10.30.2012

Carnival Cruise Bathroom Venture

I don't usually share tales from the bathroom, but I have to include this story.
 Dave and I just spent a week aboard the Carnival Legend. We left out of Tampa, Florida and landed in Cozumel, Belize, Mohagony Bay and the Grand Cayman. The trip was fantastic! 
 The story that sticks out in my mind doesn't occur on any of those gorgeous ports. We were on the boat and after a long, boring day at sea the Dave, Brad, Jaycie and I opted for a little excitement at the formal steakhouse. 
Brad made the appointment and we dressed up accordingly. 
In the middle of dinner I got that awkward feeling. You know when you gotta go, you gotta go. Walking in heels on the boat was fine, except for all the slick flooring that my old made my old stilettos slide all over the place.
I slowly walked down the stairs and finally found the bathroom.
Restrooms on the boat could be quite the experience. You had to heft a should inward just to get in a small foyer and another hefty door shove to get into the actual bathroom containing three or four stalls.
The steakhouse was pretty empty so I was surprised to see a woman standing in the foyer between the outside and the room with the stalls. She looked at me with that dull, irritated look my mom gave me a thousand times when I was a preteen, "They won't let me in."
"What?"
"They are holding the door shut."
Almost as if she heard us talking, a middle-aged woman with mousey brown hair with a fancy dress and shawl came out laughing hysterically.  In the restroom, you could see four or five other middle-aged women laughing at the sinks.
The woman with mousey hair felt the need to explain to me, "They restaurant is so formal and they want you to be so good--so serious. We are all so naughty--loud--funny. These girls--."
She whips out an old digital camera to show me a picture of her friend (with a shawl over her head), peeing in the sink. Did I just enter Bridesmaid's 2, Middle-Aged Cruise?
I couldn't stop laughing. This middle-aged woman with greying hair was giggling like a teenager and showed me, a complete stranger, a picture of her friend peeing in the sink. It's just too awesome.
I want to be that awesome when I'm in my elder years. Here's to you, middle-aged woman peeing in the public sink, YOLO.

10.27.2012

My Suburban Chicken

Normal people have normal pets. My friend next door had two dogs and my friend Stacey had a lizard. I didn't ever feel weird until my friends came over just to stare at the shed with peeling red paint.  I started to feel like my house was closer to a zoo than a house.
I grew up in Sandy, Utah. It is NOT a farming town. Sandy is very much surburbia at it's finest. You would have to drive a few miles to see anything besides houses and brick school houses.
We were the only family with pets that were a little different. We had a cat, a yellow canary and a chicken.We had a chicken that didn't produce eggs or do anything normal chickens do, besides cluck sometimes when she was nervous.
The story is good but it gets better. Not only did we have a chicken in suburban Utah, the chicken's name was not Florence or Betsy. The bird was appropriately named Ugly. She was missing a ton of feathers from close calls with neighborhood cats.  She also had a beak the seemed to frown all the time and only clucked when she felt nervous. Ugly chicken stopped laying eggs before I was born, but we still nurtured her in a shed in the back yard. She was a pet and part of the family
In the summer, my mom let her out of the shed to wander our large backyard and pick at bugs in my mom's garden.
The worst part about having a chicken in the backyard was feeding her. After dinner my brothers and I would take turns leaving bowls of appropriate dinner leftovers for Ugly. Those moments are still terrifying to think about. The backyard had exactly one light that pointed towards the back of the house towards the trees, not the shed. So I spent the time looking down the back of the house for murders, shuffling to the shed, dumping the bowl of lettuce for Ugly and sprinting back to the house before someone could kidnap me.
Terrifying.
Even though I hated feeding Ugly. I was fond of the awkward chicken.
When I was in first grade, I got this assignment to draw a picture of my family. Like every six year old I included my pets: Butterscotch, the best long-haired tabby cat in the world;  Tweety, originally named yellow canary that appropriately used only the swing in the wire cage; and I couldn't forget about Ugly.


10.25.2012

Bachelorette Lingerie mishap

This year has been full of weddings for Dave and I. This means lots of bridal showers, bridal picture sessions, bachelorette parties, set-up and take-down of all those things and then there are the weddings.
My favorite part of these events is the bachelorette parties. I love an excuse to shop for "fun things" and play "fun games" with friends--even if the friends are my sister-in-laws.
Last night was the last one. I got a super cute purple number that was cute and hot at the same time.
The day before said party was very busy and I shoved the lingerie into the gift bag in a big handful; running out the door literally with my child screaming from her carseat.
We played a game of guessing. The guests lined up panties they purchased on a line and the bride had to guess who gave it to her. I didn't want to buy a new pair so I separated the set. The panty hung on the line and I put the rest in a gift bag.  When gift opening began. She pulled out the number with praise.
I quickly explained that it didn't have a tag because I had to rip it open for the panty game and I didn't wear it.
Laughter all around and I demonstrate a little shimmy to go along with it.
Then she says, "Oh, wait there's something else."
My eyes went wide, wait what?
She pulled out my purple ruffle tank top. It's roughly the same color and was probably sitting too close to the lingerie on the bed.
Someone on the couch was pretty witty, "Maybe she did try it on."
I can't make this stuff up.
I brought a gift bag of scented hand sanitizer (matching with the bride's lotion) and my own purple tank top. True Story

10.22.2012

My Blood-hypo what?

This post may get a little personal and a little serious at first, but I promise you will chuckle at the end.
Since the birth of my daughter (a little over a year ago), I felt like something inside was a little off center. Lots of people attribute it to the post birth blues...and then when it didn't leave....post partum disorder. It wasn't "depression" in a typical sense. It was kind of erratic and hysterical feeling.
A lot of people believe in talking to someone to talk through their problems. I took that advice at first. Utah has a new mental health building that looks fancy and authentic. When I talked to them, they wanted me to come in everyday for a four our group meeting. (Hello, I have a baby and I work full time...thanks for nothing).  I talked to my OBGYN, clergy, my mom and of course my husband.
Blah blah blah and it didn't feel better. A few months of that I took it inside and tried to handle it myself. That worked for a while, but it built up and slowly the release happened once every few weeks, then every week and than it hit a scary point for me when it started happening for days in a row.
Dave, my husband, has been a fantastic listener. Hearing my complaints and crying like a champ but even he has his limits. The company he works for has this "mental health campaign" or something for their employees. I took him up on it and met with a counselor, who is fantastic. I have a difficult work schedule and it is hard to find a babysitter for additional hours outside of work, so who knows how often I'll be able to see him.
His first suggestion was to get all my blood levels checked. As if my countless blood draws (to check my cumidin levels) during and post pregnancy weren't enough. Oh needles, it's a good thing I'm not afraid.
So I go and check, fill out more forms on depression and anxiety. I could probably recite them in my sleep I've read them so many times.
Results came back today and all my hormones look good but something awkward showed up: hypothyroidism.  I know thyroid problems run in the family but  I have no idea about what it means. Underactive thyroid, which means missing stuff.
So I'm reading symptoms and stuff: weight gain (not really), dry face (yup), aching joints and muscles (YES), feeling sluggish & tired (sure), depression (yup).  These things have increased over the past year to crazy levels.
Then I read the "people at risk". Women over 50 and/or a genetic predisposition. I'm only 25. What if I didn't find this stuff out now? Would I be dead by 50? Probably not, but I thought the blog universe would enjoy knowing that my body apparently thinks I'm a 50 year old women. Tell that to my monthly visitor.