Easily ENTertained

Yesterday was Steele’s first appointment with a local ENT specialist. Our goal is to find the source of his chronic sinus problems and resolve the problem once and for all. We rarely visit doctors, mainly because I’m too impatient and I would rather be sick than lose my religion during the grueling waiting room process we are rarely sick.

I walked through the doors with a positive attitude, despite the 30 or so patients who had arrived before me, meeting my gaze with looks of defeat and gloom. I took my place in the waiting room and so it began...

30 minutes in… I decided to distract myself with some light reading. Steele and I flipped through a local magazine and poked fun at all the advertisements by local businesses. One of the ads we came across was this one.

Steele says, “I find it ironic that the addiction recovery center has weed for its logo.”

I must say, I sort of enjoy the fact that my nearly 15 year old son couldn’t identify marijuana even if it were labeled. Good sign…moving on.

1 hour in to waiting time and my left leg began to tingle. I must’ve switched positions 20 times with no success in preventing my butt from falling asleep. I tried to focus on something else to get my mind off of the current situation…not a good idea.

One lady was jamming out to Lady Gaga on her iPhone while her litter of unkempt children ran wild ripping up newspaper and snotting all over the furniture. Another sat snoring next to her over-grown child as he picked his nose and examined his findings (save it for the ENT buddy cause I didn’t need the show). An elderly man muttered complaints under his breath as his wife copied recipes from the Better Homes and Gardens magazine…

Dear God, please deliver me from waiting room hell…thank you.

1.5 hours in and the magic words rang out from the restricted area, “The doctor is ready to see you!” Yay! Our turn! Our turn! We were promptly escorted to a smaller room where we knew the wait would continue. Determined not to lose my mind or my temper, I began looking for things to entertain us. Steele began wildly spinning in his chair as I rifled through cabinets and drawers. Alcohol prep pads? Well don’t mind if I do! Those things are GREAT for cleaning surfaces and they’re sooo portable. Next drawer…

Steele: What in the WORLD is all that?!

Me: Those are the tools the doctor uses I guess

Steele: I don’t know where he thinks he’s gonna stick THAT thing, but wherever it is, I object.

Next drawer…Oh My Gosh…JACKPOT! It was a brand new, sleek and shiny temple touch thermometer! Oh how times have changed since I was a child and your temp was taken *ahem* elsewhere. Immediately we began playing with the device and I registered my very first tech savvy temp reading…

Me: 86.4 degrees…WHAT?! That can’t be right! I would be a cold stiff corpse. Try it again.

Steele: That’s not bad. It IS cold in this room

Me: I’m pretty sure you aren’t supposed to have a body temp below 97 or something

Steele: Here, let’s retry

Me: 86.4, 86.7, 84.5. Oh Lord it’s getting worse!

Steele: And that was the day mom discovered she was a zombie

A quick knock and the door began to open. I quickly tossed the defective gadget on the table next to me and greeted the doctor. During his exam, he asked if I had any questions…and for some reason only one thing came to mind.

Me: Well, what is the lowest body temperature you can have without your major organs shutting down and death occurring?

Stunned look from the nurse

Doctor: Without what? Are you planning on freezing yourself later?

Me: No, I was just curious. (Obviously I couldn’t explain the source of my curiosity without disclosing the fact that I had played with his broken toys)

Doctor: (laughing nervously now) Well, I’m not really sure to be honest.

Steele: Yeah mom, he’s just the ear, nose and throat doctor not a coroner.

Me: Oh well, I just thought it might be a common knowledge thing among doctors.

Doctor: Okay, do you have any questions regarding the treatment options?

Me: Yes. What were they again?

After discussing treatment plans with the doctor, I rose to shake his hand and our attention was drawn to the 3 alcohol prep packets that fell on the floor between us. I was all, “Umm, they’re really handy for cleaning surfaces.” And he’s all, “No big deal, everyone likes to take some home after visits.” And I’m all, “Like a good patient reward or something!” And he says, “Well in that case I’ll have to ask you to return yours.”

Ha ha Dr. Witty. Keep laughing at your own little jokes. We’re all VERY amused. I’m thinking about finding another ENT for future visits. I’m not sure we made the best impression on this one.

Don, A Girl's Best Friend?

Last week my sister Annie, her husband Mitch, my brother Chris, Steele and I met at my parents’ house for dinner. It was just casual home-cooked meal accompanied by conversation about upcoming family events and the latest work drama. When out of the blue my mom looks across the table at Annie’s hand and she’s all, “Annie! That ring is BEAUTIFUL! Where did you get it?” And Annie was like, “I got it at Don’s Pharmasave. Same place I get my medication.”

Her response was met with brief silence broken by my uncontrolled laughter. Now THAT is a ONE-STOP-SHOP!


I'll take that ring, a box of Cracker Jacks, and a refill on my Valium prescription, please!



My Comment Has More Likes Than Yours

Does anyone else find that Facebook has literally changed the way our generation interacts with one another? Sure, it has its good points, but what about the bad ones? And then there’s those “grey area” issues. I’d like to refer to these as the “ugly” because you really never know how that person will react to finding out what you did.  It's probably all a big conspiracy by large corporations to keep us all preoccupied with the minutiae of everyday life so that we don't recognize the diminishing quality of service and product they provide while the price point increases annually.  Especially tv sitcom production companies.  I mean, what's up with that people?  But I digress...here are my personal Facebook observations...

This picture makes me hungry for breakfast...I should Facebook about it.

The Good : Catch up with old friends from school The Bad: Meet up with said friends and discover you no longer have ANYTHING in common The Ugly: When you are talking to them in person, you have to be careful not to talk about something they didn’t actually tell you, but that you learned from Facebook stalking their profile.

The Good : Self Esteem boost from hundreds of birthday greetings The Bad: Feeling guilty for not logging on to FB on one of your friends birthdays and wishing them a happy birthday on the right day The Ugly: Facebooking a happy birthday remark that is a little more detailed than most of their wall comments instead of actually calling your cousin on their special day

The Good : The ability to sound more community and politically minded or “in the know” by copying repost statuses The Bad: Offending half of your friends by posting something a little edgy The Ugly: Finding out you reposted a hoax or propaganda

The Good : Keeping up with all of your “real life” friends The Bad: reading every insignificant detail of their daily life The Ugly: Having a conversation about every single insignificant detail because by the time you see each other, there’s nothing left to talk about

The Good : Being able to communicate effectively with a group of friends about your party, group meeting, or grand opening events The Bad: Someone shows up to the event whom you barely know or recognize and you have to pretend you are long lost friends The Ugly: Someone you actually KNOW sees the event info between mutual friend statuses and wonders why they were not invited to join

The Good : You can keep a great conversation going without interrupting your regular schedule The Bad: Any mutual friend can offer their two cents whenever they like The Ugly: You don’t really know how to wrap the convo up, so you just comment with “lol”

The Good : You don’t have to wait for your friend to get you the double prints of photos from your trip because once you are tagged, you have your copies The Bad: You do not get to prescreen the photos and weed out the uglies before you are tagged The Ugly: people tag you in photos completely unrelated to you so if you don’t catch it and your friends are looking through your photos, they find some chick who either looks like a porn star, phsyco or just a photo of a random planking monkey

The Good : An opportunistic outlet to speak your mind or rant about how you were wronged The Bad: Everyone who sees your rant quietly thinks you need to update your prescription and get over it The Ugly: You misspell half the words in your rant about how much smarter you are than the person who wronged you.

The Good : You always know what’s going on around town The Bad: you see your friend or sibling check in at the mall after turning down your request to help you with a project because they are at too sick to leave home The Ugly: You comment on their check in to ask about the new doctor’s office in the mall

I’d love to continue this all day, but I gotta go check my Facebook.  It seems that I have been looped in to a 3 month long Poke war with a friend who just doesn't know how to give up!!  No really, we don't know how to end it...it just keeps going!  So help a girl out and continue my list in comments below.

Goodbye My Love...

A stick of beef jerky, two tangerines, 5 triscuits, 3 Hershey's kisses, a banana, a small order of onion rings and a stick of gum. This is what I've eaten today and it's ONLY 2:00 in the afternoon!!!

Well...it has begun. My journey to being free from the bondage of my nicotine habit. I have to admit, I did not chose to end it voluntarily...it was forced upon me by the Democrats. haha No habit is worth $200 per month to feed.In a way, it's kind of sad. One of the longest relationships and\or commitments I've ever made was the one I had with my Marlboro Man. He's seen me through high school graduation, college, marriage, divorce, move after move, job after job, heartache after heartache, and in good times and bad.

I SHOULD point out, however that there IS one relationship I have been in longer, (although more sparatically) my relationship with God. I've been relying upon him alot these last couple of days, and it's really not as bad as I thought it would be.So...dear friends...say a prayer for me every now and then. That I dont waiver in my commitment to leave the Marlboro Man. And..if you would be so kind...pray that I dont gain weight in the process. That would be too depressing. haha

Thanks for listening!