...That's not great.

Something a bit worse than a hip check.

As a women who has played years, well - decades really, of various competitive sports; I can't say I have always had stellar sportsmanship. I have given insincere "good games" when shaking hands with the other team at the end of the game. I've looked menacingly at opposing batters from the pitcher's mound. A few times I tangled legs under the volleyball net. Occasionally I was a bit overeager in my tagging of a runner attempting to steal second. Hell, I've even given a little more hip than necessary when taking a charge in basketball.

But, I NEVER pulled even one OUNCE of he crap this woman's soccer player from New Mexico did. You really have to see it to believe it - the ponytail pull is probably my favorite. And not in a good way.

The REAL story on the Seattle heat.

So, you may have heard we have had QUITE the record-breaking week of weather here in Seattle. The temperature finally hit 103 degrees on Wednesday afternoon, effectively "shattering" (term credit to the Seattle Times) the ALL-TIME (like for any day, any year) high temperature of 100 degrees.

Whenever the mercury rises above 90 degrees folks in the pacific Northwest start to bitch. I'm usually fine to the mid-90s, but the temperatures on Wednesday even put ME over the edge. I've been getting some crap (all in good fun!) from some of my Twitter friends who live in places where it's routinely above 100 degrees.

Here our my arguments in defense of our bitching.

Not everything, everywhere is air conditioned. Yes, my office (and most workplaces, malls, restaurants, etc) has AC, it is definitely NOT the standard in homes, condos, and apartments. On Wednesday, at 10pm, my house was 94 degrees in the main floor and 82 degrees in the basement. It's too hot to think, cook, SLEEP. You pretty much just sit around sweating. That, my friends, is TOO FUCKING HOT.

We're really not used to it. I think there is something either physical or psychological to this - people that live in places that are hot all the time (Phoenix, Dallas, etc.) are just better able to handle it. For one, they have AC! Secondly, you do get acclimated to your environment. Therefore, because this was THE HOTTEST IT HAS EVER BEEN EVER in Seattle, there are people here who may have never experienced that high of a temperature. And, apparently, we're not handling it very well. Sis had heat exhaustion/heat stroke on Monday evening. Seeing her with a 105 degree temperature and delirious ("Pete has a funny bone! I like butter!") was no fun. (She's fine now, thanks for asking.)

The obnoxious local news coverage sends from the situation from uncomfortable to painful. This may be the most important item. Seattle is a so-called big city that still has some feel of small town news team. It's true, people. The hot weather coverage is a pendulum swing from their typical winter weather coverage - which always has tag-lines like "STORM WATCH 2009!" or "WINTER WINDSTORM Aught-Nine!" or "ASSUME ALL HOPE IS LOST AND LIE DOWN ON THE FLOOR 2009!" Now, mind you, this is for 4 inches of snow. (Though, to be fair, the three weeks of constant snow this past December did earn the moniker "Snowmegedden".) You get the affect. This time, the coverage has been almost unwatchable. All this adds to the discomfort of the heat. (Can't a girl just crack open a Zima and watch some local news?)

And, finally, IT'S JUST TOO FUCKING HOT. The end.

I wish I wasn't right in my prediction.

The verdict is in - it's either pneumonia or acute bronchitis.

Once way to tell the difference (in my doctor's view) was to do an x-ray, which, after discussing it with him; we decided against. Once I realized confirming it one way or the other wouldn't make a difference on how to treat it, we agreed the x-ray was not essential.

Not that refusing one chest x-ray would help that much in terms of radiation exposure, since I've had about 100 of these over the years. (Maybe I'm overestimating? Maybe not!)

Either way, I'm one day into a generic Z-pack and I am now the proud owner of an albuterol inhaler.

ROCK ON.

Snow day with no snow.

When I was a child, just THE THOUGHT of a snow day filled my stomach with butterflies. The idea of an entire day OFF FROM SCHOOL (!!!!) and playing in the snow got me up early in the morning to quietly click on my radio and listen for the list of school closures. I attended a small, private school in Portland and would wait to listen for its name to be read or Portland Public Schools to be listed as closed. The "rules" for closure were somewhat complicated (as I remember). If Portland Public Schools were closed for weather circumstances, the we were closed. If they opened late, we opened on time or could be closed (listed separately). I HAD TO CONCENTRATE VERY HARD TO LISTEN FOR THE CLOSURE. If I somehow missed the schools being listed, I would have to wait a painfully long time until they listed the schools again.

GROAN.

Before this year, the kids have always been in the same, home-based daycare; so as long as we could get to her house, she was open. On Monday, schools in our district were two hours late. Bubba goes to the before school program, and for some reason I had NO IDEA what the schedule there was in case of a late opening (they open as close to their normal time as possible, I learned). In the end, two hours late was no big deal. Being closed, however, created some issues for us this week. RD and I both had some work commitments that created some challenges to taking the day off. Normally, we would fight over who gets to stay home.

His old daycare provider (and Sis' current) agreed to take him in for the day if we needed her to. (She's awesome, BTW.) The local news and meteorologists threatened a continuation of the frigid cold and that more snow would arrive late Tuesday/early Wednesday and provide up to 6 inches of snow.

We woke up this morning to no new snow. (Okay, a very, VERY light dusting.) In fact, it felt noticeably warmer outside. At 5:45am when I awoke, our school district had already called off school FOR THE ENTIRE DAY. (In the northern most area of Puget Sound, they did get a significant amount of snow, however, and closed for perfectly good reasons).

Now, now. I understand that a "snow event" that occurs during a school day presents a whole new set of transportation and other issues. In the middle of the day, you can't just annouce that school will be clsoing and load the kids up in their buses and send them back to their neighborhoods. And, yes, we know that what we Seattlites call a "snow event" is nothing compared to what other regions of the country deal with weekly in the winter. Our problem is that snow is relatively rare and inconsistent in the Seattle metropolitan area, and frankly, we just don't know how to deal with it. The cities and counties can't justify owning a huge fleet of snowplows, so they get away with a skeleton crew (though, based on my own experience, those street maintenance folks works their ASSES off in times like this). We have many area hills, heavy tree cover and people who have no idea how to correctly drive in the stuff. SNOW DRIVING = FAIL.

By 4:00pm still no snow. It appeared we had all been punk'd.

Or had we? Our region has a long memory when it comes to snow events that occur during the school day. Apparently, during a six day cold snap in December 1990, 1,200 local students were forced to spend the night in their classrooms due to a heavy unexpected snowstorm in Seattle, and this scenario is something school officials aren't in a hurry to repeat.

Snow arrived to our house (about 20 miles north of downtown Seattle) around 4:30pm. It's stopped now, we probably gained 2-3 inches overall.

At least if school is called off tomorrow, it will ACTUALLY be because of the snow.

So there's that.

The first night without her beloved "B".

When I was pregnant with Sis; we received lovely baby girl outfits in preparation for her arrival. Pink, pink and MORE pink - lovely. People would also ask what we needed for the new baby - and while we didn't really need much, because she was baby no.2; I did say that we would love some "new baby" specific items - such as blankets or stuffed animals, that cold just be HERS (as opposed to hand-me-downs from her older brother).

Our original daycare provider gifted Sis with a blanket - frankly, nothing special, but the kind that kids LOVE - silky on one side and sort of furry on the other. Somehow, with no prompting from us, she picked THIS PARTICULAR blanket out from the many lovely blankets that she received to be her beloved "B" (short for blanket, doh).

While it's her beloved "B", she has pretty much been fine with it just being at home - she didn't have to take it with her unless she was napping (except for at school) or spending the night somewhere else.

Until recently.

In the past few weeks she has asked to bring her "B" with her to school. It's sort of an odd request, since she can only have it during her nap (but she can look at it longingly on her hook). Then this past weekend, she had to take it when we headed to a local eco-festival. I thought kids are supposed to get less attached to loveys over time?

We tried going a few mornings this week without taking it to school with us. I would ask her, "Do you want to take your "B" with you to school?"

"No", she say, "Leave my "B" here."

Which she was cool with until about five minutes into the drive to school when I would here her call out, "B!!", from the backseat (which is Sis-speak for "please get me my "B" NOW!").

So today we brought her beloved "B" to school, and hung it on the hook for the day. At the end of the day, I pulled it off the hook and handed it to her; we headed out to the car and on the way she was distracted by a princess bike. It's at this point (I figured out later) that she dropped the "B".

We all got in the car, but this time when she asked me for her "B"; there was no "B" to be had. I thought perhaps she put it in the back of the car, but a search of the car when we got home yielded nothing. A quick call to our daycare provider and we figured what happened. The "B" was safe at least; but I was not driving back to pick it up tonight.

I explained to her what happened and that she wouldn't have her blanket tonight and that she would get it tomorrow at school. She seemed to understand.

Or so I thought.

She went to bed fine (I didn't mention the forgotten "B"), but within three minutes was calling out asking for it. I went back into her room and explained the situation again. I have never seen more pain in her eyes; they widened and glossed over with tears. I think I saw a little bit of fear, too.

Then the hysterical tears started. The wailing. The clinging to me body. I quickly thought of what I could offer in substitution - a pair of my shoes, my favorite silky sweater, a Nordstrom card?

We settled on my pillow. I quickly gathered it up, brought it to her and tucked her back in. 

So far tonight, so good. I'm not looking forward to the possibility of a night-waking.

You know, because toddlers are so reasonable in the middle of the night.

Overheard: too long for Twitter, but this needs to be recorded for prosperity.

Scene: Victoria's Secret at Northgate Mall as I am trying to purchase some unmentionables.

Victoria's Secret salesgal (20-something, blonde and about 106 pounds soaking wet): You need a gift receipt? (This is said more as a statement and less as a question.)

Me (30-something, blonde-ish and more than 106 pounds soaking wet): What? You don't think I can pull this off?

I hope I have scarred her for life. And, for the record, I can TOTALLY pull it off.

What 4 inches of snow in April looks like.

We've already lost power twice tonight. It's going to be a long weekend.

The reason for this? We live in the Puget Sound convergence zone.  Frankly, I'm blaming it on Jeff Renner.  Just because.

This was MY Friday night; how was yours?

When you have experienced four major surgeries, including one that includes a 20-inch scar, 2 metal rods and the words "spinal fusion", you know a little bit about pain.  So when mid-day last Wednesday, I start to experience a relatively intense pain on the right side of my back, I didn't get too worried about it.  I assume I had pulled a muscle or something in a strange way.  However, it's different pain than I have ever experienced related to my back issues.  I try heat and mega-doses of ibuprofen to no avail.  I'm hurting. 

By Friday afternoon, I'm emailing my boss on a few issues and she happens to ask me how my back is feeling (I'm working from home).  I let her know that I'm thinking it may not be my back at all; it could be my kidney, but I have no other symptoms (no fever, no "burning", etc.).  I tell her that I've been having to take 800-1000 mg of ibuprofen every 4-5 hours to take the edge of off the pain. 

I check my cell phone later that night around 7pm and find a voice mail from her that she left around 4pm, telling me that she was very concerned that it could be my kidney and that she wants me to go to the doctor as soon as I can.  So, I call my doctor's office after hour nurse line.  Apparently, I've basically overdosed myself on ibuprofen ("So, you didn't follow the directions on the bottle, did you?") and I need to get myself to the hospital within the next 4 hours.  Great; it's 7:30 pm on a Friday night.  That sounds like fun.

RD and I make the decision that I'll drive myself to the emergency room and we'll go from there.   The wait at the Overlake ER was tolerable, and I was back in a room after about 2 hours waiting.  By this time, about 8 hours had passed since my last (and apparently over-) dose of ibuprofen and I am in quite a bit of pain.  The nurse seem unimpressed with my lack of symptoms - "No blood?  No painful irritation?  No fever?"  And the ER Doc, "Well, you don't seem to be in much pain..." 

Yes, I am a grantwriting, coffee drinking, Banana Republic wearing, suburban mother of two with a bad morphine addiction so GIVE IT UP.  The truth is I'm a girl who knows a thing or two about pain (like wincing and the fetal position won't help me) who is happy to be in the ER watching a re-run of Frasier.  Well, I was happy after they hooked me up to an IV and gave me a dose of dilaudid.  Wow.  That Frasier and his brother are funny.

Well, thank god there was blood in my urine, because it bought me a CT scan (well, it bought Aetna a CT scan).  Where, lo and behold, the scan showed that I am the proud owner of multiple kidney stones.  Fancy that.  It was one of those moments that I was oddly proud and wanted to tell the doctor that, "I told you so!", but I knew it wouldn't do me any good since he has control over all the drugs.  Once my diagnosis was complete, I was given a prescription for Vicodin, two different apparatus to filter my urine in the hope of catching my stones (a travel one called "Calcucatch" that fits in a plastic bag for my purse, natch), and instructions to follow-up with my doctor.  However, since I was discharged 2.5 hours into my lovely dose of dilaudid, I had an hour or so to kill before I could drive myself home.  I compromised by driving myself a block down the road to the Denny's so I could at least eat while I waited.  Buttermilk pancakes never tasted so good.

It's now Monday evening, and it would be really lovely to be able to wrap this story up with "And then I passed three teeny tiny stones and felt much better!!", but I haven't and I don't.  I stayed home from work today, but RD will be driving me to work tomorrow and a friend will drive me to see my doctor.

Because, really?  I'm so over it.

I'll take a heart attack for $1,000, please.

Last Sunday, RD's sister was able to spend the morning with us.  She lives in Oregon, but was in town for a personal event.  She takes her self-proclaimed role of "favorite aunt" very seriously, and the kids are always happy to see her.  Since I went out with some girlfriends the night before and was out pretty late (don't forget to ask me to tell you that story); RD planned to take her and the kids to the beach for the morning.  While still pretty cool around these parts, we had a lovely, sunny weekend and he wanted to take full advantage of it. 

I woke up around 10 am and called to check in with them.  We thought that she'd be staying for dinner, but it turns out she planned on leaving at noon.

I took a shower to wipe the FILTH off (but, can you really wash of drunk?), ate some breakfast, did some dishes, and then settled down with Newsweek on the couch around noon to wait for them to return.  RD is notoriously bad with time, so when he mentions a time, it's more of a suggestion.  But with his sister along, I thought for sure they'd be pulling up at high noon.

Well, noon turns to 10 after, then 12:20, then 12:35.  At 12:40 pm the phone rings.  "It's them!" I thought.  I jump up from the couch to get the phone in the kitchen.  The caller ID says, "Children's Hospital Seattle".

That's not great.

My heart pretty much leapt into my throat with the following thoughts bursting through my head, all in 2.36 seconds:

What happened?

Who's hurt?
Where's RD?
HOLY CRAP!!!!!
Who can drive me to the hospital?

I actually answered the phone, "WHAT HAPPENED!?!?!??!?!??" 

"Hello,"the monotone voice on the phone said, "I wanted to first say that this is not an emergency.  I am calling from the Children's Hospital Foundation...blah, blah, BLAH."  I pretty much tuned out after that.

What their caller ID should have said: "NOT AN EMERGENCY - Children's Hospital".

I still ended up donating $100 to their fund raising champaign.  That must be part of their plan - distract us with the possibility of our children needing their services and then we'll agree to anything.

To note: Children's Hospital Seattle is really actually quite fantastic based on the experiences we have had.  These have included a few emergency room trips for croup (most times in and our in under two hours) and a series of tests when Sissy was diagnosed with a heart murmur at 9 months old.  All the testing when so smoothly because everything there is sized for children and the nurses, technicians and doctors are skilled at working with kids.  For example, the EKG technician blew bubbles during the test which helped Sis forget she had about 20 things taped on her body.  While she does have a murmur, it's an innocent murmur, which means there are really no health issues (Sissy just has a little tendon flap in one of the chambers that causes a strange heartbeat).   RD has a heart murmur called a mitral valve prolapse, and, while he doesn't really have any issues related to this so far; he always takes antibiotics before seeing the dentist.   Oh, and he's been told he may need a valve replacement around 50 (which is no longer that far away!).

Today my sister found my blog.

I shouldn't of been surprised that she found it; it was hiding in plain sight.  Here's the e-mail I received this morning on the way to work:

Is there a reason I didn't hear about this from you?

http://thatsnotgreat.typepad.com/bethany/

Or am I not supposed to know?  :)

I surprised myself my NOT being freaked out about it.  I didn't intend to not tell her about it; but I honestly thought she would think it would be sort of "lame" (meaning, I was sort of "lame").  While she reads blogs, I didn't know how she would feel about ME having one.  I hadn't written anything scandalous or embarrassing; my blog fodder is mostly self-centered (my sister wasn't the least bit surprised).  Plus, I was just starting out and I didn't know if ANYONE would ever read it. 

But why would I be worried about what she would think?  I guess I wasn't, really.  And if I was at all it's because I love and respect her very much.  I've always looked up to her, even when I was the pre-teen and she was the college freshman.  We've grown closer as we have grown into 30-something adults with families of our own.  I'm blessed to have such a close relationship with her; not one that is strictly determined or dictated by our family ties. 

So, read on dear sister, read on!