Grab a chair and a couple of root beers...

You know, my blog is beginning to look like the synopsis of a very bad soap opera! No, seriously!

Okay, so... two weeks ago, the Husbandly One came down with the shingles. Which... is weird, because it makes it sound like he was covered in roofing tiles, right? I even had a dream about that, that he was covered in roofing tiles and he was blaming me for it, and I was all O_o???

Anyway, he had the shingles, which is a variant of the same virus that causes chickenpox. It was painful, we both lost a lot of sleep, and he's getting over it.

How is this significant?

Well, last night, the Impossible Son came to me and asked me to scratch his back and get him an ice pack.

I frowned. "Um... sure, I'll scratch your back, but... why do you want an ice pack?"

"I have such a bad headache, I need an ice pack," he said, grimacing and squinting at me in a very familiar way. "I think I have a migraine."

Oh, crap.

So, I got him an ice pack and he said, "First, scratch my back?" and pulled up his shirt, and I started to oblige and stopped. "Um... Little Man... where did you get all these bites? Did you fall into an ant bed or get into a lot of mosquitos or something?"

"No," he said, frowning. "There's no mosquitos. Drought, remember?"

"Yeeeaaahhh," I said slowly, and the Husbandly One came in and went, "Uh-oh... that looks like chickenpox."

Crap, crap, crap, crap....

So, we inspected him and took his temperature, and he had a fever, and he had spots popping up, and yeah, lots and lots of fun.

Here's the thing: he's had the chickenpox vaccination. But not the booster, which he's due to get next year. And... it's only about 90 percent effective, anyway. However, having the vaccine is supposed to reduce the severity of the virus and also reduce the time he'll have it.

But... it's the second week of school!!!!

*sigh*

So, Dr. W. checks him over, and as she's examining him, little spots are popping up!! She brings in Dr. R., who has lots of experience of chickenpox over his years of practice and at first, he said, "Oh, these are insect bites! There's no fluid in these spots!" And then... he notices more popping up in places where there were not spots as he is looking at him and says, "Um...hmmmmmmmm... this perhaps is chickenpox. Has he had his shot?" And when I said yes, he frowned and said, "Let's get bloodwork, to be sure."

At which point the Impossible One howled, "NO!! I DON'T WANT TO!!!" and every variant in between. Both doctors were rather shocked because Mr. Impossible has always been very cooperative for them, and I had to explain why he was so upset over his protests.

And just to make things even more interesting, Mr. Impossible did have an insect bite on his forearm that the doctor looked at, because it was swollen and red, and I was worried about it being infected. She frowned and said, "Um... how long has it had this red circle around it?"

o_O???

I looked at it and said, "That wasn't there last night."

"Have you been camping recently? Hiking in the woods or the state park? Had any deer munching on your bushes?"

I knew where this was going. "Not been camping or hiking, and if there are deer munching on our bushes, I haven't seen them. I find droppings, but deer droppings and rabbit droppings kinda look alike, you know?"

"Uh-huh," she said, frowning even more at the red ring around the bite. "Just to be on the safe side, let's do a Lyme titer."

O_O!!

"Can we just cut to the chase and go on doxycycline now?" I said, remembering my own close call with Lyme disease and four weeks of doxycycline. Woo-hoo!! All kinds of fun!!!

"Let's just see what the titer shows. I mean, I'll probably put him on it, but let's get him through the chickenpox first!"

Okay, cool...

So, he's home, ensconced on the couch, playing Halo, and asking for something to drink every five minutes.

The good news is... exposure to my son having chickenpox is supposed to reduce my chances of getting shingles later. That's perfectly okay with me, because seriously, shingles looks very painful, and I don't want it!

Now, to prepare for the Impertinent One to come home from school. Yay, whoopee, yay!

Week Two of Summer Vacation... and I'm about to lose my religion.

Let's see, I'm trying to clean the hog pen that is our living room, a task which always makes me want to strangle my children rather cranky, because it begins to take on Sisyphean proportions. Every time I think I've cured my kids of a bad habit, I find that I haven't. They've just gotten better at concealing it.

*snarls*

Take, for example, the Impossible Son. I think Hercules had it easy, cleaning out the Augean Stables. He should try cleaning under and around the loveseat that Mr. Impossible has claimed as his own. I found... okay, I don't know what it was, I don't want to know what it was, I could live my entire life without ever knowing what that stuff was, and die happy. Seriously. It might have been a thriving civilization, for all I know. If it was, sorry, I destroyed it. I had to. It was going to take over the Earth. That's me, the unsung hero of planet Earth, saving it from being taken over by home made science experiments and penicillin farms.

So, I'm picking up detritus left over from video games, glasses left on the table from yesterday, and I move to pick up some toys next to this old video console we're using to hold DVD's and as I'm standing up, I look between the console and the wall and there are these... things. Lumpy, dark, possibly reddish, possibly purplish, kinda hard to tell... things. And it was hard to tell the color because they were covered in a thick mat of hairy mold. They might have once been strawberries, or... blackberries? I'm not sure, because like I said, I could go my whole life without needing to know. Anyhow, there they are, stuck to the floor, pulsing slightly, looking somewhat malevolent... I'm not quite sure, but... I think they were... looking at me!!

Windex and paper towels. I saved the planet with Windex and paper towels. Yes, I am awesome!!

I'm still seriously grossed out. And yeah, I let Mr. Impossible have it, making him look at the mashed, squished, Windexed remains and said, "There is a garbage can not six feet away!!. There is a compost bucket three feet beyond that!! USE THEM!!! Or seriously, the XBox, the Wii, and the PS2 will go the way of the triceratops. As in BYE BYE!!"

I don't get it, this kid can play an entire game of soccer nonstop, he can run a mile without stopping, he can climb anything, is sometimes so energetic he can't sit still and has to go outside to play... and he can't walk six feet to a garbage can????

Oh, and I'm seriously going to have to call my mother and apologize again. Because I completely understand now why she would go nuts when I'd put music I liked on the stereo and had it blasting away while I cleaned the living room and the bathroom. Because when the Impertinent Daughter puts her music on full blast while she cleans her room, the living room, her bathroom, the kitchen, etc... it drives me up the wall!!! And you know what the worst part is??

We like the same music!!

I mean, how sad is that? She's listening to music that I like... and it's driving me nuts because I can't hear myself think!!

That's it. I am officially old.

Oh, and another thing... I'd better get some serious chocolate out of this. I'm not kidding. Because after I finish scraping that weird sticky stuff off the wood floor in the living room (and no, I don't want to know what that stuff is either), I have to tackle the kitchen and the laundry room.

*head-desk*

This is sooooooo going on my bill to Homeland Security. I mean, seriously, I SAVED the PLANET. With Windex. And paper towels.

How many superheroes do you know can do that?

Yeah. That's what I thought!

Excuse me, I need to find the paint scraper. There's a malevolent force of evil I need to scrape off the floor. By the way, have you seen the Windex?

I love my mother dearly, y'all know that, right?

I think I upset her today, though. Sometimes, it's not just my kids who try my patience.

*head-desk*

Poor Mom. Okay, there's this old friend of my dad's, a guy who he used to work in the oilfields with, and he keeps in contact with Mom basically by forwarding a lot of crap to her. You know, the "there's no such thing as global warming, it's a CONSPIRACY!!" and "Bush was a GREAT president, it's all a CONSPIRACY!!" and "universal healthcare is socialism in disguise, we'll all end up communist, IT'S A CONSPIRACY!!" and my personal favorite, "Obama's really a Muslim, and he's not American, IT'S A CONSPIRACY!!"

*sigh*

I used to kind of like him, in a distant, you're-a-friend-of-my-dad-so-I'll-be-polite-and-keep-my-real-opinion-to-myself sort of way, but now? I wouldn't spit on him if he were on fire. Seriously.

Anyhow, Mom and I were chatting, and were about to get off the phone when Mom says, "Oh, Mr. Hopcraft (yes, that's how much I dislike him, I'm using his name) sent me this interesting email about Michelle Obama, want me to send it to you?"

I hesitated, then said, "Mom, if it's bigoted, or says they're not Americans, or says she's stealing milk money from kids or something, then no, I don't want to see it."

"Well, okay," she said, sounding amused, "but it's pretty funny, though I admit, I don't like it. It has me kind of upset, I mean, it's about her clothes, and if it's true, well... I just don't approve of it."

This didn't sound good, so I said, "Mom, I'm sure it's funny, but really, I'm not interested."

"Well, it's just, it shows her in these clothes, and they don't fit right, and they don't look good. I mean, she's in pants and they show her butt, and they show the crease and all, and it's just... not decent. Not proper. And... I don't think she should do that. I mean, she's representing our country..."

I rolled my eyes and said, "Mom, have you looked around to see how people dress now? I'm sure she's just reflecting styles of the people around her."

"She should have more dignity!"

"Mom, if they're pictures of her with her kids, then she can dress how she wants..."

"No, she's with foreign dignitaries! It's just not right!"

I sighed, then said, "Mom, if Mr. Hopcraft sent it, then you have to consider the source. He doesn't like President Obama. He's very conservative. And he's a bigot. I am sure that the person who cobbled that email together found all the shots of Michelle Obama's off-days, or the days where she was having a wardrobe malfunction, or those days that every woman has where she goes, omg, I can't believe I wore THESE pants, I wanted the OTHER navy pants, these are too tight, or oh, no, this skirt shrank in the wash, look, the hem is uneven now, and it won't lay right, and what the hell happened to the zipper?" I sighed. "I am sure there are a lot of photos like that, because the woman can't take two steps without cameras going off. If you take a bunch of those types of shots and throw them together, you can make the case that this is the way it is all the time. And the thing is, I've seen a lot of photos of Michelle Obama where she looked absolutely fabulous and was well put together."

"Well, the news certainly wouldn't show the bad shots, they might get in trouble," Mom said doubtfully.

"Or they might be too decent to do it," I countered. "Mom, I don't want to see that email. It's just going to make me cranky."

"You're already cranky," she said, sounding tearful, and of course that made me feel 2 inches tall.

"I'm sorry, Mom," I said finally. "Look, anything he sends you, you take it with a grain of salt. You already know how he feels, so you already know what slant he's going to put on things. Let's just take it as read that anything he sends you, you should not forward on to me unless you want me to write him back and set him straight."

"No, I don't want you to do that," she said. We talked for a few minutes more, then I had to get off the phone because I was so... frustrated and just wanted to... well, I'm sure you can guess. The man is 86 or 87 years old, and pretty set in his ways, and you know what? What he thinks doesn't matter a hill of beans to me. It only matters that it upsets my mom enough that she wants me to see it, too, and I personally don't want to clutter up my mental hard drive with his drivel. And I don't want it making me snap at my mom when the person who really and truly deserves it is two states away and unable to hear my snarls.

Mr. Hopcraft? Take your hate mails, fold 'em into sharp corners, and stuff them up your rectal oubliette!!