Remember this post? The one where my day was ruined by a McDonald’s breakfast? Someone from McDonald’s later contacted me, and asked for my contact info. I didn’t expect anything from it, really, but I did send my information.

Rob came home with the mail today and I had mail from McDonald’s Incorporated. There was a very polite letter stating that:

Our employees receive extensive training to ensure they provide 100 percent total customer satisfaction. We also have very specific procedures in all aspects of our restaurant operations to ensure you have a great visit. Your description of your experience is certainly not indicative of the service that we strive to present to each of our customers. I’m sorry that we fell short of our customer satisfaction commitment to you.

Along with the letter, there were coupons for a free breakfast, and a free lunch.

It’s good to see that they follow through on customer complaints.

Posting has been and will be scarce around here this week, but I need a little break right now so you’re getting this (whiny complainy) post.

I haven’t actually had a real conversation with anyone since Sunday, including my own husband. Grades are due in two days. The program that we have to use is not working properly. I entered the same set of grades three times today. Three. And each time, I would hit ‘save’, and wait, and then a pop-up would enter my life. “Failed To Save. Please Resubmit!” I swear if it had happened one more time, I’d have needed a medical travel allowance because my entire face would have fallen off and I don’t think they’re equipped to handle that in the Maritimes. And then there’s coming up with the comments. For 193 students (I think 193. Maybe one more, maybe one less. But around there). Add to that meetings after school every day this week (Monday’s was only 45 minutes, today’s was until 5. Tomorrow I don’t have a meeting after school because I’m going to be in Charlottetown at another curriculum meeting all day but it’s an hour’s drive each way. Thursday I’ll be there til 5 again) and the stress is… well, stressful. But! Friday! Friday I will be all done with it. Plus Friday I get to wear my Halloween costume to work. THAT WILL BE AWESOME.

Know what though? I really love my job. And I should stop complaining. Back to work!

Rob and I are into different things, pop-culture-wise. I could subsist on a steady diet of Golden Girls, Blue Rodeo, and Empire Records. It’s as though my tastes arrested at age 24. Anything before then? I can practically recite by heart. After that? Not so much. It’s not that I’m not interested, it’s just that… I’m not actually sure why.

This is why I’m very glad to be married to Rob. He keeps me in the loop, and he introduces me to things I might otherwise have overlooked. It’s not only time-wise, either, it’s… expanding-my-horizons-wise. When we met we had some things in common – for example we both loved the British version of Whose Line Is It Anyway?. I knew who Stephen Fry was from that, even though he only appeared in three episodes over the years. I knew absolutely nothing else about him. Rob introduced me to Jeeves & Wooster, Fry & Laurie, QI, and, later, Stephen Fry In America (please watch that. He hypnotizes a lobster).

This past week, we watched this:

It was incredible. I have had students with bi-polar. I know people whose family members are manic depressive. This documentary just describes things exactly so, in my admittedly limited experience.

Now – speaking of Golden Girls, I must go. I’m watching the episode where Rose’s blind sister sets the kitchen on fire. The suspense is killing me!

It has finished causing barfing, but it is still causing gastrointestinal issues. Let’s just say I have spent more time in our bathroom lately than out of it. I know every single detail of that room, from the new spiderweb behind the door to the sink faucets that the landlord hasn’t seen fit to fix yet (they either drip or they don’t turn at all. I’m wondering about doing it ourselves, installing some Grohe faucets then sending him the $513 bill – and that’s without labour costs). I was teaching a class yesterday and had to leave – luckily my neighbour was on prep so she watched my class while I ran to the bathroom. How embarassing. “Hey other teacher, I’m about to poop like crazy! Help me out with this inconvenient class?”

Hey, people who blog about their bathroom habits are awesome, right? You love it. YOU SO DO.

- Rob has finally stopped barfing. There has been no necessity for hospitalization. Most excellent. He is slowly getting back to his cute self. Tonight he’s actually eating solid food (mashed potatoes! food of the gods).
- I apparently missed a doctor’s appointment today. The slip of paper I have says October 27th on it, but maye that 7 is actually a 1? I will have to call them up tomorrow and reschedule.
- The dogs are losing their baby teeth. They look a bit like little hillbillies with their gap-toothed little puppy grins. I JUST LOVE THEM SO MUCH.
- One of my kids does his tests on his computer and then prints them out via his SD card. Somehow today between finishing his test and going to the printer, his sd card was missing. That wasn’t optimal for him.
- I ordered this wig the other day. In that colour. It’s always a crapshoot, hoping that whatever I’ve ordered is actually suitable.
- Yesterday morning I was getting ready to leave for work. I had an all-day meeting at the Department so I was hurrying because I had to leave earlier than usual. And at 7:30, there came a knock on the door. There was a guy standing there, looking at me. “Uh, hey, we’re here to reshingle your roof. You need to move all this stuff away from the house”. GEE THANKS A LOT LANDLORD FOR LETTING US KNOW THIS IN ADVANCE. “Okay… what stuff?” “Oh, everything on your patio, your garbage cans, your plants, anything else that’s near the house”. So there went Rob and I, me half-dressed, him ready to puke, lifting planters and moving motorcycles and hauling things around the backyard.
- I got to my meeting in Charlottetown and realized that I wasn’t wearing my engagement ring. Wedding ring, yes. Engagement ring, no. I ransacked the car, searched through all my pockets and bags, shook all my books… nothing. And there was no way for me to get ahold of Rob – no long distance calls on Department phones, and no computers available. So for 9 hours, I panicked. I figured that it had fallen off outside when we were dragging things about outside and if that was the case there was very little chance that we would find it again. I drove home trying to figure out a way to break it to my husband. And I walked in the door, and Rob said “Oh hey! I found your engagement ring in the bed this morning! Weird.” At which point I fell over.
- Meetings meetings meetings after work all the time, plus grades are due soon, and I have like 190 (no joke) tests to correct and it can get to be a bit overwhelming. But I love this job, so it’s okay.

I’m sure there are more things going on but at the moment I need to settle down with a pen and put my feet on my husband and get to marking.

There I was thinking that my eczema would be the worst thing that happened all weekend.
Uh, no. Now Rob has been barfing since yesterday afternoon, and I am freaking out that he’s going to end up in the ICU again like he did last time. I had to sleep on the sofa because he didn’t want to get me sick (dude, we live together. If I’m gonna get sick, I’m gonna get sick) and it was interesting. The dogs spent about half the night sleeping with/on me. The other half they spent sniffing at my face, which helped the sleep a whole bunch.

So, how about I tell you all about my raaaaaaaaaaash? No? Uh. Well I have one. And I need to share.

I have eczema. And usually it’s alright and under control. But for a week now, maybe a few days more than that, I’ve had it on about 80% of me. For the first couple of days I was all “Oh it’s okay, it’ll go away on its own”.
But it hasn’t. It really hasn’t. And Rob says that the nights are the worst – in my sleep I’m tearing at my skin.
And of course, I can’t get in to see my doctor for a couple more weeks. By that point I will look like the lizard monsters from V.

So yesterday I put the Game Plan into action. Several tubes of hydrocortisone cream from Walmart, some Polysporin, and many, many Benadryls. So all weekend I’ve been walking around half-stoned, covered in a thin layer of grease.

The glamour never ends around here, I tell you.

I am so sleepy.

So. Sleepy.

And I have to be at work for an extra hour and a half this evening.

And I am not looking forward to that.

Urrrrrrgh.

I have been checking around the ‘web, looking at a few free web directories, and basically Googling my symptoms.

I either have:

Tuberculosis
Respiratory Syncytial Virus
Recurrent Respiratory Papillomatosis
SARS
pneumonia

… or a cold. You know. Because online medical directories are so very specific (this is like my family member who had convinced herself that she had menopause when she was 12, because she looked up
“irregular periods”. Well, knowing her it was spelled “unregluar preiods” but who’s judging?).