Better Tuesday

11-3-09

I feel pretty safe that it isn’t the flu, but man, I certainly feel icky and have now since Friday night. Last night, I even started feeling nauseous. It was probably only because the ick I do have was really taking it out of me. I started to fall asleep in the living room while Ken was on the phone with his dad.

My afternoon was fine until Lycos got cranky.

I was letting the dogs out to go pee. As they walked through the kitchen, Monarch was just coming down from the food. Luna approached him, to which Monarch promptly smacked her in the face. Not a big deal, and totally ok since Monarch was caught of guard. Plus, it was no claws, just a warning shot. Luna was fine, and backed off instantly. But it was at this point that Lycos become unhinged.

Lycos lunged at Monarch, pushing him hard into the back screen door, and began to snap at him. I pounced on Lycos pretty quickly, and Monarch took off. Luna looked even a little concerned at how clear it was that Lycos had pissed off the big dog.

Now, my first thought was that Lycos was protecting her pup. It seemed reasonable based on the timing. The only problem with this is that Lycos has snipped at Luna several times, in fact only moments before which is what prompted me to let them out in the first place. Is it possible that despite how irritating a little puppy jumping up on Lycos is, she will protect her own in a cat fight?

Lycos has exchanged words with Monarch before. In all fairness, Monarch usually is the one picking the fight. He will go up to Lycos in her basket and poke at her. So maybe this attack, although technically unprovoked, was a “payback is a bitch” type of scenario.

I ended up letting Lycos out, but not Luna. I felt that Lycos needed to calm down a bit, and if she was still feeling cranky, leaving poor Luna out with her might be a bad idea.

I went into the bedroom, assuming Monarch was hiding somewhere. Thankfully, when he saw me he ran up to me quickly, all kinds of content when I scooped him up and rubbed his belly. He was fine, no marks on him. I even think he might have been milking it a bit, but then again, all cats put their paw to their forehead in an exasperated manor, right?

Lycos seemed to calm down, and was quite affectionate with the boys, and even let Luna play with her in her sacred sandbox. It seemed as though just a refresher course on who was part of the pack and who was in charge was in order.

The drama of our upper parking lot continues. It is amazing how childish grown people get over parking spots. Maybe that is one of the remaining old school perks from back in the day. You get an office, you get a secretary, and you get your own parking space. My boss has a large cube, no secretary, and now with this new rule, he has been reduced to parking in the back with the lowly peons that he is supposed to be better than.

The VP (AKA, my boss’s boss), sent another email out last night, reminding those of us who have this month as our turn to park in the coveted spots. I am sure this came out because yesterday, there was only 3 spots used out of the 12 there. My spot was used by my friend John. One woman parked there, but the VP told her to move since it was no longer her month. The manager of accounting parked there in the afternoon even though he wasn’t supposed to. It was funny! It will be interesting to see what happens next. Essentially, there are 2 months on this schedule in which no one who can park there wants to, and a month where the people who were parking there originally can go back to it. They don’t want assigned parking, yet they can’t just say it is open because a couple of babies (my boss being the main one) are concerned that you can’t back out of the lot if there is no spot for fear that they will get hit by a giant truck. All of this would be remedied if they simply said it was open, but to assume all of the spots are taken after 7:30, so enter at your own risk. Super simple. I am all for safety, but it isn’t like we don’t have other parking that is safe. We have gobs of parking now that they let go half of our staff. I guess I keep forgetting that I work with a bunch of old fashioned men. Shoot, my boss once told someone here that as a manager, he doesn’t have to make the coffee.

So far my stomach is keeping it together. I ate this morning, and am keeping myself hydrated since all that certainly will take all the fluid right out of me. I am going to tough it out. I see no point in being home if I can stay at work with just a couple of unpleasant bathroom visits.

Ken has some kind of Catholic training this Saturday morning. Since he does a class at American Martyrs, they make you get some kind of training that makes sure you don’t I guess touch the children wrong. I would imagine they have had enough negative press what with the handful of priests so they don’t need outsiders coming in doing bad, too.

I once again forgot the paperwork for Bobby at home. I ended up showing my mother the test results Bobby got from the speech pathologist. She was pissed, as predicted. She said that they didn’t follow the law, which is something where they need to give me standardized test results, not just a little check list. I am not even sure how much my mom is angry at the results as much as she is mad at the school district for taking advantage of parents who don’t have all the right terminology. I will go ahead and call and request the tests my mom wants. None of them hurt, and Bobby doesn’t seem to mind so far. I just don’t know if I was up for fighting a fight I am not as passionate about.

We are considering Wednesday before Thanksgiving now. Andy had emailed saying that they were getting rooms either near or at Disneyland. I had told him we didn’t need a room since in reality, we can so just meet them there, and the whole Disneyland will be a surprise, so if they don’t sense it, then we will stand a better chance of keeping it secret. Plus, a good night of sleep will be crucial for the best possible visit, and they stand a better chance of that if they are in their own bed. Ken then pointed out that sometimes the rooms at Disneyland mean you as a guest, can go into the park earlier then the general public. So this may be enough of a reason to get out there Wednesday. Plus, we will probably go out there for dinner with them, so why not just stay there? Ken is calling Andy tonight to figure it all out.

Ken does need to talk to Chris about coming by the house for the dogs. Although, we had considered taking Luna to the pet hotel at PetSmart. The problem is, she will not have had all of her vaccinations by then, and she might not qualify. Either way, she is going to be rather sad with us being gone for that long. If I knew that the resort we were going to allowed dogs, I would say to bring her. I think that Disneyland has a kennel that she could stay at for the day, or we could even jet by home first before heading down to the resort. There are details that need to be worked out. Lycos and the cats are veterans of us being gone, and they really don’t seem to mind. Luna is new to the mix, so I want to make sure she is ok.

There is a very small part of me that wonders if perhaps I should try to read Twilight. I am relatively sure I will hate it. But I also feel like I need to know what all the fuss is about. It is the same kind of crazy that Harry Potter got, and I loved me some Harry. Plus, it seems like it would do well for me pop culture mind to be versed in case it ever comes up. I also feel like I can’t dismiss the book until I know what it is really about.

Ok, new information just in. We will not be staying in a room Wednesday night. Ken talked to Papa Brenan last night and in fact, they are just saying near Disneyland, not at the Disneyland Hotel. Since they get in at a reasonable time, we are going to have them come by the house and we will do dinner Wednesday night. Then we will meet them first thing in the morning at the gates. We also need to get over to Costco in order to price out the tickets. The plan so far is to get the 2 park pass, which rocks since it means my boys do in fact get to see the Buzz Lightyear ride! Woo! I am just nervous as to how much park we are going to jam into one day. I keep having to remind myself, they won’t be going on things like Splash Mountain or anything, so really, toon town, fantasy land, those kind of things make sense. It should be fine. I am so excited I am getting nervous and crazy about it. I know they will love it and my stupid mommyness makes me actually cry tears of joy when I can imagine how excited they are going to be. It doesn’t sound like a season pass is as likely, but we can probably upgrade for the 2 park season pass for about $300 for the 4 of us. Might be worth while. We will see if we can swing it.

Who knew how much trouble it would cause when Bobby decided that his favorite color is no longer blue? The boys have been extremely helpful in their color choices. Dax often will declare, “I’m Green!” to which Bobby would reply, “I’m Blue!” It was perfect. I had gobs of blue and green things to be able to give them. Blue and green plates, blue and green cups. It was a no brainer, really. Now, with Bobby declaring his allegiance to the color red, things get tricky.

I don’t have a lot of red stuff. Most of the colored plates I have for the boys come in the green blue combo, and then the pink yellow combo. Apparently red is not the predominant choice for the boy/girl packs. This put a significant kink in my mom’s plans when she was planning the going away party for Gore, having made two prize ribbons, one blue and one green thinking this would cover them both. She had to run out to get a red ribbon to make sure Bobby was covered. I have tried to let Bobby know he can like both red and blue, thinking that this would mean I had more options. Shoot, I had made what I thought was an amazing decision that turned out to be bad when I gave them their snack bowls the other day. I found that we had red and green. I handed them over, only to find out that although color is important, character placement is more crucial. The green had Bobby’s Buzz Lightyear on there, whereas the red had the Incredibles. Dax would have been fine with Incredibles until he was presented with Buzz and then all bets were off. Foiled again!

Clearly I need to remove the little flower on the front of my new bra. I am wearing a t-shirt and it looks like I have some kind of tumor protruding out from my boobs.

Luna had some nasty poo this morning, which is unusual for her to have gone as much as she did in the house. Heck, she normally can hold it. Only a few accidents. But this looked like the Fear, so I can’t fault her. I looked up puppy diarrhea which gave the suggestion of canned pumpkin for her. That sounds pretty easy, especially since she seems to eat everything (including quite possibly a piece of Lego last night). The causes were not helpful. One said over feeding, which yes, makes sense except that we are not feeding her that much. Of course she always acts hungry, but I have also seen her leave food, which leads me to believe we are feeding her ok. Another reason was excitement. Ok, seriously? She is a puppy. A leaf is exciting! Exercise. Ok, so does that mean too much or too little? I wonder since she has been doing the walks with us, and running a lot. But last night, we didn’t go. But then again, she did play outside with the boys a ton. Change in food, but in reality, she has been on this puppy chow since we got her. I will keep an eye on her. Most of her poo has been fine, but pudding poop seems something to worry about a bit. It recommended putting her food where she poos, too, that way she knows not to poo there. I may just put out all the pads in the middle of the floor tonight, leaving her no options.

As a final note, what the hell is up with my boys not liking KitKat bars?? Dude, it is like a chocolate cookie! Not complaining, really, especially since I got all of the ones they got for Halloween. They were actually more happy with the peaches and pineapple I gave them last night then a KitKat bar. Here’s to my kids, right?