I am referring, of course, to snot. Phlegm, specifically, with a smattering of post-nasal drip.
Now I'm not so sure I'm dealing with allergies. Leaning towards sinus infection. After all, is is quite common for me to get some bug and be sick and then Andrea catches it and what made me feel a little crappy for a few days will lay her up seriously. I tend to have a bit sturdier constitution than she has, which maybe you would expect from the youngest of five siblings. I catch a cold and it give me a runny nose and a headache, she catches my cold and she gets sore throat, body ache, fever, and can barely get out of bed.
My only current symptoms are the post-nasal drip, the cough (both phlegmy in the morning or after long periods of inactivity and dry itch cough throughout the day), and off and on congestion w/runny nose (haven't seen that one too much in the past couple days).
Andrea is still coughing her brains out, blowing her nose off, seriously fatigued, and generally feeling like shit in no uncertain terms.
Felix has congestion, runny nose, and occasionally a cough, but usually from all the drooling. He's still teething pretty hard core.
Monday, May 21, 2007
Sunday, May 20, 2007
genesis
In circumspect, I can see now how belief in a god can happen. This tapping happens and I have no way of determining what is causing it, or even, in fact, exactly where it is coming from. And I've TRIED oh so many things to figure this out. And the fact that it keeps happening, and I keep not being able to figure it out, drives me to the point of distraction. How much easier it would be for me to tell myself, "TOD is making the noise. I think TOD is an invisible spirit that created everything and that tapping noise is just TOD's way of talking to the house-spirit."
And if I believe that TOD is making the noise, I'll soon believe that he is probably the unseeable cause for most of the previously unexplainable effects I've ever experienced. If I think about all those things TOD does, I can probably piece together some sort of picture of him based on why I think TOD is doing all those things. Pretty soon I've got a very complicated and detailed description of the whats and whys and wherefores of the all powerful TOD. And if someday a plumber or carpenter tears up my floor or ceiling and finds that the cause of the tapping noise was caused by the pipes shifting and rubbing a floor joint every time the hydrostatic pressure in the neighborhood pipeline changed more than 1 millibar (? making this up as I go, obviously). Every time someone on my block turns on the tap or flushes the toilet, my dining room ceiling goes "TAP!". When I discover that and someone says, "See, it wasn't TOD at all!" I'll just smile knowingly and say, "Oh really? Perhaps TOD made the plumbing in this house, in this block, in this city, like that so that I would discover him and his awesome works. It has been revealed to me that I might better understand the shear awesomeness of the TOD. For this to be a coincidence is just way too far out...this is a complicated scheme, a plan, a series of cause and effect that could only have happened by the design of some superior being, of TOD."
And besides, if I'm not being driven nuts trying to figure out why everything is the way it is, I'm able to be more productive at other things like making bricks out of shit or hunting for food, which makes a belief in TOD something of a beneficial trait that evolution will select.
So, being an atheist, I have to relax and get comfortable just not knowing why my dining room ceiling goes TAP and just not worry about it until it actually does cave in (which is no longer covered by my policy).
So, I guess you could say that TOD exists BECAUSE of evolution, not despite it.
And if I believe that TOD is making the noise, I'll soon believe that he is probably the unseeable cause for most of the previously unexplainable effects I've ever experienced. If I think about all those things TOD does, I can probably piece together some sort of picture of him based on why I think TOD is doing all those things. Pretty soon I've got a very complicated and detailed description of the whats and whys and wherefores of the all powerful TOD. And if someday a plumber or carpenter tears up my floor or ceiling and finds that the cause of the tapping noise was caused by the pipes shifting and rubbing a floor joint every time the hydrostatic pressure in the neighborhood pipeline changed more than 1 millibar (? making this up as I go, obviously). Every time someone on my block turns on the tap or flushes the toilet, my dining room ceiling goes "TAP!". When I discover that and someone says, "See, it wasn't TOD at all!" I'll just smile knowingly and say, "Oh really? Perhaps TOD made the plumbing in this house, in this block, in this city, like that so that I would discover him and his awesome works. It has been revealed to me that I might better understand the shear awesomeness of the TOD. For this to be a coincidence is just way too far out...this is a complicated scheme, a plan, a series of cause and effect that could only have happened by the design of some superior being, of TOD."
And besides, if I'm not being driven nuts trying to figure out why everything is the way it is, I'm able to be more productive at other things like making bricks out of shit or hunting for food, which makes a belief in TOD something of a beneficial trait that evolution will select.
So, being an atheist, I have to relax and get comfortable just not knowing why my dining room ceiling goes TAP and just not worry about it until it actually does cave in (which is no longer covered by my policy).
So, I guess you could say that TOD exists BECAUSE of evolution, not despite it.
Saturday, May 19, 2007
tell-tale tap
As I mentioned before, I've been sleeping on the couch until my coughing goes away. Well, tonight all is quiet, the dishwasher is done, Andrea and Felix are sleeping peacefully upstairs, and I'm sitting at the dining room table relishing the few spare moments I may get this weekend to indulge in whatever I feel like. So of course I'm tinkering on my computer in the basement from my laptop in the dining room. No music is playing, no background noise but the slight whisper hum or the refrigerator and whatever vehicles happen to roll by outside. And then I hear it. Sort of a dry, distinct TAP...................TAP..........TAP......................TAP. At first I thought, "Oh, its probably just something outside, blowing against the window or something..." but there it was again. I pause and wait and sometimes it doesn't seem to come for a while...but eventually, it always comes! It sounds like it is actually coming from the ceiling. It sounds like a drop of water smacking onto a linoleum floor tile after a very long fall or a pebble bouncing off of a windshield at 60 mph. Your basic quick tick/tap/bump in the night. House settling/shifting, etc... It's just so unnerving to here it because of my existing neuroses about ants and water damage and just about this ancient house intending to collapse around us at any moment. For all I know, there's a midget in a timewarp trapped between Felix's floor and the dining room ceiling and he's been working on this time dilated Morse Code emergency communique for the past 10 years. Most likely Felix is rolling around in his crib and that motion is translating down through the floor and seems to find itself released through the same creaky joint in the ceiling. Who knows. It's driving me mad, though.
And of course my homeowners insurance premium just went up a few dollars a month because they are now using credit score to determine your rate? WTF??? My HO insurance is paid out of the escrow for the house...if I stop paying my mortgage, I lose the house, and its not like I can make a claim then, can I? I fail to see how my credit score in any way logically should have an impact on my insurance premium. It's just plain fucked. And on top of that I also get the statement which says, "Oh by the way, now that we're coming up on your one year anniversary in your new home, we're going to make some changes to your policy. Here's two pages of greek. Good luck.
It's getting so it may just be easier for them to send you a list of exactly what they do cover, since it is a much sorter list than what they don't cover...which now appears to include mold, rust, dryrot, bacteria, and water damage that may have been caused by the shitty plumbing job done by the assholes who sold you this dump in the first place. You've lived with it for a year (or it is taking longer than a year to surface as an issue) so now it's not our problem, its your problem.
Sigh... I'm not cut out for owning old, used, expensive things. If we had to live hear longer than another year or so, I'd say tear down the house and drop one of those nice new modular homes on the lot.
Really, my only real fear, the one that all of my other fears are just grubby little children of, is that we will lose our shirts over this house, that we will never get back even what we put into it, that it will crumble around us and ultimately cost us even more to move out of than it did to move in.
It appears that in selling a house you simply need to cover up any problems long enough that they become the next owner's problem.
And did I mention that I saw a wingless female carpenter ant today? She was wandering around by the side door to the house, looking for a good place to start up a new nest. I have never seen such a big ant in my whole life. At first I thought I was seeing things, like it was some sort of special effect. The ant was black and looked like it was almost an inch long. I chased it outside and sprayed it wit the Orth Home Defense MAX I had gotten a few weeks ago. It didn't seem to like it much, but it also didn't seem to slow it down any. It just headed into the grass to get away from me. Andrea asked me why I didn't just step on it. Ok, this was a HUGE ant....and actually I was hoping it would die from the spray and then I could show it to the pest control guy when I finally do make the appointment, to verify for sure that if we don't have carpenter ants IN the house, we sure have them looking around the area. I have not seen a single ant inside the house since I sprayed outside the backdoor, back steps, and the back wall around the foundation with the Home Defense...but that doesn't mean they aren't hiding between the walls and ceilings...methodically, but arrhythmically, chewing through my house with an uncharacteristic TAP............TAP..................................TAP....
It's probably just the wind or accumulation of ambient motion expressing through this one focal carpentry joint. Yes, I will spend the next few days convincing myself of that.
And of course my homeowners insurance premium just went up a few dollars a month because they are now using credit score to determine your rate? WTF??? My HO insurance is paid out of the escrow for the house...if I stop paying my mortgage, I lose the house, and its not like I can make a claim then, can I? I fail to see how my credit score in any way logically should have an impact on my insurance premium. It's just plain fucked. And on top of that I also get the statement which says, "Oh by the way, now that we're coming up on your one year anniversary in your new home, we're going to make some changes to your policy. Here's two pages of greek. Good luck.
It's getting so it may just be easier for them to send you a list of exactly what they do cover, since it is a much sorter list than what they don't cover...which now appears to include mold, rust, dryrot, bacteria, and water damage that may have been caused by the shitty plumbing job done by the assholes who sold you this dump in the first place. You've lived with it for a year (or it is taking longer than a year to surface as an issue) so now it's not our problem, its your problem.
Sigh... I'm not cut out for owning old, used, expensive things. If we had to live hear longer than another year or so, I'd say tear down the house and drop one of those nice new modular homes on the lot.
Really, my only real fear, the one that all of my other fears are just grubby little children of, is that we will lose our shirts over this house, that we will never get back even what we put into it, that it will crumble around us and ultimately cost us even more to move out of than it did to move in.
It appears that in selling a house you simply need to cover up any problems long enough that they become the next owner's problem.
And did I mention that I saw a wingless female carpenter ant today? She was wandering around by the side door to the house, looking for a good place to start up a new nest. I have never seen such a big ant in my whole life. At first I thought I was seeing things, like it was some sort of special effect. The ant was black and looked like it was almost an inch long. I chased it outside and sprayed it wit the Orth Home Defense MAX I had gotten a few weeks ago. It didn't seem to like it much, but it also didn't seem to slow it down any. It just headed into the grass to get away from me. Andrea asked me why I didn't just step on it. Ok, this was a HUGE ant....and actually I was hoping it would die from the spray and then I could show it to the pest control guy when I finally do make the appointment, to verify for sure that if we don't have carpenter ants IN the house, we sure have them looking around the area. I have not seen a single ant inside the house since I sprayed outside the backdoor, back steps, and the back wall around the foundation with the Home Defense...but that doesn't mean they aren't hiding between the walls and ceilings...methodically, but arrhythmically, chewing through my house with an uncharacteristic TAP............TAP..................................TAP....
It's probably just the wind or accumulation of ambient motion expressing through this one focal carpentry joint. Yes, I will spend the next few days convincing myself of that.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
spring schludge
Well, for about 10 days I've been suffering from somewhat polymorphic allergy/sinusitis symptoms. Andrea has succumbed to something similar but different, the usual 3-6 day lag behind/before me(this case behind) and Felix has two bottom teeth, so he's been wearing his crankypants pretty much off an on all day and definitely all night for the past week or so. And along with the super drool, he's also got some nose crusties and he's been doing this super cute (but I'm wondering if it is due to congestion or him possibly feeling some other sort of sinus irritation) thing where he scrunches up his nose and cheeks and blows through his nose in short bursts. It looks funny, like he's happy, but maybe he's just trying to blow his nose? And we're also worried he might be harboring an ear ache too, since when things start to go cranky for any reason, the first thing he does is starts going for the ears.
For me, I started out dealing with hard-core post-nasal drip and the occasional (sometimes frequent) uncontrollable spastic coughing. In the morning this coughing brings up a good deal of crud, but during the day it seems mostly to be a dry cough. I can't control it because what triggers the cough is a dry tickle/itch that feels like having a hair stuck in your throat and it only gets worse as you breathe and try NOT to cough. And the coughing causes headaches and is generally irritating to everyone around me. Starting this past monday the coughing has lessend a LITTLE, the post-nasal has tapered off a bit (but I still cough crud up in the morning, just less), but now I've started with come and go congestion and runny nose with the occasional sneezing. So it SOUNDS a lot like allergies...of course the OTC loratadine (10mg) doesn't seem to do diddly. Also, now it feels like my jaw NEAR one of my lymph nodes is tender... so who knows. We're at about day 10 or 11 so I'm wondering if it was viral it would be on its way out by now. I hope so. I've been sleeping on the couch so my coughing won't keep Andrea up more than she has to be (due to Felix's teething).
Andrea is congested, sore throat, body aches, fatigue, and in general out of commission due to her already grueling regiment of being Felix's milk maid. So, add to that the lack of sleep due to my coughing and Felix's frequent wakeups at night... This morning she hit the wall and I'm staying home to take care of Felix while she tries to rest up and regain.
Felix, with his super drooly mouth and little nubby teeth, has become very clingy in the past week. Sometimes he doesn't want to be put down. He actually seems to be giving us hugs sometimes and not just hanging on for dear life. He's almost completely mastered the stairs (he goes up and down but still has trouble getting starting going down) and his favorite thing is to crawl UNDER the furniture now, including going after toys that have rolled into hard to reach spaces. We've also seen him trying to climb into his pack-n-play, which is impressive and frightening at the same time...once he is able to master climbing up and over something like that, we're screwed.
So, it's the sick tending the sicker and minding the young here at casa de premidlife.
For me, I started out dealing with hard-core post-nasal drip and the occasional (sometimes frequent) uncontrollable spastic coughing. In the morning this coughing brings up a good deal of crud, but during the day it seems mostly to be a dry cough. I can't control it because what triggers the cough is a dry tickle/itch that feels like having a hair stuck in your throat and it only gets worse as you breathe and try NOT to cough. And the coughing causes headaches and is generally irritating to everyone around me. Starting this past monday the coughing has lessend a LITTLE, the post-nasal has tapered off a bit (but I still cough crud up in the morning, just less), but now I've started with come and go congestion and runny nose with the occasional sneezing. So it SOUNDS a lot like allergies...of course the OTC loratadine (10mg) doesn't seem to do diddly. Also, now it feels like my jaw NEAR one of my lymph nodes is tender... so who knows. We're at about day 10 or 11 so I'm wondering if it was viral it would be on its way out by now. I hope so. I've been sleeping on the couch so my coughing won't keep Andrea up more than she has to be (due to Felix's teething).
Andrea is congested, sore throat, body aches, fatigue, and in general out of commission due to her already grueling regiment of being Felix's milk maid. So, add to that the lack of sleep due to my coughing and Felix's frequent wakeups at night... This morning she hit the wall and I'm staying home to take care of Felix while she tries to rest up and regain.
Felix, with his super drooly mouth and little nubby teeth, has become very clingy in the past week. Sometimes he doesn't want to be put down. He actually seems to be giving us hugs sometimes and not just hanging on for dear life. He's almost completely mastered the stairs (he goes up and down but still has trouble getting starting going down) and his favorite thing is to crawl UNDER the furniture now, including going after toys that have rolled into hard to reach spaces. We've also seen him trying to climb into his pack-n-play, which is impressive and frightening at the same time...once he is able to master climbing up and over something like that, we're screwed.
So, it's the sick tending the sicker and minding the young here at casa de premidlife.
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
mr. tooth
Felix's first tooth has come in. It's just a rough spot just breaching the bottom gum, but it is a tooth for sure. That helps explain why he has been so cranky in the evenings and frequently wakes throughout the night. Sure hasn't hurt his appetite any, though. He eats as much avocado, banana, mango, pear, lamb, yam, cereal, carrots, etc. as we can toss at him. And of course, he loves the teething biscuits. Whoever came up with those things was an evil genius. On the one hand, they are just the perfect thing for a baby to chew on, on the other hand, they convert from rock-hard biscuit to barley flavored slime in minutes and from barley slime to organic super concrete in seconds, adhering to any and all surfaces, including skin, that it comes into contact with.
good stuff. and the kids love it.
good stuff. and the kids love it.
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