Letters III

Bitchez,

Time for our yearly Christmas letter!  Well, not really yearly, but there's not a term for 3 times in 5 years.  Like, tri-half-decadely?  IDK.  I make shit up half the time, so let's just go with that for now and accept the fact that I can't be counted on to consistently write a Christmas letter.  It's tough work maintaining this crazy, I tell you what.  I can't be expected to maintain my crazy AND a yearly letter AND to publish it on this blog.  One has to prioritize, you know.

Speaking of priorities...Charles finally decided that he should maybe make his health a priority and went to go get his knees looked at.  Of course, they are pretty fucked up and he desperately needs a knee replacement, but quality of life means nothing to insurance companies so they keep shelling out for bandaids for the amputation here and keep doing more minor surgeries.  In this case, it was repairing a torn meniscus (he likes to do that to his knees for funsies, I think...he had the other one done a few years ago) and cleaning up what little cartilage remains in his knee.  The surgeon told me that the knee wasn't as bad as he expected, which considering that the knee he DIDN'T operate on is bone on bone probably isn't saying much.  But, we at least got to work out the disability insurance we are paying for again this year, though for not quite as long as last year's surgery.  He has been informed that this is not a trend that needs to continue into 2018, but no one ever fucking listens to me around here based upon the number of clothes that make it thisclose to being inside the laundry hamper vs on the floor.  Other than that, he is enjoying being employed by a place that prides itself on increasing the level of desperation and despair in its employees eyes exponentially year by year whilst simultaneously wrecking his physical health and forcing him to dream of someday being a kept man.

I am continuing at the private practice, and have started up my own here in town because God forbid I should ever have things like free time or relaxation or reduced stress.  I continue to try to run, not because I enjoy being lapped by the power walkers (which, let's be honest, probably would happen) but because if I don't, I tend to get incredibly cranky and turn to unhealthy coping mechanisms and a dark sense of humor in times of stress...wait, that happens anyways...so why do I run again...?  I also participated in the Minimalism Game again this month and was again shocked by the amount of crap I threw away or donated, this time mainly from the little girls' rooms where they were hoarding miscellaneous puzzle pieces and random plastic pieces of various playsets like their very lives depended on it.

Elizabeth continues to do well at school.  She has moved into an apartment with her boyfriend and cousin and two cats, who are now my grandkitties and I am enjoying being a grandma to because she better not fucking make me a human grandma before I am 40, goddammit.  Plus I haven't thought of a cute name for the kid to call me because I'll be damned if I'm going by Grandma.  My grandchild will be a bevy of originality and awesomeness, naturally, and my name should reflect this.  So I'm not ready to be a grandmother based solely on my lack of an original name.  Of course, there's the whole she needs to finish college first thing too...but I would hope that given that she pretty much went to college with me, that would be a no-brainer.  She also continues to work for the private practice I am at, doing their social media stuff, and everyone loves her to pieces because I somehow have not fucked her up so much she is unable to be a productive member of society.

Alexis continues to dance and I continue to shell out extraordinary amounts of money for this.  She is starting to run into the whole school activities vs dance thing, and I will tell you what, she certainly did not learn stress management from me!  She decided to NOT do Student Council this year because she felt that she could not give it the proper amount of attention between 4H, dance, and band, plus maintaining her good grades.  High five me, parenting WIN with her not picking up on my unnatural and unhealthy Superwoman complex!  She also is continuing to barrel full speed towards adolescence and I'm continuing to hoard my imaginary Xanax to get through it as my anxious to please baby is starting to get some serious sass here.  Imagine that, a child of mine being sassy?  Must get that from her father.

Charlie is dominating first grade academics like the boss that she is and has not only continued her acro classes, but is also doing cheer.  She wants to do swim as well, but I am having a hard time finding classes for her around here that aren't filled up by the members and I refuse to pay $300 for a rec membership to *maybe* get first dibs at swim classes that I will have to pay extra for anyways.  She's already doing better than me in that department as she can tolerate, you know, actually getting into the water, and isn't that what parenting is all about?  Your children having better than you?  Well, she can sure as shit save herself from drowning and that is more than I can say for me (well, at least when I am trying to get out of swimming in gym as a freshman in high school...).

The animals are maintaining.  We had to say good bye to Gunner as he had bitten someone despite all of the training we had put him through.  Charles and Elizabeth had contemplated getting me another puppy, but honestly, I don't have the time to put into one right now with both practices and I am going to be semi-responsible and put the kibosh on that.  We had briefly thought Deogie had cancer, but when we got the lump removed the biopsy, much to the vet's surprise (and Dr. Google, at least according to the pictures...) it was benign.  He at one point did figure out how to get around the cone of shame to lick at his stitches, so he had to get a bigger cone, and it was really hard to not laugh at him as he continually misjudged the size of the cone and ran into shit.  I'm probably going to hell for this, but the little shit did it to himself by being too smart for his britches and getting around the (smaller) first cone.

Seriously, the cone is literally the size of his torso...

Maximus and Toby continue to do well, as do the various fish we have upstairs.  I'm still not convinced that the sucker fish is not going to murder us in his sleep one day as he is still unnamed and probably has an angry blog somewhere blasting the inherent unfairness of being a sucker fish, but I guess if it happens it will be well documented and I can say from the grave "I told you so."

Anyways, looking forward to a future where maybe my husband won't be going under the knife again and I will be only working one job, and not being a grandmother until I have an appropriately creative yet meaningful moniker.  I'm hoping for 1, maybe 2/3 in 2018.  Goals, amirite bitchez?

Merry Christmas!

Laura, Charles, Elizabeth, Alexis, and Charlie

Conservations XIV

Charles shows me a video of how to grow a man beard, involving pouring various alcoholic beverages on it as well as using sandpaper and a cheese grater to massage the growing beard:

Charles: Do you want me to do this to make my beard grow?

(Mind you, his beard is covering his neck...)

Me:  Hell no!

Charles: (laughs)  It's good enough?

Me:  I don't want you to fuck up my cheese grater.


Charlie, after we got Gunner:  Mama, when are we going to get more dogs?

Me:  More dogs?  Three is enough!

Charlie: Well, if three is good, five is better...


Texting with Elizabeth:

Elizabeth: I have a doctor's appointment on Monday.  Do I need any insurance things?

Me: Insurance has not changed but you can't use the flex spending card anymore.  Should be a $20 or $40 copay.  Get a receipt.

E: Okay LOL why do I need a receipt?

Me: I want one LOL  To keep track of our medical expenses this year.

E: Why do you need to keep track of that?

Me: If it gets above a certain amount we can get a tax deduction.

E: So should I try to get sick more often?

Me: LOL no

E: Fine just trying to save you guys some money.

Gunner

Meet Gunner:

Why yes, he is a pit bull.  Feel free to judge away.  I would totally judge me too if I were you.

I really did not intend to get another dog so soon.  In fact, I kept telling Elizabeth that I was not emotionally ready to get another dog.  Though honestly, I'm not emotionally equipped for a lot of things, such as making sandwiches for lunches or figuring out how to accessorize an outfit, so trying my hand at raising another creature was enough to make me wish that my imaginary prescription for Xanax was real so I could in fact drink it down with some wine.

My friend, however, who has also lost her dog got a new one. (Side note: Spartacus was the first of four dogs within a block who died.  It was like some kind of bubonic dog plague hit our tiny village and killed off all of the senior dogs in the neighborhood.  More proof that 2016 was personally out to get me...)  I saw how well she did with her new baby, and since I can't pop out any more of the human variety and I was unsuccessful in convincing Charles that since I still have an ovary we should find a surrogate (that and the whole not being involved in people's toileting habits anymore thing is super exciting) getting a new puppy seemed to be rational.  I mean, I'm still involved in the toileting, but not quite as intimately.  Plus he was essentially housebroken when I got him, so there was that.

At first, Maximus was not too keen on the idea.  In fact, he was acting decidedly like a grumpy old man shouting at the neighborhood kids to get off of his lawn.  Deogie was mainly confused by Gunner trying to hump him occasionally.  Paybacks for you traumatizing the cat before she died, asshole.  Time you learned that no means no.  However, both have since gotten over themselves and have welcomed Gunner into the home with open arms.  It did require Maximus laying into Gunner at first and putting Gunner's entire head into  his mouth at one point...but they seemed to have worked it out and are on friendly terms now, I think.  At least, they keep sniffing each other's asses and I think that is how it works in the dog world.  Not 100% sure about that because I'm gonna go with if I were to try to sniff someone's ass to make friends with them, I would either end up with no friends or the kind of friends that run fetish sites on the Internet.

At least I am assuming that none of my friends run fetish sites on the Internet.  If you do, time to 'fess up, bitchez.  I won't judge.  It's hard to make a buck nowadays.  Hell, even the "can you hear me now" guy from Verizon turned to the dark side to pay his bills.

So we have a puppy now, and I get to train him and break him from all of his bad puppy habits and snuggle and cuddle.  I must admit, I am totally in love with the little fucker.  I've turned into one of those annoying people on Facebook who post a kajillion pictures of their animals or children (I already did the second, so now people are being inundated with Gunner pictures.)  Guess that makes me doubly annoying now but hey, if no one has taken Trump's Twitter away from him yet, I can post as many fucking pictures of my new puppy as I want AND write entire blog posts about him.  'Merica, bitchez!