I Am So Ready For Some Football!

This is it. FPM's senior year. Their first game of the season is this Saturday. I'll be watching on Stretch Internet cuz we will be making the long road trip for the following 3 weekends and hopefully flying up for Homecoming. The Wildcats will visit Cali twice and get close enough when they play Southern Oregon. Woo Hoo!!! This should be a very exciting season.

In other news, my baby, Warrior Princess, started high school. OMG and WTF! Am I old or what? TestCase started a new med and hasn't had a seizure in 7 months. Super Woo Hoo!

It's late and I should be sleeping but Hubby is out of town and I don't sleep well when he's gone. I'll pay tomorrow, but hell, it's Friday.

Wildcat Wrap up

I'm back. The Wildcats didn't make the Division III playoffs, but they posted another winning season with a record of 6-3. The Linfield College Wildcats football team has the longest unbroken streak of winning seasons at 53. Yes sir, that is 53 years! I've heard the grumbles in the stands about not making playoffs again this year, but I think the learning curve is probably pretty steep for a new head coach. Coach Smith's 4th year will coincide with my son's senior year at Linfield, so here's to hoping. #91 got his chance to contribute this year. As the starting tight end he did make one touchdown reception, however the bulk of his helpfulness was opening up big holes for the running backs with his superior blocking. Yeah!

I was able to attend two games this year. I went to Portland and watched the smackdown of Lewis and Clark. It wasn't even a close game (55-7). I must say the campus of Lewis and Clark is beautiful, though their seating at the games is weird because they didn't have room on the hill for opponent stands. So we had to sit all cozy-like together. I was polite and so was the L&C crowd. Contrast this to the horror of watching Linfield barely lose to the nasty and unsporting Western Oregon. Luckily we won't have to deal with those mofos next year. Here's what happened: They openly taunted our guys pregame, their players made fun of our running back when he went down during the game, they played dirty, and they danced around the "L" when they won. Meanwhile, in the stands, some WO fans sat right behind me and to the left of me and they were relentless douche bags during the whole game. (Yes, Linfield has stands on the opposite side of the field for opponent fans.) They talked smack about everything throughout the game. #91's little sister spent most of the game shooting the evil eye at them. I tried to ignore and I did, but I'm not so sure I wouldn't have shot those idiots myself if I'd had a gun in my purse. (That's a good argument for gun control, heh, heh.) Anyway, it was intense. Let me just say WO is a division II team with scholarships, red shirting and they recruit heavily from junior colleges so their average player age is 24. Well, bully for them, then if they can just barely manage to beat us. Jerks.

A Serendipitis Cat Bite Followed by a Blue Day

I'm happy! I'm bored. I'm depressed :(



I do so love Warrior Princess's cat, Tiger, but he's a little quirky. He cannot be overstimulated. So he bit me back in July- wasn't his fault! When I reached over to scatch behind his ear, little did I know that he had previously been hanging out with FootballPlayinMan for a bit of canoodling .

Ok, at the time I was seriously pissed because the bite got infected which led to a tetnus shot, an antibiotic shot in the ass and, ten days of horse pills (augmentin). Grrrr!


A few weeks prior to this I had been in to see the dentist because my f**king million dollar implant was loose. The implant which only has a 5% failure rate. He scheduled me to have it removed and have another round of grafting with an even larger implant. Grrr times 2!


At the end of August I went in for the procedure. Long story short -after trying to unscrew the thing from my jaw, an x-ray revealed the bone had grown around the threads of the screw. It was no longer loose. So I went home and gently but quickly kissed the little mofo cuz he saved me from dental surgery. Doctor Frankenstein theorized that all the antibiotics from the cat bite somehow stimulated bone growth. I don't care. I will get my tooth put back on in February (because it has to heal from all the ratcheting in August). One round of augmentin is good, another must be great, so I'm in for more ginormous pill swallowing. Besides the stinking cat bite wound is still healing, believe it or not! HappyHappyJoyJoy.


Less than a week later I'm spending the afternoon in the ER with TestCase.

He recently had a med increase due to seizures in July and August. One day into the new dosage (depakote), he called me and asked me to pick him up from work, he's feeling auras, he wants to get out of there. WTF?? This the middle of the day, he never has seizures in the middle of the day, he has never called me from work for a seizure. Aura-s -plural??

I picked him up. He was still experiencing auras, he felt dizzy. His speech was slurry and he looked droopy. He felt like he was going to have a seizure. Normally, I am calm. I know what to do. But this- This was Weird. I gave him another 100 mg of lamictal that I carry in my purse and took him to the ER. He was admitted, put in a padded bed, had blood drawn, IV inserted. We were in the hallway for at least 3 hours. That's ok because they were very, very busy and time is our friend in SeizureWorld. He slept for most of the time. He slept through bookends of mentally ill persons screaming about hypocrisy and people staring at them. He slept through at least 4 ambulance arrivals and the comings and goings of hords of people. It occurred to me that he probably had a seizure while waiting for me to pick him up in his truck, because he was sleeping so soundly. That's normal after a seizure. When the doc came, he was feeling better, no more auras. She consulted with his neurologist and they decided to give the med dosage increase some more time. He's been just fine ever since. I think we spent hours in the ER for no good reason. He just needed to sleep it off. I feel stupid. I don't usually take him in for a seizure unless he bashes his head and needs stitches. Like I said, time is our friend when dealing with seizures, but I was freaked out. I'm losing my touch, cuz I don't freak out. But I did, so I'm depressed about all this.

Rodent Population = x - 1

... or what the womenfolk have to do when the menfolk decamp for Oregon.

... or "New Miserable Experience"*

Warrior Princess and I took the dogs out for one last potty break last night. We observed approximately 5 rats in various positions on my bird feeder which is on a straight metal pole.

I set a trap, such as the one to the left or up (or where ever blogger puts the damn picture!). I went to bed and dreamed very bad things about squished rodents in traps.

Next morning, sure enough there is a seemingly dead rat in the grips of the 'rat snapper'. As I move in for a closer look -it moved! Holy living nightmare, Batman!

(I don't like animal suffering, even among disgusting, disease-carrying rats -Duh)

I did what the menfolk normally take care of: I delivered the kill shot via pellet gun. Can we getta eewww, eeewwww!? I tossed the body over the fence into the empty lot. The ants will take care of recycling, part one.

And while WP and I were just busy exclaiming, "yeah! We're free!"...

It seems we miss the menfolk after all.

*Gin Blossoms, I love you.

Our Town: So Environmentally Sensitive!

Inspired by Crummy Church Signs, I spotted a Crummy City Sign while at a swim meet this summer and I felt like sharing. Notice the electrical tower right behind the sign in the middle of all the brown grass.

To the left of this highly informative sign are houses and I'm betting they were built by Elliot Homes. Hmmm?

To the right is a city park with mowing strips and at least 3 soccer fields and a lighted softball field.

Right in the middle, near the street is a smallish puddle of gray water with iridescent white bubbles. There are oddly bent meager-looking fish in the water. On the other side of the street from this 'sensitive area' is a huge racquet club.

Now what part of this strip of land between houses and soccer fields is environmentally sensitive? God knows I have nothing against houses or sports fields. After all, I live in a house and my children have enjoyed the use of these fields over the years. But WTF is up with that sign? It's like putting a sign in front of a shark declaring it's an elephant. They should tell the truth. Something like this:

"No Trespassing because if you electricute yourself or fall into smelly water and drown, we do not want to be held responsible in a lawsuit. This is a narrow bit of land we couldn't develop due to power lines. It collects run off from people's chemically infested lawns and parks. We called it 'environmentally sensitive' in the plans so we could get a break on our developer fees from the city because we're showing just how much we care about the environment."

They probably felt sure that no one would walk past the grim gray water with the disordered fish and feel their sign was total rubbish.

They were right I suppose. If I had to look at this sign everyday, I might be tempted to knock it over.

Fallen Leaf Lake

Notice how this rock is embedded in the tree roots.

This is Taylor Creek. It connects Lake Tahoe and Fallen Leaf Lake.

A few weekends ago we went camping at Fallen Leaf Lake up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains near Lake Tahoe. I hiked to the lake one morning very early and became fascinated with all the upturned tree roots on the shores of the lake. It was dawn and the lighting was so gorgeous.

Can a Late Night Fried Egg Sandwich Help Stave Off Seizures?

I wish. Nine months. That's how long it's been. But he's been working long hours and not getting enough sleep, so... boom, boom.

There is an upside. Yes, really. TestCase felt an aura. He said, "No!". Brother FPM saw him turn his head, fade and watched his body stiffen. A mere 5 seconds later TestCase came to. He actually managed to derail the convulsive progression. Somehow. He was exhausted as usual, but didn't have a crushing headache.

So, a few days later he came home from work at 11:30 pm from another long day. I whipped up the old TestCase favorite- fried egg sandwich.

I wondered, could I "help" him make it go away?

(My friendly blogpals know that I write about this stuff as stress relief, not for sympathy, cuz Lord knows, things could be so much worse for him and I am profoundly grateful to modern pharmaceuticals. I'm a big picture, glass half- full kinda girl for the most part.)