principles Turn Out to Be Fairly Bendy

Originally posted on December 15, 2012

1.  It's no secret:  I have diabetes and I am on insulin.  I have some that I carry back and forth to work, but I keep it in a mini-fridge under my desk and sometimes I forget to bring it home.  Like yesterday.
2.  Missing a shot or two is not always a big deal, but sometimes it can make me feel really sick.
3.  When I realized I had forgotten to bring it home last night at about 8pm, Mr. D offered to drive me into the city to retrieve it.  I wanted desperately to go to sleep, so I took a pass and decided to wait it out.
4.  At midnight, I woke up burning up, agitated, twitchy, trembly, and freaked out by nightmares.  I have miscalculated.  The missed injections have made me sick.  I have to go in to retrieve the insulin.  No problem.  I'll just do it.
5.  Problem.  Mr. D is still up and he offers to drive me in.  I should turn him down, but I don't.  He drives me in.  He tells me gently that he's irked that we didn't take care of this 4 hours earlier when he offered before.  He's right, of course.
6.  The whole transaction takes about 45 minutes and all is well.
7.  This morning, I'm feeling appreciative, so I offer to make Mr. D whatever he wants for dinner.
8.  I should have seen this coming.  He wants meatballs and rigatoni, his absolute favorite.
9.  I've been experimenting with veganism this fall.  I haven't cooked meat in months (except to make Kirby dinner, but that's another drama.)  After beating myself up for a while, I decided to give up on being a vegan until after the holidays.  I'm a pretty serious cook.  I can adapt to no eggs and no meat, but dairy butter plays a big part in baking.  Especially holiday baking, in which I might go through 7-8 pounds of butter making breads and sweets.  I did not adjust to non-dairy butter in time to forgo dairy butter, but I can try again later when traditional butter/sugar bombs are less of an obsession.
10.  Despite the vegan thing, and lately, the vegetarian thing, I turn out to have no misgivings at all about making meatballs.  Ground mix with beef, pork, and veal?  No problem.
11.  However, while at the market, I read all the labels on the granola, and I buy the one that's vegan.  The only thing that keeps granola from being vegan is honey and I'm not convinced so far that exploiting honeybees is the moral equivalent of exploiting cows.
12.  I come home with about 4 pounds of fresh ricotta, because they haven't had any for a while and now I can make a cheesecake, lots of parmesan, butter, eggs, cream, Ghirardelli products that contain milk solids, gelatin (which I haven't bought in years because the thought of where it comes from disgusts me so much), a pound and a half of mascarpone, a mini-ham, ice cream, and a bunch of different holiday candy things that contain God-knows-what.  And other stuff too.  But, and this is important, I bought vegan granola.

Veal? Yes.  Gelatin?  Absolutely.  Something like 8 pounds of cheese?  You better believe it.

But vegan granola.

A Day of Dirtbunny

Originally posted on January 10, 2012



5:45 am:  Alarm goes off.  Hit snooze.
5:52 am:  Alarm goes off.  Hit snooze
5:59 am:  Alarm goes off.  OK, OK, I'm up.  Go get Mac to see if anyone commented on yesterday's post.   No.  Look for transfer news, read a little real world news, decide Newt Gingrich is still a dick.  Mr. D comes in with my coffee, then he gets in bed and starts snoring.  Drink coffee.  Play one sudoku.  Decide not to play another because I'm about five minutes behind and I don't want to aggravate the beast within Mr. D.

Get in shower.  Contemplate speeding things up by not conditioning hair, but opt in favor of conditioner.  This turns out to be a wise decision.

Brush teeth.  Examine eyebrow.  Where is are my tweezers?  Mr. D has borrowed it to remove glass shards from the washing machine (don't ask) because he forgets we have needle-nose pliers for that.  Summing up:  he borrows it/them for an illicit purpose and then he doesn't return it/them.  Wash it/them carefully with alcohol and tend to eyebrow.

Start getting dressed.  What am I going to wear?  Put yesterday's dirty stuff in hamper.  What am I going to wear?  Can't put on pants until I've put lotion on my legs, and shouldn't really do that without doing my feet as well, and if I'm going to do my feet, which I really must, I'll want to put socks on immediately, so need to choose some socks before I can start any of this.  Before I can choose socks, I need to know what else I am going to wear so I can, you know, match, sort of.

Wretched

Summer continues to trudge along Chez Nous.  The farm box comes every Wednesday and the dogs beg for whatever might be in there, which lately has included a lot of kale.  You want kale?  OK, here you go:

They greedily grab it, chew it a few times, spit it out ("yuck") and then beg for more:

Another Yarn-Related Photo Dump

It was a month ago now, but I recently had a birthday.

For those of you who are new here, a birthday Chez Nous means a wicked yarn crawl.  What happens when you combine snow days, yarn crawls, startitis, and power outages?

Footie, Food, and Fiber

Footie

The World Cup is over, we have a winner, a loser or two,  a great number of national sides who deserve to be proud of themselves, and a handful of national sides who tolerate bad behavior from assholes but otherwise deserve to be proud of themselves.  There were--what?--33 matches?  32?  Dirtbunny watched them all.  All of them.  She has made a handful of new FC Dirtbunny call-ups based on what she saw. 

First, welcome Diego Benaglio, Swiss goalkeeper.  He's a monster.  grrrr.  Also, from the German national team, Arne Friedrich (an underappreciated defender), and--gulp--Bastian Schweinsteiger, warrior midfielder.  I know, I was really down on Schweini a few years ago, but he has won me over with his consistently good play and newly-mature attitude.  Also, he reformed the hair.

Second, welcome to the Uruguayan Diegos:  El capitano defender Diego Lugano, striker Diego Forlan, midfielder Diego Perez, and defender Diego Fucile.  The last one gets in because if I'm going to call up a bunch of Uruguayan Diegos, why not all of them?  It's fun to be arbitrary.  Oh, and welcome Xavi.  Your call-up is way overdue.

Layers of Ridiculous

Everything seems a little bit harder and slower than usual today.  This means that when I start puttering around, I'm going slow enough that Kirby is always right there.  (On good days when I move better, I can get three or four steps on him and sometimes he even gets lost.  Or he thinks I get lost.  Remember, with Kirby, you start with an unremarkable dog brain, and then you subtract for his mental disabilities, both organic and psychological.  If it isn't related to food, he can be really stupid, pobrecito.)

And I'm puttering around and Kirby is following me and I go into the bedroom to open the window because it is finally starting to warm up but then I can't remember why I'm in there and so I stop and Kirby looks up at me.  "Are we staying put?  Cos if we're staying put, I'm going to sit over there in the sunny spot."  And I say, "No Kirby, we're going back out.  But I'm coming back later to do some yogurt."

Then it occurs to me:

1.  One does not "do" yogurt.  One eats yogurt, and I am planning on having some later.  One "does" yoga.  Which is what I was trying to say to my dog.
2.  I was having an audible conversation--in English--with my dog. 
3.  And I felt bad for using the wrong word, because it might have confused him, so I started explaining that I misspoke.  To my dog.

Please don't tell my therapist.  She'll undoubtedly interpret this to mean that I don't get enough contact with other humanoid beings (The Man doesn't count, cos he won't talk to me unless I want him to leave me alone) and she'll yank the permission on the working-at-home gig.  And then I'll ignore her and continue anyway and every week I'll get an earful about whether this is really the right decision for me and how long has it been since I saw the shrink and pretty soon I'll start ditching just so I won't have to hear it and then the ditching will become a thing and then I'll rebel and probably stop taking my meds and who knows what will happen if I stop taking my meds.  Last time I did, I got a nice little charge from the idea that I was winning the power struggle, but an objective observer might say that it was not the best decision.

Oh yeah. That's why.....

Prologue

Last week I noticed that I needed new clothes. All of my warm-weather tops are old and faded. This one I never really liked because the collar is funny. That one has a little hole in it if you look hard enough. That other one has tiny little spots from a bleach accident. This one here suffered through an olive oil splatter. I can't wear these any more, especially not to work. I thought I didn't care how I looked, but I guess I do, at least a little.

It occurred to me that it's at least possible that I have something that fits in the downstairs closet where I keep the out-of-season clothes. I haven't looked in a couple of years because I have been going through a prolonged fuck-off phase. That's right. I've just been wearing the same three identical faded black tops over and over since at least 2008, maybe 2007. So I went and checked and lo and behold I discovered a whole stash of long-sleeve shirts in all of my favorite colors that I could have been wearing all along. Oh well. But even better, I also have a stash of non-faded, non-stained short-sleeve tops that I can wear this summer. Bonus! And half of them fit! Double bonus! I don't have to buy new clothes after all.

Friday afternoon

Did you know that your mouse won't work if you don't have it plugged into your laptop? It's true. Ask me how I know.

OK then. It has been a crappy week on Planet Dirtbunny. It started with weekend in which I was going to go into the office to do some catchin' up and I didn't. (Clarabelle: Fail. Again.) And then there was the Juve game. They were a-flyin' high after spanking Fulham 3-1 in the Europa League during the week, and all they had over the weekend was Siena at home. Siena is currently at the bottom of the table, so odds were good. It started out fine. ADP got a brace inside 8 minutes, and his tribuna fan club celebrated with new t-shirts that said 300 on the front and 301 on the back, cos they were ADP's 300th and 301st goals. Then Candreva, who is starting to grow on me ever so slightly, got a goal in minute 10 or 11 with a scorcher from distance. And after that, Juve gave up a three-goal lead and ended up with a draw, and one point. Inter lost (which never happens and must be exploited when it does). Milan won, but they are lookin' mighty shaky. Roma got a draw. Palermo lost. Napoli lost (thanks to la Viola). Juve could have made some progress up the table and gotten closer to securing a Champions League spot, but they failed to capitalize. At home. Against the worst team in the league. After going up 3-nil.

Yeah. So that was the weekend. On Monday I had my annual optometry appointment and I got my eyes dilated like I do every damn year, and that put me seriously out of sorts. On Tuesday, my enthusiastic new boss, who can never replace my beloved Bossboy who retired last month and left me all alone, decided to give the team and me some tips to improve our writing. That put my underpants in a bunch because nobody tells Dirtbunny her writing needs improvement. Ever. Dirtbunny's professional writing is fine exactly the way it is. She has been known and admired for it for 25 years. People come to Dirtbunny to learn how to improve. See? I'm getting pissed off all over again. So that shot Tuesday.

So Wednesday.  The Man did something inconsiderate, something we have had arguments about several times, and something he promised he would not do again. I decided to "let it go" which means I kept my mouth shut but stewed about it all day until I was convinced it was proof that I had never been and never would be loved. Plus I had a headache. And there was nothing for dinner because The Man failed to go to the grocery store last weekend and there was no food. (It's his job because he can stick to a list and I can't). So he got Mexican take-out, but it was one of those arbitrary meat-is-gross days so I had tortilla chips for dinner.

Thursday, I woke up sick from the tortilla chips and still nursing that headache, so I stayed home. I ended up in bed until about 11 am and there was still no food so I had popcorn for brunch. And I was PMS-y and hormonal, and I was expecting The Man to come home early but he didn't so I started watching the Juve-Fulham Eurpoa League second leg without him. It ended badly. Don't ask.

 *sigh*

Because The Man was four hours late coming home and because he took the car, I was unable to pick up a nice piece of fish for dinner, so we ended up with sucky Chinese food.



And today I worked at home. I felt better, but then my boss called me to ask a question and I got all paranoid because I thought maybe she was checking up on me.   And I started thinking ahead to the weekend and I realized that I will not be able to follow through on my plan to go into the office tomorrow and do a little catching up because they are running the National Marathon here in Our Nation's Capital and I won't be able to get anywhere near the office because of street closures. And I thought about Juve-Samp this weekend (uh oh) and I think the Reds are playing somebody important this weekend and that can't be good and the weatehr is going to be beautifully sunny and about 22 degrees and I can spend most of my time on the deck until I get a sunburn and that has got to be good for the Vitamin D problem and there still isn't any food in the house and then someone said something about Rose's Lime Juice and blahblahblah........

The upshot is, time to go to Balducci's to get something for dinner, something to dull the pain of the zebra-fail, and something for lunch tomorrow. And some strawberries because I have a hankerin'. And especially limes for the zebra-fail libations. So the work day is over and off I go.

I had a short list. Seriously. There were about six things on it.

I came home with six bags of groceries (this is why Mr. D does the shopping). I forgot the limes, though. I had to go back for limes. Sheesh.

And now I am on the deck, trying to read the screen of my laptop in the sunshine, monitoring the beagles who are both sunbathing, and drinking a G&T and I have a little plastic spear with a lime wedge and a maraschino cherry on it and I know that maraschino cherries don't go with G&T but I really don't give a flying fuck so there. The dogs have been waiting for this all day and so have I, pile of dirty laundry, unbalanced checkbook, and unreturned phone calls be damned.
 
And now   The Man is home.  Let the weekend commence.

Hellhole Roll Call

DB:  Let’s begin. Okay then. Dennis?


Dennis: Yo.

DB: Do you have the keys to my shed? We couldn’t get in there this weekend.

Dennis: Yeah. Sorry bout that.

DB: Gilberto?

Gilberto: Yes, ma’am.

DB: Happy Birthday.

Gilberto: Thank you.

Kirby:  I’m here. *trembles*

DB: I know sweetie.

Anxiety: BOO!

DB: Wait your turn. Carlos?

Carlos: Yes.

Kirby:  I’m here. *trembles*

DB: Jose?

Jose: Si.

Kirby:  I’m here. *trembles*

DB: Yes, Kirby. Mike?

Carlos: He’s coming later.

DB: OK.

Anxiety: Yayayayayayaya! *cackles*

DB: I said wait your turn.

Gilberto: Excuse me. May I show you something in the garage please?

DB: *sighs* Yes. I’ll be right there.


~pauses to examine garage~


DB: Okay. That was fun.

Kirby:  I’m here. *trembles*

Anxiety: NINETY NINE BOTTLE OF BEER ON THE WALL, NINETY-NINE BOTTLES OF BEEEEEEEERRRRRR...

DB: *ignores* Uncle Sam?

Uncle Sam: I’m here. You know it. I know it. The American people know it.

Kirby:  I’m here. *trembles*

DB: *pats Kirby*

Anxiety: TAKE ONE DOWN AND PASS IT AROUND, NINETY-NINE BOTTLES OF BEER ON THE WALL....

DB: Tiki?

Tiki: zzzzz, huh? food? wha? no? zzzzzzzz

Kirby:    I’m here. *trembles*

Anethea the dog walker: TEEEEEEEKEEEEEEEE! KIRRRRBEEEEEEE! WHERE’S MY BOYEEEEES?

Kirby: ONOZ! *hides*

Tiki: zzzzzzz wha? gimme a belly rub *rolls over*

Anxiety: YOU SUUUUUUUUUUCK! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! LOSER!

DB: Shut up and wait your turn. Garage door guy 1?

Garage Door guy 1: yeah

DB: Garage Door guy 2?

Garage Door guy 2: yeah. Hey. Can you get them to move the truck?

DB: Yes. Just a minute. *large crash from the attic*

Anxiety: I WON’T SHUT UP! juuuuust SIT RIGHT BACK AND YOU’LL HEAR A TALE. A TALE OF A FATEFUL TRIP. THAT STARTED FROM THIS TROPIC PORT ABOARD THIS TINY SHIP

DB: Garage Door guy 3?

Garage Door guy 2: He’s outside.

DB: Very well. Major Depression, Chronic, Recurrent?

Major Depression, Chronic, Recurrent: *rolls over and pulls covers over her head*

DB: That’s constructive.

Anxiety: THE MATE WAS A MIGHTY SAILING MAN, THE SKIPPER BRAVE AND SURE. FIVE PASSENGERS SET SAIL THAT DAY FOR A THREE HOUR TOUR.

DB: Window man?

Anethea the dog walker:  SEE YA TOMORROW!!!!

Kirby: Save me Bunny *trembles*

Anxiety: A THREE HOUR TOUR!

Major Depression, Chronic, Recurrent:   Fuck you all!

DB: Window man? *power tool revs up in garage*

Window Man: um yeah. Where’s the window?

DB: *shows him*

Anxiety: THE WEATHER STARTED GETTING ROUGH, THE TINY SHIP WAS TOSSED.  IF NOT FOR THE COURAGE OF THE FEARLESS CREW THE MINNOW WOULD BE LOST.

Carlos: May I use your bathroom?

DB: Of course. *shows him*

Anxiety: THE MINNOW WOULD BE LOST! *LIGHTNING CRASHES*

*telephone rings*

The Man:   Hey Bunny, How’s it going?

Anxiety: THE SHIP SET DOWN ON THE SHORE OF THIS UNCHARTED DESERT ISLE

DB: Can I call you back?

Gilberto: Excuse me. May I show you something up on the roof?

The Man: I guess. *grumps* Bye. *hangs up*

Anxiety: WITH GIIIIIILIGAAAAANNNNNNNNN

DB: *goes with Gilberto*

~pause to examine the roof~

DB:  *returns*

Kirby:  Where were you?  It was terrible! *trembles*

Major Depression, Chronic, Recurrent: I told you so

Carlos’s Boss: *comes in and starts poking around*

Uncle Sam:  Ahem.  I am paying you to write memos, aren't I?

DB:  Yes sir right away sir.  *writes a memo*

Anxiety: THE SKIPPER TOOOOOOOOO

Kirby: I’m here. *trembles*

Window guy: Can I get you to sign something?

Major Depression, Chronic, Recurrent: dumbass. what were you thinking? living in a hellhole is all you deserve 

DB: Gio?

Imaginary Gio: Yes, love. What do you need?

Kirby: I’m here. *trembles*

DB: Alessa?

Anxiety: THE MILLIONAIRRRRRRE

DB:  ALESSA?!

Kirby: I’m here. *trembles*

ADP: You’re OK. Take a deep breath.

Kirby: I’m here. *trembles*

Anxiety: AND HIS WIFE

DB: *whimpers*

Kirby: I’m here. *trembles*

Imaginary Gio: I’ve got this. You go talk to Alessa. I can handle these guys.

DB: *pats Kirby*

Anxiety: THE MOOOOOOOVIE STAHR!

Gilberto: Excuse me. May I show you something outside?

Imaginary Gio: Yeah, Gilberto. Why don’t you talk to me about this? *goes off with Gilberto*

Kirby: I’m here. *trembles*

DB: *whimpers*

Kirby: I’m here. *trembles*

Kirby: I’m here. *trembles*

Anxiety: THE PERFESSER AAAAAND MARYAAAAANNNNNNNNN

ADP: *puts arm around DB* I’ve got you.

Anxiety: HEEEEEEERE ON GIIILIGAN’S IIIIIIILSE!

ADP: Let’s pretend it's raining. I’ll close all the blinds so it’s dark, put on the thunderstorm CD really loud, and light some candles. You just relax and take a deep breath.  Kirby, you go sit over there on your dog bed and hush, OK?




DB: *sits over there and takes a deep breath*



ADP: Have a Prosecco, Bunny. *loud crash from the attic*

DB: *whimpers*

ADP: Don’t worry about that. Let Gio handle it.  *puts arms around Dirtbunny and rocks her*



DB: *takes a deep breath*

ADP: Good girl. You can do it.





DB: Oh Alessa, you’re so good to me.

ADP: Only the best for my Dirtbunny.

Marco Mercoledi Venerdi

But first, here's your "daily" decrepit:

And now on with our show.










Mmmmmmm, Marco.  Yeah, that's right, you don't care so you don't get a Marcophoto, even though he scored this week, about which you also don't care.

This passive-aggressive post was brought to you by Dirtbunny, center of attention since 1967.

All Wound Up

That may sound like a good thing, but The Man will be happy to assure you that it is not.  When Dirtbunny is All Wound Up, that means someone/something/some combination of multiple someones/somethings has turned her crank really hard and her spring is about to  SPROIIINNNNNGGGG!   Not good.  We will be working on the Deep Breaths, the GoToYourQuietPlaces, Hey!  Why the hell is a County Police patrol car driving back and forth in front of the house?--  Where was I?  Oh yeah, my calming strategies.  Hmmmm.  I really can't remember what they are.  Anyway, we will be working on it.  So what is Dirtbunny all wound up about?

1. It stopped raining on Sunday.  So why is that on the front porch?
2. Dirtbunny may run out of yarn before she finishes the Ray-Ray hat/scarf combo, which means she'll have to rip back a few inches of scarf to come up with yarn to complete the hat.
3. Heat on or heat off?  It's 75 during the day and 45 at night. 
4. Can't mail package to Oregon because just realized out of packing material.  Have to buy more.
5. Can't go to nearby office supply store because it has been razed to make way for another high-rise.  Have to find some other source.
6. Should probably eat remainder of bean soup today, but it is disgusting.
7. Champions League this week.  Also, recurring cable issue has returned this week.  The problem:  weak signal.  We need a cable booster but cable company doesn't want to give us one.  In the 3 1/2 years since we went digital, we have had One television, Seven cable boxes, and Six service calls (at least) all for same weak signal problem, which remains unresolved. 
8. Champions League is broadcast on Fox Soccer Channel.  Fox Soccer Channel is channel 725.  Channel 725 is the channel the most affected by signal problems.  (726 is watchable.  723 is fine.  There is no 724).  Oh, and is most affected during afternoon hours (noon to about 8pm) which is when the Champions League games are carried live. 
9. The whole house is in an uproar, and my major source of peace and pleasure (futbol) is unavailable.  So I've been eating too much.  Which means I feel vaguely sick all the time, plus I hate myself for eating too much.
10. When I start hating myself for one reason, my brain automatically searches through the memory archives for more evidence of my suckitude so my self-hatred can blossom and flourish.  This means that I will suddenly find myself ruminating about all sorts of bullshit I'd rather not be thinking about, such as:  
    

    --The fact that The Man squished a slug on Monday and didn't clean it up even though he knows I have a special thing about slugs and so I was trapped in the house and could not go outside because ~IT~ was out there and I was going to vomit if I saw ~IT~ again and he should have considered my special sensitivity to slugs and spent the 60 seconds to take care of it instead of leaving it there for me to freak out over all day, and
    

    
    

    --various professional disappointments, from the recent stuff to the not-so-recent stuff
    

    
    -- like the time I was supposed to test drive a new laptop and I lost it on the Metro on the way home,
    -- to the time I postponed my honeymoon to go to a job interview because the Regional Director was too inflexible to allow me to reschedule so I had a job interview the Monday after my wedding and I still didn't get the job
    -- to the time I sent that embarrasing email trashing "Joe" to "Joe" himself,
    -- to the time I wasn't allowed to reserve the hearing room for a function because if I reserved it for a function then other people wouldn't be able to reserve it for their functions if they happened to need it on the same day, and no one but me saw any problem with that logic
    -- to the time I cracked wise to Pammie about something and inadvertently hurt her feelings really bad
    -- to the time I dumped an entire cortadita on myself and ruined a suit right before I had to take a deposition in Miami, and
    

    --childhood incidents such as that time I wringed/wrang out the dishrag on Sherry's head in elementary school (why did I do that?), and
    
    -- the time in college I went to a party with the grad students on my research team and seriously overstayed my welcome and was too socially tone-deaf to notice, and
    
    -- that dumb thing I said at lunch in Indianapolis.
    

    Et cetera.  Need I go on?
    
11. This leads to what is known around here as a Shame Spiral.  It is bad.
12. ADP is broken, Marco is broken, Diego Milito is broken, Claudio Marchisio is broken, Seb Giovinco is broken, Loooca sucks, Gigi it turns out is a sexist schmuck (not really surprised, but disappointed nonetheless), someone messed up Roberto Rossetti's wiki, one of my favorite Genoa players is all mixed up with the mob, Juve hasn't won a game in something like six matches, Landon Donovan got player of the year in the US, and all the stuff I was upset about on this day are still true.
13. I'm starting to think that maybe making a list of all the things I am upset about was not a good idea.
14. I can't end a list with number 13.

Juventus is playing Maccabi Haifa in Israel right about now.  IF the cable gets fixed in time, the game will be broadcast in the middle of the night and I can watch it tomorrow.

Yarn Bandit Sez....

I DEMAND SOME ATTENTION! QUIT BEING DEPRESSED!

Inside the mind of a person with a mood disorder

I was going to run the dishwasher. If I don't run the dishwasher, then the dishes will be dirty when The Man comes home, and he will spend the evening fussing over the dishes and I will be lonely and resentful. However, there is no detergent under the sink. There is supposed to be detergent under the sink. Well I'm not going down to the basement to see if there is a backup box of detergent. Cleaning supply replenishment from the basement is The Man's job. So the dishes won't get clean. So what? At least, when I am lonely and resentful and sulking about it, I'll have my ideological purity to keep me warm.



OK. I went down to the basement and retrieved a backup box of detergent (there were two, because Dirtbunny is exceptionally skilled at keeping the household well stocked, not that anyone notices or appreciates it). And I ran the dishwasher. Because I am a sheep. And a good soldier. A fucking good soldier and a fucking team player. Not that it ever got me anything.


Not that anyone cares. [sniff sniff]


[Dirtbunny goes off to weep and sulk anyway]

Nobody likes me

Everybody hates me

Going to the garden

To eat worms

Big fat squishy ones

Big long skinny ones.....

[I forget the rest]

Let's get the bad stuff out of the way first

I grew up in a no-dessert-unless-you-finish-your-dinner finish-your-homework-before-you-go-out-to-play sort of household. We have a lot of catching up to do, and it's not all going to be pessimistic and negative, but let's finish the squash before we move on to pie. Here is some stuff that has happened recently:



1. I have pretty much stopped returning phone calls and responding to emails. However, I feel tremendous guilt and shame about this, so that's how you know I'm just chickenshit, not a bona fide sociopath.



2. I sprained my ankle. (It's almost better now.)



3. I lost my cell phone. (The Man found it in the bushes a day later. Did my phone fling itself from me and into the bushes? We don't know for sure.)

4. Somebody peed on the treadmill. It wasn't me.

5. It's springtime, and this is that time of year that my depression starts to boil. I'm not sure why, but it has been a recurring theme of the last four years. I had been in a few years of relative mental health when things started going south for me in May 2005. Can't point to anything that happened to trigger it either. Spring 2006: Big professional disappointment (not related to the whole promotion fiasco). Spring 2007: Biggest professional disappointment of my entire career (also not related to the promotion thing) and the beginning of the era of Dirtbunny in Disgrace (which is still ongoing, although I care less now.) Spring 2008: Ah, yes, the spring of feeling suicidal, even before Pammie killed herself. Spring 2009: It's back. Why? Can't point to any particular trigger. I may sound all blase about this, and if you ask me how I'm doing, I'll say I'm OK, maybe going through a little down cycle in my mood, but OK. The truth is, it absolutely sucks, and I don't want to go back to the dark feelings of last year and I'm worried that I'm headed right back there. HOWEVER, this time, I have a plan. Writing about how the week is going is not officially part of the plan, so I might not write about it (and then again I might). But it is in place, and I feel good about it, and hopeful that things are going to start getting better. Soooo, fingers crossed for Dirtbunny.





Here is what Loooca looks like when he misses:

He is very dramatic. It has been said that "his protests are magnificent" and that his demeanor on the pitch is "operatic" which, by the way, is what Bossboy says about Dirtbunny.

In Which Bunny's Horrible No-Good Day Ends not so Badly After All

Oh, Man, but yesterday sucked.



First, I dreamed that I was living in a one-room rat-infested apartment with The Man and Bossboy, only there were leaky pipes in the walls, so water was spouting forth from several places. Dream Bunny, of course, was expected to handle this. Nice.



Then, I hit the snooze two extra times before I could get up. Twarnt easy. I seriously considered just lying there and trying to disappear. I eventually rousted myself by asking WWADPD? ADP would get his perfect Italian ass out of bed and get it to training and if he ran into any fans, he would smile and sign autographs and not be a dick. That's what he would do. Thus, Bunny must also get up and get through the day.


Then, I puked. This is not terribly uncommon for days when I have to go to the office, but I really prefer not to barf, given the choice.

I decided to wear my Prince of Darkness costume (black pants, black top, and black sweater) except for these:










and a pair of shoes that may or may not be forbidden under our dress code. "Is grey area" as coach said in The Cutting Edge. (I know. Shit movie, but we love it.) These socks made me feel like John Belushi in Animal House, in the scene where he dresses in his cat burglar outfit and white socks to go spy on the girls in the sorority house.



I dried my hair. It came out uncommonly big:



because I always use too much or too little product. Boy do my highlights need a touch-up.



Since I was wearing the Prince of Darkness suit, I decided to go all out and wear the Raccoon eye makeup. Why not announce to the entire world

I AM GRUMPY

without even opening my mouth. Sometimes I do it this way:





That's Bunny Bitchface at an office Holiday Party. Guess who didn't want to be there? Guess who didn't want her photo taken?


So, raccoon. Problem, though, because I ditched all my old eye pencils, including the black one, and the new grey one is too subtle. I want a message that screams:

KEEP AWAY!

and a tasteful grey was not going to cut it. Bummer. I did, however, have a new sapphire eye pencil. Nothing subtle about that. So I drew great big smeary blue circles around my eyes, and then I added some glittery pink eye shadow and a dark pink lip gloss for that bigmouth look, and I put on my earrings that don't match (earrings are not covered in the dress code) and thus attired, all

BACK OFF. DO NOT TOUCH!

..I trudged off to Mordor via the Black Gate, I mean the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge.




Everything is supposed to be magically better now because we have President Hopey-Changey, but I'm still fat and grouchy, and traffic is still crappy, and 17th Street was still partially blocked for the unending renovation of the Old Executive Office Building--now with cinder blocks 18 inches into the center lane in addition to orange and white striped traffic barrels!



But H Street is clear now that new POTUS-HC has moved out of the hotel and into the White House. They finished the renovations at St. John's church, so it was easier pulling over to let out The Man for his short walk to the Department of Bureaus, or whatever I call it. The AFL-CIO building had a giant banner facing the White House that said "Welcome Sasha and Malia!" and all the other union HQ buildings along 16th Street had new "Yay for Unions" banners hanging up.


And so I get to the Teeny Tiny Government Entity and I enter the parking garage and here are my first two thoughts:



1: The seat belt is pinching my boobs. Ouch. Ouch ouch ouch. I can't be the only person with boobs who drives. Can they not design a seat belt for people with boobs? Why? whywhywhy



2: And I parked in my usual spot that I choose because it's never blocked by the valet if I want to leave early, and the Big Banana has gotten there before me and taken the space next to mine and I recognize his car of course and I think: We used to be friends, but now he hates me.



That's right, people, my first work-related thought is an involuntary one about how Banana hates me. Great attitude. Not at all like ADP.


But I get up to the lobby and there's this:

New POTUS photo. That's good. And --Hey!-- my plants didn't die over the long weekend when I forgot to water them. That's good. But I have trouble making coffee and end up with a mouthful of coffee grounds. And then I see one of my many therapists and get a most unwelcome lecture about how I don't eat enough protein.

And stuff happens at work. My last draft was only mostly perfect, not completely perfect. I, naturally, go all Diva all over the place. They hate meeeeeee! They are trying to crush Dirtbunnyeeeeeeee! Bossboy handles this pretty well, because, as eggs go, he is a good one. But Bunny has to finish sulking before she can comply with her marching orders.

So she tries to stop sulking. But she can't. She is too worked up. Too pissed off. Protein, my ass. Grump grump grump. Plus, way too much caffeine today.

Dirtbunny puts in the IPOD ear bugs and starts blasting music of insolence and alienation, and she takes one of her emergency back-up happy pills for those times when she is irrationally worked up and can't clam down by herself and she stomps around in her tiny little office pretending that she is crushing people under her feet, and gradually, she feels a little more powerful and a little more clam and then she thinks,

"If only Banana would love me again"

and that thought sets off another wave of self-hatred. Oh. My. God. I. Am. Such. A. Whore!

But it also shocks me into a get-over-yourself sort of place. Come on Bunny, try a little. And I get over it, and I do what I am asked to do, and I do it well, and I move on.

Ok, then. I am good at my job. I am Pinturicchio. I turn the IPOD to my bagpipes playlist. Bagpipes always make me feel like kicking someone's ass, so I commence to kicking ass by finally, finally, finally, finishing a case in a box that has been NO FUN. OK, then. I am Pinturicchio.

And that, my friends, was a full fucking day, so it was past time to go home, and I went and watched the replay of the Coppa Italia game that the cable ate yesterday, and Daniele De Rossi is growing out his hair and Alberto Aquilani got some playing time for once and Old Man Panooch didn't get to play but Big Swede scored another goal and Inter won but it's not a league game so it isn't bad for Juventus, and I eat some ice cream and clean Kirby's ears and all is well.

Dirtbunny's Cold, Day 60

Another sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, stuffy head, but no fever, why God why day Chez Nous. Yesterday, my boss informed me that he could hear me coughing two doors down with the doors closed and maybe I should go home. So I did, but not before stopping to get some new over-the-counter cold stuff. Everyone says Try Mucinex, so I did. And I also looked for candied cherries for my holiday baking, since I was there anyway, and The Man would probably not cotton to looking for the special holiday display at an unfamiliar store for obscure seasonal baking products. But all they had were green. So I got my Mucinex and went home and worked on a sock for my Daddy and fell asleep then woke up and watched Juventus until the DVR ate the last 20 minutes of the match and then I went to sleep again, only Kirby did not stay in his dog bed and decided to sleep on my neck all night.




But today I woke up with less system-clogging snot and fewer phlegm globs in my throat, so I drank some coffee and ate some Cheerios and put in a full day at the home office, where I spent most of the day making little corrections to a memo, then erasing the corrections, then putting them back in, then fretting about them, then saying what the hell no one cares anyway, then deciding I want it to be good so going back to fretting. Long story short, I didn't make a lot of changes, but it took me all day to do what I did.




It has been an interesting few days. The Old Folks brought me Thanksgiving at my house so I didn't have to leave and I didn't have to cook and I could devote all my energy to worrying about GK and his tumor removal surgery. Special Sweetheart slept for about a day and then, once the turkey came out of the oven, he woke up and he's been pretty much his ole self ever since. His boo-boo is a little itchy and he isn't supposed to lick it. If I catch him at it, I say "No lick" and he nearly always stops. If he really, really can't help himself, I show him the e-collar that he has to wear if he can't stop licking, and that puts an end to it. He is such a good good boy.


Here is his leg after the biopsy but before the mass was removed. The growth was about the size of an egg and reportedly looked like a little brain.





And here he is post-tumor removal, before he got his little bandage off.







As soon as the Old Folks left, my head filled up with snot. This is not good. I have a holiday to plan, after all, and I never really got over the last cold. The Man doesn't register that it's Christmastime until about December 23, so it's up to me. Only I'm sick (again) and on unofficial House Arrest until The Man deems me healthy enough to face the world. Not really, but he secretly suspects that I'm doing something to make myself sick just to add to his stress and fuck with him. If he catches me at any Christmas stuff that is more effort than pointing and clicking, I'm in big trouble.




So I'm doing stealth holiday planning. Step one is to decide on what decorations we are going to have, get what we need that we don't have already, and put them up without involving The Man. That sounds hard. Let's come back to that later.



Step two is food. What holiday baking will I be doing this year? That sounds hard too. I need a nap. Maybe Warden The Man isn't completely out to lunch.


OK--step three. Step three is, given that I know that certain Christmas treats are non-negotiable, obtain ingredients for making same. To render that idea in as few words as possible, find and purchase candied cherries. And that's where I started with this post.


Candied fruit slices are the one, the only, the single, non-negotiable Christmas item, and candied cherries are required. [Proof: The Man just came home, saw the stack of candied cherries, and said "Oooh! Candied Fruit Slices!"] Since they are not organic, not all-natural, and in fact are probably contaminated with some sort of radioactive isotope (how else do you explain that color?) they are not to be had at the Fresh Fields. I can send The Man to the Fresh Fields with a grocery list, and he can get groceries as competently as anyone. I cannot send The Man out with instructions to find candied cherries, because I never know from year to year where I will find them because apparently no one bakes any more. He is not going on a Northern Virginia grocery store slog for something obscure that he may never find. It's not a job for volunteers. It's a job for Dirtbunny.




So, a few days ago, when I went for some unauthorized yarn therapy, I checked at the grocery store in the same strip mall. No dice, although they did have plenty of cheap plastic cookie cutters.


Then yesterday, I found some green ones when I got the Mucinex. But no red. Green without red would not be right. I need both. This is Christmas goddamn it! (That probably made the Baby Jesus cry, but I think that grown-up Jesus would find it funny. Jesus is cool, not uptight. But I digress.)


Today, after work, I tried the Glutton Place. They have come through for me before. Not this time, although they had lots and lots of gourmet pancake mix. Are pancakes really so hard that people need a mix? I don't get it.



So then I tried one of the Safeways. After losing a parking space and nearly getting killed by an oblivious Mercury Sable-driving cell-phone yakking creep, I went in and found........many, many disposable foil baking pans, and mint sauce in a jar (yuck) but no candied cherries. And so I headed home.


On the way home, I thought, by the time I get there, it will be too dark to work on project Hermes because I don't have a decent lamp at my desk for close-up no-glasses work. So what the hell, I'll try the Other Safeway. They have a new section with supposedly organic house brand food (I'm dubious) but no candied cherries. I think about getting a Starbucks at the in-store kiosk, but I'm too depressed. I leave.



As I'm pulling out of the parking lot, I decide that this is ridiculous. Exactly what is wrong with all-green candied fruit slices anyway? What kind of citizen puts fifty miles on the car looking for red candied cherries when there are plenty of green ones to be had? Am I a liberal earth-loving person or a hypocrite? OK, I'm a hypocrite, I don't do nearly enough to be green, but am I OK with the Hunt for Red Candied Cherries? No. I am not. I will settle for green and I will embrace the imperfection of life. So I go across the street to the HT, where I bought the Mucinex and saw the green cherries. OK, trouble getting a space. Why is everyone at the store today? It's only December 3 for crying out loud! I get a space in the garage. I ride the elevator up to the store, and I stomp down the aisle towards the green cherries not exactly settled on the idea that green-only is acceptable. Maybe I'll get green while I can and keep looking for the red. No! Bad Bunny! What is wrong with you! Get the goddamned green cherries and move on to something important!




Sniff. I'll come around. It'll be OK. I can deal with green cherries. I'm a big girl and I have lots of yarn and beagles waiting for me at home.



Green cherries it is. And there they are.




But wait!




Could it be?



It IS!




THEY HAVE RED CHERRIES TODAY! YESTERDAY GREEN ONLY BUT TODAY RED AND GREEN! JESUS LOVES ME! THERE WILL BE A REAL CHRISTMAS AFTER ALL!






I got extra just in case.

Dirtbunny's Cold, Day 8

I am still sick. I'm a lot better than I was, but I'm not exactly well yet. I was going to sit outside to enjoy the outdoors for a little while, but something happened and now I can't.

1. It's a little chilly right now.
2. Kirby found a dead bird in the yard and tried to eat it.

Dead creatures in the yard are always, ALWAYS upsetting. I usually shriek for The Man to come handle it and try really hard not to throw up. The Man, of course, always disposes of the corpse with dispatch and aplomb and without making any remarks about gender roles or feminism, because he is a good guy.

This time, however, my BFF Kirby had the vile thing in his mouth. IN HIS MOUTH. I am disgusted and appalled. He is unclean, and I am not sure what sort of ritual cleansing he needs for me to get over this, because a bath would only take care of the outside. Can I wash his mouth out with soap? That doesn't seem humane. And yet I am thoroughly and completely grossed out.

Yarn Bandit Steals Treats from Dirtbunny

Let us begin with some important background facts before we get into our story.

1. Tiki is a ho.


2. He is especially a ho when it comes to food.


3. Bunny sometimes has a bedtime snack.


4. If Bunny has a bedtime snack, it frequently is chocolate.


5. Chocolate is bad for dogs.


6. A little bit of chocolate is not a problem for dogs.


7. A lot of chocolate is fatal to dogs.


8. In between "so what?" and "OMG I killed my dog" is a spectrum of various degrees of illness that can include vomiting, diarrhea, panting, hyperness, and cardiac-type symptoms that one would associate with being hyped up on uppers. Hyped up on uppers? That doesn't sound right. Forgive me if I'm not up on the most current drug slang.


9. At what point the amount of chocolate becomes enough to make your dog sick or kill him depends on the size of your dog, the amount of chocolate consumed, the nature of the chocolate itself, particularly the concentration of cocoa (milk chocolate being pretty tame-which you chocolate lovers already knew--and unsweetened chocolate being at the top of the list), and who knows what idiosyncratic characteristics of your dog.


10. Because of #9, it is very difficult to determine exactly where the lines between sick/well and live/die are, no matter how much time you spend googling it. (Ask me how I know.)
    
11. Did you know that the key chemical component of chocolate that is bad for dogs (I forget what it is, but it isn't the caffeine) has a half-life of 17.5 hours?

And so one night last week, Dirtbunny makes herself a leetle bedtime snack. She pours herself a glass of milk. She gets out a small bowl. In the bowl she puts four Hershey's kisses, a brownie with hazelnuts, and a few squares of G&B 70%. (For reasons which will soon become clear, if you haven't figured it out already, Bunny spent a lot of time trying to remember exactly how many squares of G&B 70% she put in that bowl. Maybe 6. Probably 4. No more than an ounce, cuz the whole bar is 4 oz and it was way less than a bar. As for the brownie, the whole batch had 4 oz. of Ghirardelli unsweetened, and this was probably about 1/16th of the batch, probably, so that's a quarter ounce. And how many kisses exactly? Are you sure it was four? What if it was five? How much do five kisses weigh? Wait a minute! Are hazelnuts the nuts that are bad for dogs or was it macadamia nuts? Gaaaaaaah!) Bunny carried her bowl of chocolate and her glass of milk to her room.

Oops! Still have to go. Don't wanna take my snack in there with me. (Pretty much all of us have fetishes about taking food into the bathroom, right? It's not just me, right?) Gotta put it down somewhere. I intend to eat it in bed, but I don't wanna put it down on the night table because Yarn Bandit has a proven ability to get at things left on the night table.

So I put it across the room on a tall table with nothing adjacent to it that can be used for climbing, and, importantly, no known past security breaches. And my snack is safe, and I go have some alone time, the details of which I will not mention. I will, say, however, that while I was having my alone time, I heard some chomping, slurping noises, but I assumed that was our resident paw-licker, the Baron von Kirbenstein, because that's what he does every night.

You have already guessed what happened next.

Somehow, and don't ask me how because I've been mulling this over for a long time and haven't figured it out, the bowl of treats is no longer on the table where I left it. It is face-up, in the dog bed. It is nearly empty, but not entirely. The tiny little hoser has eaten the brownie and the kisses and some of the 70%, but he has left three squares of the 70% behind. I don't know if he hated it (remember, he eats his own barf with gusto, so that doesn't seem likely) or just didn't have time to finish it before he got busted.

The Man is consulted. We decide that we are not going to go to the Emergency Vet because we know that a little chocolate is no big deal and because Dirtbunny thinks she remembers reading somewhere that a 50-75 pound dog ate a two-pound bag of M&Ms and just got sick but didn't die and we did a little quick and dirty math and calculated (Ha! as if it was that scientific) that he might get sick but probably, probably, wouldn't die. He'll barf a little, we said. Maybe he'll get the poops, we said. It'll be OK.

The Man was confident about this, but Bunny is a hypochondriac and Could. Not. Let. It. Go. We went to work the next day, where Bunny proceeded to spend a lot of time, and (don't tell her boss) I mean a lot of time, on the Interweb trying to determine whether she had killed her dog by negligently, or maybe with reckless disregard, giving him access to chocolate. Or maybe it was knowingly. She knows he's a ho and a thief. She knows chocolate is bad for dogs. Oh Boy. Jack McCoy is going to get her but good.

I am happy to say that, with the exception of a few hours of acting hyper and obnoxious (which earned him some crate time), our little sun worshipper was fine. No barfing or pooping, nothing scary, just a little bit wound up for a little while. Scared the crap out of Dirtbunny, though. She is relieved that she is not going down on felony dog-abuse charges, and she is relieved that Tiki is not dead. Or sick. But especially not dead.

Whew.

If worry-wort was an Olympic sport, Dirtbunny would be a serious medal contender.

Now here's an advanced-level math problem. Given what is described above about the estimated amounts and nature of chocolate consumed, a half-life of 17.5 hours, and assuming a canine weight of 26 pounds, did the Yarn Bandit eat enough chocolate to (a) get sick or (b) die and (c) how long before we know and (d) if he did get sick, how long before he's better? It's an open-book quiz, so feel free to use the full power of the Interweb in arriving at your answer.

Sure, you know the answer now, but what if you had to figure it out before you knew for certain how it ended? What if you had to second-guess your decision not to seek immediate medical attention? How confident would you be about your answer under those circumstances?

Chain of Command

Somehow, probably from too much time sitting still in one place without getting up, Bunny has put her back out. The Man is getting ready to go to PBU again, so this is not a good time for Bunny to be (more) infirm (than usual). Thus, there might not be much blogging for a little while.

I leave you for a short while with this thought. Because I work for Uncle Sam, the lobby of my employer contains an official portrait of POTUS. Because my agency is the Teeny Tiny Government Entity (and does not have its own depression-era monstrosity of an office building with an ornate ceremonial lobby located far away from the worker bees), and I'm not special enough to warrant my own private bathroom, I have to go through the lobby every time nature calls. Granted, I don't have to share the bathroom with beagles when I'm at work, and there's no one scratching at the door or demanding to know what I'm doing when I'm in there. However, it means that I walk by POTUS.....



....every time I gotta go. It's like he's keeping track of my bathroom breaks. There's a security camera out there too, but that doesn't bother me as much as POTUS' portrait does, for some reason.

Back to the Lists

May was the month of no lists. I can faithfully report that ratcheting waaaaaay back on the lists correlates nicely with improved mood. I have been feeling better on the whole, even though my shrink canceled my appointment and can't see me again for weeks ("That's okay. I'm not that suicidal.") Not every day has been great, but I'm sleeping better, generally, I'm feeling better, generally, and I'm a little more willing to interact with my fellow humans, generally. I've had a sudden burst of productivity at work that I intend to ride for as long as it lasts. I've got some seminars coming up that will take me out of the office a little and provide a nice break in the routine. I never come up the front steps to the house so I'm blissfully unaware of the dreadful weeds overtaking the front yard Chez Nous, and because I don't know that they're there, they don't bother me.

May is over. Now we are in June. June heralds a return to the lists in a gentle way, because there are things around here that need to get done. This is my list for the weekend:

1. Food: plan menus, make grocery list, send The Man to the Fresh Fields, put groceries away. He buys the groceries. When he goes, we spend less, we end up with less junk, and Bunny doesn't waste time being distracted by all the fun food stuff on display.
2. Wash bedspread. It is covered in dog hair and I need a big, clean, flat space where I can do #3.
3. Block Poppy's sheep blanket. Also, write about it and take some pictures.
4. Cook: If I am going to have something decent for dinner this week, I'll need to do some things in advance this weekend. For example, if I make a french potato salad, hard boil some eggs, steam some haricots verts, and make a vinaigrette, I can have a salade nicoise for dinner this week. If I don't make enchiladas this weekend, there won't be any after work on Thursday. If I don't clean and cook the broccoli, I might not eat any vegetables this week.
5. Catch up on some blogging. It's fun and good for me. Even if I only have three readers, plus The Man, if I remind him that I have a blog.
6. Cast on the second stupid blue ribbed sock and get the cuff started. I don't like it anymore, but it won't be over with if I don't get started. See how abandoning the project entirely is not even an option?
7. Give Kirby his bath. He's fiddling with his ears and chewing his paws a little too much.
8. Clear off my desk. I need a clean desk. I can't tolerate clutter.
9. Discuss with The Man Friday's transportation plan for stitch and pitch. Shall we drive or Metro? Park at the office and Metro from there? Do we want to carpool with friends? Do we want to leave straight from work or come home first? My friends want to know, and The Man needs be consulted.
10. Watch last night's episode of Battlestar Gallactica so I can talk about it with Dana on Monday.

That's enough, I think. Let's check back later and see how she's doing.

Uh oh. I smell poop. There shouldn't be anything poop-smelling in here. Time to investigate.