Time to make the donuts...

So...right now I've been attacked by the PMS monster. My leg hurts...my back hurts...I feel bloated...and I'm glad my desk chair has adjustible arm rests because my ASS FEELS LIKE IT'S EXPANDING AS I TYPE.

*sigh*

So...despite my best wants to the contrary...I ate a gigantenormous number of mini-donuts last night. If you're from Chicago...Butternut mini "gems" as they used to be called are a classic. In their yellow happy paper bag full of powdery or chocolately goodness. Thing is...whenever the mini donut craving hits I want powdered AND chocolate covered and it's all I can do to not sit down and eat both bags.

Well...lucky for me I have a dog.

I left my bag of powdered mini-donuts momentarily unattended...and the next thing I know Rerun is running around the living room with a donut bag on his head bumping into things like a deranged pinball.

My yell of..."AAAAAAAHHHH....my donuts!" brought Tim out of the dining room to fish the bag off of Rerun's head and give him a good..."No...no...baddoggie!"

Rerun slunk around on the floor...as is his usual response...and then submissively rolled over to show his belly.

He had powdered sugar all around his nose. Are there doggie coke addicts?

Anyway...I just couldn't be mad at him. He saved me from 1300 calories of mini donuts...and made me smile.

Oh I hate to get up in the Mooorning!

Why can't I get to work on time?

I'm sure my boss would love to know the answer to that question too. Hell...I'd like to know the answer to that question.

This morning...I woke up with the dog laying on my back. I don't usually sleep face down...but I must have rolled over and eventually Rerun must have thought..."Hey...Mom is warm...I think I'll sleep on her."

But I didn't wake up for it. Sometimes I don't wake up for my alarm. Sometimes I sit in bed in a semi-conscious state for almost an hour because my brain was aroused at a time when the wonders of Effexor made it incredibly flush with serotonin. I sit in my half-coma as Tim hands me my coffee and glasses.

So I wait. Wait for whatever magic is in the coffee to kick in. Wait for that time when I can think in a coherent sentence. Sometimes I read a magazine...and after I feel I can actually FOLLOW along with what I'm reading...I start moving for the day. Sometimes I load or unload the dishwasher...those are GOOD days when I can actually attempt a physical task.

Where did the morning sleepy paranoia come from? It came from the sleety morning when there was an accident on 290 so I decided to take Ridgeland/Nagle to work. I was somewhere around Fullerton when a car hydroplaned in front of me...and in my half-asleep state I overcompensated....popped the curb...splashed latte ALL OVER MY FUCKING CAR...and "woke up" with my car on the sidewalk. Right next to a bus shelter.

Three feet...and I would have swerved into a bus shelter full of people.

And ever since then driving to work in the morning has been an anxious...nerve wracking and disappointing experience. Disappointing because I want to be on time...but panic and nervousness that only comes from having that near-near-death-experience happen just gets in the way. The doctor has me waking up at 6am. I have this list of crap I'm supposed to do that I never get done but try. Sometimes I forget to shower. Sometimes I lose my keys or socks or whatever. And some days...the dog sleeps on me and I'm just too warm and calm and comfortable to get out of bed and face the day.

Patchwork

This morning...I woke up a burrito. You know...when you wrap the blankets around you and roll to the left...roll to the right...twist and shout...and then the dog can lick you on the face as much as he wants to because your arms are unceremoniously clamped to your side...

One of those mornings...

But some of it is my new quilt. My birthday quilt that my Mommy made for me and finished six months 'better late than never' late.

It's great. My quilt. Because my Mommy made it...and it's purple...and it's the perfect weight for a summer blanket...

Mom has been wanting to quilt forever. But work has pretty much prevented her from putting her time into it. She seems to have just about enough focus to do one sort of "project" thing at a time...and work was taking up all of her energy. So now...quilts. She made me a weird sort of lap quilt covered in sailboats and fish...and now my purple quilt. And later this month...she's taking a class in T-shirt quilts...and called me with the long list of all the Snoopy T-shirts of mine that she's had saved....since I was like in the eighth grade.

Scary...what your Mommy will save of yours....

But I wonder what she must have thought every time she moved the 40 or so T-shirts she'd been saving for that rainy day where I magically wanted them again. Wanted something that she'd done for me. It has to suck...being a parent. For so many years you're the center of another human being's world...and then...you're like yesterday's newspaper.

To box or not to box...

My mother’s life insurance policy came up for renewal…or review…or whatever. It’s a 14k policy. If she cashes it in now…she’ll get 7k. She doesn’t want to leave me with funeral expenses. I ask…if I can’t bury my own mother…who am I going to bury? Just pre-pay for whatever you really want…and I’ll arrange with church for everything else.

So…that brought about the whole discussion of what she wanted. Cremated…put on her brother Melvin’s grave…no embalming. And no viewing…just a memorial service.

Sounds good to me.

I have this whole horror at the idea of rotting underground. And an equally strong horror of embalming. My Grandmother was buried whole…but not embalmed…in an “eco” coffin and liner. So she’ll return to the earth. Which is what we’re supposed to do. But sometimes I find myself morbidly wondering what she must look like now. Liquid? Solid? Mushy? I’ve seen photos of corpses before…and…well…

I’m all for cremation.

I was surprised how fine and white my dog Linus’s cremains were. I wanted to see them at least once before they went into his little photo holder urn/box thing. It was a surprisingly heavy squarish plastic packet of grey powder. My fuzzy dog…in a little box. I have to say…I can’t remember crying harder than when Tim returned from Iowa with the little plastic box that they give you. Last time I’d held my dog…he was warm and soft and alive. Then…box.

So…that left me wondering what I wanted? First…donate whatever can be donated. Eyeballs…liver…hair…really…if I go to God bald and missing my heart and kidneys…I’m all down with that. Then…no embalming fluid. C’mon…it’s just GROSS for one…and the idea that someone can dig me up in 100 years and poke around at me. Just…well…no. It’s my body…and I don’t want to be someone’s stinky science project a century from now.

Then…memorial service. Preferably some sort of picnic thing where everyone can drink and enjoy themselves. Like what I did for Linus. Say something. Shake my urn for good luck. Donate to charity in lieu of flowers. Have a few hot dogs. Most of all…I don’t want anyone to spend a whole lot of money on a funeral home. It will NOT be what I wanted. Ever. Not that I don’t like funeral homes…or think less of people who have the “traditional American funeral” but…well…if you’re going to do that….lay me out on the couch with my favorite afghan and come on by the house and have an “old-fashioned American funeral.”

Then…I might as well hang out with Mom and Grandma Mickey. There will be a space on Grandma Mickey’s grave for an urn. Just put a few teaspoons of my dogs in with me…and put a tiny marker for anyone who feels the need to visit…name…dates…and that’s really it. Cause in 50 years…who will visit? My non-existent Grandchildren? Nobody will visit. And in some ways…it’s sad that after I’m gone…there’s nobody to visit Mom…or Grandma…or Melvin…or Andrew and Martha…my Great Grandparents.

OCD...you can't catch me...

A while back I went down to Rush to participate in a study of the genetics of depression. It was an interesting experience...made moreso because my interviewer had gone to college down at Northeast Missouri State at the same time I did...and knew a bunch of the same people.

It was an interview...a blood test...and a questionaire. All in all about three hours of my life...hopefully to make a difference in someone else's.

My Grandmother...she had a lot of stuff going on. Depression, schizophrenia...probably actually suffered from Bipolar 1...but when we put her in the nursing home...at the forefront was OCD.

My grandmother was a compulsive hoarder.

I know I've told friends about the whole process of putting my grandmother into the hospital. Cleaning her apartment was a cross between an archeological dig and a superfund environmental remediation. Among other things...many, many other things...she hoarded her garbage. Food garbage. There were at least four years of take out containers from the local corner diner stacked up in her kitchen...and because she lived in a vintage Chicago multi-union apartment building that meant.

Cockroaches. Big time. Not one here and one there...it was Stephen King's Creepshow in proportion. The floor was sticky and crunchy and covered in a brown sort of "dirt" that was actually the rotted casings of what was probably six to eight years of dead cockroaches. In some places...over an inch thick.

The smell...well...anyone who has ever lived in the city knows what roach smell smells like. It's kind of a weird stale musty smell...produced by a combination of roach poop, roach oil and roach vomit.

Mmmmmm....

And if you do know...imagine it amplified to the same level as dead skunk at the side of the road. The smell burned in my nostrils...and the only thing that made it go away was rubbing Vicks on my upper lip. A trick I learned from some sort of crime detective mystery novel...used to mask the smell of rotting flesh. And I pulled my socks up over my jeans...rubber banded them to my legs...and added tape for good measure. Kept my hair under a shower cap. Really...it was so nasty that it was just me and Mom and Tim working on it because I couldn't possibly ask a friend or another family member to help with that. It was the kind of horror you would never invite someone else into knowingly.

The day before we went in to start cleaning...Mom and I went over with a couple of industrial strength roach foggers. That was the creepiest...because there was this sort of crinkle noise in the room from all of the moving insect life. Like leaves or papers moving in a mild wind. We plunked two bombs on the kitchen counter...and hauled ass.

And the next day...we came to clean and sort. At first...my mother wanted to look through every bag of garbage...but the green maggot filled trays in the first couple of bags changed her mind...so everything in the kitchen that was already bagged as garbage went out as-is. At least my Grandmother was nice enough to bag her garbage...

It took over three weeks...for a 700 square foot apartment.

So if anyone wants to know why clutter and junk and dust and dirt bothers me so much. Why seeing one cockroach in my house will send me into a nervous frenzy of cleaning...that's why. Because I didn't need a study and an interview to tell me that SOMETHING runs in the family besides thick calves and broad shoulders.

The compulsive hoarding cases you see on television now that Oprah has gotten interested in the subject...and it's on TLC's "Clean Sweep" and such...and that old ladies with 70 dogs make the news headlines...it seems commonplace.

God I hope not...

I had a funny thing happen at the beginning of the month. I keep tossing around the idea of becomming a professional home organizer...along with the idea of becoming a dog groomer...or robbing a bank and moving to my own island in the Carribean...anyway...

I bought a copy of Peter Walsh's book..."It's All Too Much" on the suggestion of a friend...and was a little disappointed that there were sections in there for organizing your kids...but not your pets. And my dog has a ton of crap.

So I jotted down a few ideas...found Peter Walsh's website...and sent them off thinking..."Hmmm...i'll get added to some sort of automated mailing list..."

Nope. I got a phone call. "Hi...this is Peter Walsh..." on my voicemail...in his cute Australian accent and everything. He wanted to use my e-mail for his June newsletter...and I was like..."Hell yeah!..."

So...later on in the day...he called back. While I was at my desk. We commiserated for a few seconds on both being employed in anal retentive type A personality jobs...and I mentioned that plenty of my friends thought I should become a home organizer...

He said something to the effect: "...that it LOOKS cool until you spend two weeks wading through someone's floor to ceiling full-o-crap-garage...."

Yeah...I know what that looks...smells like...and no thank you. Because for every five people who have every Prescious Moments figurine in the world taking up every square inch of their home...there's someone like my Grandmother...who is genuinely mentally ill...who can't let go of foam take-out containers because without them...she'll lose her sense of self.

Bark...

My dog barks when I'm not home. He barks when we leave. It's separation anxiety pure and simple.

Thing is...every time I leave I feel like barking too. I mean...I go out the door to work and 99.9% of me is screaming..."GO BACK AND PET THE DOG!"

This wouldn't be so bad except I've been getting the Nellie report every morning. Monday: Your dog is barking...could you do somethine? Tuesday: Still barking...how about shutting your windows? Wednesday: Still barking...I can hear him through your window fan. Thursday: Still barking...ever thought of one of those anti-bark collars?

Friday...I kind of feel like recording 30 minutes of my dog barking...and hanging one of my stereo speakers out the window. I think tonight is gonna be PUNK ROCK MUSIC NIGHT! I'm gonna pull out all of my Black Flag and The Misfits and she can listen to "I Ain't No Goddamn Son of a Bitch" turned up all the way to eleven.

I know all of the techniques for teaching my dog not to bark. Thing is...I'd just rather be home than teach him not to bark when I'm away...

So...today I'll shop online for smarter dog toys...and tomorrow I'll talk to the dog trainers at animalsense.com where I take classes about ways to stop the barking. But the real way is for me to JUST IGNORE IT. No yelling...because then whenever he barks he'll get to hear Mommy yell at him which sounds like..."Blah, Booiiah...Rerun!!" to him.

It's stress....anxiety. I mean I took two months off of work to get my head back together and work on getting my own tired ass outof bed to work on time and I have some retired woman who want's to sleep in complaining about my barking dog.

GET A JOB. BUY EARPLUGS. Better yet...why don't I just drop him off at your place every morning and you can entertain him for the day?

Really...sometimes...I really like Nellie. Because I appreciate busybodyness. Sometimes...I want to bury her head first in the front courtyard.

But really...I feel that way about everyone from time to time.