winkwinknudgenudge.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

so. here's how things are going on the grad application front: i'm scared. this isn't new. i've been scared the whole time. it's one of the reasons i keep putting it off year after year. my fear has specificities (other lesser women might say specifics, but i hold myself to a higher standard of expression :) ). i'm scared that i can't do this application. it's the letter of intent! how do i tackle this beast? i've got to write it and i've got to write it now. and i'm terrified that i waited too long to buckle down and do it. i'm worried it's too late. that the referees that i ask won't have enough time to do it, that i'll take too long to do my letter of intent, thus application, thus wasting precious reference writing time for the referees. but how do i write the letter???????????????

should i move? this severe change of topic is brought to you today by the double letters BB. bedbugs are remarkably hard to get rid of. this is what i was thinking about in the shower. i could just move with nothing but my kitchen stuff, my already treated and bagged clothes. start anew. the freedom of a pestilence free home would be fantastically, wonderfully, delightful. the things i would regret losing the most are my hope chest that dad made, my book shelf that dad made * especailly the book case!* and gramma b's red desk, aka red betty. i could even get rid of almost all my books and not take a look back. i do love my books and i'm proud of my collection. i like it when people come over and take a look at my books and we talk about them. but i can live without that for a while and books have a way of coming back to you. the very special ones i could bag for 18 months.

what to do about the trinity of beloved keepsake furniture items? i don't know. i don't want to move anywhere with the teensiest possible chance of taking BBs with me. so.... i don't know. i also shouldn't move until edith is going to move out (april/may) because then i'll just have to move again. but can i keep up the camping type living, and seemingly fruitless BB battles and skirmishes until then? wait and see. wait and see. in the mean time i do my best and trust in deliverance.

re: the fear grad school application. i know one of the answers is faith. faith is my weapon against fear. the meaning of "shield of faith" much more clear when i think this way.

6 comments
Laura posted @ 11:37 AM

Saturday, November 07, 2009
lurfapalooza strikes again

i'm at sarah's. everyone's gone playing soccer.

i'm chewing an ice breaker ice cube but i haven't yet brushed my teeth. it's an interesting sensation.

last night it was all about beetles rock band. i wanted more and more. i played sarah and kyle out. sarah prodded me out of the safety of bass guitar into guitar and i found she was right--it's not that much harder. doable. and i reached my first 91% (on easy level). it was funsies as eryn might be wont to say. on twist and shout kyle did the raspy voice to perfection. sarah and kyle are used to getting 100% on expert. that's what kind of show offs they are. kyle got us dairy queen. i never want a blizzard these days. what i always want is a peanut buster parfait. they are just so good! all that hot fudge and the peanuts! yes! YES! yeeeeeeeeeeeee-eeeeeeee-eeeeeeeess. we also ate beard pappas. fat blobs of vanila cream squished out of the pastry and blopped on hands, shirts and even the floor and without a second thought the blobs were scooped and licked and eaten. beard pappas are a decadent, luxury, greedy-gus-gus type of thing.

i bought kyle six .38 gel ink ball pens from daiso and promptly kept one. i was very prompt in my keeping of one. right on time. there was no lagging, no dragging of the feet. i was very prompt. i believe promptness is super important.

evan and esther let me go with them in their car. they squished for me. on the way to their house there was a 3 car accident on the 91 and i called evan to say i was coming but delayed. i didn't think they'd be ready and raring to go, but you never know. sure enough evan was just on his way to get esther a quiznos sub. he offered to get one for me too and i was all over that. "the carbonera" i said. "that's the one that esther wants too." well it's just so darn good. so i got to their house and i was chatting with carmen. she was telling me about school and that she had 4 teachers. i thought wow, 4 teachers? and so i was asking her like do you all your teachers come every day? carmen answered "one has straight hair, one has wavy, one has short hair and one has curly hair." i tried again, "what do your 4 different teachers do?" again her reply was a hair description. i gave up. "which one is your favourite?" "um, Mrs Lee." "how come?" "because i like her hair." it's all about the hair with her.

so evan didn't actually come back with a sub for me. he meant to, but it wasn't given to him and upon reflexion of the price he paid he realized that he didn't pay for one. hmph. so anywhoo it was raining hard and when we merged onto the 91 i bugged evan for being merge happy. if you're merge happy you merge upon first opportunity into jammed up traffic. if you're merge smart, you go to the end of the merge lane before merging into the slow line up. if you're merge happy which evan was, you join the slow line too soon only to see the car that was behind you merge into the line way ahead of you and you are left knowing you could have been ahead of that car but now you're behind. but he made up for it by eventually squeezing into the left hand lane and passing the car that was behind us and was more merge smart than him. so he felt vindicated.

so then i got super turned around and felt that we were going the wrong way when we were in fact going the exact right way. i scared evan in so much that i almost had him turning off strange exits to turn around. in my mind we were coming at the ferries from surrey, delta side, so i thought we shouldn't go through the tunnel. it was a confusing time for me but i got through it.

when we got on the ferry i took carmen with me and we went to the cafeteria. we had lots of cute chats. i love having chats with little kids. i got a hawaiian pizza which wasn't that good. serves me right for not getting the bc burger. the bc burger on being slighted by me, probably cursed my pizza. spiteful little delicious burger. but i got a big soft cookie and that was pretty good. carmen got a juice and ate two slivers of my pizza and half of the cookie. amongst other things we discussed the history of the submarine sandwich. on our way to the kids area where evan, esther, evan and isabell, the vowell part of the family, were we saw a veteren selling poppies. so we got some. i put carmen's on her coat and said it was to remember the soldiers. when we got to the kid area she didn't want to take off her coat because she wanted to remember the soldiers. ha. later evan wanted a poppy and he took mine. one day when i was with amy on a whirl wind visit to victoria taking photos and nursing what were my first angry firey bed bug bites, but not knowing it, it suddenly came to me that i liked the name poppy. i added it to my list of girl's names for future miracle babies. it's the first non one syllable name that's made it to the list. if you have a baby before me, which you probably will, whoever you are, and you really want to name it poppy, go ahead just when you introduce her to me, don't tell me her name is poppy. give her some alias so i don't know that another one of my possibilities is gone. give her a name like buela!

well when sarah woke me up this morning to get sloan's clothes so they could leave for soccer, i realized some things:

1. i was in a bed bug free environment

2. i had the luxury of sleeping unguarded, and not clothed head to foot.

3. something heavy was sitting on my full bladder.

i asked sarah if she thought that when you are laying on your back in the morning and something heavy is sitting on your full bladder, if she thought that was your intestines. what do you think? do our organs press on each other?

i'm getting dressed. not at this exact moment but in a moment from now.

ps. when i got here adriel gleefully told me that they had my cereal. i didn't know what he meant but sure enough he ran out of the kitchen clutching a box of my cinnamon pecan special it k. sarah explained. it's not only the kind of cereal i like, but it was my exact box. from christmas. she's been feeding it adriel and telling him it's aunty laura's cereal. i ate a few flakes that adriel offered me. not even stale.

3 comments
Laura posted @ 9:45 AM

Thursday, November 05, 2009
for the love of MEAT

it's like i want to blog but i don't want to actually type anything out. it would be so much easier if i could just put a 'laura's thoughts' widget on here and everyone would just press play and enjoy a clip of my thoughts. except those people who had a bad connection because it would keep freezing in the same place like youtube is apt to do. and after five or six failed attempts to play my thoughts clip, the frustration would get to them and they'd toss the mouse aside, click off their moniter while muttering "aww forGET it!", stand up, go into the kitchen and drown their sorrows in a big soft and chewy ginger cookie.

i want a big soft and chewy ginger cookie. (this is the exact sentance edith would say after i mentioned ginger cookies. she's very prone to fall for food suggestiveness. (and when i say suggestiveness, i don't mean like when food is lewd and unG-rated. (and when i overexplain myself i'm doing what edith would do. (and when i talk in a maze of tangents that never ends, that's an example of what i'm prone to...)))).

so it's for those people who have frustration with mind widgets that i am typing out my thoughts the old fashioned blogging way. so passe. so yesterday. so 80s the second time around.

well fatima and i met up today. it was our MEATing. we like to meat. well i personally love it actually. i picked fatima at her back door. it's big and glass. she hopped in the passenger door like the hussy she is, and down the ramp we went, the hussy and myself. fatima said i was the first person she saw obey the please wait until the door closes sign. i'm obedient like that. ha. so we parked and then we walked in the rain in our classic bub to bud elbow hook to subees and had some eats and some talks. i like to talk with bud even though she's a blatant car hopping hussy sometimes. who am i to judge?

when we got out of subees (yucky bathroom, neat wax drippng candles) it was raining a lot harder. i got wet. hussy mahabub said she was so wet. i looked over at my be-hooded and be-parkaed budorama and said "no you're not. i'm wet." (andrea maybe you can slings some rabbits together and make me a coat! :) )

we went to tinsel town and watched whip it. i loved it. awesome. love love loved it. it was so good. we had lots of good laughs and i loved the unashamed, unabashed, rowdy girl power. i loved the way drew barrymore's character would just jump on people and pummel them so joyfully. it was a joyful movie i think.

and i'll tell you a secret. but you have to promise not to ask me about it unless i bring it up with you. promise. ok. the secret is this: i've started my application for grad school! i haven't gotten too far though. i've filled out my address and birthdate, and previous schooling etc. the hard part is still undone and it's due december 1st so i might not make it, but it's the closest i've ever come to applying for grad school, so that's exciting and scary.

one of the hard parts is the letter of intent. a letter of intent is this: "Letter of intent: Please provide information about your background, reason for seeking an advanced degree and your career plan." well it's an important part and i don't really know exactly what to say. i know i'm super interested in women and families. i believe in families so strongly even though it's totally incorrecto to say strongly. and i believe in women and in their power and i think if you strengthen women you strengthen families and strengthened families benefit the world. i really believe that. fatima and i were talking a bit about that tonight too. and then the movie. and then after the movie i was thinking about it (in the bathroom--it's a good thinking place) and i had my first idea as to what i could write about a little bit. i don't know if it's the kind of thing you write in your letter of intent though.

another hard thing is getting references. this i need to do first and soon, so they have to time to write something excellent for me. you know?

my biggest stumbling block is my everyday life--everyday things slipping in front of application things. editing and posting photos, watching things, doing things, cleaning, etc. i just let every day pass without doing anything towards it. it's scary but i want to do it. anyways cross your fingers, send up a little prayer for me, and feel free to pass on any encouragement and helpful tips. just please don't ask me after december 1st if i did it--because if i didn't i'd feel even more like a the hugest loser in the world than ever before. if i did do it, i'll be posting a big hooray post.

well that's that. secret's out.

4 comments
Laura posted @ 10:46 PM

Wednesday, November 04, 2009
long grained brown rice and a can of tuna

i leave new potatoes in my cupboard for months on end. i don't eat them. i only open my cupboard and stare at them. i store a big bag of carrots in my fridge for even longer and instead of eating them i buy another bag and put it on top. i pick my last tomatoes and watch them ripen on my window sill. i don't feel the urge to eat them. my cupboard is full of things i can eat--that i can make. it stays full because it's a cupboard museum of sorts. i only use the peanut butter and the popcorn. occasionally i can bring myself to use one of the items like a carton of soup or a can of tuna. my fridge is likewise full of forgotten things. who would know that i like to cook? that i think creating in the food department is fun? only people at work. i've spent the last five years struggling, barely cooking at home. i always think i will, but i usually don't. i don't know why. maybe all my energy for that is used up at work and at home i want to do other things. i know that i often want good food at home but not enough to make it.

well that's this stage in my life i guess. the non-cooking-at-home stage. some day when i'm old and retired i'll be in the let-me-cook-you-a-meal stage.

6 comments
Laura posted @ 11:07 AM

Sunday, October 25, 2009
update overload

edith and i have been going on walks. more like i've been joining edith on her walks. mostly i have a bad attitude about going. this is partly because we usually go after work when i'm so tired that i need to prop my eyelids open with toothpicks. once i get out of the house i do feel better, invigorated even, and it's nice to be outside in october weather. october is one of my favourite months. i mostly love how beautiful it is. october proves that aging is beautiful. there's so much atmosphere in october. fog, vibrant colours, cripiness, darkness, wind blown leaves gusting across the roads.... ehneway. i like it. other favourite months are april (obviously a superior month), may, june, july, august and december. septembers can be nice too. i'm not a fan of november, january or february. well now that that's established i can move on.

our walks are down by the river at fraser view park. one thing i like about that park is all the dogs you get to see. another thing is that it smells good. to get to the park we take this path in the woods which leads past the tree under which a homeless man revealed himself to heather and i one early morning by calling a polite 'good morning' to us, so pass that tree and down to the stairs and on to the park. we made a stairs friend. we always see him at the stairs. he goes up and down them 20 times. i know because i asked. "we're only going to do it twice." i bragged to him. he urged us to do more but we didn't. he has an englishy accent at times. at other times it's an enigma.

last thursday i believe we went for a walk and then we were all "let's get fresh slice pizza!". "only one slice though", qualified edith. i looked at her and my look said "i don't think so." so she said "ok but not more than two." "fine." i agreed. fresh slice opened up right beside my donair place and i basically have to sneak in there every time i go so as not to hurt the donair boys feelings. edith just waltzes right by their window but i dodge past behind all the parked cars in a panicky way hoping no one will see me. we each got a pesto cheese slice. sometimes the pizza at fresh slice is just so fresh and soft! my second one was a pepperoni. i'm turning over a new leaf with pepperoni. i used to turn up my nose at it but now if the pepperoni looks crispy i know i'm going to like it. we were given water in little styrofoam cups. "my dad would call these sacrament cups" i said to eedit. i hate drinking out of the styrofoam. it makes my teeth feel weird. the tables were too low so that it was uncomfy to eat with my elbows on the table but perfect for eedit.

after pizza we bought pumpkins at safeway. on fondling a certain pumpkin, my finger sank into its flesh. that totally grosses me out. some people may like it, but i don't. once we chose our respective pumpkins we walked into the store with them on our hips like children to look for some treats to bring to shauna's. for some reason we had a super hard time finding the candy aisle and passed it 3 times before recognizing it for what it was and what it was, was humdrum. after some humming and hawing in front of the chocolate disply in front of the store we chose a box of cadbury's assorted mini chocolate bars. the sign said 7.99. edith handed me two loonies to pay for her portion. but we were wrong about the price and sent our clerk out in search of an appropriate box which he did. so when that was all said and done, i paid and then waited for edith to buy her carrot coloured pumpkin. "my pumpkin's cheaper than yours" i taunted from the end of the bagging area. this is the exact type of taunting that gets edith's goat. "what?! that's impossible!" she exploded but was pacified as soon as she realized the untruth of my statement.

we were half an hour late and randy and claudine and declan were already there. shauna's table was covered in garbage bags and there were treats everywhere. i forgot the chocolate in the car and didn't feel like going back to get it. i'm lame that way. this was our first time seeing randy since he got back from hawaii so we ate his chocolate covered macadamia nuts and listened to his hawaii stories while carving our pumpkins. well claudine and i were the only ones carving. she carved one for declan and one for herself and i carved mine and shauna's. edith wrote on hers. shauna sat beside me seperating the pumpkin seeds from the goo. it was a nice night. we ate too much chocolate and stayed up too late.

randy bought karen a pearl pendant on a white gold chain. we all super approved.

friday edith, shauna and i went to a haunted house on dunbar and 48th. it was the perfect night for a halloween outing. there was bite in the air and leaves skidded and whirled across the road. the haunted house was really well done. edith elected me to go first which isn't my favourite position because the first person get's all the people jumping at you and that's the kind of thing that totally makes me jump even though i'm expecting it. just before going through this black tunnel edith's hand suddenly juts out and grabs my sweater right at the ticklish rib spot and that's what scared me the most of the whole experience. which totally delights edith. after the haunted house we came back to our place to do natural hair masks. i got some recipes from my body and soul magazine. there were different ones for different hair colours, each to highten the colour. things like this sound so easy-peasy in the magazines but in real life it's a different story. edith and shauna are both red heads so they shared their mask of carrots, cranberries, yogurt and honey. mine was grated potato, camomile tea and lemon juice. let me interject here, that earlier that day, after work i gave the bathroom a lovely little cleaning and polishing and edith did the floors. silly of us because this was the messiest thing ever. there was carrot and potato everywhere. we had to gently massage it into our hair. well it's hard to massage grated potato into your hair. edith did her long locks in the kitchen, which looked like it had a bad case of the chicken pox after. me and shauna shrink wrapped our heads which was super flattering. so i had to blow dry mine through the plastic for 2-3 minutes but the red heads didn't have to. the hardest part was the rinsing it out and suffice it to say that i am still finding dried pieces of grated potato in my hair today. i can't tell if it made a difference to my hair. the red head one worked for shauna and edith. it's a nice subtle punch up. too much work though.

i drove shauna home and then edith and i watched survivor on youtube, thanks to dcdice for his quality recordings. he's our favourite survior poster. quite the dramatic episode.

saturday was our last ever stake temple trip. i went to it instead of the primary presentation practice. so i went to bed with my top layers of hair pinned up. i knew it was a foolhardy thing to do, but i thought it would be better than going to bed with even slightly damp hair. well in the morning i dealt with the consequences. it's hard to describe. once taking out the clips my unraveled hair stayed at the same level as when it was pinned up, hugging the part of my hair if you can picture it. indeed some wanted to sit directly on the part. so these curls sat high on my head with the bottom layer dry and some what frizzy hung long underneath. it looked very mullet like and caused me some concern. but they started to relax a little after i weighed some of them down with some clips and so that was that.

the man at the front desk told us our session was at 12:30. but randy had told us 1. "randy's a bad man." said edith as we hurried to get our stuff and get ready. sister toolson was at the clothing counter. she's cute. so we rush-rushed and lo and behold it was at 1 and so we sat for over half an hour fighting sleepiness. there was a really nice big group from our stake. president walker talked and then the temple presidency guy.

our session was so full some sisters had to sit on the other side and 2 people had to sit on folding chairs. it was neat though because it was all people from our stake officiating. the lady beside me commented first to me and then to the lady on the other side of her how it was like we had our own temple already because of how everyone officiating were people we knew. starting from the talks before our session i was fighting the sleepiness. i struggled greatly during the session. the inner sleep wars i go through during sessions sometimes frustrates me. i feel bad about it because i know i'm supposed to be alert and trying to get as much as i can out of it and i was feeling that way yesterday too. but i had a moment in the celestial room afterwards when i was praying that i realized that it's ok to struggle. life is all about the struggle. as long as i keep struggling it's ok. so anways edith was struggling too. she struggles more in the second half and i struggle more in the first half. at one point i wanted to say something to her and so i got her attention and i leaned towards her. most people know this as a sign to lean in as well so that a whispered conversation can take place. edith just looked at me. she obviously is not in the know with this unspoken custom, i thought, so i whispered to her "lean in!" which she very promptly did. props to her for her quick promptness at following my lean in cue, but we then bonked heads which sent us into peals of stifled laughter. "lean in!" --thwack!--muffled hilarity. i almost forgot what i wanted to tell her at that point and besides couldn't really get it out very well while trying not to laugh too loud.

edith is really looking forward to my rendition of this event and i hope it's not anti-climactical for her. she's waiting up for me to finish. "are you done yet?" she just called from down the hall. "not yet!" i called back. "how much longer? i have to go to bed!"

my time in the celestial room was soul nourishing and peaceful and i had some answer to prayer. its the main reason i go. it's my respite and renewal time.

so today was primary presentation day. last year i didn't enjoy it as much as i usually do when i am sitting in the congregation but this year it was wonderful. our theme was on eternal families and i just felt the spirit so powerfully throughout. i kept getting all misty eyed and weepy. it was such a great presentation. my favourite parts were the family talks and songs. seeing the families up there together really got me. the strength of family. i love it.

i was feeling discouraged about being a primary teacher too. i had faced the fact that i'm not a very good teacher. i thought i would be. i thought it would be easy and fun but it hasn't been easy and rarely fun. sometimes it's fun but most times when i'm looking forward to a great teaching experience i get half an hour of struggle and frustration. it would be nice to blame this on my kids, but i've seen other people teach them powerfully. the way i'd like to be able to teach them. but that was all kind of wiped away today. i just felt so in love with them that i didn't care as much if i was a good teacher or not. i don't know if that's a good thing, but it worked for me today.

edith and i just played a couple of rounds of crib. at first i was kind of irked because i haven't played crib in years and years and i mostly forgot how to play and edith was all brusque and "i can't tell you how, i don't have the words." but after playing for a bit i caught on and we had some good laughs. especially during the second round when i was more in the know and relaxed. every once in a while i would taunt archie who was trying to sleep on the his camouflage orange stool beside me. edith won the first game and the second game was a close one but i won. after every turn edith would point out that it was really neck and neck and quite the horse race. like those were her words after every turn. horse race. neck and neck. haha.

the last tid bit of update is going to be about bed bugs so get prepared. i'd like to say we are bed bug free but the fact is i don't know for sure yet. after the first spraying i was bitten 3 times--one time waking in the midst of killing a nymph (baby) in the act of biting my uper arm inner tenders/flubs putting an end to all doubt whether what was biting me was indeed bed bugs. so the night before our follow up spraying good ol' dad came with the trailer and we carted off the couch, the wing backed chair, my mattress and box spring and two dressers to the dump in two trips. i also threw away the living room mat and some other things. all the things that we took to the dump we shrink wrapped first. it was fun shrink wrapping the couch let me tell you. so our place is very bare bones now. since then i've been sleeping on my air mattress. mom and dad have a bed for me but i'm not bringing it here until i'm sure.

so after the second spraying i was bitten on the foot three days later as i sat editing photos one night at red betty. this really depressed and discouraged me for a day. i felt so exhausted. i've worked my butt off trying to get rid of this plague and fasted and prayed and did everything i could think of to do my part what more was there to do? after that initial debby downerness, two things happened in my prayers. #1 i felt prompted to go buy my own poison and poison my desk the the nth degree and #2, i felt reassurance that everything was going to be ok. so i did that and i haven't been bitten since, so far. but i still can't have bare feet in the house and have to sleep fully covered from my feet to my head, hands clenched inside the sleeves. so we'll see. i really hope it's over. i haven't slept in my room yet either. i need to do that. i just don't want to be bitten ever again. my tenders have had enough.

whew.

8 comments
Laura posted @ 9:33 PM

Saturday, October 17, 2009

i'm so tired right now. but being utterly tired is my new regular state of being.

edith and i were party animals tonight. our big activity was going over to randy's and vegging out on the couches watching tv. randy is in hawaii and asked me to check on his apartment at least once to keep his home insurance active. so we went to starbucks, got double chocolate chip frappacinos and big soft ginger molasses cookies first. edith had a misunderstanding with the girl centering around soy milk vs cream base but we made it to randy's with no other incidents.

we watched a lot of wedding shows on tlc. say yes to the dress and one about wedding planners. edith was hoping for what not to wear but it just wasn't on. as we lay there on our respective couches totally zoned out and vegetable like i said to edith "i'm glad we don't have tv." "me too." she grunted from her semi-paralyzed state. we had some good laughs from some commercials. and i'm falling asleep as i sit here so i'm going to have to cut this short. i guess i'll have to continue tomorrow. night.

4 comments
Laura posted @ 12:41 AM

Saturday, October 03, 2009
My way of joking is to tell the truth. It is the funniest joke in the world. - George Bernard Shaw

not that i have anything funny to say. since my exhibitionism many things have happened. chief amongst these is edith's discovery of an actual vile little bed bug. it was ironic because it was thursday night and we had just come home from survivor night at randy's. ironic hey? ha. well what's more ironic is that randy had captured a bug crawling on him that he was freaking out about--not a bed bug but a little beetle. i was sitting at the computer, my usual spot, and edith came in with something to show me. just looking at her face, i knew it was not something good. "is it a bug?" i asked, knowing some how it was. "not just a bug--THE bug." she was holding a kleenex like a platter and the dish was mr. bedbug. 'thud!' went my heart. it was instantly recognizable. what happened next was an extended conversation about throwing away all our furniture with the proposal of living on all plastic things. during this time i was looking up new places to live.

so far we are not moving. edith called the managers the next day to tell them about our nefarious visitor. she also called a lot of pest control places to find out what's what. she found this great place that injected a perimeter of death in the walls. this is the one that was the most attractive to us. the managers had to talk to the owners and didn't get back to us until monday. all of th pco's that edith called said to leave things as they were for the inspection so we did nothing on the weekend. monday i came home from work to a message from franca telling me the pco was coming the next morning at 8. she made it sound like we had to pack everything up. but she's got a thick slavic accent so i went straight to the source and called samy--our friendly neighbourhood pco guy (not the perimeter of death guy). he said since we found a bug we needed to be sprayed so he wasn't doing an inspection. he said we needed to bag up all our clothes and move everything from the walls.

what followed was a scrambled search of where to stow the kitties (mom and dad kindly took them--dad even drove out to pick them up in the morning), and a loooong night of bagging my room. i hadn't spent much time in my room since july and it was full of stuff and clutter. countless dusty cluttered piles. well thinking do i want this or do i want the chance of bed bugs being in it, is a great purging question. i threw away tons of stuff. and bagged up the rest. edith and i had the box of garbage bags in the hall between our two rooms and between the two of us we went through an almost full box of 40 garbage bags. like maybe there was 37 or 36 in there.

samy was a comforting kind of person. after looking through our place he said we weren't infested-infested. he could tell. he's been doing it for 15 years. edith is of the opinion that is just the one bug that she found waltzing along between her bed and her carpet in her room. but she hasn't been bitten mysteriously on and off again for 5 months. strange that buggy was found in her room then, but good because that's how he was found because she inhabits her room and her room is neat and tidy. well it was before the bagging manifesto. a little known fact about bed bug bites is that some people don't have any reaction to their bites at all. if this is true of edith, it is just another example of our diabolical oppositeness as the other end of the spectrum is extreme allergic reaction which is what happens to me.

so samy sprayed our house with poisons and gave us some friendly tips. he's going to bring us cloth mattress covers. back in july when i began to phobia about bugs i covered my bed with plastic. samy said this was better than nothing, but not very good protection.

dad was late picking up the emprisoned kitties, because of bad traffic and edith and i sat outside with the mad yowling felines waiting for him. there was a strange giddy atmosphere. i think maybe the relief of doing something about the whole bug thing. and the hope samy gave us.

i even made it to work more or less on time. samy comes back for a follow up spray--another comforting thing, ten days from his first spraying. this is to nab eggs that may have hatched in that time. i'm all for bug genocide with the exception of lady bugs and any bug who minds his own business and stays outside of human habitations and does not bite or suck human blood when given the chance. that's my personal philosophy on the matter.

archie and izzy spent their visit with mom and dad hiding behind the garbage can under mom's sewing desk. coming out only when visited by mom or dad. they hardly ate or drank anything. a little fast is a good thing for a chubby cat though. they were very glad to come home. we missed them too. since i put plastic on my bed they've been banished from my room because of their love to claw at plastic, especially archie. and they've always been banished from edith's room, so for the time they weren't here, it was strange to see our doors uninhibitedly open. it was strange to come home and not be met by two eager cats one weaving in and out of my feet, determined to fell me as i walk down the hall, the other nervously scratching her cardboard pad. the apartment seemed empty. "this is what it was like to not have pets." i said to myself.

so i've had two and a half nights back in my own bed. the first night was disastrous. i was fully dressed and layered and barely slept. what sleep i did do was fitful and thanks to the plastic and the excessive clothes (thick heavy jeans if you can imagine that) i was bathed in sweat. the previous days to this, on the couch, since the discovery of cold hard bug fact, i had been sleeping badly--waking up all through the night and up at 5am unable to go back to sleep. it was catching up with me. i was sooooo tired. thursday night i was desperate. i prayed specifically about a peaceful sleep and found some lighter things to wear to bed. it still had to be long pants but it wasn't jeans, and i wore a t-shirt. well it was the best sleep i've had in months and months. i even flung my limbs out of the covers which is how i like to sleep, but i haven't allowed it since sleeping on the couch began in july. all limbs had to be encased in covers no matter if i was burning up or not, and i often was even though i just used a sheet. anyways i slept with abandon and didn't wake up for reals until 7. the lift that gave me was wonderful. such a happy way to start your day--well rested.

well then there was last night. it seems weird to say last night when it is 3:57am and i started this post at 2:55am. i went to bed 11ish and started waking up at 1ish. what followed was a losing battle with sleep. i was soooooooo hot! desperately i flung my covers completely off. i couldn't understand it. i was wearing the same thing as the night before! i got up around 2:45. and came out to sleep on the couch. i couldn't. i was too hot even with just a sweater draped over me and i couldn't sleep on the couch without some sort of cover. i have suspicions about the couch. bed bugs make you suspect every thing. anyways that's when i figured out what edith had done. she had pumped the heat up all the way. our heater knob has number from one to five and it was at a definite five. i have an overreaction to heat and she has an overreaction to cold. how much more ying and yang could we get? seriously though, 5?? it's not the dead of winter! usually at this time of year we have the heat at a 2 or 3. 5 is like for those desperately cold below zero days. if she's doing 5 when we have nights with a low of 7 degrees, what's she going to do on truly cold days? if anyone's a candidate for a space heater she is.

last night we did some states shopping. i was looking for cheap jeans at the gap outlet. edith's interest was purely grocery shopping. i ended up with a pink sweater for 16 usdollars. i tried on many a 24.99 jean. i liked quite a few. i liked their cuts, their washes, the details on them. i liked the legs but i didn't find a pair that didn't try to redistribute my stomach fat in an unflattering way. pah. i also found this super cute black dress in lane bryant. it was flattering and cute except that the lining was inexplicably sewn to the hem of the dress, creating a strange yucky hang at the bottom. so i left it. but now i really want a cute black dress. i know where to get one too. bodacious is where the cute black dresses are. i just need to save my pennies as they say. miss edith-all i want is fermented mushroom juice and snap pea chips, found 3 tops for 23 dollars. we ate at applebees.

ok. i'm going to work on the mountain of photos i have to edit. latah.

5 comments
Laura posted @ 2:54 AM

Wednesday, September 30, 2009
maybe i can wear a snow suit to bed!

short: i'm looking for a snow suit to wear to bed.

4 comments
Laura posted @ 9:25 PM