Marissa Turner

I firmly believe that, to help the economy, we should start accepting sarcasm as a form of currency.  I’d be rich, and help all my friends.  Because I’m awesome like that.

I was up writing until three a.m. last night because Thunder Butt started oozing blood on her left elbow.  I know Labs have the scaly elbow skin, all of them get it (at least as far as I can tell) and I just kept an eye on it to make sure it wasn’t getting gross or infected.  Because I worry like that.  Anyway, last night as I was laid out on the sofa, with Thunder Butt using my legs as a bed, I noticed red spots on my pajama pants.  There was blood slowly oozing out of the skin, and no visible reason why she should be bleeding.  I cleaned it really well, slathered ointment on it, and waited up to make sure it clotted and scabbed over. 

So, while being a paranoid worry-wart, I thought it was the perfect time to get some writing done for the contest.  And I discovered the perfect name for my character. 

Today is going to be spent doing laundry, keeping an eye on the still-scabbed over wound on Thunder Butt’s elbow, and writing.  I need more hours in the day to get all my hobbies done: writing, knitting, reading, and entertaining my dog.  Twenty-four just isn’t enough for me- can we have 36 hour days?

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My husband told me last night I have issues.  Lots of them.  And, while he’s right, I argued that I wasn’t the first one to think of using that piece of medical equipment for that purpose.

See, there are these things called butterfly needles.  Short little needles with “wings” on the side that are typically used for people with hard to find veins or who have shallow veins or they’re just very tiny people (like babies).  Usually, a butterfly needle is used with a syringe and we draw the blood out slowly so as not to collapse the vein and do who knows what sort of damage.

Well, before sticking someone with the needle-syringe hook up, you have to ‘breathe’ the syringe, expunging all air from the barrel.

I’m using that set up the other day, and thinking about how some people don’t have a lot of common sense, and the stray thought of “what if some well meaning person forgot to breathe the syringe, and, not thinking it through, breathed it after they’d already hooked up the patient like a gas pump?” 

For the record, I would never do that to a patient.  They’re trusting me with a sharp pointy thing they *know* is going through their skin and I’m going to siphon off who knows how many tubes of blood from them, and they’re sitting there smiling and trying to act like they’re not weirded out by the people who do that sort of thing for a living. 

I breathe all my syringes when I take them out of the pack, and again after I hook up the butterfly needle, and long before I ever get near their veins.

But it was kind of funny to think about.

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I’m chugging coffee and hoping it snaps me awake. 

While I enjoyed the book, the movie wasn’t nearly as good.  However, I do like that werewolves… look like wolves.  And gorgeous wolves at that.

I had 3 attempted draws last night, two of which were successful.  Keep your fingers crossed that I don’t have that issue today.

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I love my cell phone. 

But I dislike my cell phone carrier. 

Twice now they’ve tried to tell me I’ve missed payments, when I can prove otherwise.  *sigh*  I’m trying to stay polite, because I used to do their job, but damn it all if I don’t want to reach through my phone and smack them.

This weekend was nice, save for the headache I got on Saturday.  But it was very relaxing for the most part, and I slept great. 

I got a little bit of writing done, not as much as I wanted, but enough that I don’t feel completely useless in that arena.  I also got free yarn (I love when my friends clear out their stash because it means I get more stuff).  I have about five skeins I’m either going to make into a rug, or a car blanket for Thunder Butt.  Yes, a blanket for the dog; the reasoning is that she’s yellow and my car fabric is dark gray.  To say her shed hairs stand out really well against the upholstery would be understating matters.

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Just making sure it’s really Friday, thank the blessed mother of all that is good and pure in the world, that I have nothing more to do than sleep in and act like a lump.  While my week could have been much worse, I’m very glad is was merely sucktastic instead of anything worse.

I feel like I’m lagging behind on, well, everything.  Good humor, good cheer, work, writing, knitting.  Like the only being I’m not letting down is Thunder Butt, and she’s happy with two bowls of kibble and belly rubs.  I can supply kibble and belly rubs without going into nuclear meltdown.  That’s about all I can provide, but let’s not get picky, shall we?

I’m going to go make another pot of coffee, start a load of wash, and then, who knows.  I might go crazy and do the dishes.

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Seriously, PMS is a legal plea of insanity.  If the courts recognize that PMS is a deadly and dangerous thing, why can’t Joe Every Man figure it out and just stay out of the way? 

This is what I think about at night when Thunder Butt is snoring away in my ear and I can’t sleep.

I did the pen-to-paper thing yesterday, and it was good.  Seriously, if I get any better, I’m going to start smoking again because the aftermath is that awesome.  Well, maybe not smoking.  There is also tequila shots and gum chewing. 

I was cleared for clinicals yesterday, which is a huge load off my mind.  Now if only I could find some way to go back in time and drop kick the person responsible for telling us (who, by the way, didn’t tell us) that we weren’t cleared, I would be perfect.  I know that people forget things, and I know that is why God made post it notes and DayRunners.  To write that crap down!  I don’t care if you forget your anniversary or your boss’s birthday, but when you forget something that affects my future, that is when I go from Ms. Nice to Satan’s Mistress in less time than it takes a hooker to size up a John.

However, all has been saved and kingdom shall prosper.  Yay!

This is why Carrie Vaughn is made of awesomeness and win: Oh yeah?  Well we didn’t need angsty teen romance in fantasy movies when I was a kid!  We had David Bowie in tights!  So there! 

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I’ve been loving the knitted animals lately.  Let’s just blame the new moon coming tonight, and leave it at that.

Oh, writing?  Is that the whole “putting pen to paper and making words” thing?  Yeah, didn’t do that yesterday.  For that, we can blame Thunder Butt, because it was such a nice day to go outside and throw the jack toy, and I cannot tell her no when she’s being cute.

I should be able to start clinical tonight, after a week and a half of false starts and homicidal rages against someone who should be more responsible.  However, I keep telling myself that, soon enough, all will be over and things will calm down.  How do I know this?  Because if they don’t, you’re going to see my happy little face on the news for going psycho inside a Starbucks and ripping the hair out of all the patrons in the shop that day.

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Tuesday has been loads better than Monday.  Mainly because I’ve only been out of my house for an hour or so, so I didn’t give anyone the chance to really ruin my day. 

I got back to the doctor tomorrow have my skin test read, and as long as it’s negative (which is should be as the previous two were negative) then I can actually start my clinical work.  Keep your fingers crossed that nothing goes wrong.

I’ve started crocheting yellow ribbons as an FRG fundraiser, hopefully they sell, if not, well, I’ll be attaching them to Christmas presents this year and say they’re decoration. 

Writing is going slowly, and the deadline for the contest is looming.  I’m going to blame stress and start chugging more relaxation tea.  I’ve got time management down to a science, since I’ve had to plot out every second of my day to make sure everything gets done. 

The manic-time plotting will end when Husband deploys, as then it’s just me and Thunder Butt, and like to live dangerously and eat Ramen most nights.

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If someone had told me all of the drama, cock-ups, and horrible luck this month would be, I’d have just gone to bed, entered the Fourth Mattress Dimension, and not come out until August. 

This whole month went tits-up and there’s nothing that will fix it.

Perhaps I should just start drinking now.

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Between being sent home from clinical early, to later that night coming home to find puddles of doggie bile all over my floor, it just wasn’t my day.

So, I’m on my hands and knees, using the Little Green on the *one* area rug in my house.  The rug Thunder Butt hit five times with her bile.  Why do dogs hit the spot that is promised to cause the most work for humans?  (Before anyone gets huffy, I am in no way blaming her for being sick.  I’m attempting humor because if I don’t make jokes, I’m going to lose my mind worrying about her.  So deal with me being a sick twisted bitch, and let’s move on.)  Arm & Hammer Essentials cleaner, the all-purpose, freaking ROCKS.  I kid you not, it not only got up the bile, but dirt that has been ingrained in my tile for years. 

I’m now planning on cleaning my whole damn apartment with that stuff.

So, I get everything cleaned up (my helpful Husband was in the shower, avoiding the hard part of the clean up, the bastard), get the area rug outside and flipped over the back fence (with Husband’s help, as I’ve got short little T-rex arms) and scrub the floors one more time. 

Husband goes to me, I take a shower because I feel disgusting, and Thunder Butt wanders around looking pitiful.  She was dehydrated I do believe; she was *hunting* water. 

It wasn’t in her bowl, so she checked the toilet (we keep the lid down for just such a reason) and went to far as to stick her head in the shower with me and start licking at the spray from the shower head.  Being an evail dog-mother, I denied her water in an attempt to get her stomach to settle. 

Until midnight; I gave her 1/4 cup then, just enough to get the bottom of her bowl wet, and she drank it dry.  No joke, there wasn’t a drop of water left in there when she was done.  Frat boys wish they could do that with beer.

Quarter til one in the morning, she’s puking the water back up in the yard.  Shit dammit hell.  I clean her mouth off, palpate her tummy (nothing out of the ordinary there, except it was growling for what was probably the first time in her life), remove the bowls from her feeding stand, and we go to bed.

0600.  The only hour worse than that is 0500.  Husband wakes me up “Thunder Butt threw up again”.  Always a great thing to hear before you’ve had your coffee.

Sure enough, more bile.  At this point, I’m pretty sure she’s just doing it to spite me now, as she was (and still is) acting perfectly normal.  Wants water, food, jumping up, bright eyed, the whole nine yards.  I roll out of bed, and what do you know, she’s managed to leave bile puddles in all the spots of the living room she missed the night before.  I check her, put her out, start coffee, and get to cleaning.  (By the way, you can never, ever have enough cleaning rags.  Just, you know, wanted to put that out there.)

Because I’m a sucker, I put another 1/4 cup of water in her bowl at 0620, because if she’s going to keep bringing it all back up, by George, I’m going to make sure she’s got something on her belly to make it a little easier to puke.

Again, she licked the bowl clean.  I run out to pick up Pedilyte and bismuth tablets, because I can’t find the supply I had on hand strictly for Thunder Butt.

That was over a hour ago.  Guess who appears to be feeling better?

She does this stuff just to screw with me.

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