Dani’s Neighborhood

Nothing will wake you from your post-sugar-rush slump like a fire alarm, its shrill piercing tones still ringing in my head. No one made much of an effort to move until the Loss Prevention guy came down the corridor on his way out of the building. That's when everyone started scurrying to the lobby. It was a false alarm, though. Everything's fine, everyone's safe, and all the guitars on the walls downstairs are dry and secure.

I've just spoken with my friend Bekki and am very excited. I received a confirmation e-mail that I'm on the list to get into tomorrow night's Smashing Pumpkins show, and Bekki agreed to go with me! Hurray! And Chris is okay staying at home with The Boy and putting the little one down for the night. Double hurray!

Of course, this means Mommy won't sleep tomorrow night, though. Oh well. I'll try to catch a couple of solid naps this weekend. My basil plant is doing just fine in its tiny container on my window sill; one more week shouldn't hurt it too much, right?

I've decided I like the analysis portion of planning better than the forecasting part of it. Forecasting sucks because you can wind up being oh so wrong and get blamed for it, whereas analysis is all about interpreting the past. Also, forecasting an entire year out when this year isn't finished yet is a lot harder when you actually sit down to do it.

Today's weather is worse than it was yesterday and the day before. The rain hasn't let up at all. And when it's overcast outside, it's freezing in the building, so I'm wearing a jacket and have my space heater on high.

One of the guys from IT just stopped by and said the system I use for all my reporting will be offline in about an hour for about 30 minutes. [sigh] As if I need any more reasons to be completely unproductive today.

I did something very bad this morning, knowing all too well what the consequences would be.

I had a gigantic chocolate chip brownie for breakfast, washed down with a cafe mocha.

Can anyone say sugar rush?

The thing is, even though The Boy cooperated enough to let Mommy have six consecutive hours of sleep, I'm still really tired. I estimate that it will take me a few days with daily midday naps and eight hours of nighttime sleep for my body to regenerate to a fully functional (read: no sugar or caffeine necessary) state. As that isn't looking likely any time soon, I'm doing my best to trick my body into willingly keeping my eyes open and my brain somewhat functional.

But you know what's really sad? Yes, I'm feeling the effects of a sugar rush right now, but because I am so tired, I'm not even hyper. I'm moving at my normal speed.

Toddler Tummy sucks. Sick spouses suck. Sleep deprivation sucks.

Other than that, life isn't so bad.

My husband is sick. He just sent me an e-mail letting me know that he's at home with the baby but vomiting, so I'll need to hurry home.

My day in a nutshell: Up all night tending to a wee 'un's runny diapers, working forecasts at work without the aid of my crystal ball (I wonder if a Magic 8 ball would work...), and now looking forward to scurrying home in the still inclement weather to face yet another restless evening - this time with a very ill spouse and the never ending bouts with Toddler Tummy.

[sigh] There's never any rest for the wicked, is there?

Why should I come up with interesting things on my own when everyone else does it for me?

In exactly one week, I will get to enjoy a little mini-vacation. I was able to move my afternoon appointment to first thing in the morning (after dropping off The Boy, of course), so as soon as I'm done with the dermatologist, I'll get to have an entire afternoon to myself!

And, now there's the question of what to do. (Cath asked this when I announced that I desperately wanted a vacation. I think it would be a different story, though, if I had more than a few short hours. I would still try to figure out the best use of my time off, but if I had a few days - or even a week - I would probably want to go somewhere.)

Anyway, as I make my list of things I'd like to do, I wonder if it's something I could conceivably do with The Boy in tow. Repotting my basil plant, for example, is something I ought to do on my own without little hands threatening to rip off basil leaves, but with proper planning, I can do it this weekend while he and Chris are enjoying a splash in the kiddie pool. I'd like to make some mini bagels, but that's actually something I should do with The Boy close by because it's (a) not dangerous, (b) somewhat crafty, and (c) similar to playing with play dough (which I've made for him but still haven't reintroduced since the last time he tried to eat it). And if he eats this dough, I won't fret too much about it, even though the play dough I've made only contains corn starch and baking soda. A lot of baking soda.

Which leaves me with doing something crafty - or doing something about my craft room. Talk about needing to plan! Not only do I have myriad projects on which I'd like to work (or, in some cases, start), it's also an absolute mess and in dire need of help. And it's not like this is a project I can sort of work on each evening and during naptime on the weekends. I'm trying to use that time to cook or prep for future cooking (nothing like chopping bags of onions at once for multiple recipes).

I'll need to ponder this some more.

I'm exhausted.

A big part of it is my fault. After all, instead of immediately crawling back into bed, I paused at my computer to blog about being tired.

The bigger part of it, however, lies solely at the feet of my nemesis: Toddler Tummy.

Yes, after two blissful weeks of normal stools, my dreaded foe has returned. This evening, it hit with full force, requiring not only a diaper change but a full pajama change and a bedsheet change.

There is nothing more entertaining than changing your child's bedsheet while he is lying on the floor holding a tiny flashlight. More than once I was afraid I might step on him, and more than once I silently praised him for being so good and keeping quiet for Mommy.

If this is anything like the last TT bout, I've got at least four more days of this.

Thank God the storm hasn't knocked out power. I'd wind up throwing away all his pajamas!

So, I have two doctor appointments next Wednesday. One is an annual check up and not a big deal. The other is a visit with a dermatologist. This is actually an appointment I've been putting off for some time, but now it's absolutely critical that I go.

Quick backstory: My mother had a mole on her upper chest that my sister picked at when she was an infant, so Mom had to get it removed. Thanks to the power of genetics, I have a mole in about the same place. And guess what? My son has taken to picking at it, too. And it's now bleeding. [sigh]

Hence next week's appointment.

For the time being, I'll need to be particularly vigilant at making sure this stays covered and that The Boy's small hands (and tiny, razor-sharp nails - how on earth do they grow so fast?) can't inflict further damage. But at least it will only be a little while longer before I'll have it checked out.

The downside, of course, is that I'll be spending yet another day off at the doctor's office. But at least this time I won't have spend my afternoon scraping stool samples out of dirty diapers.

Normally, I would be so excited to hear those words, but only because it would be so nice to see my friend Faye (and her husband and child, of course). Alas, no; I refer to the Tropical-Storm-predicted-to-turn-into-Category-1-Hurricane Fay.

The storm itself doesn't bother me. Our house weathered Charlie and Frances and Jeanne four years ago (Jeanne hit on our move-in day but was at least kind enough to wait until we had returned the rental truck and were safely in our house with all our possessions - and both cars in the garage - before she hit), and except for a problem with the front window (that was later fixed at the builder's expense), the house did just fine. We also didn't lose power for very long, which was very nice.

I hope they let us go home early tomorrow and/or close the office tomorrow and Wednesday. I'm not looking forward to driving 25 miles each way in the wind and rain.

Let me start with a little anecdote about my own 10-year high school reunion. I was, after all, on the planning committee and did my part to contact alumni and help plan the event. Because I was already living in Orlando, I wasn't able to do any legwork (i.e., contacting vendors, securing properties, etc.), but I did a fair job of tracking down former classmates and tried (the key operative word, here) to keep expenses in check so that it wouldn't wind up costing more than Prom (accounting for inflation, of course).

Well, the cover charge ultimately came to $85 per person, or $160 per couple. As the only person out of state on the planning committee - and certainly the only person on the other side of the continent - my pleas to bring the charges down to a more reasonable amount fell on deaf ears. Not only would people traveling from out of state need to pay their own way to get back to California, we would also need to get rental cars and hotel rooms - none of which was remotely considered because, well, the rest of the committee was local.

So, as the planned date neared and my deadline for booking reasonably priced flights for Chris and me (because I had no intention of going alone) approached, I decided to save the almost $1500 I would have needed to spend on travel arrangements, lodging, a car rental, and the cost of the reunion itself and opted not to attend. (Back then, on a $30K annual salary, $1500 was a small fortune. Even now, that's almost an entire mortgage payment, so, yeah - it's still an awful lot.) As it turns out, most of my former classmates had the same idea.

Fast forward six years to a diffferent graduating class from the same high school. My cousin sent me a link to a "renegade" high school reunion party for her class, basically a reunion-for-those-who-don't-want-to-pay-$115-per-per-person party at a venue aadjacent to the official reunion.

I had to double check what I was seeing. $115 per person? $230 per couple? It's a pretty venue for sure, and I realize that it's it's not that much more expensive than mine was, but really? Our high school is in Southern California - where it still costs about $70 to fill up a tank of gas that will probably only last you a week and a half at best. Not to mention that many of my cousin's fellow alums are in the same boat my former classmates were in six years ago: many were in graduate school or just finishing, there were quite a few brand new parents, there were a few new homeowners, and only a select few had the kind of disposable income where money was no object. No matter how you try to justify it, $230 for a single night's entertainment is ridiculous. Christ - my wedding didn't even cost that much per person, and we went through at least six cases of Maker's Mark!

Here's the other thing... I really don't think I would spend that much to attend a party - at a venue I can visit whenever I want, anyway - just to see the people from the old days with whom I may or may not have anything in common anymore. And I'll be honest, too: the majority of people I considered my friends in high school were either in the class ahead of mine or the class after mine. So a reunion restricted solely to my class just wouldn't be as much fun.

So, here's what I think (and please be honest and let me know your thoughts): What about a big reunion ever couple of years open to all alumni from all classes? Sure, the Alumni Association can still have their big milestone reunions if they want, but I'm thinking of something that doesn't feel like a repeat of Prom, something that takes place out of the Valley (I mean, do we really need to go back in every sense of the word?), something that allows you to reconnect with all your old friends.

And we could have the first one in Vegas. Any takers?

I really just need a day off. Considering that my last day off from work (not including weekends) was spent in the doctor's office and later collecting samples from my son's dirty diapers, I just need a break.

And it's already the middle of August, which means that we're already halfway through third quarter! I'll be updating reports soon to reflect 2009. Good grief.

Meanwhile, The Boy is changing so much every day. He's been trying to reach the door knobs (which are levers and not really knobs) and has taken to blindly searching the countertops for something he can pull down to the floor. Each evening I come home from work, he seems to have learned something new. Yesterday, I managed to capture a short video of him grabbing a bag and carrying/dragging it across the kitchen to the hallway that leads to the garage door (which is accessible through the laundry room).

I am constantly on guard with this child. The surprises never end!