What I’d like to do…

and what I actually did were at war with each other, but it worked, for now. Yes, folks, I’ve had another run-in with the crazy neighbor. He tried to call the codes/restriction department for the city and get us fined for working on a car outside the garage (to the side of the house). We got the letter while I was in the hospital, and initially, I wanted to run out of there in my backless gown and whoop his ass. Personally. Yeah, it was the dope talking, I know. However, after I calmed down, I wanted to go to the H.ustler Hollywood store, buy a footlong d.ildo, and wrap it up with a ribbon and a note:

Dear STUPID NEIGHBOR, You are cordially invited to go f.uck yourself. Here’s a little gift to get the party started! Love, Nina and YCU.

So, maybe it wasn’t the dope talking, but I digress. Anyway, the letter stated that we had to work on the car on gravel/pavement that wasn’t a sidewalk (the whole sideyard is gravel), and it had to be enclosed on 3 sides ( let’s see…rock wall, rock wall, house, check!) and the car couldn’t be unregistered (well, I’m pretty sure that stickers on the license plate that say 2011 aren’t out of date yet, buy who am I to make that call?). Does all this sound stupid to anyone else? My husband confronted the guy and was informed that Stupid Neighbor and our other 2 adjoining neighbors had had a meeting about us and that no one wanted to live around us because we were so trashy. WAIT A MINUTE. HOLD THE PHONE. Just who the HELL you callin’ trashy? How dare he? I’m sorry, but he didn’t have any meeting, cause the other two neighbors wave at us when they see us and ask about the kids. Sorry, jackass, you’re nothing but a controlling, bullying, hypocritical person of suspect parentage, and you don’t get to threaten us. If I want to paint my house orange with purple polka dots, it’s MINE, motherfu.cker!! Anyway, so Monday, when he was mowing our grass (at 8am, no less), I marched out there in my bathrobe and bare feet and ordered him off our property. I also threatened to have him arrested for trespassing if he ever showed up over here again. He started spouting codes and policies, to which I responded: “We’re not in violation yet, so you can leave. NOW!” He then started spouting how Jesus loves me and God will take care of my family…whatever. I informed him he was a hypocritical bastard and gave him the “You’re #1” sign, then walked back in the house. Haven’t laid eyes on him since, but…you know we will again. He apparently has Alzheimer’s where we’re concerned. My next move is to call the police and tell them he’s been peeping in my windows. Which he technically has, since he takes it on himself to push our trashcans up from the road each week and he has to look right in the windows behind the cans…But that’s only if he shows up again.

I leave you with this:

He seems to be adjusting well.

He hath redeemed himself in mine eyes.

So Sunday, the YCU came home with a *new* breast pump (Wahoo!!), some darling coming-home-from-the-hospital clothes, Twizzlers licorice (my favorite), and some chocolate. This is much improved.

*sniff*

That sniff if two-fold. I’ve been dealing with a sinus infection/ebola virus (yes, again) and do you know my ENT tried to give me amoxicillin? I told them “They give my 16 month old amoxicillin. This isn’t going to touch what I’ve got going on in there.” Because I was pregnant, they were afraid to give me anything stronger. Seriously? I called my OB, and begged for Levaquin. Miracle drug, that one. Anyway, she didn’t want to give me that cause she said it was a category C drug and didn’t like to use it for pregnant girls. It was all I could do not ask “It’s not a category X, is it?” She called me in some clarithromycin. We’ll see. The other part of my *double sniff* is my child took off his own dipey today and threw it over the side of his baby jail. It was wet. (What’s funny about this is I didn’t notice till I saw him sitting on my kitchen floor and thought to myself: Hmmm. That doesn’t look like the Mickey/Minnie Huggies he had on earlier…Oh God, it’s his pee-pee!) He’s 16 months old. Dare we start looking at potties? I haven’t noticed him hiding behind the furniture…wait a minute. Maybe I have. But isn’t this awfully early for potty-training a boy? Aren’t they supposed to take off their dipeys and put the ‘big boys’ on the week before kindergarten or something? Maybe we’ll get one and let him get used to it being around. Ideas?

And…the neighbor. *sigh* He’s at it again. Last week while my brother and SIL were here, he came over and was mowing our front yard, presumably because he thought it was too high. No, he wasn’t doing us a favor, because if he was, he’d have mowed the backyard too, but he didn’t. My SIL told me she had thought I was kidding before when I was complaining about it. Nope. Dead serious. Then, the next day, my husband and his friend were working on his car outside and the neighbor came over and offered them $50 apiece if they would move the car inside the garage so he didn’t have to look at it every time he walked out of the house. Not kidding. It’s amazing, I know. He doesn’t seem to get it. We own this house. We pay the mortgage. Therefore, we can do pretty much whatever we want to with it, as long as it’s not an eyesore. (Which it wasn’t, they move it inside every night when they’re done. They like to work in the light and breeze. Reasonable, no? The next time I see him, I’m gonna have to lay down the law and tell him not to set foot on our property, I don’t care if the house is on fire, he better not even unzip his britches to piss on it. Trespassers will be shot, and survivors shot again, etc. I don’t like to be that way, but apparently, he’s just dumb enough that I have to be. I’ll put up a sign, or something. Have him arrested for it, which is totally asinine, but what else do you do?

UPDATE: He was cutting our grass again this am. YCU is convinced that if we piss him off, he’ll call the police/city code people every time we want to do anything, and even if we’re not doing anything wrong, he doesn’t want to deal with them. He also said that if I say anything and he smarts off to me, he (my husband) will end up in jail for punching him in the nose. Seriously? Like I’m not perfectly capable of taking care of myself. *ARRRRRRRGH!* He promises to put up a sign. We all know it won’t work, and we’ll have to do things my way anyway, but I’d rather just save a lot of time and holler at him now rather than later.

On taking oneself too seriously…

Today, I walked to the anesthesia workroom and asked two young ladies there for an item that lived there, I just didn’t know where. Apparently, they were CRNA students. The response I got was “We’re not anesthesia techs.” Ooooo-kay, could you tell me where it is and I’ll just get it myself? I mean, really? What, pray tell, does that have to do with the price of tea in China? What, you’re too good to help me find something, or just hand it to me since you most likely still know where it is, despite your deficiency in manners?

Anyway.

This week, I was asking one of the surgeons about his daughters, how they were doing, what schools they’d been accepted to, and whatnot. He told me, and I asked if it would be for a volleyball scholarship and he stated “No, I pay the school, and she can play on the team if she wants.” Gotta love those politics. So I made the comment that all that grace and coordination stuff had passed me by, and I had to settle for just being a smart kid! To this, he responded: *sigh* “That just means that if you were single, and I were single, I’d have to pass on you, because I just couldn’t dilute my gene pool with someone who wasn’t an athlete.” True story. Straight-faced and everything! He meant it! His general rhetoric is all about how he’s amazing, his wife’s gorgeous, his girls are wonderful, and they’re all better than you, etc, etc. It was funny. I mean, seriously? As if I was offering! Another surgeon today told me that if I was ever to become husband-less, I would need to change my ways if I hoped to ever have another one. Wow. Really? Because I stand up for myself and have expectations that he behave like a grown-up? This makes me an Undesirable? Really? Boys are stupid. I said it in high school a lot, which is probably why I didn’t have a lot of dates, but it really is true. *sigh*

My MIL has invited herself, her husband, and my stepson over TO MY HOUSE for Christmas morning. To cook in my kitchen. And my husband has to go to work at 1pm. And I have to grin and bear it. Wahoo. Would you all mind pooling your resources to bail me out? Great.

Earlier this week, my husband called me at work and was angry that I’d forgotten to bring the diaper bag in from my car. Oops, sorry hon. I told him he could come pick it up, then go to his event. To which he responded “I’m not driving all the way down there for that.” People, it’s a 15 min drive to my work. Yes, really. I know. But I called him back, and reminded him that there was a bigger bag in our closet, he could throw some diapers, wipes, and clothes in that, and still go wherever it was he needed to go. He didn’t want to do that either, because I should have just remembered, etc, etc. I hit the roof. Over the phone, at work. There were witnesses to my disgrace. They laughed. So, I said. What you’re telling me, is that you’re not really that motivated to go anywhere, because you’ve turned down two perfectly viable options. You just wanted to call here and bitch at me because you had nothing better to do. Damn it, fix the problem, grow some problem solving skills, and don’t bother me with stupid shit like that! I don’t have time to deal with it, and if I’d been the one stranded, I’d have gotten my happy ass in my car, driven to wherever you were, retrieved the bag, and been on my merry way without bothering him in the least! Small child! ARRRRRRRRRRGH!

Fletcher has learned to climb on his new toy box and take down all his books! As we speak, I’m trying to figure out how to attach a rock to his head so he doesn’t grow up. I’ll let you know what I come up with.

I started an IV yesterday. IN ONE STICK. I’ve not started an IV in at least 5 years. Someone please jump up and down for me and clap, before I explode and just start tooting my own horn! Loudly! I’m only pleased as punch, a little bit. Just a little bit. Like ridin’ a bike, baby! (Oh, yes, I am a nurse and all, but anesthesia usually does that for us in the holding room, so it kind of eliminates it from our job description. This CRNA needed an extra pair of hands, and mine were the only ones available.)

My life is back to normal.

K, so this new-ish job? About to be my old one. Today, my beloved big hospital offered me a full-time, 5 day-a-week position, 0630am-3pm. YEAH!! Putting in my notice tomorrow. *sigh of contentment* Fletcher is growing. He’s nine months old today. Allow me to demonstrate:

Mommy is soooo proud of her big boy!

For Halloween?

This is what I asked a co-worker when she was describing an outfit she’d ordered. It wasn’t. Foot, meet mouth. It’s been one of those weeks. I was called in the office at work and admonished that the “bickering in the back needed to stop” for being better read than my co-workers. They didn’t appreciate my superior vocabulary. I felt like I was in seventh grade all over again, and some dumb kid was afraid I was making fun of him. Oh, and they told my boss I was being disrespectful to the surgeons. Now, I’ve sassed a couple or six in my time, but tattling on me for changing his music (which was over, I just picked something new)? Seriously? Do we not have bigger things to worry about? So, anyway, I got called in the office and received a verbal reprimand. I’m still not sure why, exactly, other than I’m the new girl and these problems didn’t exist before so it must be me, right? So, like the big girl that I am, I confronted the co-workers and the doctor. I informed the guys that I didn’t “do” big pink elephants in the middle of the room, so if I ever bothered them, or hurt their feelings, it was completely unintended. I was told that “even though they knew I didn’t mean it that way, that’s the way it sounded”. I still don’t get it. If you knew I didn’t mean it that way, why are you upset in the first place? Whatever, sorry, let it go, right? Well. When I approached the doc, I started to apologize, and he interrupted me and said that he never said anything, he didn’t even give a shit, and that the guys were messing with me. Are you fucking kidding me? I’ve been called in the office and reprimanded and the surgeon had no issues with me at all? *coughBULLSHITcough* Someone is resistant to change and apparently, I’m making them seasick in what was formerly their very small pond. This pisses me off. Grow the fuck up, and quit with the male ego shit. I don’t have time for that. So, I went and told everyone (including my boss) what that doc said, and that what that told me was either a)he was angry and just didn’t want to admit it to my face, or b)someone’s trying to get me in trouble cause I’m throwing a monkey wrench into their smoothly running but incorrectly executed facade of competency. Hmphhh. I’m not having it. They will be called out and confronted. I don’t “do” big pink elephants, remember?

“And that, Madam, is a faithful narrative…

…of all my dealings with”…my neighbor. Oh. Oho-ho-ho! Yeah, baby! That felt good. This morning, we awakened to an envelope on our front door, containing this:

Dear YCU, Nina, and Fletcher,
Hope you are doing well.
We feel we are being very considerate by allowing you to drive your mower through our yard to enter your backyard to mow each time.
We would like to ask a small favor of you.
Can you possibly move the junk car that is under the tarp and the pink “pepto-bismol” tires car around to the back of your house so we will not have to look at them each time we drive up or each time we leave home.
We do thank you for your consideration of keeping the neighborhood looking nice.
Your Friends,
Stupid Neighbor + Nosy Wife

Uh-huh. Really. Now, we’ve discussed the neighbor before, how he came over on Christmas Day to bitch about the “Driveway War”, about how he was mowing the grass in the rain, erected (hmm…maybe that’s the problem…but I digress) a huge fence (there are pictures here somewhere, but I don’t know how to link) and an ugly shrub (our dog pissed on it while we were cheering him on and it died…bwahahahaha) to keep us from backing onto our own property to back out of the driveway, threatening to sue us if our dog charged him (again, there are pics somewhere of our dog in a party hat, clearly behaving like a Cujo), threatening to sue us again if our friends (who are all grown adults and legally responsible for themselves and their own vandalism) drove over onto their driveway and scraping it with their cars again, and threatening to put up spikes in the grass strip between the driveways to keep it from happening. Also, if he thinks our grass is too long, he’ll start cutting it himself at 0700 on a Saturday morning, without bothering to ask. Hard to argue that except for the time frame, but you get the idea. And they’ve only lived there like, a year. So. You can guess how I felt about this latest party foul they’d committed. I’d had Enough. So, I responded in like manner:
Dear Stupid Neighbor + Nosy Wife,
We apologize for the inconvenience, but you put up the fence, requiring us to drive through your driveway to get to our backyard. Neither of those cars belong to us and are here temporarily only, so please don’t be upset. And while you’re sitting around wadding panties at night, you might consider this: Which do you think is the bigger eyesore, a couple of temporary cars or an unmown grass field behind someone’s house? We so appreciate the attention you pay our yard and property, it is seconded only by a really nosy home-owner’s association president. Oh! Wait! We don’t have one! We will no longer drive our mower through your driveway to get to our backyard, but it will continue to grow up until a ramp can be constructed. Please do not contact us again, as you are not our landlord.

Thanks,
YCU + Nina

It wasn’t 30 minutes before he came over apologizing that he was sorry to have offended us, that we were welcome to come around the fence to mow, he’d be glad to help us if we needed it, etc. Hah. I got out of the car (we were leaving), stood nose to nose with the bastard, and commenced to loudly enumerating all the things that we’d done at his request, that we both worked for a living, we were just as concerned about the neighborhood, and that the cars would be gone July 1. I haven’t laid into someone like that (except the YCU, and we all know how he gets) in a long time. I told him that we want to get along, we wanted to be reasonable, and that I thought we had been. YCU didn’t get out of the car, which was probably best. I’d been wanting to deal with Stupid Neighbor for a long time, anyway, and besides, what was he gonna do? Call the cops? Yeah, they’d laugh at him. He apologized again, and I did likewise, since, after all, I did call them pantie wadders. Hmpph. I probably shouldn’t have, but I felt like being merciful. After all, he probably isn’t used to mouthy, pushy, over-bearing, completely and totally in the right women. We’ll let him start at the shallow end.

Do rats play drums?

If so, they’ve been doing it inside my skull for most of the day. I got to work this morning and there was a lock on my locker. That didn’t belong to me, thereby rendering me very unhappy. I just worked Tuesday. I’m very glad that the person who did it wasn’t in hearing because the first think out of my mouth was “Who the hell did this?!!?” I calmed down after a minute and realized that it must just be someone new, so I sought out the nurse educator and requested the identity of the encroacher, if for no other purpose than just to reclaim my stuff. I left a very polite note introducing myself and even offering to move out if I could just get my belongings. She removed the lock but told me she’d cleaned out the previous day. Now, I’ve been there for 5 years, and now that I’ve gone prn, I don’t keep much of anything there anymore, so she thought it was vacant, I guess. No, I didn’t have a lock on it, cause I don’t keep stuff here for the most part. I’ll get one now! However. My scissors are now missing. I’m simply unable to function without my scissors. It’s like going out without a bra. I feel naked without them. I left a message on the board requesting their swift return, but I bet they’re gone for good. And another thing. Do you know she went and told the cardiac director that I was “mean at first, but then I became nice”? I don’t see what was mean about volunteering to cede territory with my stuff, but what-the-hell-ever. After the week I’ve had, I won’t be surprised if America’s Most Wanted mistakes my identity. *sigh* Then, I got to work with my favorite Dr R. today, who (as we’ve established before) has the communicatory skills of a fruit fly and naturally didn’t bother to board his cases correctly, thereby causing severe dis-preparement on the part of the staff, resulting in his severe (yet highly un-deserved, thank you very much) displeasure. Grrrrrrr. How nice. (Remember the old joke about the lady who was listening to all her friends discuss the nice things their husbands had gotten them for their anniversaries and kept saying “How nice!” When they asked her what she’d been given for her last anniversary, she told them a year’s worth of charm school lessons. When asked “Well, what ever for?” she answered “So I could learn how to say “How nice!!” instead of “Fuck you!”) How very nice. Then I got a headache so bad I couldn’t function/focus/fill out forms correctly. Woot. I just want to go to bed. This all started last night when my husband informed me he was having “Bro night” at our house. Apparently, I’m the only one of the wives who will let them participate in “Bro night” at our house. I agreed, with stipulations. Clean up after yourself, BYOB, by God you better not wake up the baby, and LEAVE at a reasonable hour, so that everyone else can get to sleep and to work the next morning without feeling like a poorly mutated lab specimen hell-bent on learning the drum solo to “Back in Black” is rolling around between your ears. Well, all seemed to go according to plan, until the reasonable hour came and went, and they all seemed to be omitting the leaving part. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. And some choice words. Not to mention, they get stupid when they drink, and it’s like baby-sitting teenage boys with less sense. I don’t like playing dutch boy for bunch of grown ass men with no money trying to do things that will only result in scraping them off the pavement where they’ve morphed into a greasy spot, or bailing them out of the pokey with our no money. Actually, I’ve always subscribed to the belief that if you’re stupid enough to play and get caught, you can rot in there till I decide to part with my hard-earned money rectifying your mistake. (I don’t hear any dancing elephants yet, but keep waiting. Let me know when they show up.) I finally issued the dismissal edict at approximately 1145. *disgruntled sigh* My week’s getting better and better. I’m just ecstatic thinking about what Friday holds in store for me! (Wild sarcastic grin)

‘Livid’ doesn’t begin to describe it.

I was at work on Monday after dropping Fletcher off at the babysitter’s that morning. It was about 230, and I get a text asking me to come get him cause he’d been throwing up all day and screaming nonstop, and she was afraid something was wrong with his belly. Okay. I told my boss, and went flying out of there, thinking everything under the sun, i.e intussusception, ileus, bowel obstruction, perforated bowel, you name it. I get there, and he’s afebrile, his belly’s soft, he smiles at me, and falls asleep in the car on the way home. Hmmmmm. Once home, I made him a bottle of formula, which he ate and fell asleep again. Even more hmmmmmmm. I left her a message that all seemed well, he was just constipated from his daddy thinking it was funny to feed him applesauce and nanners in the same night, but otherwise seemed healthy. I got a text telling me that it was impossible to keep him happy and take care of her own baby, so she couldn’t watch him anymore. This left me approximately 5 hours to find a new babysitter. Uh huh. Yeah. See above title. We called everyone we knew (my husband even called his mother, the whole time I’m thinking “PLEASE be working. PLEASE!!! I’d rather starve than have her anywhere near my baby unsupervised.”) and everyone had to work, had appointments, etc. My husband called his boss to tell him he’d be staying home in the morning and the boss told him his babysitter was looking to take on another child and she was a former nurse at the childrens’ hospital here in town. I thought to myself ” Well, we speak the same language, at least.” We trust his boss, so my husband dropped him off yesterday morning, and I picked him up in the evening. She was really nice, and I was very much won over. (I’m willing to admit that it might have had something to do with her being immediately available, but hey, who am I to claim knowledge of equine dentistry?) I got there, and he was smiling, clean, and content, and they were totally doting on him. Maybe this was a blessing in disguise.
I had to re-certify in ACLS today. That was just sooo much fun I could hardly contain myself. It’s so stressful to have to demonstrate in front of people that you know how to run a code (even though in real life, we all know that anesthesia/hospitalist/nursing supervisor would be doing it, not you).
I had a talk with the YCU today. I told him that it felt like nothing I did was good enough for him, but he knew damn well he wasn’t gonna do it, so what was the problem? He didn’t have much of a response. After he went downstairs to let the dogs in and had to clean up, he was angry that he was the only one cleaning up down there. I just pointed out that he now knew how it felt for me to be doing all the cleaning and chores with not only no help, but them making even more mess and not being conscious of muddy shoes, particulates on socks being deposited on the ottoman, dust and dirt and dishes in general. All of this on top of the sweeping, dusting, mopping, vacuuming, and scrubbing that needs to be done every week, but that rarely gets accomplished due to time constraints of work and offspring. He seemed to get it. We’ll see.

Olive Garden…

also entitled “Why Mommy didn’t get to eat her dinner”. Hi, all. Guess who!! I acted up in a restaurant for the first time last night. Then, I wouldn’t go to sleep till 1130. Daddy drove me around, and walked around a parking lot with me dangerously late at night and thought that made him a hero. Me, I was just over-stimulated and my naps were off, so I decided to let them know how that did NOT work for me. I think Mommy and Daddy are gonna figure out soon that going places with me after my bedtime (7pmish) just isn’t gonna work for awhile. Duuuuuuh. *sigh* Imbeciles. The Easter Bunny came! But only after I saw Papa and Mimi. Mommy said I stayed up too late, so he didn’t come to my house. Apparently, the Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, and the big fat man in the red suit are all in cahoots to make us kids go to bed early. Why? I want to meet them!