Waking up to America.

This morning, in spite of several nights of really crappy sleep, I was up on time and to the bus stop with TIME TO SPARE! This might not seem like an accomplishment to you, but if you were the one who's been pulling in to the bus stop parking lot just as it's time for the bus to pull away every day for the last few weeks, you'd be totally stoked about it. I actually had time to gently pick up my purse and book and get out of the car like a lady. As opposed to the recent ritual of grabbing my stuff like I'm a purse snatcher and throwing myself out of the car with no regards to whether or not I'm about to flash my hoohoo at someone. (Lucky for me I wear panties AND tights when I wear a skirt.)

My boss is in Russia this week for her first visit to adopt her new daughter, and so I have been buying my coffee rather than trying to make a pot small enough for just me. So as I thought about whether or not I was going to buy my usual two apple pies or the more healthful fruit and yogurt parfait at McDonald's this morning, I was hit with a craving for Krispy Kreme donuts. And they sell those in our cafeteria, so that's where I headed. Lo and behold, there was a nice set of students selling BOXES of the things in the lobby! A dozen krispy kremes for $5 seemed a much better deal than one for $1, so I bought some. And then headed back to Mickey D's for the coffee, because it really is good.

As I went around to the peoples' offices that I knew would be here that early offering donuts, I felt like Dexter. I have watched too much of that show (the whole second season) in the past few weeks. I momentarily feared that I'd run into my own Sgt. Doakes who would suspect I was up to no good... thank god not a lot of people get Showtime.

I finally settled into my office with what really must be the most American breakfast ever: two Krispy Kreme donuts, a cup of coffee from McDonald's and the following headlines in the news:

Father of slain girl to file suit over failed search
Inmate suing for sex change says prison stopped treatments
Eskimo village sues over global warming

I really need to come up with something I can sue someone for... obviously litigation is the new lottery.

This type love.

I know what he means. And have the ring on my finger to prove it. Beautiful.



(Thanks to madeinrichmond for the direction to kindnessgirl for the direction to shihan.)

Oh my God, she is SO RIGHT.

My cousin Cassandra posted this comment to my blog about the curling iron warning:

"Well how in the hell are you supposed to curl your eyelashes????"

You know, I bet she is exactly on the money with that one. Some nincompoop thought they'd get some extra curly fluttering of the lashes, and now we all must be warned not to be completely daft. Too funny!

Ouch! My eyes!

Last night, a routine trip to my shopping mecca, Target, resulted in the purchase of, among many other necessary items, a curling iron. I haven't had a regular sized curling iron since my mall hair days in the mid-nineties, but saw curly haired Project Runway contestant Jillian using one to accent some of the curls on her head, and thought it was high time I bought another one.

This morning I plugged it in and noticed that instead of the typical warning label that's attached to small bathroom appliances--you know, the one that says not to drop it in the bathtub?--it had a different one. The first side was your typical warning to not-too-bright parents:



The opposite side is something I've never seen before. Apparently in the past fifteen years, people have become absolute MORONS:



I absolutely can not believe that they actually have to put a warning label on curling irons telling people not to stick them in their eyes. What in the name of God has this world come to?

You know that's because some idiot burned their freaking eyeball and sued the company. Kind of like all coffee cups now say "HOT LIQUID" all over them after that stupid lady sued after she spilled coffee on herself.

Anyway, I guess I'd like to say a special THANK YOU to the folks at Conair. Without them, I'd surely have stuck a piping hot metal appliance in my face and singed my peepers this afternoon.

More like swish-swish-THUMP.

So we went skiing this past weekend. And here are a few things I learned:

Lesson #1: Lydia is not athletic.
Skiing is very full of drama. You gotta put like eight layers of clothes on (if you're me), rent all this crap, fit into these weird boots, then carry all this mess out to the slopes. By the time I was dressed and got all my crap outside, I was worn slam out. I needed a nap. This lesson was reinforced throughout my skiing experience.

Lesson #2: Lydia is not a skier.
We got our lift tickets and rentals a mere 7 minutes after the first lesson started, and the next one wasn't until 2 hours later, so we decided to put me on the skis in the practice area for a little while and see how it went. If I needed a lesson in 2 hours I could always sign up for it, if not, I could just go on my merry way and not waste 2 hours waiting around. So Bryan and I made our way to the top of the practice hill (not even the bunny slope) and put on our skis. Let me summarize the next hour and a half by saying that every time I started to move on the skis, I fell down. It was an exact repeat of my first attempt at skiing 9 or 10 years ago. But I tried!

Lesson #3: Lydia can give up sometimes.
I'm not a big fan of giving up. There have been very few things in my life that I have tried but failed at. (Usually I can gauge pretty well if I can succeed or not... and I typically don't do things I suspect I won't be able to achieve.) But after giving myself a mild case of whiplash and crying by the trees and just being plain ol' exhausted from trying, I gave up. It wasn't a good feeling, and in fact it still kind of pisses me off, but it was the best choice for me. It was either that or wind up injured... and quitting seemed the better option there.

Lesson #4: Lydia has a very supportive husband.
This lesson I already knew, but Bryan was so great about the whole thing. I felt the worst about leaving him without a skiing partner, but he's such a good sport that he didn't seem to mind too much, and he was able to ski a bit later that night with his friend. He didn't even think I was gross when snot was pouring out of my nose as I boohooed on the side of the hill. ;-)


The moral of the story is, I probably won't try skiing again. But that's alright, there are other things to do on ski trips! Next time I'll go straight for the snow tubes. :)

Doing the swish-swish.

So in a few hours Bryan and I are headed to lovely Snowshoe, WV for the weekend. We're going on a ski trip with a few other couples... one guy Bryan works with and his girlfriend, then some of their friends. This should be very interesting for multiple reasons.

1. I have skiied a grand total of once in my life. Frane can tell you how disastrous it was. I knocked the instructor down four times before reaching the bottom of the practice hill. She was pissed. She said, "No one EVER. Knocks. Me. Down." Guess you're wrong about that, lady!

2. I'm totally not athletic. I was thinking in the shower just now how it could be fun once I get the hang of it, and I thought, "Hmm... really? Being out in the cold, cold snow, exercising? Fun?" I am, however, making every attempt to go into this with a very open mind, because my husband skiied a bit in college and has been wanting to go skiing for the 7 years we've been together and we've never gone. So now's our chance, and I am gonna put on a brave face and be the best Ski Bunny Wife I can be. Although I may turn out to be the best Snow Tubing Bunny Wife I can be. Or perhaps the best Read By The Fire Bunny Wife.

3. We're gonna be the old fogeys. Just by 6 or 7 years, but man, how life has changed (and how lame we've become) in the past 6 or 7 years.

4. I did just recover from a pretty serious illness... but rest assured, at the first sign of feeling sick, I'm off the slopes and in the bar. I mean, in the bed. ;-)

Wish me luck!

I should move to San Diego.

Both times I've been to San Diego, I've felt like I should move there. The weather is perfect--basically just like it has been yesterday and today in good ol' Richmond. And it's days like today that make me realize why I'd like to live there: this weather makes me feel so freaking happy I could sing.

I mean, it's probably not just the weather. Recovering from an illness that could have been incredibly serious feels good, as does seeing how amazing my husband is in a crisis. And yesterday I took my health into my own hands and took another day off from work even though I technically could have performed my job. I decided that I needed to do what was best for my body and give it one more day of rest, and it is incredible the difference it made. I mean, I feel great!

On top of all that, this warmth and sunshine just does me good. It makes me realize how much I truly hate cold weather and how much it affects my mood. Not that I'm always in a BAD mood when it's cold, but I certainly am not as chipper as I was today.

I don't know... it's weird. But I just feel like everything is right in my world, in general. And that is a spectacular feeling to have.

With good reason.

So, after that blog the other morning, I did end up going to the doctor. Unfortunately, since Bryan had just recently had a fever that lasted a short 24 hours, and since I popped 800mg of ibuprofen after my 102.6 reading that morning and got my temp down to a breezy 98.6, my doc, Bryan and I all kind of figured I must be on the upward slope. My doctor gave me some cough syrup with a nice narcotic mixed in and home we went.

Bryan headed to work for a few hours that afternoon, and I crashed on the couch. I was hot... real hot... and could tell the fever was back full force, but I definitely did not have the energy to go looking for the thermometer. When Bryan called to say he was headed home around 5:30, though, I was roasting and did make the effort to take my temperature. It was a lofty 103.6.

Bryan asked if we should go to the hospital, but unfortunately my thinker wasn't working so well whilst swimming around in my boiling head, so I called my boss, Sue. Man, I can not tell you how grateful I am to have a doctor--and her in particular--as a boss. She instructed me to go to the ER immediately, so I did.

If you live in the Richmond area and need emergent care, I highly recommend you go to one of the Bon Secours hospitals. They have a 30 minute guarantee to see you there, and I was back in an exam room in less than 15. At this point I was concerned my throat may be swelling, because that's a possibility with angioedema, an autoimmune disease I have. The ER doc called my specialist, who told him if that was what was happening it would be manifesting totally differently, so thankfully I wasn't dying. Except then I got a throat x-ray, and the ER doc came back and said he was very concerned because some things looked really bad, so he called in the Ear/Nose/Throat doc (ENT). Who told me I had something that was very, very serious.

It's called epiglottitis. It's an infection of that little flap that closes your nasal passageway from your throat. At this point I could barely swallow (the pain to do so was an easy 10) and I couldn't talk. So they got the IV in, some nice, friendly morphine, started some antibiotics, and admitted me to the ICU. Luckily my breathing wasn't really affected, so we decided to just keep a very close eye on that rather than intubate me (which the ENT really seemed to want to do).

So I spent the first night in the ICU, then got moved to a regular room yesterday. I've been, thankfully, steadily getting better, so I was able to come home today. I still feel like total crap, and the ENT told me it'll be several weeks before my voice is back to normal, but whatever. I was actually able to start eating oatmeal and soup yesterday after not eating for over 24 hours, so that made me very happy. And then this morning I even ate some scrambled eggs! I got to talk to my mom and grandma and Jodie last night, and my dear dad and friend Leslie even came by to keep me company for a little while. And the staff at St. Francis is wonderful... I know where I'll be having a baby if I ever get blessed with that experience.

Through all this, my husband has been right by my side. He stayed in the hospital with me both nights and has been taking very good care of me. I know this has been tough for him because he is still very sick himself (though if you ask him he'll say he's not). I thank God every chance I get for such a wonderful man by my side. He is truly the man of my dreams, and I don't know what I'd do without him. My grandma gave him what I believe is the highest compliment anyone could bestow upon him this morning. She said, "He reminds me more and more of your Grandpop." And she's right. And now I'm crying about how much I love him for like the fifth time today. But that's good. I am a very lucky girl.