Psychotomy

So, today was the first day that the Pick Your Own (Larriland Farms) was open for picking. Strawberries are starting to come into season, and they had about an acre of ripe ones.

We decided to take DK out. I remember going strawberry, and possibly blueberry, picking with my mom at a farm up near White’s Ferry (? There’s this ferry, see, that we rode on the way to my great-grandmother’s, I think it was White’s Ferry (Yes. Yes it was, in fact, White’s Ferry)). Funny thing is? I don’t, really, like any of the berries fresh. I like them in jam, occasionally pies. But I really have no idea why I was picking fresh strawberries :o Other than I was 8 or so and it was lots of fun

So I wanted to take DK out. And he actually LIKES the berries, too! I’d like to get my mom out with him, but maybe later in the season. Or next year, when he could maybe pick some, and walk back to give them to her while she sits and holds the basket. Maybe.

Anyway, at 2$/lb for up to 20lbs (after 20 it gets some cheaper, but seriously? Like I need 20+lbs of strawberries?) we went down the row they put us in. We went today because the site suggested that they might not have any left tomorrow from opening weekend. Of course, with ~20 acres of strawberries, I imagine they’ll have plenty by next week again ;)

They were assigning rows, but a little after we started some other folks showed up and started wandering back and forth across our row. Grr. But they seemed to be trying to catch up to someone, so when they stopped to yak we jumped around them for the rest and it worked out ok.

In the end, he ate half a dozen (maybe a little more) strawberries whilst we worked. And we bought 11lbs of strawberries :o

Kiir has pics up of DK Picking, Eating, and Admiring the strarberries. And then some of him Exploring the fields, and then Mugging for the camera too :)

Posted in: DK, general by attriel /
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I’ve been trying to put something up every day, but obviously I missed this week

Partially due to DK being a little extra clingy (soon as dinner’s done I’m ending up playing video games for him, and continuing until midnight (note the time?)). Partially due to the rest of this post

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So, about 3 weekends ago, we went to the DC Zoo, I had DK on my back in the Beco (becco? carrier/wearer). He was falling asleep, so for the Metro ride home, I hunched over so he could have a reasonable sleep surface, rather than sitting straight up. Train was ~30-45 minutes I guess.

That Tuesday, I was stretching a bit at my desk, and suddenly had a ripping searing stabbing pain in my side. A few extra strength tylenol, I managed to call the Doc’s and get a same-day appt (wow). Verdict was that it was a pulled muscle. Pulled Muscles. Apparently, according to doc, I seemed to have pulled all the muscles on my right side. Strained the entire muscle wall and ribs. Have some extra strength aspirin, some muscle relaxants, and don’t pick anything up, like the baby, for at least a week. Yeah, sure. I’ll WFH, and I’ll try to pick him up carefully, but that’s all that was getting. Well, and I took the pain med. The muscle relaxant I never really took :o

That weekend, was feeling better, so when K and I were out during DK’s nap, I went and weeded the front yard. Kinda a bad plan, but I was just sore from work, after, so I figured I was OK.

Next weekend, I drive to Connecticut. 7 hours in the car, including an hour around the GW Bridge in NYC. Stop and stop traffic has my ankle and leg half turned, kinda ow. Then he’s going all over the house and up and down the stairs, so I’m running after him, going up and down ahead of him to make sure he doesn’t fall, etc. Then 7 more hours home (the hour was NJTP accident this time oi).

By Tuesday I had a huge knot in my shoulder. It had started forming Saturday night after the first drive. Worse Monday. By Wednesday I was barely functional. Thursday I slapped an Icy Hot pad on my shoulder first thing I got to the office , and took it off 6 hours later or something. It helped. For the middle 5 hours.

Last night I went back to my chiro. Well, the practice. B/c my chiro is gone. And my replacement chiro left earlier this year. And I don’t like the guy who took over his cases. But I figured I needed the pop, and my last two were MWF guys, so I figured maybe the new one was too. And was right, got a new doc Thursday.

And my neck sounded like one of those ice trays when you crack all the ice to put it in the cooler. crrrrrrrackackack. popopopopopopop. Oh. My. God. SOOOOOO much better. I still need to go back, but *sigh* so nice now.

What I think happened is that I was still favoring my side from the first incident, since I kept aggravating it by weeding and picking up DK. Then driving will tense you up. Driving while (unconciously) tilting or twisting to alleviate (phantom?) pain …. knots up your neck like a gordian!

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Last night, after our trip, I was exhausted. So Kiir went up to bed ~10ish (maybe 10:30?).

DK followed her about 30 minutes later. And by that, I mean he went over to the gate when I was going to the kitchen for something, and then started climbing the stairs :o So, I tossed a pair of pants on him and took him up. I came back down to do a few things (yesterday’s post, for instance) and wait for the dryer to cycle, take K out etc.

K actually was having none of that. I think that’s b/c it was raining. But thats OK, about 11:15ish, DK is up and happy and crawling all around on the bed. So I went up, rescued Kiir and brought DK back downstairs. We sat down and started playing Lost Odyssey some more. It’s actually basically a nighttime routine that I play some video game while he sits on my lap and eventually passes out. Then I wait for Kiir to come down and get him, b/c there’s no chance in hell that I can move him upstairs without waking him. Lets start with how I open the gate (needs a committed hand, he takes two), and end with I’ve been sitting cross legged with a baby laying across my lap for an hour so my feet are so numb that i can’t put weight on them :o

Luckily, I’d thought ahead when he started to fall asleep and shifted so my legs weren’t under him. Even more lucky, he was willing to stand for it. Because Kiir was asleep, so not coming to get him :o Got him upstairs about 12:15 and settled, then K and I came to pack up and shutdown, and switch the laundry since it was ready now obviously.

Get up, kiir’s got a Gatorade in her hand next to his bottle of water, and they’re both asleep. I change, lay down and holy crap! her bottle tipped and it turns out there was no lid. I don’t know for sure how much got poured on the bed, but it looked like a fair amount. I hopped up and started griping as I got a towel to put on the bed, she tells me that she wants me to sleep upstairs, she likes me in the bed. I politely (shut up) informed her that I wasn’t sleeping in an inch of gatorade, took my blanket and went to sleep on the sofa. After putting another towel down to make sure DK didn’t roll over into a pool of gatorade …

Surprisingly, having 5 or 6 oz of poured down your back at 12:30 in the morning, not that conducive to sleeping.

Posted in: general, PI by attriel /
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Got back from our trip this evening. Cost a little less in tolls on the way back, although delaware did it’s level best to cover the difference.

I swear, DE is bitter about the fact that no one lives in the state and that they exist solely as a tax shelter for companies. The full ~120mi length of the NJTP: ~6$. The ~80mi in MD that we drive (and, I think, most if not all of the tolls in the state until the new toll hov lanes are built and the new cross county connector that, near as I can tell, connects two places you wouldn’t really need to get between). Anyway, 80mi in MD: 7$. NY does it’s share for those coming in from NJ (8$ for the Washington bridge, and I think 7$ if you take the Tappan Zee instead); but they let you leave for free, so really only 4$ average.

DE? 4$ at the MD/DE border. 3$ at the NJ/DE border, although I don’t recall paying that on the way to NJ Saturday. But 7$ for ~5mi of state!!!

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Took us about 7 hours to get back. We left at 10:30, arrived at 7:30. Stopped and had brunch with a friend from a forum of kiir’s, left that ~12:15 to drive down. on the NJTP, it took us an hour to go 15 miles. Put another way, it took us 50 minutes to go 5mi. Because there was some big accident yadda yadda complete stop etc yadda etc. SUCK! Babe woke up for that, of course :/

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Gas in MD: 3.73$ ; gas in NY: 3.95$ ; gas in CN: 4.09$. Gas at the full service stations on the NJTP and Garden State in NJ? 3.64$. We tossed a couple gallons in in CN when we left to make sure we had enough to make it to NJTP :)

Apparently Kiir’s car gets ~350mi to a tank, not bad really. Of course, we started and finished each time with half a tank. Costco’s Debit readers were broken saturday, so we didn’t fill before leaving, filled in NJ. tossed a couple gallons in in CN and saved 45c/ga and filled in NJ again :o

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DK slept for ~5hrs of the 7hr trip, yay for that. He was awake for and hour and a half in the middle (from 3-4:30 in the trip) wherein we stopped for gas and let him run around the service mall and eat some lunch. Thankfully he fell asleep after screaming at the traffic jam for 20 minutes. Woke up again just North of Baltimore again, and kiir gave him her iPod with Word World on it. He didn’t want anythign to do with the headphones, but he watched for a while :)

Kiir slept for ~3hrs of the trip, I think, although she tended to wake up every 15 minutes or so, so it probably wasn’t very restful.

They both went to bed just now. I’m waiting for the diapers to finish first dry cycle so I can set them up for second. I put my work pants in the wash, and I’ma need them tomorrow :o

Soon as that’s done, K and I are going to bed too. I’m TIRED.

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So, this post is primarily about the drive up to Connecticut this weekend

First off, it cost 7$ to get out of MD. Then 4$ more to get into Delaware. WTF am i going to go when I’m going across an effing bridge from MD to DE??? LAEM

Then 7$ for the NJTP, and 8$ more to get INTO NYC on the GW? Which is right after the NJTP … come ON people.

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Directions from mapquest are insane. Actually, most online directions are, but we tend to print mapquest. First off, they tend to take you into every local-lane cut off. Even when you’ve got another 100 mi on the same road. Riiiight.

Then coming off the NJTP to the GWBridge, they had something like “take lower (local) lanes, bear left, merge into upper (express) lanes. Follow lower lanes, take upper” Of course, I never even saw a legal method for switching from upper to lower, so I don’t know what that was about, unless it was to get into the lanes to go from lower to upper, and then NOT go to upper. Maybe.

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Followed by NY having trouble with math. And by that, I mean my mom, who is number dyslexic and failed her way through high school math, is better at counting.

Because we wanted exit 1C. Saw 1. Saw 2. Then saw 3 was the road we wanted. Then it was 1C, then it was 3N, then 3, then 3S. Then 1C and 3N and we were on the road.

Which eventually we wanted exit 4. We got on at 8, and we’re supposed to go ~7 or 8 mi. Maybe it meant 14? Well, 4 mi we hit 14 (wow, fast exits!), and then another mile and … uh … exit 1.

12 …. 13 …. 14 … 1. … uh …

—

took 45 minutes to go ~5mi over the GW and to the exit we wanted. Partially this was because we had 12 toll plazas open, thus 12 lanes. Then within ~2 buslengths we were down to 3 lanes. Then 6 more entered. Then we were down to 2, 4, 3. Why do tolls always do that? “Here, spread out so we can take the money faster, then we’re going to not label a godsdamned thing for about 10′, by which point you should all be in a single file line again, because that’s effing obvious”

I hate tolls.

And this trip has reminded me why I NEVER DRIVE IN NYC. And, I suppose, why I don’t drive into DC, either. We shoulda taken the train :o

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I hate being sick :/

But I seem to have come down with a flu or something, quite the nuisance. Headaches for three days now (not too bad today ; I think it was being aggravated by the stormy weather). Muscle aches. General exhaustion

At the office yesterday, between the tired and the headache, I was running <50%, so when I roused up this morning and didn’t feel better, I decided to call the day off and stay home. Went back to sleep.

Managed to sleep way late. Was kindof surprised no one else had woken up yet. Finally pushed myself out of bed and … and … WTF it’s only a quarter of 9??? Apparently “way late” doesn’t mean what it used to :/ Still, went to bed 12:30 or 1 to fall asleep finally, so not too bad I s’pose. Came down with K, logged in for work, etc. Touch of headache, not as bad. Not shivering cold today either (and it was 70 outside, and I STILL wanted a heavier coat yesterday). Shoulder and back ache, but I think that’s just my shoulder and back are all effed up. I can probably do work Thursday and Friday. Then drive to Connecticut saturday and back monday … uh …

DK got up around 10:30, I want to say. So I let him wander for a bit, then I took D and K out for a walk, and played XBox for DK when we got back. Hes up for his nap now. And I’m tired, but I don’t know that I’d fall asleep. I’m loathe to go try and end up just waking him up, however :/

I hate being sick.

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This morning was my functionless psych appt. I say functionless b/c he just hands me a scrip and there isn’t really a lot else going on. And, frankly, I think I kindof need a new med technically.

But fancy new feature: DK woke up at 8:30, which meant he was quite awake still when I left for my 9:30. So I get there at 9:15 with DK in tow. Of course, it turns out that after moving my appointment from last Monday to today, they didn’t put me on the schedule. Bleah. But at least doc was taking in a patient when I got there. As opposed to showing up half an hour after I get there :o

~9:30, I heard a clerk telling my doc that “It looks like your next appointment isn’t here yet”. Uh, who am I? But I was busy, so I didn’t raise a fuss. About 9:45 someone comes in, says he’s late, signs in. Turns out, he was doc’s 9:30. His OTHER 9:30 I guess. Saw him leaving after changing babe’s diaper, so I waited a little bit …

Then I went up to the window. “Do you need to schedule another appointment?” Uh? Other than like 5 minutes to change the diaper (and I had to ask for the bathroom key, so, you know, they had to know I went to the bathroom) when was I out of this waiting room??? So I pointed out that, no, I was still waiting. Nice man apologized and went to talk to doc. Who, when he called me back, seemed annoyed. I guess I interrupted his morning nap :o

Looking at his appointment roster on his desk (it’s sitting there, and I’m carrying the baby, so … yeah, moving on) and the patient I saw going in initially was his 9:00. Then his 9:30 at 9:45. His 9:15 and 9:45 skipped. And when I left a little after 10, the 10 and 10:15 hadn’t signed in yet either.

And it’s my fault that I actually needed to see you? Of course, they hadn’t pulled my file since they hadn’t written my appointment up. And, apparently, during the 45 minutes after I checked in they didn’t feel the need to be bothered. So he had to write down my name, my DOB, and then asked what I was taking. And apparently I’m taking half the “normal” dosage of my Effexor. He wrote up a 150mg scrip, and told me to call him if it was the wrong dosage. Oi. Or, you know, your schmucks could have looked for the freakin’ file.

So, now I need to call and get the scrip changed. He says he’ll call the pharmacy. Mind, they don’t have the scrip, so I don’t know how he’ll do that. And if I give them the scrip, they’ll fill it. But I won’t have the chance to take it to the office for quite a while. Wheeee
(more…)

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Last year was Kiir’s First Mother’s Day. (Did you know they make special mother’s day’s cards for that? I didn’t, so I didn’t get her one last year for it :/) But DK was only about a month old at the time, so while I got her flowers (and my mom, and her mom, and my grandmother, and BOTH of her grandmothers (holy hell wtf was I thinking??? even cheap sets add up!!!)), really, it barely counted.

So this year is her first “real” mother’s day (and when he’s like 5 and wants to make her breakfast in bed, that will be her first REAL mother’s day, I s’pose) (and wouldn’t you know, I didn’t think to get her the card again this year … oops ;wonder if they’ll still have them at Target tomorrow :o). So for Mother’s Day, I got her something special. Peace and Quiet.

DK and I left ~11 to go get the oil changed in her car (it’s only been 7500 miles or something, and like 7 months maybe?), and the itinerant bits there (35$ oil change ended up out 200$ ; some of it was stuff they’d wanted to do last time, too ; they did however skip the tire rotation after telling me I needed new tires instead (we skipped that followup errand :o)). Then lunch at Fuddruckers (mozerella sticks & fish&chips, although the fish was LOUSY ; mostly I wanted the milkshake for the next part of our journey)

Drove out to South Mountain and picked up milk for me & dk (our weekly home delivery hasn’t been fully setup yet, so I’m guessing this week that’ll process and we’ll get next week, but he needs milk in the meantimes). We were gonna stop at my Grandmother’s on the way back, but missed the exit or something, so we just came back and went shopping at Costco, then hit the liquor store (that was for me, though, not kiir ;) )

Target for various essentials (like the new Word World video for DK and bubble bath), and decided to stop at EBGameStop. Picked up Boom Blox for Kiir (I promise not to play it for at least 1 month, so she can get some enjoyment out of it before I play it every night with babe and she gets tired of it (I ruined Blue Dragon for her, and she won’t touch Lost Odyssey now either after me playing every night with DK)), a PC game called “The Guild 2″ which DK picked out, and a spare WiiWheel. (Whiil?) That’s so we can play together, as an excuse. Realyl it’s so DK can steer one and I might actually be allowed to control my Karts :o

All-in-all, we were out of the house for a little over 6 hours, so she got that all nice and quiet and peaceful and unassaulted :o Now we’re home, though, b/c it’s dinner time and things are closed now :o

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So, on the train Tuesday, there was a loud popping. And one of the windows spiderwebbed in a nifty “look, gunshot!” pattern

OK, not so nifty. It was the window in front of me, so that was a little rattling… Conductor came through at the next stop to inspect it and decide if it was dangerous (did someone SHOOT the effing train?) or not (something just hit the window) . The decision was a rock. Apparently there’s a bunch of “kids” who like to stand by one of the overpasses and throw rocks at the train as it passes.

Seriously? That’s a hell of an arm! wtf are kids in laurel wasting time vandalizing the MARC commuter rail when they could be PITCHING MLB fer christ sake? I mean, shit, the spiderweb was symmetrical and wel defined. That means there was little, if any, sidereal motion during impact. Which tells us that the projectile hit fast, such that all of it’s momentum could be transferred near instantly into the window. Because while I’m not riding the bullet train or anything, it still moves at a nice clip.

Now, I can’t say about their accuracy, bc I don’t know if they picked a number and said “hey, huhuhh, can you hit hte 6th window?” (and, really, I doubt it, b/c the only way this is interesting is if someone is making book and you’d still need an observer either on the train or at the next station, to report back whether, in fact, it was the 6th or the 9th window that was whacked), so maybe they pitch worse than Wild Thing …

Of course, it’s always possible someone was shooting at us. And it WAS PG county, I think, so it’s not entirely out of the question. In which case, I’m glad we weren’t on the other track. Because then it probably would have hit my window, and it might have gotten through :o

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It’s been pointed out to me that, as a daily blogger, I suck. (to be fair, I’m doing a lousy job of 2x/wk on my crypto blog, and the kitchen site hasn’t seen much outside of alchohol in months, and not much beer lately either ; so, I suck at timeliness and updatiness, in general)

Lotta stuff going on lately, real busy all around. Gonna try to post more often, again. Also thinking of changing the blog name. Because lets face it. Daily it ain’t. Griping, even, not so much. More like “occasional bitchiness with a side of depression fueled rage” and the occasional “melancholy, chance of pissiness”

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