My AH-Mazing Trip to FL - Part 2 (I cried, I laughed and at one point I wondered what the hell is that taste in my mouth)

"19 years can pass quickly when your living life, but you never really forget about the ones that aren't there living it with you." 

33 is looking a lot like 32 and 31 and 30....

I spent my 33rd birthday getting shot in the ass by a not so attractive, even if I was into female, nurse.  My doctor exclaimed in semi physician humor that this was the "third...oh wait...2007, 2008, 2009...it is 2010 now...huh...well then scratch third and make that fourth year in a row I have seen you on or within days of your birthday?" 

Thanks for the history lesson Rain Man...that was positively shocking.

So I started my day being pronounced as having bronchitis and in need of two...not one...two, because well it's my Birthday and apparently the universe hates me...and it probably isn't nice of a patient to look at their doctor as if they are speaking a foreign language when they are "attempting" doctor patient humor...so I got two shots in the rear.  The trip wasn't all bad though.  My good friend "Plus2" was kind enough to cart my sick ass to the doctors office because sadly I couldn't turn my neck.  What is that you say?  Did you think you may have read that wrong?  Well, you didn't....by now....even if you have only been reading this blog since I started it on here and don't personally know me, you should know this one true and simple fact...IT IS PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE FOR ME TO JUST GET A NORMAL FUCKING ILLNESS!

I'm pretty sure that I had H1N1 before it was actually given a name.  Some people get a cold.  Me I end up with pneumonia, but not just that I end up with a bacterial inflamation that spreads into the joints and muscles in my chest and then begins to attack my heart.  Do you see how this works?

Yep, just a mere 9 hours into my new age and I had become arthritic and contagious.  What a fucking gift?

But my friend...my Driving Mrs. Sick Ass companion...she made me laugh.  Hell, she ALWAYS finds a way to make me laugh.  She offered to get me ice cream since I was a "good patient" but seeing as it was barely 10am I figured ice cream would be hard to come by.  Strangely enough if I had wanted an alcoholic beverage of some sort, like a daquiri per say, I could have gotten that...but ice cream?  Yeah...that wasn't gonna be happening.  I settled instead for a slushy (for my aching throat) and some breakfast so I could choke down the horse pill of an anti-biotic that he prescribed. 

Oh yes...my day was gonna be pure joy...I could just feel it.  I could feel it aching in my ass.  Yep, right there stinging and burning like acid shot into my deriere is where I could feel it.  Man, those shots, while they didn't hurt when she did them, happened to have a delayed release of pain that hit just as we were making our way out of the office and into the car.  I just kept laughing and almost crying saying "God damn....my ass, my ass is killing me".  Then I'd begin to hack because my throat was also in serious pain which would cause some hideous tickle which then led to fits of epileptic coughing. 

I paint such a pretty picture.

After I was able to recompose myself from these fits I would fall into a contstant stream of saying I'm sorry over and over again as I mentally pictured her going home and lysoling the entire interior of her car and possibly giving herself a Silkwood scrub.

Friends will tell you to get better when you are sick.  Good friends will call to check on you.  Great friends will drive you to the doctors and help you get your medicine.  Kick ass friends will do all of the above and smile at you while you hack what is sure to be some kind of bio hazard all over their vehicle.

This friend...she falls squarely in the latter.

I looked and sounded like death warmed over, but with the exception of when I had to breathe deeply, swallow, cough or attempt to move my neck I felt fantastic.


By the time we pulled back into my driveway I was exhausted from the escapade of the morning.  I made my way in to the house, scooped up Penny and then realized what a retarded idea that was seeing as I was holding food and this dog is clearly a fiend of anything that doesn't have the words dog or kibble in it.  It was like a Wimbledon match where I moved food from one hand to the other trying to keep it out of her line of snout grabbing.  Her head would dart from left to right and back in a twisted attempt to get something.  Anything.  Finally when I was down to my last bite I tore off a piece of the toast and fed it to her.  She scarfed it up and then looked at me like, "you bitch...that's ALL...that is ALL I get....oh yeah, yawn...go to sleep.  I am so taking a dump on your head when you reach the REM state".

I mean that might not be a literal translation of what was going on in her little doggy mind but I think it's a pretty good rendering.

I'd like to say that I slept well but truth be told I just kept rolling around opening my eyes every so often to make sure she wasn't positioning her butt just right to take perfect aim.  I mean I know I have been shit on in the past few years, but that was in emotional terms.  This would really stink.  And I meant that pun.

Thankfully she held her bowels.  I think she can sense the cold weather coming and figures she can't be too sure that I won't stick her boney ass out in the cold as punishment for that infraction.  She's shit on me in the past but I let it slide because she was sick or just come off her death bed.  Just deciding to dump on me because I wouldn't share my tots....well that is grounds for emotional torture of the highest degree.

I'm hopeful that with my shots and goody bag full of medicine that I will be back to fighting form in time to go get my belated Birthday drank on with my girlfriends.  I may have hit a hiccup as I turned the page from 32 to 33, but I'm not going to allow it to be a continuing trend. 

Oh and hear me now, if by some cruel twist of fate I end up sick AGAIN next year, at...on...or around my birthday, ummmm, I'm not going to the doctors.  No way.  No how.  The cycle stops here at 33.

~JP

P.S. And to ALL of my wonderful friends, readers and FB friends...thank you sooooo much for the Birthday love and well wishes.  That was one thing that made this year significantly different than the last few.

P.P.S.  To my "T" and my "D"...you are two of the three best friends that anyone could ever have...that anyone could ever have...that anyone could ever have."

In search of new....

Just recently my husband and I "celebrated" 12 years of being together as a couple.  And by "celebrate" I mean that we had it pointed out to us by a friend of ours that it just so happened to be that day and so we kissed and toasted with the drinks we had been sipping on for the past two hours.  This is what our relationship has come to.  We are reduced to having our milestones pointed out to us by others.  It's really pathetic if you ask me.

Another occurance was when I was driving my oldest daughter home from theater practice and she was dancing in the car to the mixed cd that she had made me in an attempt to prove that I "truly have lame taste in music".  I stated how I really, really, REALLY am in need of a night out dancing.  She looked sideways at me and said..."yeah, me too".  I laughed and said non chalantly how in just over 3 years I can take her to 18 & up clubs and we can go dancing.  She gave me that look of sheer terror and death of embarassment that would ensue if I was to truly attempt this most heinous of ideas.

Before I could even elaborate on this topic she said the most hurtful thing outside of telling me that I shouldn't be wearing these pants because YES they do truly make your ass look HUGE!  She said..."in 3 years...you'll be like....ya know....O-L-D!"  I tried hard not to slam on the brakes or slam her head into the dashboard.  I proceeded to ask her how old she actually thought I was.  She did that long hard pause that kids that fear they may never see a penny of allowance or be told yes they can do or have something that they want ever, ever....EVER again if they answer this question wrong.

People....in 3 years I will only be 35!  What the shit?!?  I am NOT old.  I am NOT OLD!  Jesus...most people are just now getting started on their childbearing years and me.  I mean, us.  Jon and I...we are at the half way point.  This time in 10 years we will be the proud parents of two full fledge adults.  This time in 10 years I will only be 42...so take that and suck on it!

But these two events coupled with some other things that have occured over the past few days, weeks, months....year...have made me realize that it's time to go in search of the newness again.  I've begun to make a list.  Jon teases me about these list.  Mainly because I write them and then when I mess up I rewrite them.  But I tend to keep the messy one just in case I forget to carry over some items and then I end up with two list.  Two lists that usually never end up finished.  I get accused of that a lot and rightfully so because I am SO not a start to finish kind of girl.  I'm more of a get really excited about the start and lose all interest in the finish part.  About the only things that I stay COMPLETELY interested in from start to finish are FarmVille, this season of Fringe and having sex with my husband.  Not necessarily in that particular order.  Although I have said the words "just let me check my crops" when Jon has given me that look of "let's get it on"!

Again...perfect example why it is time to find the new again.  It's time to get back in tune with my body and to actually locate that body underneath all the layers of baby fat from the last baby (10 years ago) and those pints of Hagaan Daaz that have found their way maliciously into my mouth at 2am when I am depressed as all hell about the state of my life and the unhappiness that I have found myself in.  It's just time. 

For the past few days I've felt this overwhelming antsy feeling.  This urge to just throw on my shoes and run.  Run hard.  Run fast.  Run far.  Probably wouldn't be a great idea if I actually allowed it to come to fruition.  I'm pretty sure that I would make it to the end of my street and my family would find me dead or at least unconscious on the ground beneath the stop sign.  Since running...and I must admit that every time I say, think or type that word...running...all I can think of is Forrest Gump saying it.  "And I started running." 

Anyways...since running is out of the question at this particular juncture I decided to have a little conversation with my inner self.  At a little after midnight when all the house was quiet I pulled myself into first position (rockin the ballet), closed my eyes and just calmly explained that it's time to take back my life and ALL the things that I used to be so passionate about. 

It's gonna be a tall order...a slow process...but a challenge that I must take on.  For my sanity.  For my self.  I will not let another milestone go by uncelebrated or at least unremembered and I certainly will not allow my teenager or tweenager make me feel old.  It's up to me to preserve the new.  Game on bitches...game on!

Penny's Thought of the Day....

Being back at home after just a few days back out in the work place has been both a blessing and blow to my confidence.  I've relinguished my Crackberry to Penny's capable hands....ergh, I mean paws.  Most of my calls are from Jon, since I haven't gotten any responses on the millions (okay 5) resumes I've turned loose in the employment world.  I don't want Jon to think I'm slipping back into my depressive ways so I rely on Penny to give him other reasons as to why I won't answer my phone.  I think she's doing a pretty good job so far.....

....ok...so she doesn't follow direction well, but at least she didn't tell him I was sleeping...or working my FarmVille farm on Facebook.  But there is just one problem...she seems to have just one go to phrase for where I am or what I am doing....

....hmmmm, guess i gotta work on some other answers for her to give him because I'm getting REALLY tired of him coming home with Imodium and Cranberry in an attempt to "help with my bathroom issues".

In job searching, as in life...it really is ALL about the hair.

This week has been particularily productive.  I haven't slept in all day and I've managed to leave the house not once, but on several seperate occasions...go me!  I realize it is only Tuesday...but I'm taking baby steps towards success.

Yesterday brought my first interview in almost 2 weeks.  I was beginning to think it was me.  Then I realized...who ever snagged me as an employee would be extremely lucky.  Way to go with the delusional thought process!

Last week, on Friday I got a call on a resume that I had emailed only 45 minutes earlier.  I was like "oh hot damn"...this is my jam..have me dancin until the a.m....oh wait..THAT is totally not even relevant in this situation.  Anyways..I was completely awe struck with how quickly I had gotten a response.  I was more than a little excited.  When the woman was unwilling to give me any details on what the positon entailed and what the name of the company was I went from intrigued to completely mezmorized by the mystery of it all.

Monday brought my interview and it went really well.  My horroscope on facebook had predicted that red was my lucky color for the day, so I didn't try to tempt the internet gods and I doned a red top.  I rocked the straight hair feeling that it made me look more professional and serious.

I got a great vibe and the interview went for a little over an hour.  The woman that interviewed me seemed to think I was a "good fit" and that I'd "bring a lot to the office" and promised that I would hear something by the end of the week.

I went home hopeful and already arranging my soon to be workspace in my mind.  It's what I do people...it's the just how I am.

I slept great last night...yes it was thanks in part to the wine but I'd like to think it was the universe speaking to me about the position and this dreams regarding the position ensued.

This morning after bringing the kids to school I got another call on another resume I had sent out.  This one was in the same vicinity as the interview yesterday, about 5 minutes from where my last job was located.  I'm used to the commute so I didn't take issue with it.

I consulted facebook and found that today blue would be my color of positive vibes.  Who am I to fuck with the iron clad workings of the virtual internet guru?

I'm two months into job searching which makes me 1 month behind on mortgage and completely out of excuses for my children who want EVERYTHING that cost money.  When Jennifer Lopez sang "My Love Don't Cost a Thing" she DEFINITELY was not singing about my kids!  That's for damn sure.

Feeling that a change of color wasn't enough I decided to go from seriously straight to curly confidence. 

I went in thinking..."no big deal.  I'm pretty sure I got this job from yesterday all locked up.  I'll just go in and get this interview out of the way and wait for the call from lady I spoke with yesterday".

That mentality lasted all of 3...ergh...maybe 5 minutes.  At that point I went from totally in love with the job that was described yesterday to seriously land this position that I was interviewing for now.

There was the increase in pay.  The potential for advancement and the fact that this employer repeated over and over how they were interested in keeping their employee's happy to reduce turn over.  This was a HUGE change from my last employer where we were told on a daily if not hourly basis that "WE WERE ALL REPLACABLE".  I believe the phrase "drones" was used on a weekly basis.

This interview lasted over an hour as well and I met with both the office manager and the owner who happened to be husband and wife.  I felt good when I left and was told that they were hoping to get the position filled and start the new hire on Monday.  I began to walk out, saying good-bye and thanking them for their time.  They called out and said that they would be making a decision by the end of the day.  I had heard that in the past and remembered that this is the south...every thing moves slower in the south.  I just nodded and smiled.

It was 2:02 p.m. when I walked out of the office.  I had to go and get gas because my SUV was crying for more ways to drain my bank account.  Ugh...as much as I love my Honda Pilot...sometimes I miss my Camry.  I miss it's cheap fill up.  So I manuevered through construction first calling Jon then my best friend Allie to discuss the most recent interview.  No one answered.  So unreliable.

Allie was the first to call me back.  I went through the entire interview.  Weighed out the pros and cons of this job in comparison to the interview yesterday.  Of course I talked as if I had both of them in the bag.  Seriously...I have GOT to stop doing this.  It never fails that my over confidence leads to utter disappointment in the end.  But when your talking to someone that has known you for almost as long as you've known yourself you find that it is like looking in a three way mirror with bad lighting...you see all your faults and flaws.  You see the things that could keep you from achieving any kind of success in any part of your life and then the sheer panic sets in.

Thankfully she is REALLY good when it comes to dealing with my irrational side.  We talked it out and mid sentence my phone rang.  It was the job that I had just left.  It was 2:45 p.m.  I didn't know if the fact that only 40 minutes had passed was a good or a bad thing.

I clicked answer on my Crackberry and tried to sound as professional as one can sound as they drive 75 mph down a rain slicked interstate. 

Me:  Hello.

Perspective employer:  Hi.  Is this Jessica?

Me:  Yes it is.

Perspective employer:  Hi this is "your perspective employer".

Me:  Oh...hi how are you?  (feeling completely idiotic for saying this but trying to pass it off non chalantly)

Perspective employer:  Are you driving?

Me:  Yes.  It's raining.  Sorry for the noise.

Perspective employer:  Can you drive and talk or should I call you back?

Me:  (feeling that this may be a post interview test about multi-tasking)  Yes.  Yes I can talk and drive in the rain.  (oh god...why did I have to say that...you are such an idiot...you sound like a fucking idiot...they are gonna fire you...oh wait they have to hire you to fire you...okay...they are DEFINITELY not going to hire you because you are an I-D-I-O-T)

Perspective employer:  Well we have discussed your resume and based on your interview....

Me:  (holding breath and trying to focus on the road)

Perspective employer:  ....we would like to offer you the position.  Can you start on Monday?

Me:   (attempting NOT to drive off the road while doing the happy dance in utter elation at having been offered a job after a month of searching and having epic failure's in regards to interviews)  I am very interested.  I would like to accept the position. (omg...you sound like a fucking moron...now that they have in fact hired you...they may in fact fire you before you even start because they will have reviewed this retarded response)

Brand new employer:  Well then we will see you Monday morning at 8a.  Wear scrubs and we will go from there.

Me:  Okay.  Thank you.

I hang up and contemplate pulling over so that I can scream and dance without possibly running other drivers off the road.  I decide against it seeing as I am only one exit away from the mall which is my final destination.

I called my best friend back and ran through the details of the job as if I am reviewing a date from back in my high school days.  My first concern in all my backwards thinking was "do you think I agreed to quickly" and "what if the other job calls me in the next couple of minutes". 

I was deaf to the cosmic voices that were literally screaming "accept the gift I have just given you dumb shit".  Nope...here I was with the grass MUST be greener on the other side of the employment fence.  My best friend tried to lay rational thoughts upon me....but thankfully she can be just as crazy as I am at times so while she would drag me to reality she would also feed my fantasy that a virtual bidding war would ensue over my AMAZING talents.

Jon stepped in and brought my ass firmly back to reality and said that if the other job did in fact call and offer me the position it's a first come, first employ mentality.  He told me to thank her but to respectfully decline the position, remain true to the one that hired me first and move on to paycheck earning bliss.  That theory seems all fine and good IF the person he was talking to was a clear thinking individual.  Reality was...he was, unfortunately talking to me.  Reality is only what I am willing to make of it and my reality didn't include being...well...umm...realistic.

Thankfully, I sat back.  Took a few deep breaths.  Glared hatefully at my Crackberry willing it to ring with the a call from the previous days interview and when that didn't occur I made the call to advise her that I had been offered a job, which I had accepted.  I was prepared to "respectfully decline" her envisioned fawning advances to win me over to her position.

Yeah, that didn't happen.  When I got the woman on the phone she acted as if she couldn't remember who the hell I was.  I was like hey...jackleg...I'm the one you were showing your grandkids baby and school pics!  Remember me now?!?

Apparently not.

At that moment I knew I had made the right decision.  Curly hair and all I will be moving on to the next chapter in my professional life.  Thank you facebook and all your cosmic certainty.  I'd like to commend you on the color choices but ask that in the future you advise individual on hairstyle choices.  It would save a lot of hassle in the long run.

~JP

He's got spirit...but no glee!

I discovered Hulu yesterday.  And by discovered I mean...I was told about it several weeks ago by a link in my email which I never clicked and then yesterday with nothing to harvest on my farmville crops on facebook I decided to give it a whirl. 

There was so much to choose from so I decided I'd give two new shows a spin.  First up was Community with Joel McHale.  I made it about 1/2 way through and decided it wasn't for me.  I just wasn't feeling it.  I've got a 15 min to 1 episode rule.  If you can't suck me in during that time frame...well, sorry...I got better shit to rot my brain with.

Next up was glee.  Okay maybe it's my longing to return to the song and dance days of highschool but this show literally sucked me in after 5 minutes.  When the first episode ended I was like, "hey...what the fuck just happened to my computer...it totally cut off in the middle of that show..." then like a moron I realized that the episode was over and that there were thankfully 2 more for me to watch.

I was so impressed that I felt the need to share this show with Jon. 

He reluctantly agreed.  And by reluctantly I mean he stared at me like I was marching him to slaughter. 

First off I want to say that he made it through the whole first episode.  But I think that is because I told him if he watched the WHOLE thing and still didn't like it he would never be forced to watch it again.  He agreed.  Seriously he would have walked away when the first commercial played which I might add he bitched about seeing as this was on the computer and he believes there should be no commercial interuption.  I think he bitched about that because it was prolonging his version of torture.

When it ended he announced that he would in fact NEVER be watching this with me as "it's just not my kind of thing".  He then doned his Saints cap and marched out to the living room to take over the flat panel and teach Han a thing or two about football.

Hmmmmm....guess I just bought myself another hour of alone television time on Wednesday night.  Epic fail...or well planned win?  You decide.

~JP

The Laundry Standoff...

The standoff between me and the clean laundry that I am told needs to be folded and not just chucked into each determined owners room has now reached day 3.  I'm pretty sure the clothes are winning as it seems they have a quality of kriptonite to Superman effect on me. 

Every time I attempt to go near them I am overwhelmed with frustration and the strange urge to drink my weight in alcohol. 

I've contemplated burning everything and starting over, but Jon has brought up the very obvious financial liability that this possesses.  God, I really hate when he is all logical.

I'm wondering what ever gave me the idea that being at home and not at a full time job was such a brilliant idea for how I should spend my time.  Then I am reminded of the debilitating illness that brought me to this place.  And for once I'm not talking about the depression.

I can hear the laundry taunting me from the couch and I am forced to remind it that A) I am NOT on facebook and B) I am more than capable of folding it all but I am choosing not to.

This internal exchange is room for pause and makes me think that being cooped up all day with inanimate objects may not be the best thing for someone of my mental capacity.  This realization makes me tired and therefore I announce that I am going back to bed.

There is an audible groan from the laundry piles, which I realize is actually Penny rustling about underneath the stacks of shorts, t-shirts, towels and socks.  Just when I worry that I will have to launch a search and rescue team for her safe return from the depths of clothes mountain she wriggles free albeit inside the pant leg of one of Jon's pairs of boxers and looks longingly at me.

I am pretty sure she is telling me to fold the laundry so she and the other dogs can reclaim the couch as a jungle gym. Or maybe she is asking me to rescue her from the boxers.

Great....now I am being mentally scolded by piles of clothes and 3 dogs.  My day is going down hill fast.

~JP

Penny's Thought of the Day...

Brew it up and throw some toothpicks in for good measure...

I have spent the better part of the sleeping hours rebuilding my blog.  It seems that when a completely slightly unskilled bloghess as myself attempts a format change after consuming three two times the legal limit of NyQuil you are prone to deleting misplacing the entire contents of your page.

Well ain't that just something.


I went back and read the NyQuil bottle and while it does say that one should not operate any heavy machinery it doesn't say anything about tending to your crops on facebook, posting a new blog or advising your children about the greater complexities of married life when their father has decided to go play poker while leaving their slightly inebriated, on cough syrup, mother in charge of their well being.

So now I am stuck between a rock and a VERY sleepy place.  


I have drank more than the legal limit of caffeine for any 6 hour period.  I can just about see my heart jumping out of my chest and have on more than one occasion had to stop Penny from attempting to attack it as if it is some kind of defunct pet toy.

I am able to keep my left eye open but my right eye...clearly the more lazy of the two...is in great need of having either my finger or a toothpick inserted to keep it open.  I look like a bad interpretation of a pirate.  One that keeps coughing and sneezing every 5 minutes.


The husband, that lucky bastard who got to sleep, will be waking up shortly (and by that I mean his alarm has now gone off the first time of 30 which will signal that he will role out of bed a full 15 minutes after he should have gotten up and a FULL hour after it sounded this first time).  Sadly, he subscribes to the same snooze button ritual that I do when I am of the "working class" and not the depressed class that I currently reside in.

The kids will be up in approximately 1 1/2 hours and need to be hauled to their respective places of higher learning.  Which will mean that I will need to have both eyes and at least part of my brain functioning in order to cart them there.  


So do I crash on the couch for a power nap or tough it out until after I get them off to school?

Times like this make me wonder why in the hell I don't make my kids ride the bus.  

Maybe today would be a good day for them to start.  Unfortunately...my head is swimming too much from the cold syrup caffeine cocktail to even begin to think where the bus stop is and to just send them out into the world without a final destination would surely be the most irresponsible thing I have EVER done.  


Probably WAY more irresponsible than the time I took them to both to see Superbad.  Too bad I can't blame that one on NyQuil.

I guess I will do the most responsible thing possible....get Jon to take them.


Ahhhhh....that was easy.


Goodnight Morning.


~JP