The recap

It's been a long but fun day today. We hired a photographer to come to our house to take some cool black & white "lifestyle portraits" of us as a family, she was here about three hours and I am wiped out. Trying to look skinny takes a lot of energy.

Amber, the photographer, likes to take pictures of you doing things that you normally do. They're not really posed pictures, which I like. So Monkey Man and I made brownies together, he read a book to Joey and me, the boys played video games, we worked on homework, and one specific thing I had asked her for was to document his absolute obsession of all things football. We still had some daylight left, so we threw on our Hokies jerseys (well, my shirt wasn't a real jersey but a t-shirt that kind of looks like a jersey) and headed outside to have some fun.

It was going great. We were all laughing and having a great time, but the whole time I was very self-conscious because my shirt was a little on the snug side and all I could think about was "does this look horrible or what?" I was so distracted that I never noticed....

WHAM. The football. Right in my eye.

"I think we're done," said Amber, as my eye started to swell. Ouch. Good thing.

*****

EPOD has had a miserable cold for the past few days. And usually, when he's sick, he develops this habit of picking on us mercilessly. Finally, yesterday, I had just about run out of my goodwill about being the brunt of his wrath and asked him if he was going to be mean all week.

"But it makes me feeeeel better..." he whined. Oh, yeah, I forgot - it's all about YOU.

On the other side, he actually broke down and got a physical done over a week ago and can't get anyone at the doctor's office to call and give him his results. As in, they left him a message, he calls back and can't get a human, then they leave another message for him to call in, then he calls back and can't talk to anyone...you get the picture. We had a health fair back in the summertime and his numbers were so bad that I am surprised he hasn't stroked out at his desk with all the stress he's been under anyway.

*****

Cat Door has been working with Drunk Al for the past few weeks with one goal. For Al to make one good decision a day.

On Monday, Al showed up for work drunk as a skunk. Like drank two 40-oz. beers at 5 AM and showed up for work at 6 AM. So Cat Door told him that he would take him along, but he wasn't allowed to get on the ladder until he sobered up. Around 10 AM, Al seemed like he was okay so he started to climb up the ladder...slipped on the second rung...and fell into the biggest mud puddle ever. He got up, brushed the mud off of his face, and announced that he wanted to go home. "Um, hell no," said Cat Door. "You showed up drunk, you've done nothing but stand around all day, and now you want me to take you home? Forget it." So Al finished up the day, spending most of it earthbound and just running siding pieces back and forth.

"Maybe you are a little overambitious," I told him. "Maybe one good decision a WEEK would be a good place to start?"

He just rolled his eyes. His heart is in the right place, but I'm wondering how long he's going to limp along with Al before he either finds Al dead one morning, or Al finally pisses him off to the point of no return.

*****

Joey's Rotary club party was last Friday night. I ended up leaving my office party really early so I could get home and get gussied up to go. Two years ago, they moved it from the ghetto country club (which to call it a country club is a huge stretch) to a very nice private banquet facility about 30 minutes from our house. The food is fantastic and we usually have a pretty good time.

I actually purchased a new dress to wear to my company's fancy Christmas party this year, and I had the idea that Friday would be a good test drive for the dress - I'd have over a week to get it cleaned in time to wear to my company party. But when I got home, Joey had kind of already decided that he didn't want to get really dressed up so the party dress went back in the closet and I picked out another dress.

The dress I ended up wearing was one I bought to wear to a wedding last winter - it is burgundy and very pretty - however, it's pretty low-cut. I always make sure I wear a great bra with it to keep the puppies in line, so it's not like I'm going to fall out of the thing.

What I forget about Rotary is that most of the men are in their 60's, very wealthy, and apparently pretty horny. I spent most of the night having the codgers standing in line and asking me to have my picture taken with them. And inevitably, they would put their arm around my shoulder and squeeeeeeze just so, making the sistahs a little more pronounced than they should've been. And, in one super-ballsy move, one of the members actually gave me his business card and told me he'd like to take me to lunch sometime so he could get to know me better. Is that what the old people are calling it nowadays? Geez.

I guess the bright part would be that if anything should happen to Joey, there are a lot of old, rich, horny dudes out there just waiting for me.

Ew, I think I just threw up a little.

*****

My dad. Well, he seems to be doing about the same.

The week after Thanksgiving, I got a frantic phone call from my sister that my dad was having problems with his bladder leaking, so he was headed to the doctor to have some tests run including a scope of his bladder. All I could think of was that the cancer had moved into his bladder, probably causing this loss of control.

So on my birthday, he went in for the tests and they didn't find anything in his bladder. The doctor thinks that he should probably cut back on iced tea and drink only like 3 glasses a day versus, oh, 3 gallons a day. No, he doesn't drink that much, but it seems like maybe he's drinking way too much. Then within a few days, he fessed up that he's getting up every two hours at night to pee...so my sister and I are thinking that maybe it's a UTI now that was stirred up from the scope.

My sister and I are headed down to visit my parents for four days after Christmas. Joey will bring Monkey Man down for a few days too and squeeze an in-law trip in there as well. I think a lot of the trip will be trying to pin my parents down, because I have a sneaking suspicion that they are candy-coating a lot of this because they don't want to worry us.

He has been in great spirits, however - and is so excited that we are coming that he says it's all he can think about. That makes me feel great!

*****

As for me, well, I've been having chest pains off and on for the past year. The past few weeks have been bad - bad to the point that the day I decorated the Christmas tree I had to stop everything and just SIT. I never do that.

I finally did what I've been needing to do - I booked an appointment with a REAL doctor versus the urgent care place. I chose Cat Door's doctor since he and the Mrs. have been ecstatically happy with this doctor and I think the doc has done a great job working with Cat Door's low blood pressure problems. Not to mention he will do house calls. And he's my age, so no chance of him retiring any time soon.

My first appointment is Christmas Eve - a "sick" appointment so they can "find something" that will allow my insurance to pay for a full physical at no extra charge to me other than a co-pay. I could rant and rave about the fact that it's insane for the insurance company to not let me have a stinking physical (even though the last time I had one was when I was 18) without there being something wrong...but I won't.

In the meantime, the strangest thing is that since I made the appointment I have only had one or two small twinges. I know it's stress, but I'd feel better having someone tell me who might actually be qualified to make a diagnosis. And if nothing else, it's a chance to build a relationship with a doctor which is something I've needed for a long, long time.

*****

Have a great Thursday. I have GOT to finish up my Christmas stuff and have no freaking idea what I'm going to get my mother, so pray for me. Ehhh.