STUPID NATURE

Do you want to know what happened to us this weekend?

Yellow-jackets! That's what happened to us. 

Stupid, evil, vindictive yellow-jackets.

Do you remember a couple of entries ago, I mentioned that I got stung by a bee while mowing the lawn?  Well, it turned out it wasn't a bee.  Unknown to us, a very large colony of yellow-jackets had built a ground nest near the edge of our property.  It's right up against the property line with our neighbors, so it isn't a place we spend a whole lot of time hanging out and we had no idea  it was there.  The last time I mowed, I guess I just barely disturbed them because I was only stung once, and because Steve said there were some bees hanging around the crepe myrtle, that's what we thought got me.  This time, though, I apparently did more than disturb them.  I must have disturbed them and said something horrible about their mother, if their reaction was any indication!

Since getting stung last time, I was careful to wear blue-jeans when I mowed.  I should have worn tennis shoes, too, but I didn't.  I thought that jeans would be enough, because really, statistically, how often can expect to get stung while mowing your lawn if it's only happened once in 14 years?

So I'm working on the last section of our yard, which is the big part in the front.  I usually start by going around the entire perimeter, and then sectioning it off.  This time, I was doing that, but decided that I needed to go over the same ground since I missed a spot, which was apparently the wrong thing to do.  I hit the nest twice, and as I went over it the second time, they came after me.  The first one got me in the ear!  THE MOTHER-EFFING EAR!  As I sat there, holding my ear, I got stung on my foot, my hand and my calf.  I panicked.  I literally couldn't figure out how to get away.  I realized, way too late that I was on a riding lawnmower, which I then managed to drive into the center of the lawn.  I was still in a panic, so I couldn't figure out how to turn it off, so I just jumped off and ran into the house.  For all I knew at that point, they were still following me.  I ran through the house, stripped off my clothes and I jumped into the shower to drown anything that was still on me.  Poor Steve had no idea what was going on, so he walked over to where I had been and he got swarmed.  While I was in the shower, I heard him running through the house and getting into the other shower.  He'd been stung 11 times on his legs.  He'd still managed to get the lawnmower inside and the garage closed, so points go to Steve in this instance.  We are so lucky that neither one of us is allergic, but we still popped Benadryl just in case.

Y'all, I'd like to say I was stoic and able to deal with the pain with no problem, but I'd be lying.  I always believed I had a pretty high tolerance for pain, but I was proven very, very wrong.  I'd only been stung 4 times, and I think the three on my hand/foot/leg weren't that bad, but it was the one in my ear that nearly drove me insane.  Imagine someone stabbing a needle into your ear and wiggling it around for hours without stopping.  The pain wouldn't back off.  The longer I sat there, the worse it got.  Steve said that his stings hurt, but they weren't that bad.  Me, I just laid down and cried.  I did everything I could think of to help them: we put Neosporin on the stings, we crushed up aspirin applied that, baking soda paste, cortisone cream, but nothing helped.  I finally decided that if I could just go to sleep, I could get away from it.  But I couldn't go to sleep.  My muscles were twitching so bad that I couldn't even doze off.  I tried icing my ear and applying heat to it, but nothing helped.  I even kept trying to take Tylenol and stuff like that, but nothing touched it.  We finally had to go to Target and buy some kind of after sting stuff (that did nothing) and I bought some Z-quil because I figured that if I couldn't go to sleep on my own, I'd drug myself into it.  By the time we got home, my ear was hurting a tiny bit less, but my hand and foot had begun swelling up like balloons.  I did fall asleep, which was a blessing, but I didn't stay asleep for long.  I finally just got up, took the sleeping stuff, and went to sleep for real.  I was going to avoid the pain as much as possible.  That probably doesn't speak well about my coping skills!  Steve said his stings had stopped hurting, but had started to itch like crazy, so he stayed in the living-room all night so that he wouldn't wake me up while he scratched. 

I woke up at around 4:00 that morning, and took more Benadryl, which was not smart on top of all of the other stuff I'd been taking, which made me too drunk to go to church!  Steve was not hurtinganymore, his bites were itchy but he was ok, so he went ahead to church and had to run the sound for me.  I slept for a long, long time.  When I finally woke up, I went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror, and...you guys, my ear was 3 times bigger than an ear should be!  It was so gross!  I had a cauliflower ear, for real! It was so swollen that I couldn't even bend my earlobe!  My foot and hand were also swollen up so badly that they didn't look like they belonged on my body.  You know how babies have those little fat, boneless looking hands and feet?  That is what I had on one side of my body.  When I'd walk, my foot looked like a water balloon being compressed.  YUCK! So much yuck!  I WAS A MUTANT! 

 

Artist's Rendition 

I hid in the house for the rest of the day like I was the Elephant Man or something.  I probably could have gone to church that night, the pain was all but gone, but I was afraid everyone would be staring at my ear.  Seriously, it was like freak-show big.  It was still really swollen when I went to bed, but it did go down a lot during the night so I was able to come to work today. Besides, I can stand three people looking at my ear, but not dozens and dozens of them looking.  

At any rate, now we are mainly just very itchy.  My hand a foot are still swollen, but that is getting better.  I'll be glad when I can wear a normal shoe again, though.  We'll be lucky if Steve has legs left after he finishes scratching them. He really did get stung a lot, but he was able to stand the pain much better than me.  I felt like such a weenie.  

So, that was my weekend!  I hope yours was much better! :)

SIGH

I am why we can't have nice things. :(

A couple of weeks ago, I was driving home from work when something hit the side of my car.  I think it must've been a garbage can.  Well, in retrospect I think it was a garbage can that the garbage truck might not have put back completely off of the road.  I honestly didn't see anything, so it had to have just been the corner of the thing, but still.  At the time, I was so startled that I didn't even think to look behind me to see what I'd hit and by the time I got home, I freaked out thinking that I might have sideswiped a person!  I mean, I guess I knew I didn't hit a person, mainly because I'm fairly sure it would have sounded less Rubbermade-y and more meaty, but I was scared!  I pretty much sat in my office waiting for sirens.  Not that I'd just hit a person and run or anything, not if I actually KNEW I'd hit a person.  At any rate, there were no sirens.  Let's move on.

Anyways, whatever I hit knocked the passenger's side mirror off of the car.  Not the mirror housing, but it popped the mirror off.  I hated driving without it, because the convertible top of my car creates a huge blind spot, and I just knew that I'd try and change lanes and cause an accident.  Luckily, though, Steve was able to get a slightly smaller mirror that fit the housing, so after about a week I had a new mirror!

Fast forward to this past Monday.  I'd forgotten to get the garbage can from the street when I got home from work, and again after Steve and I got back from running an errand at Target.  I remember mentioning to Steve that we needed to bring it back in, but we got sidetracked by something when we got in the house and forgot about it again.   By the time I remembered it was still out there, a storm was blowing in.  The wind was blowing very hard and it was raining a bit. Since I was wearing shoes (and let's be honest, pants) I ran out into the rainy, windy night to wheel the can back to the house. 

The rain was cold, which was very uncomfortable, so I got the can and I tried wheeling it through the yard.  It was too squishy after the rain, so I wheeled it to the driveway and started to run.  I had to maneuver it between the cars, which I always have to do, but the wheel on the can jigged and I smashed it into the passenger side window of Steve's Challenger.  Oy.  The mirror housing snapped off and just dangled there by the power cords. I threw the can into the garage and ran back out into the rain and tried to fix it, but apparently I'd broken some important piece within the mirror housing, because it just sort of wobbled on its stalk like a broken doorknob.  When I got back to the house, I told him what I did.  Then I ran and hid.

Don't misunderstand me, Steve isn't a violent type of person.  Seriously, he barely has emotions to begin with, so I didn't hide because I thought he'd yell at me or anything.  I just felt so terrible.  I'm so freaking clumsy!  I've never been one for the wanton destruction of personal property (except for that one time and I'm still finding glass underneath things) and to know I was the one who broke his CAR of all things made me feel awful.  I think I'm very much like a child in some ways, and hiding when I'm uncomfortable is one of those ways.  He was actually very nice about it.  Much nicer than he needed to be, and told me to come out from beneath the laundry pile.  He tried to see if it could be fixed, but he didn't have what he needed to make it stay.  Then we jumped into my car and rode through the, by this time, rather violent winds to Wal-Mart to get some kind of adhesive to fix it until he could have it replaced.  It was near midnight by this point, and I had forgotten how scary the Midnight People of Wal-Mart can be! Luckily, he was able to find some kind of bonding agent that has held it on very well, so hopefully it won't just fall off while he's driving!  I suppose he'll have to have it replaced one of these days, but apparently with his car you can't just get the part mailed to you.  It has to be ordered and painted to match the car, then it has to be installed by a mechanic.  I still feel bad, but not as bad as I did.  This is the second time I've damaged his car.  NO wonder he won't let me drive it!  :)

Oh, and to make the day complete, I broke an iPhone!  That one wasn't completely my fault, though.  Steve had given me a deactivated iPhone that I was using as an iPod-with-a-camera (not sure what was wrong with it, but it couldn't be used as a phone anymore.)  I had it in my purse and when I reached for it on Monday found that the cover and screen had separated from the body of the phone.  It wasn't detached, but it had lifted away from the button near the bottom, and I couldn't push it down and fit it back in the frame.  I realized a piece of plastic inside was bent outward, so I lifted the screen enough to wiggle my finger inside to try and push it back down, and the glass cracked and the whole thing fell apart!  When I showed Steve, he told me it wasn't my fault.  I was unaware of this, but apparently some iPhone batteries are faulty, and they can swell up inside the phone, causing them to--well, not explode, but it pops them apart from the inside.

Anyways, so I've been very careful not to handle or get near anything of value this week.  At this point, I'm pretty sure I could break a chunk of granite with by bare hands without meaning to! 

KELLY SMASH!

'TWAS BLIND, BUT NOW I SEE

Facepalm.

Sunday morning I woke up with sticky eyes.  I think it actually had a lot to do with the pollen and what not, but since it was also time to change my contacts, I went ahead and took them out before I got in the shower.  I kept reminding myself to make sure I put in a new pair of contacts, or at least grab my glasses, before heading out to church, but of course in the best tradition of good intentions, I didn't do either one.  It wasn't until we were on our way to church that I noticed that I couldn't see anything clearly**.  Thank goodness I wasn't the one driving!

Since we were already running late, we couldn't turn around and go home, so Steve and I decided that after orchestra practice (and after I got the sound system and announcements set) we'd run back home and I'd get them.  It was kind of a miserable hour for me.  Since I've started keeping my contacts in almost all of the time, I keep forgetting that I can't see squat without corrective lenses. I forget they are in my eyes altogether unless I get something stuck underneath one of them.  Honestly, my vision has gotten so bad that just walking around in the church was hazardous.  I had to feel my way around and I couldn't focus on anyone's face so that I could talk to them.  I'm also pretty sure I looked like I was drunk, because I kept weaving around. Not being able to see clearly was scary!

So we came home, and since we had a few minutes to spare, I decided to pop in a new pair of contacts, which were from a brand new batch that I'd gotten from the eye doctor. I hadn't wanted to waste any of the old ones, so the pair I'd taken out that morning were the last of those and I hadn't tried wearing any of the new ones yet.  My prescription had changed slightly, so I knew that when I put the new ones in, I'd have a little bit of adjusting to do, but I wasn't prepared for the absolute craziness I was greeted with when I put them in.  My vision was just as bad, if not worse, than it had been without the lenses in.  I kept thinking that I'd get used to them, but I didn't.  To be on the safe side, I threw my glasses in my purse in case my vision didn't clear up by the time services started.

When I got to church, I kept trying to clear my eyes, but it wasn't working.  I kept rubbing them and dabbing them with a tissue, but I still couldn't see.  I'd also randomly chosen this day to wear mascara, which I hardly ever do, so I just knew by the time church started I'd look like a sad hooker clown, but there was nothing I could do about it.  I was a little panicked because I was afraid that if I couldn't see, I wouldn't be able to catch the cues that I get from the music director, and that morning we were doing a different kind of service for Palm Sunday, so I finally just pulled out the contacts (and I wish I'd let the hand sanitizer dry before sticking my fingers in my eyes...ouch) and put on my glasses.  Everything was fine after that.

My main concern was that my eye doctor had somehow screwed up my lens order, and how much of a pain in the butt it was going to be for me to get the new prescription set and wait on my new lenses.  Also, I was going to have to wear my glasses every day until they came in.  I know that's a big "First World Problem" but if you've ever gone from fooling with glasses to wearing contacts, you'll understand my chagrin.  So once I got home, I decided to try the contact lenses again, and hopefully my eyes could adjust to them before night services.  I got the left one in, and I was just as blind as I'd been before, and of course that was frustrating.  I pressed on, though, because I was determined.  When I raised my right contact to put it in, though, I saw a tiny line etched in the lens.  I knew that my left contact had a line like that because I have astigmatism in that eye and the lens is weighted, but I'd never seen one on my right lens before.  Of course, then it all made sense.  I'd put my lenses in the wrong stinking eyes!  My sight is completely different in each eye, not to mention that a regular lens doesn't even properly fit over an eye with astigmatism, so no wonder I was completely blind.  I felt like such an idiot.

I don't think I'd feel even a quarter as dumb as I do if it weren't for two things:  One, the boxes are very clearly marked (L) and (R) so that I don't accidentally switch lenses.  Two, Steve asked me, as I was trying to figure out what the deal was, if I had the lenses in the wrong eyes.  I just gave him that "I'm not an idiot" face and went about my business.  Oops.

Anyways, now I can see and I'm feeling much better about life.  *SIGH*  It's things like this that remind me why I will never be a surgeon.

**EDIT: If you're wondering why I didn't realize I didn't have my contacts in before leaving the house, if my vision is as bad as I say, it's because I was in a hurry and my house is small.  Since I'm near-sighted (or whichever one means I can't see far off) I didn't have to look very far to see the things in my house so they didn't seem very blurry to me. Also, I know where everything in my house is, so it didn't dawn on me that I couldn't see it very well anyways.

EVERYBODY POOPS - BUT SOME DO IT IN INCONVENIENT PLACES

Y'all... 

Dear Lord...

I almost didn't write about this, because feces is not a subject that I discuss very often, even with my closest friends and family.  The subject is rarely appropriate. 

Before you get too concerned about the path this post is going to take, though, I assure you, I'm not talking about people poop.  I'm talking about dog poop.  Lots and lots of dog poop.  I'm going to go ahead and apologize in advance for even talking about poop at all, and for any crudities that may go along with that. 

Now, before I get to that part of the story, I'm going to need to back up a bit to yesterday, one of the rainiest days we've had in a long time.  *dream sequence music and wavy lines*

This is a long story.

As any of you long time readers know, Steve and I don't leave our dogs out in the rain if we can help it.  When it rains, we let the dogs out to do whatever business they have to attend to, and then we bring them back in and put them in their kennels.  Yes, that sounds dumb, but it's just easier not to have to deal with sopping wet animals.  I'm sure you'd agree.  Our dogs kind of hate this, because they don't like being penned up inside the kennels all day, but usually they are very good about sleeping and being quiet while in there.  One of the ways we trained them to get in their beds is to give them a treat once they are in there.  That is a two edged sword, though, because we have to give them a treat every time they go in, even if that's multiple times a day.  Yesterday was a more difficult day to keep them in the kennels because the rain lasted all day, Steve and I were both at home, and for some reason, when they can see us they would rather be out of the kennels getting petted rather than sitting in there just watching us.  So we had a day of them going in an out several times.  Butler was especially ornery, because he kept on getting up and demanding we let him out (batbatbat at the door with his paw.)  At first it seemed normal, like he just wanted to be petted, which was mostly the case, but a few of those times I realized he needed to go and take care of some business out in the yard.  This happened several times, and that should have given me a clue what was to come, but I'm apparently not smart enough to put two and two together.  Right before Steve and I went to bed, Butler had started doing the whole batbatbat at the door thing again, but because we had just let him outside less than an hour before putting him in, we thought he was just trying to get us to pet him again.We just told him to lie down and go to sleep.

Let's fastforward to this morning, shall we?

Today would have been a frustrating day without the subsequent poop issue, because I turned off the alarm clock in my sleep.  That isn't a big deal for me since I'm worthless and unemployed, but I'm the alarm clock keeper for Steve, and when I realized I'd turned it off, he was already late for work.  Oy.  He jumped up and ran to call his office, only to also realize he was not only late for work, but he had a doctor's appointment that he'd be late for if he didn't hurry and get out of the house.  Oy again. 

While Steve was rushing to do those things, I walked into the living room.  I had noticed a smell before walking in, but still didn't realize what it entailed, but when I got all the way in there...well...horf.  Butler had not just been wanting to be petted the night before.   He had some serious business to take care of outside, and since we hadn't understood this, he had to take care of it inside his kennel in a most disgustingly loose and copious way. Apparently, Steve and I had not realized that the other one had been giving the dogs their treats, so we were each giving them one when they'd go in.  That probably wouldn't have been an issue with just regular milk bones, but one of their favorite treats are some rawhide chewies made for cleaning their teeth, and the bag specifically says that too many of them would cause "gastric distress."  Understatement, folks.  Serious understatement.  

I'm going to pause here to tell you that at that moment, I suddenly remembered that we'd forgotten to put the trash can at the street the night before.  Since we'd been out of town last time the trash was picked up, our can was over-full and we didn't have room to put anything else in there, which meant we had at least one big, full trash bag sitting in the garage waiting for the can to be emptied.  We simply couldn't wait another week for the trash to be picked up, so I yelled to Steve that he needed to get the kennel outside, I let the dogs out- getting smacked in the leg and foot with a befouled dog's tail in the process- and I ran to roll the can to the street.  Oh, and it was raining.  Still.  I could hear the garbage truck, but couldn't see it, so I grabbed the can, started pushing it through the yard and struck a hillock of grass, which caused me to fall...hard.  It is only by the grace of God that the garbage can didn't open and spread trash all over the yard, but I have a feeling I might have had a complete come-apart if that had happened.  I jumped up, ran the can to the side of the street, only to realize that the garbage men had already passed my house.  I'm pretty sure I shouted some fairly foul language up into the rainy sky at that point.  I just stood there by the can, wet and bedraggled, and looked pitiful.  Luckily, the garbage man saw me and let me take the can to the other side of the street so it could be emptied by the big claw arm thing, so at least our garbage issue was solved.

After dragging the can back into the garage, I ran around to the side of the house and grabbed the hose.  I turned it on, thinking Steve would be bringing out the kennel any second.  It didn't come.  I was standing out in the rain getting soaked, when I saw Steve walk out of the house, sans kennel, going "HURK.....HUUUUURK!"  SIGH.  Look, I don't blame him for dry heaving.  It smelled horrible and even on the best days poop is gross and no one wants to have to deal with it.  However, I was wet and cold and had just face planted on the lawn.  I was NOT in the mood do deal with anyone's weak stomach.  I ran into the house, grabbed the kennel by the door and dragged it out one handed, pretty much destroying everything in my path.  Once I got it to the lawn, I tried spraying it with the hose, only to realize I didn't have the spray attachment.  So Steve brought me that and I tried to put it on, only I forgot you have to turn the hose off to do that, and I got sprayed in the face by the hose.   Gah!!!!!!!!

Finally attaching the spray thing, I started spraying out the kennel, and that was just... horrible.  I couldn't get the poo out.  Some of it had dried in there.   It was stuck to everything, and every few seconds I'd have to tip the thing over to empty poo water all over the ground.  That is where I almost lost my composure.  Seriously, the last thing I wanted was to be seen standing out in my yard, looking wet and homeless, standing next to a kennel filled with dried-on dog poo, holding a hose and crying, but I came close.  I was afraid I was going to have to climb into the kennel and scrub it out, and I just didn't think I could make myself do it.  Poor Bear was standing there, completely soaked, looking miserable and whining at me like he was thinking "Hey, I didn't poop on anything! Could you at least let me go inside?"  Butler was the only one who seemed to be happy.  Covered in his own filth or not, my guess was that he was feeling much better and so he was just running around, barking at stuff, and having a fine old time.

Steve finally came out, having composed himself, and informed me that we could take the kennel apart.  Hallelujah.  He managed to get the pieces apart and so I could get at the inside with the hose much easier, and he went inside to get ready to leave.  I had to take Butler's favorite toys, hose them off, and then throw them in the washer with about three bottles of bleach.  I also found a long handled brush that I could scrub the inside of the kennels with and a bottle of spray bleach to disinfect.  It was raining harder by this point, but I wasn't in a position to leave off what I was doing.  I knew I couldn't leave the dogs out there in the rain all day, but Butler was still covered in poo and he had no kennel in which to sleep in until I cleaned this one out.  When Steve came out to leave for his doctor's appointment, he made an offhand remark about wishing we had a spare kennel.  So I made the executive decision that he needed to go by Petsmart after his doctor appointment and get a new one.  I know that seems extreme, but I was desperate.  He left and I stood out there for another 45 minutes scrubbing the damn kennel down.  Oh, and to top all that off, something stung me on the neck while I was doing that.  I was not happy.  When I finally got the kennel clean, I took the hose over to the fence and called Butler over.  I spent the next 10 minutes trying to spray him off, but he would run away every time.  I don't blame him, I'm sure the water was cold.  I walked into the house to warm up a bit, only to hear the phone ring.  It was Steve.  He needed me to come to Petsmart with the truck to pick up the new kennel, because it was too big to fit in the Challenger.  So I jumped in the truck, picked up the kennel, and we got home with enough time for Steve to help me put it together before he had to leave for work. After that I was on my own again.

I managed to get Bear inside and sort of dried off.  He was not happy with me at all, and he looked like a drowned rat.  I got him inside and into his kennel, and then had to go deal with Butler.  I knew there wasn't anything else I could do but give him a bath, but have you ever tried to wrangle a beshitted 90 pound Lab into a shower stall when he hates water?  We usually have him washed at the vet's office because we can't handle him.  So, yeah, that was fun.  I was able to get him all the way through the house and into the bedroom before he remembered "BATH!"  I literally had to pick up his front legs and walk him into the bathroom.  I trapped him in and turned on the water, and it was the only time I've ever been glad the bathrooms in this house were small, because he couldn't get away from me.  I managed to keep him in the shower, holding him down with my side while scrubbing him and soaping him up.  I even had to wash his butt, and I don't ever want to do that again.  He didn't like it, I didn't like it, and I'm fairly certain he's going to need therapy now.  I'm just glad I had gloves. 

I was in the shower with him in my bra, sweatpants, and my athletic shoes - all soaking wet by the time I was done.  I tried to dry him off, tried to soothe him a little, but I'm pretty sure he hates me now.  He shook all over my clean, hanging clothes, all over the bedroom furniture, and all over the living room.  We both dripped as we went down the hall and I finally got him into his new kennel.  Once he was inside, I was so relieved, but I felt so disgusting.  I'd been washing my hands and keeping as far away from the poo as possible, but I'm sure you'll understand that just dealing with a mess like that can make a person feel foul. Also, by that point the water heater had been almost drained, so I couldn't even take a bath right away.  Oh, the humanity.  I had to sit around, freezing and wet, until more water heated.  It took about 30 minutes before I felt sure there was enough hot water to disinfect myself, and then I took a long, hot shower.  If I hadn't been so sure it would damage my skin, I would have sprayed bleach all over myself too...but I had to settle for anti-bacterial soap. 

I'm finally clean, but I still feel like I'm coated in filth.  I'm starving, but the idea of actually eating anything I touch is making me gag, so I'm going to have to wait until that passes.  I know it wasn't Butler's fault that this happened, and I'm not mad at him, I just wish he could have somehow managed to open his own kennel, open the kitchen and garage doors, and gotten outside before he pooped everywhere.  I know he doesn't have thumbs, but is that too much to ask? 

I think I'm going to need another bath.  *shudder*