Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Ha HA! Fight Lupus!

As some of you may know, my betrothed suffers from Systemic Lupus. For those of you who don't know what Lupus is, the short version is that it's a condition where your body's autoimmune system attacks your soft tissues. Ususally this leads to painful joints, skin rashes and even inflamed organs. It's chronic, serious and no one knows why this happens. Josh has been very lucky. His intial flare was diagnosed fairly quickly and his symptoms have been brought under control. He's basically in remission but it could flare at anytime. Others aren't so lucky. Sometimes it takes years to get a diagnosis. Especially if you are an unusual case. Lupus mainly affects African American women, then men, then white women and finally white men. So Josh is really weird from a medical stand point.

So now that i've depressed you are you wanting to help?

Awesome.

Classic Checks has designed special checks and address labels that help the Lupus Foundation of America. 10% of the cost of the checks will go to the LFA. They feature pretty butterflies, since many with Lupus develop a "butterfly rash" on the face. (Josh never got the rash on his face. Go figure.) So if you're in the market for pretty checks, address labels, contact cards or a check book cover give these a look. It may save my hubby's life one day. (See how I guilted you there at the end? Now you can't say no!)

Welcome back Jules.


Well Jules came home last night. And he's doing much better. He was the happiest cat i've ever seen. In fact, he could hardly contain himself. Or, more acurately, he couldn't contain himself. He peed in the carrier on the way home. He peed as he got out of the carrier and onto the bed. Then he peed on the bedskirt and carpet. I think he was trying to show me he didn't need to go back to the vet. So last night was spent loving on our kitty, washing linens (again, I did them Sunday) and going to petsmart to get enzyme urine cleaner. Life is back to normal.

Monday, August 28, 2006

Come home Jules...


Josh and I have four cats. Or, if you hit us at the right time, four little bastards who are destined for the sausage factory. Of course like children, no matter how much stuff they tear up, or pee on or puke on, or scratch us, we sorta love them. So this weekend went from normal to craptacular in 12 hours when Jules had a recurrence of his UTI.

He's been fighting this thing for about a month. After his second round of antibiotics failed to make a big difference, I wound up at the vet Saturday morning for a walk in appointment. The dr. managed to get some urine out of him and announced that Jules had crystals in his urine. They gave him new antibiotics, liquid pain meds and a special diet aimed at dissolving the crystals. Then he told me that Jules needed to be watched carfully. If he didn't urinate at all in a space of twelve hours we were to bring him in right away. If he had a urinary blockage the urine could back up into his kidneys and make them fail.

So I set off for home with my panic meter at an 11. Once home we got the meds into Jules and confined him to my bathroom with his own box. Thus Urine Watch 2006 began. About every half hour I would peek in and find him straining to go. He threw up his special food. The box remained painfully dry. At 10:15 pm I paged the vet on call. For the second time that day Jules was shoved in his carrier and loaded into the car. Only this time I was freaking the fuck out.

I had no way of knowing what if anything was in his little urethra. Was it blocked? How bad? Was urine backing up as I sped down 14th street daring a cop to pull me over? Was he going to keel over dead? Does Petsmart carry the Happy Time Harry Dialysis Machine? I smell urine, but I didn't hear any hitting the plastic. Did I just imagine that? I did. Ok. GET THE FUCK OUTTA MY WAY IDIOT!!! I HAVE A SICK ANIMAL IN MY CAR!!!

When we arrived and met with the dr. she filled us in. After much effort to make Jules pee she figured his crystals had turned into a blockage. However since he was still awake and moving around the odds of him having any permanent damage at this point were slim.

So what Jules needed was a catherder. To put this in a cat required anasthesia. He would have this for two days. On Monday night they would take it out and if he was peeing normally they would send him home on Tuesday. This thrilling and life saving vacay at beautiful 10th Street Animal Hospital would cost us $400-500 dollars. Not counting the $118 I had spent earlier that morning. So we left Jules with the nice lady to stick a tube up his tukas and hope for the best. I spent the rest of the night pouty, praying for my baby to be ok, and trying not to cry. I also repeatedly assured Josh that we would come up with the money to pay the vet, even if it meant I had to whore myself out to all of Camelot. (Not that Josh would have said it's too expensive, we're not doing it. He adores our kitties as much as I do and would whore himself out if need be. But we take turns worrying about money and it was his turn.)

The next morning the doc called us with an update. The cath had gone in fine and they had emptied Jules' bladder. The urine was pretty gritty so it's a good thing we took him in when we did. He was getting his meds by injection and was pretty pissed, but he would be fine.

So we're just waiting for tomorrow night to see how he does with out the cath. I can't wait to have my little fluffy guy back home chasing bugs, tormenting Chloe and tossing Wally's salad. All this has taught me two things:

1. Listen to your gut. I had a mother's intuition that Jules wasn't right all last week. He just wasn't himself. Saturday I said fuck it. I know he's sick. I'm glad I did.

2. I should probablly go ahead and get my tubes tied. If this is how I react with a sick cat i'll need Thorazine to deal with a sick child.

Mommy loves you Jules!

Monday, August 21, 2006

Two months and counting.

It seems so close and yet so far away. What do you mean the big stuff is taken care of? I just started this whole thing. It's only been five months, geez. And I have a lot to do. Programs, details, wrap gifts, pass ports, loose five pounds.

Two more months. And four and a half years of shacking up becomes legal. We start over with a clean slate. But it seems like a shame to wipe those five years away. A lot has happened. My cat died, Josh's dog died, we bought a house, his grandmother died, he graduated college, I went from psychology to interior design to interior merchandising to not knowing what the fuck i'm doing, Linda got married, he got a Master's degree, he spent a hellish seven months working retail, his mom died of cancer. She died. Of cancer. There are no words for that.

The woman we hired to play violin at the ceremony suggested that before the processional she play a special song, usually for the mother of the bride. My mom, always with a good idea, came up with this one:


This Is a Day of New Beginnings

This is a day of new beginnings,
time to remember and move on,
time to believe what love is bringing,
laying to rest the pain that's gone.
For by the life and death of Jesus,
love's mighty Spirit, now as then,
can make for us a world of difference,
as faith and hope are born again.
Then let us, with the Spirit's daring,
step from the past and leave behind
our disappointment, guilt, and grieving,
seeking new paths, and sure to find.
Christ is alive, and goes before us
to show and share what love can do.
This is a day of new beginnings;our God is making all things new.

-Brian Wren, 1978

This is hella perfect. It just says it all.

Now I just need to call the violinist and see if she can play this, and if it's ok to move it in the ceremony to before the vows, and let the minister know and print the words in the program...

Sunday, August 06, 2006

Who's retarded now!

Ok people. If you have ever found me funny you must go see Talledaga Nights. The humor redeemed a shitty fucking day yesterday (car fucked up, battery died, working on it in 100 degree heat, late for the movie, poured down rain as we got to the theatre) and redeemed Will Farrell in my eyes for Bewitched. (Josh had forgiven him with Anchorman, but I haven't seen that one yet.) Anyway, we are now having a nacho fountain and a Styx cover band at the wedding.

Portrait of a Bride II coming soon and after Bridezillas tonight i'm sure i'll have a rant about this Milena chick.

Shake and Bake!

Thursday, August 03, 2006

Portrait of a bride Part I

I awoke last Tuesday, the morning of my bridal portriat, at 7:00 and heard rain outside. My immediate thought was that my hair was going to flop. My second thought was that I had hoped to take pictures out side. Fuck.

I had "slept" the night before in pink foam rollers trying to get my hair to take a curl. Of course if you have ever tried to do this, you know it is nearly impossible to sleep in foam rollers. So I was ill rested, wide awake and already mildly freaked.

So I got up and put my bathrobe on. A facial mask and some fuzzy slippers would have completed the ensemble and I would have been perfectly attired to run to Piggly Wiggly for some smokes and a Diet Coke.

While Josh slept I began painting my nails while watching In Search Of on SciFi. Not the old good ones from the '70s narrated by Leonard Nimoy, the new cheesy ones hosted by Mitch Peleggi, or A.D. Skinner on the X-files.

I had bought a french manicure kit since I don't get my nails done, so I spent about 20 minutes making sure the little stickers were on right then painted my tips white. I let them dry, peeled off the stickers and put some pink on. The results? Meh...

I redid four of them because the white had run under the sticker and wasn't clean enough for me. So I redid those and they still didn't look right.

So then I moved on to getting Josh up (about 9:30 now) and unrolling my hair to see if the curl took. It didn't.

And that was when I began to take bets on how long before I needed a Klonopin.

I rewashed my hair and rerolled it in smaller peices. Then it occured to me that I needed a laundry steamer since my gown had been in the bag for the last few months.

My Matron of Honor has a laundry steamer she bought for her wedding and I had planned on borrowing hers, but forgot to call the day before. So the hunt for Linda began.

I called her at home and on her cell phone. No answer. I called back and left a message on each. Thankfully she called me back right away. She and her husband are moving at the end of August and were an hour away looking for a place to live. So I handed the phone to Josh so she could tell him where the steamer was. (No way am I leaving the house looking like I did.) I drew him a picture of the thing and he set off.

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Quit bitching about your list.

This post is pretty superfluous. Just read the title. But in case you have a few minutes to kill...

One of the things i've noticed on shows like Bridezillas, Whose Wedding is it Anyway, etc. and various other wedding outlets is constant bitching about The List.

"I have list of things to do a mile long!"

"I'll never finish everything on my list!"

"My list just keeps growing!"

You know what? Chicken butt. You and everyone else.

My list is huge and ranges from big tasks like getting passports to little things like buying candy for my bridesmaids gifts. But do I create?

Let's have a reality check here. You're planning a wedding. The typical wedding in the US takes six months to a year to plan and costs an average of $20,000. Of course you're going to have a lot to do. It comes with the territory. Accept it!

And if it is really that overwhelming you have two choices: simplify or delegate.

Do you really need to do place cards for a buffet reception? No, not really. Do you really have to compare prices on bulk Jordan Almonds at ten different websites? No. Pick four or five and roll with it. Must you have the printed cocktail napkins? No. No one remembers those anyway.

And if you can't cut down your list that way, delegate! That's why you have a bridal party.

WAIT!!! STOP RIGHT THERE!!!!

Let me clear before you leap from you computer to dump 50 pounds of Jordan Almonds, a bolt of tulle and 1000 yards of ribbon on your Maid of Honor's doorstep and speed away into the night.

When you delegate, YOU ASK. NICELY!!!

"Sarah, could you please help me with these favors? I have so much to do, I would really appreciate it."

How hard is that? And be genuine about it. If you really veiw your MOH as a work mule she'll know and be doubly insulted at your cloying.

So be nice, be genuine about your appreciation. And respect the time of your bridal party. They have kids, jobs, hobbies, in other words A Life. And that can't screech to a halt to tie favors for you for the next two months. Set a limit. 25 or 50 each is plenty for anybody unless they have a tulle fetish.

And if you are recently engaged start early. If you are behind start now! Don't underestimate how long some of these things take. The List is really your freind. It will keep you on task to finish things in plenty of time.

But all in all, quit your bitching. Be thankful for what you have. A wonderful fiance, a bridal party of your closest freinds and big special day to celebrate your marriage. In the grand scheme of things is The List really that big a deal?