Karen and Erik

I don’t want to blog about what has happened in the past two weeks.

I don’t want to blog about my mom getting sick, contracting MRSA, and needing a large chunk of her abdomen wall sliced out.

I don’t want to blog about how she is staying with us while she recovers, and that I am fixing her house while she is here.

I don’t want to blog about the cat we had to put to sleep (it’s not Fred).

I don’t want to blog about… stuff I am not comfortable sharing online.

I don’t want to blog about how a wonderful person I knew and worked with for 6 years just unexpectedly passed away two days ago from a heart attack (she was my age).

I don’t want to blog about being stressed.

I don’t want to blog about how I am so behind in 24 updates that it’s not even funny.

What I DO want to blog about is that today, I met an eye doctor who likes to kill dreams.

Long story short, I got some dirt in my eye yesterday that scratched it all to heck. I’m wearing my glasses that have an outdated prescription, and I can’t see shit. This morning, I get an early appointment with an eye doctor - not my usual one, but someone at the same practice.

He confirms that my eye is scratched, and gives me some antibiotic drops. I ask him, “will I need an eyepatch?”

Please, oh please, let me have an eye patch.

“No, no need for an eye patch.”

“Can I have one anyway?”

“No.”

Dude.

I’ve been unemployed for over four months. And without therapy for over four months. Additionally, I am spending every spare once of time taking care of someone or something and it is exhausting me. Now I have a big ol’ divot in my eyeball and I am TRYING to find the silver lining by thinking about how I could have fun pretending to be a pirate with my eye patch. If there was EVER a time that I needed some levity, it is NOW, DAMNIT.

(This is exactly what I said to him… a complete stranger.)

“Well, I’m afraid those eye patches are for those who really need them.”

He wrote me a prescription, gave me a brochure for “What You Need To Know About LASIK!” since I am blind as a bat, and sent me home.

Pirate bigotry… it’s alive and well in Charlotte, NC.

The intrepid hunter Fred encounters a being he has never seen up close before… a human baby.

He wonders, what is this creature? Is it staying here or visiting? Will it annoy me, like the dog does? Will it steal my catnip toys? Let me get a closer look.

It’s so still, he remarks. Perhaps a statue? He tiptoes in to investigate.

Egads! It moves! It lives! Fred, unsure of this creature’s status of friend or foe, slowly backs away. He lives to lick his belly another day.

(These pics are from Amber’s bridal shower, which was at the House of Garrett this past Saturday. Fred was unusually social, but his reaction to Amber’s friend’s baby was hysterical. He backed up all the way up the stairs and hid up there for a while.)

I was going to do a 24 Recap, but I remembered that I did not see last night’s yet, and I’d rather do this week and last week together. So here’s something fun - let’s play TMI Tuesday!

For those of you who don’t know what TMI means (hi Mom), it means Too Much Information. So let’s reveal too much information about ourselves today.

I’ll start with a few items, and you follow in the comments with at least one. THE FUN MUST FLOW!

- Three of my teeth are fake!

- I have no feeling in three of my toes!

- I grind my teeth and steal the blankets every night in bed. Lucky Erik!

Using Stanley’s quirks to annoy the Dog Whisperer on Twitter.

Jan 27th - me: If the Dog Whisperer guy is so fucking special, he’d be able to teach my dog to go down to Starbucks and bring me a double espresso.

(on this date, @cesarmillan started following my twitter feed.)

Jan 28th - me: @cesarmillan I see you are following me on Twitter. How can I get my dog to stop eating his poop, the cat’s poop, random rabbit poop?

Feb 4th - me: @cesarmillan you never answered my question about my poop-eating dog! Is there a poop whisperer out there?

March 3rd - me: @cesarmillan - my dog’s diet hasn’t changed, but his farts smell like poop and old eggs instead of just poop. Advice please!

March 4th - me: @cesarmillan - the dog just barked like crazy at the kids next door. Do I scold him for being rude, or praise him for IDing future felons?

March 9th - me: @cesarmillan - my dog just farted so loud that he woke himself up and started barking at the noise. Should I feel bad for laughing at this?

He has yet to answer me. Stanley continues to fart.

(Erik is in the kitchen, I am in the family room)

Erik, incredulous: What is this?!

Karen: Bacon-flavored jelly beans. Trish got them for me in San Diego. They don’t actually taste like bacon. (It’s true - the taste is pure smoke followed by the taste of an original flavor Sucrets. Actually, the whole thing tastes like a menthol cigarette. How anyone thought that tasted like bacon is beyond me.)

Erik: This is ridiculous!

Karen: I know, it’s just like a joke gift.

Erik: No, I mean your thing with bacon. Our friends are starting to give you bacon gag gifts! This has got to stop!

Karen: Ok…

Erik: I mean it. I don’t want you to be known as the Bacon Lady!

Karen: You mean, you don’t want to be known as Mr. Bacon Lady.

Erik: EXACTLY. It’s just silly! You need to lay off the bacon!

Karen: OK.

(Please note that I had already decided to take a “bacon break” the week before, because I’m getting a fat butt.)

(And because my new obsession is NUTELLA!)