Thursday’s schedule looked something like this:

1) Grocery shopping

2) Going to school and doing some work (one of my fellow teachers has these custom rubber stamps with stuff like “Class Average” and “Parent Signature” on them – I should probably get some of those because I’m getting tired of writing the same thing over and over).

3) Going to my parents’ for supper

Here’s how today went:

1) Grocery shopping: Well, sort of. We drove to the supermarket. We went into the supermarket. And then, standing in the produce section, I was hit with a wave of vertigo and nausea so strong that Rob actually had to put his arm around me to hold me up. We bought some ginger ale and crackers and that was it.

2) Going to school: No.

3) Going to my parents’: No.

Rob drove home and installed me on the sofa, where I watched Quantum Leap until I fell asleep. I slept from about 5:30 pm until 1 am. And now, it’s past 5 am, I’m feeling totally better, but I have a feeling I’ve totally messed up my sleep pattern.

So, it seems like lately everytime Rob and I Do Things I end up with a sore lower back. It sucks. Not that I’m willing to give up Doing Things. I will just keep stretching and taking ibuprophen.

I don’t understand why everyone calls that lady the Octomom. Yes, she had 8 babies at once, but she had 6 before that. 8 + 6 = mom of 14. Which makes her the Tetradecamom.

A friend of mine is about 4 months pregnant with twins, and just had to go into the hospital to have her cervix sewed shut (!!!). She’ll be on bedrest for the next five months, or until the babies decide to make their appearance. I just sent her all my copies of the True Blood books (anyone else want to read them? comment or email me) to keep her busy.

I’m watching Season 1 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. No, I have never watched it before. I saw the movie, though, when I was 15. That was a funny movie, yo. I mean, Luke Perry was playing a 17 year old, even though he was 26. Everytime any kind of vampire slaying went on, I feared his rheumatism would kick in and he would need to use the stake as a cane.

Speaking of Luke Perry’s oldness; I was talking about this with a friend earlier this evening – did anyone else used to watch Beverly Hills 90210? Not the new version, but the original 90′s version. Anyway. The actors were all at least 8 – 10 years older than the characters they were playing – except for Brian Austin Green and Tori Spelling who were only 2 years older than their characters (David Silver and Donna Martin, respectively). I mean, hello, Gabrielle “Where’s My Cane” Carteris, who was 30 when she started playing a 15-year-old Andrea Zuckerman! My friend Dave and I were talking about that and he was like “Yeah, those guys were all supposed to be two years younger than me… and I couldn’t grow sideburns like that to save my life!” Still, though, I was an avid viewer of that show, until they all graduated and went off to college, at which point the show went crazy and I lost interest.

Today I went through clothes that I haven’t worn in years – and some, not at all (a lady I worked with “surprised” me with a huge sack of clothes a couple of years ago. Most of them were mom jeans and heavily embroidered denim jumpers). They’re on their way to the Diabetes association tomorrow. We have a little plan of what we’re doing each day, so as not to let anything overwhelm us, so that we actually do get everything we wanted to do, done, over the course of the week, and still have time to just enjoy our break.

Today was the culling of the clothes, tomorrow will be rearranging the bedroom so that we can actually put the clothes in it instead of me always leaving them in the basement. Our closets are short and tiny – less than a foot deep, and a little less than 4 feet tall. I guess that’s what you expect from a house built in the 1940s, but it makes it very difficult to actually hang anything up, so really, we don’t. The two dressers we have are dressers that I got as part of a bedroom set when I turned 10, made of particle board and laminate, and are pretty much falling apart. SO, those are going to the curb, and we’re picking up a couple of (cheap, it turns out) sets of shelves and baskets to take their place. It might not be the most attractive thing but it will beat just having our clothes sitting on a table in the basement. Or at least, I think it will.

Um. Somehow I got from Luke Perry to putting my socks in a basket. Good stuff.

It is March Break!

We have absolutely no plans (aside from cleaning the dang old basement) and I am fine with that.
To celebrate the fact that I slept in until 8:30 (!!!) I’ve been YouTubing and here are my two songs this morning. They’re by Loudon Wainwright III. If you’ve watched M*A*S*H you might recognize him as this guy:

Anyway, I know that most people don’t bother to click on the old Youtube videos but these are really good, if you like witty, irreverent, and melodic non robot-singing (for an example of robot-singing, click here. Then once your ears stop bleeding, click the vidyas I’ve posted).

Grey in LA:

Daughter:

Lyrics after the jump.
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I have been teaching one of my classes about government since I started teaching them last year. They have learned the history of the Canadian government, all the elements of our government, and how it works today. It?s not the only thing I?ve taught them, not by a long shot, but it is something that they should know fairly well. Yes, the Canadian government can be slightly confusing, but I think I?ve made it clear enough to them.
Today in class we were talking about something completely different, and at one point ended up talking about lawyers and what their jobs entail. One of my kids asked how come so many people don?t like lawyers. Another kid answered that that was crazy, because there are a lot of lawyers out there who are great people, and that Barack Obama was a lawyer before he was the president. Still another kid asked if Stephen Harper had been a lawyer, too. You know, Stephen Harper? The Prime Minister of Canada (seriously click that link you won?t be sorry)? Him. 

We were totally in that groove ? one where everyone?s discussing things, interested in the conversation, participating? it was awesome. And then. A student raised her hand.

?Who?s Stephen Harper??

The entire class was silent, and then another student answered, ?Seriously? You don?t know? He?s our Prime Minister!? And she answered ?Who?s our president then?? ?Um, we don?t have a president?. ?What? I thought we had a president!?

I guess I haven?t done my job quite as well as I thought I had.

With my alopecia, I have tried a few hair loss treatments. I was on steroids for over a year, plus getting steroid injections into my head – nothing. One treatment (that I bought from The Shopping Channel)worked, but the second I stopped using it, all the hair that had grown back in just immediately fell out again (taking the rest of my hair with it – this was a couple of months before I started this old blog! Wow, I can’t believe it’s been like, five years). I wasn’t about to spend $250 a month every month of my life until I died, so I decided that my best option was to wear a wig, if I didn’t want people constantly staring at me.
A couple of months ago, I was asking peoples’ opinions on which wig I should buy. I think I’ve pretty much decided which one I’ll be purchasing – and, fickle me, it’s not one of the ones I’d been looking at. It’s this one – I like the style of the one I have now, but it’s got a lace front which can be a bit of a pain to deal with every morning. This one is sort of similar (a bit longer, and this one has bangs where the one I have now doesn’t), and it will be the same colour and everything since it comes from the same manufacturer. That can actually be a problem with ordering wigs online – colour 33R (Dark Auburn) coming from one company can be, and often is, a totally different shade from colour 33R (Dark Auburn) from another company. Some of these shades look good on me, others do not. And you can’t return a wig once you’ve purchased it. But, since there’s nowhere near me where I could go to try wigs on or check out the colours, I take the chance and 9 times out of 10, it works out fine.
Now, on to paying for them. Since we moved back to PEI, I have purchased 4 wigs. I never bothered to claim them through my insurance, first of all because I’m too disorganized, secondly because… yeah, just too disorganized. But I decided to email my insurance company the other day to see what kind of coverage I would get for these wigs.
They will pay $100, every two years, if I have a doctor’s note saying I have alopecia totalis (I don’t – at this point I have severe alopecia areata, because I have about 4 spots of hair growing – none of them really cosmetically acceptable so it kind of equates to totalis, which is what I had when I started this blog). I find it kind of silly, the whole insurance thing. When I lived in Halifax, they would cover 80%, up to $400 a year. Wigs are between $180 and $300, so I would get two wigs a year (you’re supposed to replace them every 3 to 4 months), make them last longer, and just make do. Now my insurance covers $100 every other year… so I’m still paying between $400 – $600 per year, I’ll just be eating the difference. I kind of wonder if it’s even worth making the insurance claim… seriously, $50 a year? Yeah, I guess it’s worth the cost of the stamp.

I really shouldn’t complain though; at least I have insurance, and at least it’s paying for something.

I wanted to say thank you for your responses to yesterday’s post. Your comments meant a lot to me. And now on to our regularly scheduled post:

Yesterday was an interesting day at work. I love my job, but some days there are just no words for whatever the hell was going on there. It’s a week before March break and they think that they should just have vacation starting NOW! and are ready to be home, NOW! Remember before Christmas? “It’s the week before Christmas! We shouldn’t have to do work!”? Yeah, that. Add to it the fact that by the end of the day I was starting to get an amazingly colourful migraine, and well, I was just super glad to call a substitute for today, spend two hours planning for him/her, and head home.
It was my night to cook, and it was 6 pm, and I called Rob before leaving and said “Screw this I am getting some fast food, what would you like?”

“Subway!”

And there, ladies and gentlemen, is the word that signaled the beginning of the end.

Now. I have nothing against Subway. In fact I would, 99% of the time, rather have Subway than any other fast food available. However, it seems that around here, our Subway restaurants are staffed by extremely stoned people. I’m not kidding. Every time we go into Subway, the guy behind the counter is just… high. It hasn’t always been this way – I used to go into the local Subway all the time, and the guy behind the counter was awesome. He’d even (sometimes) give me free cookies with my veggie sub. Nowadays? I’d say the last 4 out of 5 times we’ve been in, something has been wrong with our order. And the time that nothing was wrong? Was because we were watching closely enough to correct the mistakes they were making.

Because I just really didn’t want to get out of the van, I made the executive decision that I would go to the drive-thru Subway (we have 2 Subways. The newer one has the drivethru). The following conversation ensued:

Speaker: Welcome to Subway, can I take your order?

Me: Hi, I’d like a veggie sub on whole wheat and a BMT on herb and cheese.

Speaker: No, no, no. I’ll be with you in a minute, sorry.

Then I waited for like, 3 minutes. Which is fine, because it gave me the chance to close my eyes and put my forehead down on the steering wheel.

Speaker: Can I take your order?

Me: I’d like one veggie sub on whole wheat, and a BMT on herb and cheese bread, please, both toasted, with cheese.

Speaker: Yeah. We don’t have any whole wheat bread. We only have honey oat and white.

Me: Okay, I’ll take honey oat.

Speaker: Okay what was the first sub?

Me: A BMT.

Speaker: Would you like cheese on that?

Me: Yes, please.

Speaker: Did you want it toasted?

Me: Yes, please.

Speaker: Okay, one minute.

Once again with the eye closing and the putting my head down on the steering wheel.

Speaker: Okay it’s toasted, would you like veggies on your BMT?

Me: Yes, please, lettuce, tomato, and pickle.

Speaker: Did you want lettuce?

Me: Yes.

Speaker: Anything else?

Me: Tomato. And pickle.

Speaker: Did you want hot peppers?

Me: No, thank you.

Speaker: Did you want cucumbers?

Me: No, thank you.

Speaker: Would you like any mayo or mustard on your sub?

Me: Mayo, please.

Speaker: Okay.

Another three-minute wait. I say three minutes, because it was longer than 1 minute, but probably not 5 whole minutes. I wasn’t exactly timing him.

Speaker: Did you want veggies on your veggie sub?

Me: Um. Yes, please. Extra olives, extra tomato, lettuce, pickle, and hot peppers.

Speaker: Wait, you want hot peppers?

Me: Yes please.

Speaker: Okay, drive through.

Me: Um, could I get mayo, salt, and pepper on that as well?

Speaker: Okay! Drive through.

I drove up, picked up my sandwiches, paid, and drove home. Now, the guy wasn’t the one operating the window. It’s too bad, because I really would have liked to have seen this person. I’m picturing someone decidedly Cheech-like (or maybe Chongesque).

When I got home, I explained to Rob that the Sandwich Artist might have been a little off, so we might be having an adventure with our supper.

Here’s what we got:

Rob’s BMT: Was not toasted (what was the whole waiting and the guy saying it was toasted?). Was on honey oat bread (had asked for herb and cheese). And had about 9 fistfuls of lettuce on it.

My veggie sub: Not toasted either. Cheese on half. It did have the veggies I asked for (when he asked me “Do you want veggies on your veggie sub?”) but had no mayo or any other type of condiment. My sandwich had what I will call minimal amounts of lettuce (this actually worked out – Rob gave me some of his).

Added on to the absolutely shiteous day at work, this was kind of the icing on the cake.

No, I’m not usually one to freak out when someone gets my order wrong (unless I order chicken and they bring back fish) but seriously.

“Do you want veggies on your veggie sub?”

That right there kind of says it all.

It’s amazing how 6 little words can really unsettle a person.

I thought I was doing pretty okay with this whole infertility thing. Until a perfectly innocent comment on my facebook status this morning kind of threw me for a loop.

I wake up every morning at 6:00. Sometimes I manage another 10 minutes, but honestly, I haven’t really slept in in … ages. So this morning when I managed to stay in bed until 7:45? It was a major accomplishment. So my Facebook status this morning was “Louise slept in! Woohoo!”

And then a (distant, haven’t really spoken to her at length since university, or soon after, so she has no idea what’s going on in my life – it’s not like she reads this blog or anything, which is really the only place that I talk about all the IF stuff, aside from with Rob) friend commented.

“Must be nice, O Childless One!”

and I immediately had this pang of “Oh. Oh wow. Ouch.”

She absolutely didn’t mean anything by it, I’m sure.

I had thought I was prepared for this kind of thing so I was slightly surprised by my reaction. My immediate reaction, the knee-jerk one, was pretty immature. I wanted to make her feel badly for what she’d written because reading what she’d written had made me feel badly. I wanted to write back to her being all “You know, it’s not like I CHOOSE to be childless, PCOS, blocked tube(s), unicornuate uterus blah blah blah blah…” and “Don’t immediately assume that since people don’t have kids they don’t want them or can easily have them, think before you speak”. But then I forced myself to put it into perspective. This friend got pregnant on her honeymoon, when she was 23. She had two kids, in pretty rapid succession. All her other friends had kids when they wanted them (and a few by accident). It’s probably not even a concept that has entered her mind that people she knows would ever have trouble with this. Infertility is supposed to be super rare, right? That’s what we were taught in health class at school. Why would she ever even fathom that I hadn’t chosen to be childless?

So, I got over myself. Guess I was just surprised at how much those six little words, no matter how innocently written, could cut me to the quick.

Last year (?) we got a really, really good (like 75% off) deal on a plasma TV. It’s awesome. We bought a stand for it that comes with a tv mount (another super-great deal – less than $30). The only problem? The place on the TV where you can attach it to the TV mount doesn’t match up with the TV mount. Mount mount mount.
Anyway. The stand still works with the TV, I just think it could have been cool to have the TV up floating in the air.

Speaking of TV… after having successfully cut it out of my life for a few years, I started watching *a* show here and there. Now I’m sort of getting back into a pattern of “must-watch” TV shows. I mean, I’m not watching hours of programming every night, but I’m probably watching one to two hours’ worth a day.

My shows*:

Ugly Betty
Law and Order SVU
House
Lost
Medium**
True Blood ***
Celebrity Rehab Sober House ****
Journey to the Edge of the World*****

So that’s 8 shows, 1 hour each… um… I have a little problem with the mathematic. The good thing is that since we just download TV, I don’t have to be like “IT’S THURSDAY NO ONE TALK TO ME I HAVE TO WATCH THIS SHOW”. I generally watch one show a day, maybe 2 on weekends. I will have to make sure to keep it at that because I don’t want to turn into a person who watches 4 hours of American Idol/ Bachelor/ Pimp My Mom every day. Wait. Is there a show called Pimp My Mom? I hope not.
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So, since she has finally updated her blog, I will now congratulate mainja on the arrival of her beautiful boy, Maxwell. He looks absolutely perfect, and M and J look ecstatic.

The other night I dreamed that I had like, sixty five babies. I don’t know where they all came from but everywhere I looked there were babies. Seriously, babies in drawers, on the bookshelf, babies babies babies. And Rob was phoning from the store to see if he should buy cloth or disposable diapers. I yelled something along the lines of “THEY ARE MULTIPLYING GET HOME AND I DON’T CARE IF THEY ARE WEARING TABLECLOTHS”. I don’t know what happened beyond that.
I’m still not quite ready to talk about what my doctor said in reference to my real-life babymaking chances. Maybe next week or something.