or “How Many Ways Can I Make My Husband is Crazy”

It has already been established that I have a crush on Donnie Whalberg but I must confess yet another crush that I have had for some time now.  

I have a habit of being attracted to geeks (no offense honey) and currently, my huge geek crush is on Alton Brown.  

Isn’t he just adorable!

I am a total food geek.  A foodie if you will.  I love watching the Food Network and don’t even get me started on Anthony Bourdain.  Lock me in a room with nothing but shows about cooking and food and chefs and I’d be a happy camper.  

Alton currently has a show on Food Network called Feasting On Waves.  He did two seasons of Feasting on Asphalt and travelled across the US on a motorcycle, finding all those awesome local places that you never would find unless you looked really, really hard.  For Waves, he (and his crew) travel around on a boat and explore the food and food cultures in the islands of the Carribean.  The episodes have been on my DVR for a couple weeks now and I started catching up last night after class.  It is a very entertaining show, mixing information on food and travel and also explores the way food plays such a large role in the sociology of our world.  He expands and goes beyond his normal “this is the science behind cooking” into something deeper. It is sort of like Bourdain’s show, only different.  Either way, I love it.

Plus, Alton Brown is completely adorable!

or “Remember That Time We Had a Hurricane in Ohio?”

You know, I think back to the days when I was a kid and we would have a thunderstorm and our power would go out.  We lit candles and hung out together in the living room.  We’d read books and watch the storm out the window.  It was never a big deal.  The power would usually be back by morning and we’d go back to our regular lives.  And we lived in the sticks.

I become and adult and move to the big city.  I live with my family in the suburbs and life is good.  But, it seems like when we lose power - it takes them days to get it restored.  Apparently we live in a very small area on the power grid.  Just a couple square blocks of houses together on the same connection.  So that means when the power is out - we are last on the list for restoration.  It makes occasions like a few winters ago, when we had an ice storm that took down tree limbs that took out power lines, painful.  Nothing like having no power (and no heat) for 4 days.  One of which is Christmas.  

So, when Hurricane Ike decided to take a trip north through the Midwest and blow his way across Ohio, we again were left in the dark.  We were actually visiting family about an hour out of town (my Mom was up from South Carolina for the week) during the main part of the storm.  They lost power for part of the day as well, but we went to dinner and had fun watching the trees and debris blow, and the power company fix wires in my sisters back yard, and shingles come loose on the house across the street.  It was almost fun.  

The drive home was interesting.  We saw lots of fallen trees and limbs.  At one point I had the urge to yell “COW!” which was immediately followed by my husband yelling “ANOTHER COW!” and we laughed and it was good times.

Then we got home.  No real trees or debris at our house.  No damage.  We were lucky compared to many in our neighborhood.  We listened to the news and heard that schools were cancelled for the next day because almost our entire county was without power.  Dave and I went to work and left the kids to fend in a dark house.  We had some food in the fridge and I suggested they eat up as much as they could while it was still cold and they actually spent a day playing outside.  It was kind of quaint.

Quaint quickly turned to damn annoying in a heartbeat.  

We soon learned just how devestating the damage was in our county and surrounding counties.  They were projecting for many of us that the earliest we could expect power would be Sunday.  A full 7 days after it was originally lost.  WTF?  Many people figured they were over-estimating and it would not be nearly that long.  But they weren’t over doing anything.  On Saturday night around 6:00 or so, our power came back on.  6 full days with no power.  

We survived and considering what happened to folks in Texas and even those in Ohio who lost cars and homes from the damage, we are lucky that power (and a fridge and freezer full of food) were the only things we lost.  

The kids got 4 days off school and (also a blessing) got to spend all of those days with their visiting grandmother.  I got to clean out my fridge and freezer and wipe it all down inside - which is something I don’t do all that often, so even though I despise cleaning, that was kind of nice.  

It was interesting to see how people in this age of technology were able (or not able in some cases) to cope without power.  There was a run on things like gas powered generators and batteries and flashlights in the stores - but everyone also quickly ran out of car chargers for cell phones.  Many stores and libraries advertised that they were open for people to come and charge phones and laptops.  My husband (God love him) had a hard time dealing with his lack of connection via PC and TV and XBox 360.  I think J did a better job dealing without those things than he did.  

The time passed and we survivied.  My daughter discovered that she actually might like to read and is enjoying the Micheal Phelps autobiography I bought her.  J already loved to read and had the most fun carrying round the giant flashlight we have.  Dave paced and sat and for the first time that I can remember, had a hard time sleeping.  But we did make it through and now will have the Windstorm of 2008 to talk about for years to come.

Sometimes I am amazed at the things that are thought in the little brain of my J.  My doodle-bug.  Doodle for short. 

One moment, he can be running like a crazed man around the basement with any of his number of plastic swords pretending to be battling against the enemies of the Jedi, or over-sized made-up dinosaurs, or Decepticons or Orcs or whatever the evil villain is in the most recent movie he watched.

The next minute, he is up in my lap, hugging on me and actually telling me how much he loves me.  I swear there is more caring and compassion in his little seven year-old body than many adults I know.  Here is the most recent encounter that has me thinking how awesome this kid is:

We have two friends, younger guys who used to sing in Dave’s chorus while they were students here in Columbus at Capital University.  They have since graduated and both obtained teaching jobs in Texas.  Jeff is near Houston and Kyle, well Kyle is basically in Mexico from what I understand.  Recently, Jamison has professed his love of science and to be specific, meteorology.  He has added meteorologist to his list of things he wants to be when he grows up and enjoys paying close attention to the weather, which also means watching the Weather Channel.  This being the case, he is very aware of Hurricane Ike (much like he was aware of Hannah and how it was headed toward Grandma, but it was okay because Hannah was mostly rain and not so much bad winds and Grandma didn’t really live near a river so she was probably going to be okay).  This morning, after watching some Weather Channel before school, as we were walking to the door, he mentioned that he was thinking about our “friends down there” and hoped that they would be safe from the hurricane. 

The thing that I love is that these guys have been down there nearly two years now.  For some reason, when they were in the chorus, they made a deep connection with J and it seems that he will never, ever forget about these guys.  And they are pretty awesome guys, I must say. 

So, to Jeff and Kyle and Bethany and everyone else I know in the Houston area - be safe!  We are thinking about you.  You have thoughts and prayers coming from Ohio - even the seven year old ones!!

or “The One Where I Talk Entirely Too Much About How Much I Love Chicken” 

 

So, a good while ago (like months ago) Dave set up a GMail account for J.  I think it may have been as a secondary contact e-mail for his Webkinz account or something, but whatever.  As far as we knew, he didn’t really know about the account and I mean after all, he’s 7, does he really NEED and e-mail account?

So, today I get an e-mail from his account with a subject that said: “did” and a body that said: “you hear the niws”.  Well, of course I did NOT hear the news and was intrigued.  I texted his sister to see what was going on and she said that with a little help from Dave, he was on his email account sending emails.  So, for fun I hit him up on GTalk (the nice little IM service that comes with GMail).  Much to my surprise, he answered.  Then we had the following conversation:

9:10 AM me: Hello J

  

10:01 AM me: Hi

  

I participated in my first Fantasy Football draft in years tonight.  I have met a group of ladies on an ESPN group and we put togther a “girls only” league and had our draft tonight.  It was tons of fun but jeez do I know next to nothing about football. 

(Yes Dave, I should have been working on my History Final, and actually I technically was since I was reading important parts of the books while waiting my turn in the draft and now I will start to compile that knowledge)

Anyway, holy clueless.  I really wanted to try and read up on some of guys before the draft so I could, in my own mind at least, have a clue but of course I did no such thing.  I may as well have put a shit ton of names on a dart board and started throwing at them.  It got to the point where I was thinking “Hey, I’ve heard of that guy, let’s pick him!” and “Didn’t he play for the Buckeyes?”  I’m guessing that is not really how you should go about drafting a team, but it is all in fun so what the hell.

So, for any guys who do know something about football, here is my team (in no real particular order).  Please feel free to make fun of me.  I’m sure I deserve it.

QB’s:  Tony Romo and Matt Leinart.  RB’s & WR’s:  Ryan Grant, Thomas Jones, Selvin Young, Randy Moss, Plaxico Burress, Donte Stallworth, Jerricho Cotchery (winner of the Best Name Award), Jerious Norwood, Reggie Brown and Chris Johnson.  TE’s:  Kellen Winslow and Owen Daniels.  Kicker:  Phil Dawson.  Defense/Special Teams:  Patriots

So.  How shitty am I gonna do?

So apparently my open availability to Donnie Wahlberg was a titch bit offending to my current husband.  (Please see comments for the post just before this one). 

Oops.

I tried to cover by telling him it was all an elaborate test to see if he really read my blog and that he passed and yay!  But he didn’t buy it. 

However, it didn’t take him long to come back with this little announcement and remind me of Reason #386 Of Why I Love My Husband:

“Dear Cyberspace, I want to marry someone else.  Victoria, if you ever need another David . . . “

 

So I read today on MamaPop that Donnie Wahlberg’s wife has filed for divorce.

Sweet.  Now he is free to marry me.

And my name is already Kim.  How easy is that!

Thanks to those of you who read up on my trials and tribulations here and commented both publically and privately.  I appreciate the kind words and thoughts a prayers.  Here is a oh-so-quick update:

I have no diagnosis still.  I have added yet another drug to my daily stack-o-pills and so far it seems to be helping.  I’m feeling better a little bit each day.  I’d say from last week at this time I’m about 50-60% better.  Considering how I felt last week, I’m happy with that.  Wierd things still make me have my painy-stabby-episodes.  Things like riding in a car or any other motorized vehicle and participating in long conversations.   The listening isn’t bugging as much (thank GOD because the not-singing-no-music thing was killing me emotinally!) but for some reason if I have to do lots of talking myself - ouchy.  The dizziness and loss of balance is also going away, which again is nice because stumbling around like a drunk without the benefit of actually drinking is not much fun.

So anyway, I’m still hoping at some point some doctor can tell me what it is that is going on.  I mean, I appreciate throwing drugs my way that help out, but it would be nice to have a name for what is going on so I don’t have to take 15 minutes to explain what is going on everytime a new person asks me.  Maybe I should just stop making friends. 

The side effect of this (which matches both of my “guess diagnoses” is depression and lemme tell you do I ever have it.  But like the painy-stabby-episodes, this is also getting better.  I had a friend tell me a couple of days ago that I “looked human again,” so I have that going for me.  Which is nice. 

The other side effect of this has been my serious, serious, SERIOUS neglect of my feed reader.  So, I am cleansing my blog-self today.  I’m going through my reader and marking everything read and will do my very, very best to keep up going forward.  I will read and comment and post regularly and try to go back and catch any good stuff I missed, becuase I am sure I have missed some good stuff.

Thanks my bloggy-friends!  I’ve missed you!!!!

Which I suppose I should be really happy about.  It is also not an apparent aneurysm, which is again a good thing.  But I have had pain non-stop for 18 days and an inconclusive MRI/MRA really doesn’t help me much at all.

Let me start by saying that I deal with pain pretty well.  I have had a history of Migraine for several years and, while they might get me down for a part of a day or so, I can usually deal with headaches pretty well.  Childbirth - no big deal.  Actually had my first without an epidural or any major drugs.  Recovering from surgery - piece of cake.  But this Is. Killing. Me.

It is killing my spirit and my personally has totally changed over the last two weeks and over the last few days it has ground me down to the point where I am virtually on the edge of tears nearly all the time.  I stray thought or random comment from someone will set me off and then I look like a raving loony. 

Let’s go back to the beginning, which really wasn’t that long ago, but feels like forever to me. 

A few months ago my headaches, which were previously very well controlled, started occuring on a more regular basis.  I just took more OTC drugs and dealt with it, because I could.  Then, I got this very strange sensation of discomfort in my head.  It is very hard to describe and, I guess really is a pain of sorts, but not a pain I am used to.  Take your cell phone and put it on vibrate.  Then put it on a desk or counter or something.  When someone calls and it makes that vibrating noise - imagine what that would “feel” like, multiply it by about 15 and stick it in your brain.  That is what I had.  The first episode lasted about 3-4 hours and went away.  I called my doc and got an appointment for a neurologist.  Before I saw the neurologist, I had another episode that lasted a bit longer 5-6 hours or so.  I saw the neurologist, he increased the meds I was already on and this was all written off as an “atypical aura” that I was having without an actual migraine.  Just the aura. 

Flash forward about a week and a half.  I am off work for the week, staying home with Jamison, hanging at the pool and just being lazy for a week.  Tuesday afternoon I got a killer headache, probably from the sun and heat.  I went home and relaxed and took my meds at bedtime, hoping the sleep would fix me.  I did not sleep well at all and by morning I was having another vibrating episode in my head.  That was 18 days ago and it has not stopped since.  The discomfort/pain that I have comes and goes in waves.  It is always present and will ramp itself up to about a 9 on a 10-scale of pain.  At that point, I could use the word pain to describe it.  It quite literally feels as if my head is going to explode.  There is pain and vibration and pressure and the most horrible discomfort I can remember having.  It will die off a bit and be more tolerable, but always there.  Driving.  Me.  Crazy.

So, at this point, I’ve turned into what I once thought to be a strong woman who could handle most anything into a sniviling bag of mess.  I go from being completely irritated and totally bitchy to a big wet ball of cry in seconds.  I get the shakes and sometimes I’m really dizzy and lose my balance.  I can’t sleep and if I do it is only because I’m totally overdosing on the sleep meds I have from both my doctor and the OTC pharmacy stuff. 

What am I doing to fix this, you might ask.  Well, I went to my doctor and we agreed that an MRI/MRA would be a great thing.  This would rule out things like tumors and aneurysm’s and swelling or infection in the brain.  I ended up having to pull strings and got the scan scheduled ASAP and while I have seen the report - I don’t know if my doctor has yet.  The report is totally inconclusive.  It mentions “bilateraly demylination” (which - I had unilateral demylination before so that is a change I guess).  It also mentions differentials of “prior injury, prior infection or prior infarct.”  Nothing “right now” though. 

So, now I wait a little more.  I see my neurologist in the morning and hope to have the films from this MRI/MRA and my previous one before that so he can look and compare them and help me make this stop.  Honestly, the closest thing anyone has suggested is Cluster Headache, which sounds just horrible and doesn’t really have a ‘cure’ and kind of makes me want to throw myself off the roof.  But then again, of all of the Cluster symptoms, I don’t have many.  So that may not be it at all.

Who knows, maybe I’ll end up as an episode of “Mystery Diagnosis” or get a guest-spot on House next season.  I could always count on Dr. House to fix me, right?