This past weekend, my online girlfriend, Julz, (HOLLA!), and I went to a craft show. We’d been excited to go and planning on how to ditch the kids for a while. It actually got complicated, and then there was a hiccup in our plan, but inevitably, with enough will power, we found a way to get a couple of hours away to a craft show. If you’ve never been to a craft show, I highly recommend it. You’ll see things you never need nor thought of, like old iceskates with winter scenarios painted on it and used as a vase. Or, 16 different crafts you can do with corn. Did you know you can make a heat pack with corn? You can. You can reheat it in the microwave. Freaky, I know. Interesting, or old pieces of wood scraps with funny or insightful quotes on them. Most of it we walk through and I exclaim, “I have wood scraps at home, I could do that.” I haven’t a creative bone in my body, so no, I really couldn’t do that. But my mantra keeps me from buying all of this stuff, well, keeping it to a minimum at least.
So, we’re wide_eyed walking in and out of the school rooms that once educated young minds, are now literally dumbing us all up. I planned it perfectly so that we could go during a Nebraska Football game. It’s a town of half a million people, but it’s a ghost town during game day. If you’re not at the game, you’re tailgating outside in the parking lot with your mini tv and keg arranged perfectly on the truck. If you’re not at the game or tailgating, then you’re either hosting or attending a football party. So, we took full advantage of getting the whole craft show to ourselves. Weaving endlessly in and out of booths and rooms.
And then it happened. Over the loud speaker,
“Your halftime report, Huskers 7, Longorns 16. Second half starts in 21 minutes.”
I laughed so hard. We’re at a CRAFT SHOW people! Who cares about the frikkin football game, and then I looked around and saw everyone rushing to get home within 21 minutes. It really is crazy here, and I’m almost okay with it.
Julz dropped me off at a bowling alley. No, she wasn’t mad I didn’t buy her craft show phone jewelry, she was dropping me off to meet the kids and Ricardo at a Bowling Birthday Party. When I got there, it took me two seconds to realize why the kids were playing on the waxed alleys and the parents were okay with it. Instead of all game scores posted, the GAME WAS PLAYING on the overhead screens. And soon, to the kids’ birthday dismay, the Huskers had come back to win, only to fumble in the last few minutes, and Texas recovered the ball to score, and win the game. It was just devastating.
Mack Brown, UT’s head coach, went back home and touted at what a great crowd and loyal (translation, PSYCHO) fans Nebraska has. As they ran off the field, the crowd chanted “Go Big Red”. That’s kind of cool. We’re just nice folks up here, nice folks in denial. And I guarantee, Coach Brown, before you even left the field, all 82,000 fans in the stadium, the rest at home, and the others at the craft show were speculating what the game plan for next week should be.

That’s how I roll.

Last Sunday, I started my jinx with a, “Hey Ricardo, does your throat hurt? Mine does, do you think it’s the weather or allergies?” I was hoping he’d have the same thing, but he didn’t oblige. By Sunday night, I noticed the familiar nasty puss pockets on my tonsils. Yes, I’m one of three children from the 70′s who still has their tonsils. They took my adnoids, but left the tonsils. I don’t even know what an adnoid is, which, I’m sure since I couldn’t tell the doctors what the function or location of an adnoid is, they took them away from me. I digress. So, the puss, the pain. I call the doctor Monday at 8a.m.
It’s probably a good point to interrupt myself here and explain that strep throat runs rampant through our house. For more than a year now, we’ve been trying to figure out who the carrier is. My niece came to visit this summer, she got strep throat. My mother_in_law has left this house twice and within 24 hours, gotten strep throat. We’ve all been tested, and upon my insistence, I had the dog tested for strep throat to see if Farley the Wonder Dog would indeed, save face to his name. Sure enough, Farley comes up with Strep B. The vet assures me that this is rare. Granted, I had to demand the damned test on the dog in the first place. He did the test, shaking his head claiming there’s no way the dog has it. And there it is, Strep B. Now he’s defending Farley the Wonder Dog by saying that Strep B can’t cross over to Strep A, blah blah blah, it’s not his fault.
Look Mister Vet Guy, I don’t want to put the dog down on the grounds that he’s giving us all Strep. I just want to solve the mystery. So, the dog gets on antibiotics.
The kids have had strep, each atleast once, if not twice. I can’t keep up. There’s two of them. And Ricardo is a chick/Strep magnet. He had a nice run of Strep Throat three times in three months. If you’ve never had Strep Throat, yay you. It’s ugly, it’s painful, and basically you sit there and pray for God to infuse some new evolution that does not require humans (mainly just you) to swallow, eat, or have to move in any way.
As you can see, I have experience in this particular diagnosis. I can taste it. I can taste the sick. Strep has a very distinct misery and taste. So I call the doctor.
I’m not real impressed with doctors lately, or ever really. I have a beef with them making me wait. Almost all doctors who have had the pleasure of meeting with me, particularly family practitioners, get me into my 7X7 observation room by the scheduled time. They lock me in and make me wait. That’s where I get a bit pieved. Tack on the strep throat issue, and really, watch out for a Mom On The Rocks. Seriously. But as of late, I just don’t really like my Family Practitioner, and have previously threatened to find a new one. One that, oh, I don’t know, cares or listens. Like the day my doctor asked if my two sons (Max and Lucy were IN THE ROOM WITH ME) were identical twins. Or when the doctor asked if I had congestion with a previous sore throat. I told him no. When he came back in the room, he prescribed me something for my throat and the congestion.
I call, and it’s hard to talk, but I muster a “I’m pretty sure I have Strep Throat and need to see my doctor as early as possible”
Stupid lady on the other end, “Okay, we have a 2:45p.m. open?”
Me: “Uh, I need to see someone as soon as possible, I’m in a lot of pain. Is there a different doctor in the practice who can see me earlier?”
Stupid lady on the other end, big annoying SIGH and then long pause, “I can get your in with Dr. Ass at 8:50a.m.,” And then she commands, “Get here early.”
So, I get there early. I get there at 8:40. I check in, and pay my pre_paid co_pay. Yes, it’s pre_paid, because you HAVE to pay it before you get any service, good or bad. And next time, trust me, I will not pay the co_pay until I’m seen BY THE DOCTOR when they schedule me to be seen.
I sit down, and at 9a.m., I get called back to my little room with the nurse. I get weighed, and my blood pressure taken. Weight’s always high, blood pressure is normal or low. And then the nurse says in her little girl voice, “Okay, and we’re seeing you today because you have a sore throat?”
“Uh no, I’m pretty sure it’s beyond sore throat. I’m in a lot of pain, my head, my body, and my throat has puss pockets. I also have had a fever and chills on and off for the last two days.”
Little Girl Nurse: “Okay, the doctor will be in to see you shortly (or, sometime today).”
I sit and wait in my little room. Time passes. I get woozie, get the chills, sweat a little, and start to wonder where the heck the doctor is. I hear him walking back and forth rattling off orders to his nurses. But he never comes in.
So, after 30 minutes after my appointed time that I was asked to come in early for, I call a different doctor. They are much more sympathetic to my pain that they acknowledge on the phone. However, being a new patient and all, they couldn’t get me in until 11a.m. I start crying because I’m in pain and just want the shot to make it all go away. I tell her I’ll wait on this doctor and see how it goes.
Dr. Ass arrives at 9:32a.m., 42 minutes after my scheduled time. I’m crying, and he just keeps going on with his inquiry. He looks in my throat, and says, “Well, let’s do a swab and see.” I want to confront him about making me wait, but I’m crying, and in so much pain, and my head is throbbing. Then he swabs me. That is necessary but hurts. At 9:34a.m. he walks out saying he’ll run the test and be right back. I make it a point to ask how long the test takes, he says 5 minutes.
Fifteen minutes later, he walks back in with a smirk on his face because I have insisted it is strep throat, and lo, the test came back negative. But he still wants to give me antibiotics. I tell him I just want the shot, and that’s when he gets rude. “You can’t’ have the shot because the test came back negative.” It’s his demeanor at this point that is rude. Pompous. Just like I’ve heard him when he talks down to his nurses. I’m still crying. And I’ve had it. I try to muster out how I’m frustrated because I’m in pain, I made sure the woman who made the appointment, the nurse, and now the doctor knew I was in pain. And that I was put in a holding cell and told to wait for 42 minutes before anyone even looked at my throat or asked how I was doing. He’d spent 2 minutes with me. The test took 5, and he didn’t come back for 15. And I ask how they manage their time? What’s their measurement of success. When he can’t answer, he gets even more arrogant. That’s when he got very unprofessional. “You need to remember that there are other people here and sometimes have more urgent situations than you. Someone might have chest pains, you want me to ask them to wait because your appointment is before theirs?”
“How do you know how to prioritize your patients if you don’t even look at the charts until you walk through this door? And who, in their right mind, would make an appointment and come to this office with CHEST PAINS?” I wince.
Now he’s really mad. “Look, do you want me to treat you, or do you want to make other patients wait while we talk about this?”
To which I reply, “Well, you know, I think it’s my time now. Let’s talk about this.”
Dr. Ass stands up, slams his stupid prescription notepad down and says, “Well that’s the wrong answer! Do you want me to treat you or not?”
“Absolutely not.” And I walked out, sobbing out of frustration and pain. I walked to the front desk, and I didn’t mean to be so loud, but I was sobbing and in pain, so it came out loud, I’m sure, “I NEED MY CO_PAY BACK BECAUSE I WAS NOT TREATED.” The girl was shocked and said okay. Gave me my co_pay back and I called the other doctor on the way out and rescheduled the appointment.
Ricardo thought this might have been a little abrupt because I was sick and not in the mood. In hindsight, I stand by my point I was trying to make with the doctor. I probably could have done a better job communicating it. But because I was in so much pain and so sick, I admit, I was not shining with communication skills.
Is it so much to ask that I be seen with the doctor I have the visit scheduled with at the time I scheduled it. Not by the nurse, not locked in the examination room. I call, I say, “I need an appointment.” And they say, “THE DOCTOR CAN SEE YOU AT XX TIME.” Not, “Okay, come in, we’ll get you seated, maybe weighed in or something and eventually, when he (or she) thinks to open the door when he/she walks by, maybe he’ll go in and see you.”
The second doctor I went to, sat down with me, asked me all kinds of questions. Asked how I was feeling, what he could do, and swabbed me. Ouch, again. And when he looked in my infested mass of a throat, he sympathized, “Oh, that looks awful! I’m sure that’s strep, but let’s test to be sure.” Thank you kind man. The test takes five minutes, so I wait. I notice the new doctor has a policy where if you cancel 2 consecutive appointments within 24 hours of scheduled appointment, they reserve the right to dump you. Interesting. Test comes back negative. But the doctor assures me he’s going to do the culture and get back to me. That test takes 2 days.
2 days later, I get the call that I have not Strep A, not Strep B, but Strep C. I get the shot of penicillin in my arce. A day later, my ass and my throat hurt equally. The next day, the butt shot hurts more than my throat and I cannot be happier about it. By Friday, I get the lab results in the mail that says I have a “RARE DISEASE” because Strep C is not that common. Thanks. Ricardo could not be more proud that his wife has a RARE DISEASE. He’s known I have rare issues for quite a while now.
With kids, I’m the one waiting in the doctor’s office constantly, too long, too many times. So, here’s MY new policy. I will not pay my co_pay until I am seen by my doctor within 15 minutes of my scheduled appointment time. Period. A $15 copay to see Dr. Ass for 2 minutes 40 minutes late. Hmmm? I refuse to accept that. Liberate. Stand up for yourself. Don’t put up with it. You have options while you’re sitting in that little room. I opted to break up with my doctor.
That’s how I roll, and I hope you do too.

Pardon the blur, but I scrambled to get this shot. Just take a look at the picture. I see this stuff all the time, the perfect snapshot moment. Most of the time I don’t have my camera with me. But today, I did. I don’t know WHO these people are, but really, the poor girl, having to chase him!

Last night I had a dream about my deceased dad. It was a dream that was very vague and yet real. It was full of no words and an awesome presence of peace and happiness. The kind of dream where you try to shut your eyes and go back to that moment and hope it becomes a recurring dream. It was a wonderful moment.
That’s how I roll.

Anyone who has played any sport with me knows I have a good time, and when we’re losing, I’m still having a good time talking smack or cracking jokes. I’m a champion at talking.
When I was birthing my babies, the nurse told me to not make any verbal noise while pushing. Something about something using all your energy to bear down and push and not expending any on things like, talking, moaning, or screaming…blah blah blah. So, after one push of me not making any noise, it turns out that my body is so conditioned, so well_trained to express myself that when my push was over, the nurse retracted her initial request, “Uh, you can go ahead and talk or make your noise. I’ve never seen anything like it, but you push better while talking through it.” Yes, thank you for telling me what I already knew. Now, let’s talk about our feelings and get these babies out NOW! I pushed, I groaned, I cracked a few jokes and before you could say, “Are you sure you want to have kids with me?”, They were out. I’ve said it before, and I’ll site it again, if birthing babies were an Olympic sport, I’d totally have the gold.
Add in my communication “skills”, my love for cooking, and my competitiveness you’ve got yourself a pretty interesting match. So, you can imagine my excitement when it was announced at our gym that they were having a salsa competition. Salsa RECIPE competition, not dancing competition. Oh lawdy, me in a salsa dance competition? I pity the fool who’d agree to be my partner. Whew! However, everyone was safe, because it was a recipe competition. Make a salsa, bring it up, come have drinks on the patio, we’ll all vote, and I’ll win. No problem. I had some tomatoes from my tomato plant and momma smelled a winner! So, I signed up.
It might be a good time to mention that I have no green thumb. I chose to plant a tomato plant with the kids. You know, prepare them for failure at an early age. However, the plant grew into this monstrosity. It was huge, we put a tomato cage thingy around it, it grew some more. We put a little wooden stake in to hold it up further, it bent over and pulled it out. So we hammered in a 1×4, you know, built a mini fence to harbor the mammoth tomatoe plant. I took pictures and sent them to my family because I knew that no one would believe me.

And so it was, the huge plant of tomatoes. With that, it’s good to point out that the damn things never ripened. A bunch of green tomatoes. And hark, there it is, the winner of the “Most Original” recipe for the best salsa ever. I’m a shoe_in. I experimented, had my guinea pigs, Ricardo and his co_worker, Rust, taste it, they swore it rocked their world. And so be it. I must go forth and rock others’ worlds.
So, I did it. My online girlfriend (HOLLA!) showed up to support me in my shining moment when I win.
As seen here:

I tasted all of my competitor’s salsas, some were good. But I was so going to win this one. The contest was: you can go vote if you showed up. 90% of the attendance was gym employees off_duty. So, you can imagine my surprised when THE PILATES INSTRUCTOR won most original for a mango salsa she also won with last year. Okay, A), mango salsa is soooooo 1990’s and 2) if she won with it last year, then that doesn’t make it ORIGINAL, now does it?
This is my very validated reaction. Julz made me take this picture. I think it speaks for itself:

It’s so rigged. If she wasn’t a pilates instructor, I’d so scrap her in the parking lot. Sigh.
That’s how I roll.

Today, we celebrate “the explorer Christopher Columbus, who first landed in the New World on October 12, 1492. While Columbus’s nationality has never been positively identified, many believe he was of Italian descent, and throughought the nineteenth century, Italian_Americans held celebrations in cities across the United States to honor his memory. In 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed October 12 Columbus Day. President Richard Nixon later declared Columbus Day a national holiday to be observed the second Monday of each October.”
So, we honor some guy we have no clue who he was or where he came from. Isn’t that the entire plot of that tv show, Lost? Columbus should sue, really.
All it really meansto me is my trash got picked up but the mail is not running and the library is closed.
That’s how I roll. (I wonder if Columbus had to explain himself to the Queen with that: Yes, madam, I realize you don’t condone the 67 barrels of tequila I ordered for the voyage, but if you want me to go discover the new free world, that’s how I roll.”

We’re sitting in the hot tub tonight…just me and Ricardo, no other visitors. And I’ve made these delicious muffins as mentioned here. And I say to Ricardo, half kidding, half serious, and a dash of deliriousness:
“So, uh, should we have sex or eat the chocolate muffins?”
Without hesitation, Ricardo replies,
“Wanna flip a coin?”
You can’t find love like that just anywhere, folks.
Feel free to allow a clear visual of us eating the muffins, passionately. We never even flipped the coin.
That’s how we roll.

The other day, I made soup. Going to the pumpkin patch when it’s 95 degrees out definitely doesn’t do it for me. Yes, it was 95 degrees out, but I’m preparing and bracing myself for the bitter Nebraska cold. It’s finally getting colder out. So, in an effort to cope, I make my own soups in bulk, and then freeze them in little individual servings. This is so that Ricardo knows that I don’t expect him to live on hot liquids for the fall and winter here in Nebraska. The man needs a steak on occasion. But I like my soups. Apparently, the trick is: if the soup can survive me, all is right with the world.
Rachel Ray, God bless her for going to network television, mentioned that she has a knack for setting the oven on fire on occasion. So, see there, I’m a pro because I have a consistent habit of, errr, well, fine, so I scald the pot every now and then. I am always burning things. Per Rachel Ray, I’m a pro. I’d say weekly, I burn something. Two days ago, I left a pot of Mexican Corn Chowder to simmer. It’s the “Stir Frequently” part I missed.
I’d like to consider myself a good cook. So as I ran to the soup, I opted to pull the pot off the stove and pour the top half of the now scalded soup into my individual freezable bowls anyway and try to save it. Then I had to get the kids out of the house so that they could breathe. The smoke was a little thick in the house. I opened the windows, turned on the fans, and prayed that the alarm wouldn’t go off. I should probably check the batteries in the smoke alarm, because it was that bad, and it never went off. Later, after it was fairly safe to breathe in the house again, we all went back in, and I tasted the soup. The “roasted smokey” flavor I was hoping to justify, kind of overwhelmed the soup. It was like drinking a cheesey ashtray. Not great.
Today I’ll try to redeem myself by making Taco Soup which is the one I scalded and ruined last year when I made a bunch of soups. I’ll have to find a new pot to make it in as my favorite one is a bit charred at the bottom. Sigh.
Does anyone else do this, or is it just me?
That’s how I roll.

I’m not sure what happened, but I jacked up the Dr. Phil post so that you can’t post a comment. Please feel free to comment here.

This is a Public Service Announcement: If someone tells you, “Bless Your Heart” chances are they have nothing nice to say about your situation or you. This is usually used when some sincerely kind BlessYourHearters is at a loss for words.
However, most modern southerners use it to help them keep their mouth shut. So, by all means, use Bless Your Heart at your disposal. It’s fun.
Here are some examples:
Mother_In_Law (not mine!) walks in to your house and says, “Wow, you haven’t even had time to clean the house lately, have you?”
Just take her coat and say, “Well Bless Your Heart, thanks for noticing.”
Some jackass at the gym snags the machine you totally eye_balled first, “Well, Bless Your Heart, go ahead, you need it.”
This can also be flipped to defend your good nature. So, same scenario at the gym, “Yeah, you need it more than I do, Bless Your Heart.” Who’s going to start a fight with “Bless Your Heart”? I don’t think so.
Also, on the flip side, if you’re a RECIPIENT of the “Bless Your Heart”. That’s okay, too. Just give them the nod that they are on to you and maybe go get a nice latte and sit down to reflect. If you’ve been Bless Your Hearted, chances are, you deserved it.
Do not overuse the Bless Your Heart. People will be mislead to believe you’re a Born Again or something, and the whole mantra will lose effect.
Go and enjoy. Let me know how it worked for ya.
That’s how I roll, Bless Your Heart.