I deactivated my Facebook account the other day for about 12 hours. Lots of silly drama perpetuated by women who are still in 8th grade emotionally and mentally. And now I am faced with the question of do I want to delete these souls from my Facebook friends list.
For some reason this is a hard one for me. I don't like deleting people, especially people with whom I have shared so much which is common with internet friends. However I am aware I just have to. There's no point in keeping people around who do nothing for you but give you grief and make you question your own sanity. The answer seems obvious but what about the people with deal with face to face or who exist in what people refer to as our "real lives" who also come with grief and frustration? There's no delete button for them. I do know that many people will cut these people off from having contact with them. For many that's just not practical.
So I batted around the though that these people are sort of like people I do deal with and have dealt with for a long time who are simply draining but I have few choices as to whether or not to see or talk to them. But at one point they did have meaning or importance and in some small way still do. I cannot say the same for the Friends list souls. There is no real benefit to keeping friendships with people whom I have never met and who I will never meet. They do not add anything to my life and considering some things that have been said over the past week, never will.
And so it's with great trepidation, sorrow, and a little weirdness that I say: Let the cutting begin.
Friday, April 20, 2012
Monday, March 12, 2012
Pesach cleaning.
It's almost Pesach. Which means it's that time of year when I wonder daily why we don't just burn the house down every year and move. It would be easier than cleaning and prepping. Oh especially with a toddler who walks everywhere with Cheerios or bits of cracker. Chametz is everywhere.
Chabad has a handy dandy checklist: http://www.chabad.org/holidays/passover/pesach_cdo/aid/117150/jewish/Cleaning-Checklist.htm .
Aish has some good stuff too: http://www.aish.com/h/pes/l/48970611.html
I did not see mention in either place of where to find cheap yet trustworthy people to do this for me. Also, no hints of how to make your insurance company think the fire was something totally not your fault.
We *could* just go away for Pesach. By go away I mean buy an electric kettle, a hotplate, and live at the Holiday Inn. But Nick likes to point out that it's too expensive. If I start making him clean I'm sure he'll see it my way.
Chabad has a handy dandy checklist: http://www.chabad.org/holidays/passover/pesach_cdo/aid/117150/jewish/Cleaning-Checklist.htm .
Aish has some good stuff too: http://www.aish.com/h/pes/l/48970611.html
I did not see mention in either place of where to find cheap yet trustworthy people to do this for me. Also, no hints of how to make your insurance company think the fire was something totally not your fault.
We *could* just go away for Pesach. By go away I mean buy an electric kettle, a hotplate, and live at the Holiday Inn. But Nick likes to point out that it's too expensive. If I start making him clean I'm sure he'll see it my way.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Bah.
I have a cold. I know on the scale of Things That Could Really Be Wrong, this rates somewhere down by having to wait an extra 2 minutes at Starbucks for them to brew more coffee. But I'm feeling rather whiny about this cold. Every time I talk to someone in this town, they or someone they know has a cold, stomach virus, or influenza. Life on an island is looking better every day.
Sophia is talking more! Not a lot, but enough to make me feel better. She can point to her own nose and say, "no", point to Elmo and say "Mo or Elmo", says boo for book, ball, go, bye, hi, and cup. It's a start. Her receptive language is far better than her expressive. She follows two part commands perfectly and can point to various objects if you say, "Where is the ______?".
The bad news is she needs orthopedic brace things. Her right foot turns out too much when she walks (it actually starts up at her hip, and causes her to roll the right foot inward. She trips about every 10 steps as a result because it comes to a point where she rolls in so much she's rolling her ankle and foot over her big toe. We were quoted about $2300. Not covered by MSP, of course. I'll just whip the magic money tree out of my ass and have it covered in no time. She'll need them for both legs. Our physical therapist taped up her right leg to see how she would do and she just started doing it on the left side. It's all part of her preemie issues. Hypertonia in her legs and the desire to extend versus flex.
It's things like this that make me remember I have a preemie. I have tried for over a year to forget that. I don't look at growth charts or development charts. I ignore what other people say their kids are doing (Robert could recite all of E.E. Cummings work by 14 months!). But when something is not going the way it should be, it's like a flood of memory. The delivery. The resuscitation. The ventilators. The daily chest xrays, blood tests, tpn, feeding tubes, the course of dexamethasone, the morphine, the high frequency ventilator, the specialists, the meeting where we were told they were nearing their highest level of support. It makes me dizzy. It makes me cry. Anyone who asks always hears that I am over it and that it's in the past. It's not. It's still in there, beating away in my head and sometimes it comes to the forefront and I fall apart.
Right now it's not my cold keeping me awake. It's the flood that is and I cannot stop it.
Sophia is talking more! Not a lot, but enough to make me feel better. She can point to her own nose and say, "no", point to Elmo and say "Mo or Elmo", says boo for book, ball, go, bye, hi, and cup. It's a start. Her receptive language is far better than her expressive. She follows two part commands perfectly and can point to various objects if you say, "Where is the ______?".
The bad news is she needs orthopedic brace things. Her right foot turns out too much when she walks (it actually starts up at her hip, and causes her to roll the right foot inward. She trips about every 10 steps as a result because it comes to a point where she rolls in so much she's rolling her ankle and foot over her big toe. We were quoted about $2300. Not covered by MSP, of course. I'll just whip the magic money tree out of my ass and have it covered in no time. She'll need them for both legs. Our physical therapist taped up her right leg to see how she would do and she just started doing it on the left side. It's all part of her preemie issues. Hypertonia in her legs and the desire to extend versus flex.
It's things like this that make me remember I have a preemie. I have tried for over a year to forget that. I don't look at growth charts or development charts. I ignore what other people say their kids are doing (Robert could recite all of E.E. Cummings work by 14 months!). But when something is not going the way it should be, it's like a flood of memory. The delivery. The resuscitation. The ventilators. The daily chest xrays, blood tests, tpn, feeding tubes, the course of dexamethasone, the morphine, the high frequency ventilator, the specialists, the meeting where we were told they were nearing their highest level of support. It makes me dizzy. It makes me cry. Anyone who asks always hears that I am over it and that it's in the past. It's not. It's still in there, beating away in my head and sometimes it comes to the forefront and I fall apart.
Right now it's not my cold keeping me awake. It's the flood that is and I cannot stop it.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Something is not right in the World of Warcraft.
I love WoW and have played it since mid 2006. But something isn't right anymore. It's an MMORPG. The MMO part has gone terribly wrong.
Sure, there's tons of people on, for raids. And then they all log off. In Vanilla WoW days, when the level cap was 60, and it took you nearly forever to get to 60, people were always out and about collecting bear asses or whatever inane quests they had to do to hopefully get one more tick closer to the next level. Very few people got to raid as the good raids were 40 man raids. And getting 40 people who know how to not stand in fire/voids/poison/poop and still manage to heal/deal damage/tank and not fight over loot/plug pull mid raid/not have a kid puking/a cat not spilling Mountain Dew on the keyboard for a good 3 hours was rare.
Enter the Burning Crusade expansion pack. I was a lowly level 49 when that hit. I immediately rolled a Horde character as I had tired of Alliance. And I spent many a night collecting bear asses for quests. I hit the new level cap (70) and started gearing up for raids. You had to earn reputation with factions back then to get into heroic level versions of dungeons in order to get gear and to get "keyed" for raids. So it became all about collecting bear asses not for leveling experience points but for reputation points. People spent time collecting resources to craft epic gear pieces, raiding, and in general sitting about and chatting.
Most people could raid because raids became 10 and 25 man raids. It's easier to find that many people with a clue. The raids were not easy, but you more people were making How To videos and it's easier to teach 10 or 25 people vs 40.
Life was good in Azeroth.
And then Blizzard did something stupid. They listened to people who complained the game was too hard. It took too long to level. The raids were hard too. While most guilds could do the initial 10 and 25 mans after months of attempts (and plenty of guild quits/guild break ups/screaming matches in Ventrillo), most could not do the harder 25 mans. People whined it wasn't "fair".
And they caved with the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. WoTLK had much better lore story lines and better scenery than BC without a doubt. But it was easy. So so so easy. Leveling to 80 took a bit but once you were there...well you could do the first 10 man raid in your sleep. No one wiped on heroic dungeons anymore. The game became so easy it was lame.
Same with the newest expansion, Cataclysm. It's so easy it's actually painful. You zip through the levels. They even made it so new players can level from 0-85 in no time. The dungeons are easy. Raids are slightly harder than WoTLK.
And with no bear asses to collect for leveling or reputation (they did away with that in WoTLK), no one hangs around. Except on the RP servers. Roleplaying servers. Normally not my thing. I normally play on the PvP servers because it's fun to kill and be killed by other players while collecting those asses. But the RP servers are now the servers with life in them. People still hang out in the cities or zones and chit chat. I'm a terrible RPer. To make it fun I created a hunter who is also the slimiest of the slimy. He's a jerk. And I love him. I still suck at playing him though. Not the mechanics of the class, but the RP part.
I want my old WoW back. I want to see people doing more than raiding easy raids. I want to see people tearing their hair out over bear asses but having fun like they used to. The forums are now filled with people bemoaning how easy and empty the game is.
Well that's what happens when you take the fun out of the game and make it easy. Well done, Blizzard.
Sure, there's tons of people on, for raids. And then they all log off. In Vanilla WoW days, when the level cap was 60, and it took you nearly forever to get to 60, people were always out and about collecting bear asses or whatever inane quests they had to do to hopefully get one more tick closer to the next level. Very few people got to raid as the good raids were 40 man raids. And getting 40 people who know how to not stand in fire/voids/poison/poop and still manage to heal/deal damage/tank and not fight over loot/plug pull mid raid/not have a kid puking/a cat not spilling Mountain Dew on the keyboard for a good 3 hours was rare.
Enter the Burning Crusade expansion pack. I was a lowly level 49 when that hit. I immediately rolled a Horde character as I had tired of Alliance. And I spent many a night collecting bear asses for quests. I hit the new level cap (70) and started gearing up for raids. You had to earn reputation with factions back then to get into heroic level versions of dungeons in order to get gear and to get "keyed" for raids. So it became all about collecting bear asses not for leveling experience points but for reputation points. People spent time collecting resources to craft epic gear pieces, raiding, and in general sitting about and chatting.
Most people could raid because raids became 10 and 25 man raids. It's easier to find that many people with a clue. The raids were not easy, but you more people were making How To videos and it's easier to teach 10 or 25 people vs 40.
Life was good in Azeroth.
And then Blizzard did something stupid. They listened to people who complained the game was too hard. It took too long to level. The raids were hard too. While most guilds could do the initial 10 and 25 mans after months of attempts (and plenty of guild quits/guild break ups/screaming matches in Ventrillo), most could not do the harder 25 mans. People whined it wasn't "fair".
And they caved with the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. WoTLK had much better lore story lines and better scenery than BC without a doubt. But it was easy. So so so easy. Leveling to 80 took a bit but once you were there...well you could do the first 10 man raid in your sleep. No one wiped on heroic dungeons anymore. The game became so easy it was lame.
Same with the newest expansion, Cataclysm. It's so easy it's actually painful. You zip through the levels. They even made it so new players can level from 0-85 in no time. The dungeons are easy. Raids are slightly harder than WoTLK.
And with no bear asses to collect for leveling or reputation (they did away with that in WoTLK), no one hangs around. Except on the RP servers. Roleplaying servers. Normally not my thing. I normally play on the PvP servers because it's fun to kill and be killed by other players while collecting those asses. But the RP servers are now the servers with life in them. People still hang out in the cities or zones and chit chat. I'm a terrible RPer. To make it fun I created a hunter who is also the slimiest of the slimy. He's a jerk. And I love him. I still suck at playing him though. Not the mechanics of the class, but the RP part.
I want my old WoW back. I want to see people doing more than raiding easy raids. I want to see people tearing their hair out over bear asses but having fun like they used to. The forums are now filled with people bemoaning how easy and empty the game is.
Well that's what happens when you take the fun out of the game and make it easy. Well done, Blizzard.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Parents who want to monitor their adult children
It's called being a creeper, mom. Yes, a creeper. Like a stalker. Only worse because she's your adult child.
http://imamother.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=177163
I will never treat my daughter like this. I'm not sure when Judaism became infected with Big Brother Syndrome, but I really hope we find a cure soon.
http://imamother.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=177163
I will never treat my daughter like this. I'm not sure when Judaism became infected with Big Brother Syndrome, but I really hope we find a cure soon.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Monday, February 6, 2012
Hospitals
Sophia was quite ill last week. Started coughing Friday afternoon. We took her to the ER Saturday night when it seemed to be getting more "junky" sounding. They sent us home with a "just a cold" diagnosis. She had no other symptoms, just they wet cough. Sunday, same thing and a fever so we went back up. Same thing. Monday she vomited before bed. Tuesday she had an appointment with my GP anyway for her 2 year check up. Thank goodness because she was lethargic. And lethargy in children doesn't mean reduced play or less active destruction of your home. I always heard, "you'll know it when you see it" and I saw it. We could barely keep her awake. My gp called the local yokels at the hospital and told them we were coming up and she wanted a chest xray. As soon as the ER doctor saw the xray he called our pediatrician in Vancouver who told him to send us to the hospital she is connected to and she would meet us there. She was admitted and immediately put on an IV to rehydrate her. The xray told them they were dealing with pneumonia.
They did a blood culture, took a few vials for other tests and did another test called a nasal pharyngeal flush. They basically water-boarded my sweet daughter. That sample was sent to BC Children's to test it for RSV. That came back clear. The blood culture came back clear. The other blood tests showed on the one hand, no elevation in white blood cells, so that made her pediatrician think no on bacterial but her c-reactive proteins were elevated which is a good indication that yes, we are dealing with bacterial pneumonia. So she started her on antibiotics in her IV as well.
Wednesday afternoon she started perking up after gave her a bolus which is just a large quantity of fluid. Perked up enough to want to eat and drink on her own which was promising. But later Wednesday night she was trying to rip out her IV. She screamed herself to sleep because she was frustrated by the tubing that kept her from rolling onto her tummy to sleep. Oh and the IV was on left hand so it was all taped up and that's the thumb she sucks.
Thursday we were discharged with antibiotics, and 2 puffers. She is still coughing junk up but the doctor said that will clear up in the next 2 weeks.
I aged about 4 years last week. I cannot tell you how terrifying it is to see your child lethargic. I was also upset because we have tried so hard to keep her well. One of the problems many preemies suffer from is a form of chronic lung disease called bronco-pulmonary dysplasia. The ventilators that keep them alive in the NICU damage the lungs as well and leads to BPD sometimes. She will eventually outgrow it as her lung tissue slowly regenerates over time but until then, a simple cold can be devastating. Her pediatrician making it to 2 years with no major illnesses is an indicator of a job done well so far. I saw her illness and hospitalization as a failure.
So now I am back to full quarantine. We aren't taking her out and about to the grocery store, mall, anywhere until spring arrives. I cannot handle the thought of her getting sick like this again.
They did a blood culture, took a few vials for other tests and did another test called a nasal pharyngeal flush. They basically water-boarded my sweet daughter. That sample was sent to BC Children's to test it for RSV. That came back clear. The blood culture came back clear. The other blood tests showed on the one hand, no elevation in white blood cells, so that made her pediatrician think no on bacterial but her c-reactive proteins were elevated which is a good indication that yes, we are dealing with bacterial pneumonia. So she started her on antibiotics in her IV as well.
Wednesday afternoon she started perking up after gave her a bolus which is just a large quantity of fluid. Perked up enough to want to eat and drink on her own which was promising. But later Wednesday night she was trying to rip out her IV. She screamed herself to sleep because she was frustrated by the tubing that kept her from rolling onto her tummy to sleep. Oh and the IV was on left hand so it was all taped up and that's the thumb she sucks.
Thursday we were discharged with antibiotics, and 2 puffers. She is still coughing junk up but the doctor said that will clear up in the next 2 weeks.
I aged about 4 years last week. I cannot tell you how terrifying it is to see your child lethargic. I was also upset because we have tried so hard to keep her well. One of the problems many preemies suffer from is a form of chronic lung disease called bronco-pulmonary dysplasia. The ventilators that keep them alive in the NICU damage the lungs as well and leads to BPD sometimes. She will eventually outgrow it as her lung tissue slowly regenerates over time but until then, a simple cold can be devastating. Her pediatrician making it to 2 years with no major illnesses is an indicator of a job done well so far. I saw her illness and hospitalization as a failure.
So now I am back to full quarantine. We aren't taking her out and about to the grocery store, mall, anywhere until spring arrives. I cannot handle the thought of her getting sick like this again.
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