I'm A Healthy Bitch

The other night I walked upstairs and into the bathroom. I've been feeling run-down lately but this really hit me. I sat on the edge of the tub and said to my husband "Man. I'm exhausted. Like, pregnant exhausted." He shot me a look like 'Oh, poor you' because he has like zero sympathy for whining, of any kind. I was about to respond with a "What? I really am!" when  all the sudden, woosh, I felt a wave of nausea and realized I was about to pass out.

My husband was convinced I just came up the stairs too quickly. Now, I may be fat and out of shape but there was no way that was it. I walk up those stairs at least 4 times everyday and I have never, ever had that happen.

Not that it's that alarming - it happens. But it did get me wondering...a few weeks before that I had two episodes of chest pain. Which I completely blew off because I'm young and healthy. It was one of those things that happened and I thought "Oh. That's weird." and then went on. I think in the back of my mind I kinda thought maybe it was an anxiety attack of some sort.

I just happened to have a doctors appointment scheduled for something unrelated so I casually mentioned the chest pain and dizzy spell. I almost didn't but I'm glad I did. Turns out it was all something that I think I've known for a while and thought I was managing but wasn't.  Turns out severe anemia can cause chest pains and fainting. So besides being short on iron, I am totally and completely healthy.

And apparently I'm also a bitch.

It's not like I try to be. Because believe me, some woman really do. That's not the thing with me. Most the time with me it's based on principal and nothing else. I said 'most' the time!

Like today.

I took my kids to Sonic (because Happy Hour really does make me happy) and allowed them to get an "Add In" to their drink. Basically, you pay .20 for a squirt of flavoring. M wanted Blue Coconut. So I order and as the transaction flashes on the screen I notice her drink is .10 more than it should be so I call in and ask why. The guy on the speaker explained that Ocean Waters (sprite and blue coconut flavoring) were a premium drink and directed me (very condescendingly) to look at the menu.

And I was looking at the menu. I was looking right at it. So I very nicely explained that I ordered a sprite with an Add In and the menu said Add Ins were only 20 cents more, so I shouldn't be charged more than that. And there was silence. Nothing. No response. No acknowledgment. Nothing. I thought that was rude but a minute later I saw my order flash on the screen so I thought they were adjusting it (I had paid with debit card) and let it go.

When the carhop brought the drinks the ticket didn't show an adjustment.

It's 10 cents. I get it. It's nothing. Really, I could care less about 10 cents. What I do care about is customer service. So, you just don't respond and that's it? I don't think so.

To me it was completely illogical - you can add Blue Coconut to a Dr. Pepper and it's .20, add it to a Diet Coke and it's .20, add it to a Root Beer and it's .20 but add it to a Sprite and the drink magically becomes special? That's nonsense. And I'm calling you out on it.

So I call back in again.

Yes. I really did.

I told you I was a bitch! And apparently a very stubborn one because I was not going to let this go. And I asked if they were adjusting my ticket. The guy was annoyed and said no, that I ordered an Ocean Water. I'm sure in his head he was thinking "Oh my God, lady! It's 10 f'ng cents!"

But it wasn't just 10 f'ing cents - it was more than that. And it literally was - the way Happy Hour is calculated, it was 14 cents. But wasn't about the money - it was about the principle.

It was also a huge ordeal. Over 10 cents.

That was a fight that I didn't need to fight. But that's the problem - I wanna fight them all. If something is wrong, I want it fixed - no matter how small.  I do it nicely and respectfully (to begin with) but why do I feel like fighting it at all? What am I, the superhero of injustices? Here she comes to right the wrong! 

I have issues....and not just the low iron kind of issues...

The Day I Almost Died At The Carnival & Other Unimportant Nonsense

Every year our town celebrates the land run of 1889. Mostly because it's a historic town but partly because there is some real bitterness about the fact that this used to be the state's capitol.  It's the one claim to fame this old town has and they are not prepared to let it go. We gotta make sure everyone knows that this place was the territorial capitol. The fact that this hasn't been the capitol since 1910 is pretty irrelevant. We were the first, damn it!

So there are several 89er weekend festivities.  Mine usually begins with the parade. I always try to take the girls, because what kid doesn't love a parade? And it's usually a really good parade too. Normally, there are over 200 entries - bands from all across the state, Shriner clowns, show cars, horses - just a ton of stuff.

This year was just kinda 'eh'. Except that M got to be in the parade - she was super pumped about that. And when they went by she yelled out to M2 and made sure to throw candy right to her. That was a very big deal.

But not as big as getting to go to the carnival afterwards.  I planned to take them this year but didn't want to say yes, in case it didn't work out. So I was noncommittal, which my kids were afraid meant no.  M put together a pretty impressive marketing campaign to win me over. Seriously, I thought these were outstanding. She used a popcorn bag to create two ads:

"The carnival is fresh & crisp especially in 2015"

Clown holding a sign that says: "Please let M go to the carnival in 2015"

So off we go to the carnival! I love carnivals and fairs. I just think they're fun. And I love to people judge watch. So we get our wristbands and make our way down the row of rides. Most of them are the kiddie rides that don't do more than go in a circle. Down towards the end are the "real" rides. Those are the ones that M wants to ride. It's amazing, she's fearless. No hesitation, no doubt - just "I want to ride that!"

I like rides too. Love roller coasters. Which is why my family finds it hilarious that I'm scared of the Ferris Wheel. And I am. Hate it. I can't do it and when I do, I am petrified. Literally, clinging to the edges scared. I have been bungee jumping (twice), parasailing and skydiving but put me on a Ferris Wheel and I freak out.

Down on the ground, where I belong, watching my little one enjoy the ride

With all that stuff, it's so fast I don't have time to think - it's pure adrenaline. That's what I love about it. And what I hate about the Ferris Wheel. It's so slow, you're just hanging there, dangling. It's too much time to think and if I think, I get scared.

But I'm not so sure about these carnival rides. At least the big ones. Something about the fact that they put them up in two days makes me nervous. And they're not being put up by Engineers. There's a reason these people are working in a carnival...

So I let her pick one. Of course, she picks the scariest looking one, The Zipper. They put you in a little cage and you spin 360 degrees. Multiple times. Looks fun!

I started getting nervous when we were two away from the front of the line and I noticed a grown woman getting off the ride saying "No.No.No.Never again. Never. Never."

I watch the guy close the next basket, so I can see how they're latched and I realize it's literally just a little knob that the guy moves over. And he doesn't seem to be that careful about moving it over either. Like if it were me, I would be double, triple checking it. He's just halfheartedly, nonchalantly flicking it shut. Like, not putting any weight into it at all. I don't like that.

I notice the next cage is missing the black round knob that the other cages have. It doesn't prevent him from opening it but I wonder why it's missing and what that means...like, how can it latch shut if it's missing that knob?

And then...we're up? Our turn?  Into the cage with the missing knob. M is so excited she can hardly stand it. We get into the cage and...wait. There are no seat belts. Where are the seat belts? Where are the seat belts!?!?

Surprise!  There are no seat belts. Nope. The door has bars that you're supposed to hold on to and a soft foam strip to brace you. That's right - you're entire body weight is on this door. The door with the missing knob.

I shake the door four times as hard as I can before they lift us up - just to make sure it's really shut. But it doesn't make me feel better.

I realize too that M's feet are dangling precariously. Mine barely touch the floor. What's going to keep her anchored when we're upside down? So I hold on to the bar with one hand and put my arm across her chest with the other and right then - WHOOSH - we spin. And I know right away I don't like it. Spin, three more time. I'm not sure what I said but I'm pretty sure it was obvious that I was not okay with this ride. Then I notice M is leaning into me saying "I don't like it. I don't like it." over and over.

I know she's feeding off my panic so I immediately go into a  "It's okay. It's okay." mantra. And then I'm not scared at all, I just want her to be okay and for this damn ride to be over so she won't be scared anymore. And then, moments later we are lowered down and our cage pops open. Freedom!

We climb out and I notice M's hair is all over the place, reach back and feel that my own ponytail has fallen out and is frizzed over everywhere. M sees a friend walking towards The Zipper and exclaims "Don't do it! Don't ride The Zipper!" But there is a certain kind of pride in her voice as she relates the facts of our ride. "You go in circles and hang upside down!"

But that's not how I almost died. No, that happened much later in the evening when I reached back and pulled the rubber band out of my hair. I felt two things in my fingers so before I put my hair up again I look and there was a june bug! In my hand! I screamed, jumped about 3 feet and shook my hands as hard as I could.  It scared me so bad,  I was almost ready to ride The Zipper again.

I survived the ride and the bug! Champion!

Conference Adventures: Crying A River

So this conference brought me to tears. Literally. I ended the conference bawling like a baby.  And not the pretty-girl cry, but the type of ugly cry that looks painful and causes other people to avoid making eye contact. That horrible sniffling, scrunched up face, triple intake of air cry.

Never in my life have I needed a shirt that said "Hot Mess" more than I did at that instant. (Okaaay, there was that one time in Tijuana....but totally different type of hot mess) I tried hard but I could not keep it together. 

Here's the thing, and you probably already know it - I'm deeply sentimental. So you would expect that I would have been thinking and preparing for the fact that that was my last state conference and potentially my last conference ever. But I didn't. I totally didn't. 

I don't know...I just never really felt that it was the end. 

Until the end.

One of my dearest friends had suggested before the conference that we needed to do something symbolic to represent the end of an era and our friendship.  Not the end of our friendship, just the era...Hey, tomorrow we won't be friends, let's do something to symbolize that!

So I ran out with two of my best friends and we got matching tattoos. It's been almost 20 years since my last tattoo and I guess I must have forgotten how painful they are because that little thing hurt! It didn't help that while he was tattooing me, the guy was ranting about evil people who flip houses.  The more he talked about it, the angrier he got and the angrier he got, the deeper his needle went. It was almost like he knew we have flipped houses and he was extracting his revenge. I was trying to stay calm but all I could think in my head was "Stop talking!"

But I love the tattoo - absolutely love it. Both the actual tattoo and the symbolism of it and I will forever be glad that we did it.

We will never drift apart...

Even with the tattoos, I never got sad or sentimental.  I guess I was too busy enjoying myself to even think about it. And I had a series of small adventures to contend with that helped provide some distraction, and some humor - like losing my car in the parking garage, having my drivers license stuck overnight under a potted plant and getting a ticket for illegal parking. None of that sounds really funny but it was, trust me.   Of course, the funniest part of all those things is that if it happened to someone else I would totally being thinking "What a dumbass!"  No worries, the irony of that is not lost on me.

So conference wraps up and a small group of us are meeting for lunch before heading our separate ways.  We're standing around visiting when a friend comes over randomly and hugs me. A real hug. A tight, lingering, kinda sad hug. And it's funny because I knew immediately what it meant and I kinda got chocked up. Then I looked at her and she just gave me this look and it was over.  Just quiet, sad little tears because it really hit me how much I would miss her. And so many others.

Then she hugged me again! Seriously? No! Don't be nice to me, it only makes it worse.

I think I was so overcome because I hadn't prepared or anticipated feeling sad.  I hadn't really thought about all the amazing people I'm about to lose. Yeah, yeah, I know - you can always stay in touch, there's facebook, twitter, phone calls, emails...but the reality is that things change and people drift apart. It's a by-product of lives moving in different directions.

After lunch I hugged everyone goodbye, got in my car and cried. Not the little tears that I had earlier - this was a full cry.  I thought of all these people and wondered if they knew how much they meant to me, how much I learned from them, how much I cherished their mentorship and how grateful I am for their friendship. Would I get a chance to tell them? Or was this really it?

Endings are always hard. But there is something about an unfinished ending that is extra tough. I've had some of those and I think I will always carry the things unspoken, always have questions.  If I have the chance, I want closure. Even if sometimes it is more difficult, it's what I need.

Since I've got some time, I decided to write letters. I just don't think I'll be ready to leave this phase of my life until I have the opportunity to share with these people how amazing I think they are and to thank them for their love. Because I think it's kinda a rare thing for people to love you, really love you - when you have it, you've got to appreciate it and recognize it for the special thing it really is.  If things go well and we are refunded I will have two more conferences but I'm doing the letter thing anyway. I'm not counting on being able to say any of what I want to say in person - I just don't think I could get through it without crying.

And who wants to see sniffling, scrunched up face, triple intake of air cry?

Conference Adventures

So what do you do after a lengthy period of no correspondence?  Just pick right up where you started, of course!

Just returned from our state conference - had such a great time and a few fun adventures. But first, let me tell you about The Dress That Was Never Meant To Be.

So the conference banquet was themed and I needed a 1920's Great Gatsby style dress. I ran to a thrift store and found a few that I thought I could make work. As I was walking to the fitting room I happened to see a mannequin in a gown I thought would be perfect. It was heavily beaded, had some intricate lace and was closer to the Gatsby style than any of the other dresses I had. It was also immediately obvious that it was too small. I could just tell from looking at it and then when I peeked at the tag it was a size 8. And I'm not a size 8.

But I liked it and I just wanted to see...so I decided to try. I told myself not to get my hopes up but secretly I was hoping this would be the dress.

My first sign that it wasn't the dress should have been the fact that I couldn't zip it up. And not because the zipper was hard to reach. I couldn't zip it up because I couldn't get it to close. But did that deter me? Of course not.

Never underestimate the inventiveness of a woman on a mission.

So I did what any logical person would do. I zipped it up and then slithered it down over my body. But perhaps "slithered" isn't the right adjective because that sounds kinda easy. So yeah, scratch "slithered". What I actually did was tug, pull, yank and force this thing over my body.

It was not an easy task.

Every single part of me was squished into this thing, but that didn't matter. It's on so it fits!

I knew it was a little risky but I went ahead and paid my $8 and bought the dress. I wasn't sure how I was going to fit into it but somehow that didn't seem like a big priority.

I don't change my eating habits or increase my exercise but the next week I try it on again. You know, just to see if I had miraculously lost weight.

Nope.  Still too tight.

Then we go off  on a road trip. Do you know what happens on road trips? Fast food. That's what happens on road trips. So after a week of cheeseburgers and fries I tried again.

After 20 minutes, lots of grunts and some sweat it was on. But...oh, my...Houston, we have a problem.

See, the first two times I put it on I was wearing a regular bra. But the dress is a halter dress and requires either no bra or a strapless bra. As I've shared before, my girls suffer from depression and lost their perk some time ago so no bra is NOT an option for me. Like, ever.

The third time I was wearing a strapless.  And it changed things. Significantly.

See, I actually had to flatten my boobs to mammogram level to get the dress down. Then I used my bra strap to kinda pull them back up into the right location.  They were flattened but they were the right shape and in the right place.

In the strapless, I couldn't do that. I had no way to pull them back up. I thought I could just reach into the dress and adjust but it was so tight that wasn't happenin.  They ended up in weird places and completely out of shape. Like, how-is-my-boob-a-triangle out of shape. One looked like a weird growth on the side of my armpit and the other was swimming around my belly button.

It was bad. Oh so bad.

And I could do flattened boobs. Is it attractive? No. But I was totally willing to do it. But this. This I could not do.

Did I tell you this was exactly 6 days before the conference? Which, in my head, was like no time to find another dress. I mean, this is a costume. I'm shopping thrift stores - and it's totally hit or miss. I didn't want to risk it so I decided to see if I could have it let out.

In my head I was thinking $20. That's what I was willing to spend. So off to the tailor I go. Of course, she tells me she thinks it's fine. Yeahhhh, because I'm wearing a real bra. This shit doesn't stay here in a strapless, lady, trust me.

So she tells me $30. I kinda rationalize that it's only $10 more. So I do it.  I immediately walk out trying to justify why I just spent $38 on a dress that I'm wearing for a grand total of 2 hours.

I know $38 is not a lot of money. But I'm a thrifty shopper. I shop a lot but I'm good at it and I buy cheap. Like seriously cheap. Like most my dresses are in the $15 and under range. Once I was out shopping with my Mom (who does not shop cheap) and I found a dress I liked for $24.99.  I was really debating if I should get it because I didn't know if I wanted to spend that much.  She looked at me like I was crazy and said "It's Tweny. Four. Ninety-Nine."

So you  can understand my turmoil in spending $38 for a dress I will never wear again. But I convince myself that it's not a lot of money and it's worth it. Which is actually code for I just decided to stop thinking about it.

The Friday before conference I pick up the dress. The $38 dress that I will never wear again.

And guess what?  She hadn't let it out enough. The stupid dress was still tight! Now I just spent $40 for a dress that still doesn't fit! *And yes, $40. When you get screwed out of money, you always round up.

She tried to convince me it was "perfect" and as I'm turning in front of the mirror,  she let's out a small gasp.

Okay, that's never a good sign.

"Your zipper! It's broke!"

Right in the middle of my back the dress is gaping open. The top is zipped. The bottom is zipped. But the middle is wide open where the zipper has literally just pulled apart.

There's my exhibit A that you didn't let it out enough! When she offered to fix it for $16, I grabbed the dress and got out of there.

My default solution to any problem is Google. And it didn't let me down.  I quickly watched a tutorial and was convinced I could fix it. I'm going to save this dress.

I also decide I will use the leftover material from the alterations to create a little wrap to camouflage the tightness. But my sewing machine isn't working and the ends of the satin are frayed. Definitely has to be fixed. So I buy - yes, I'm buying more stuff! - some liquid stitch and spend way too much time fixing this stupid wrap.

In the tutorial video, the man uses a pair of pliers to pinch the zipper and it solves the problem. So first thing I do when I get home is pull out the toolbox. I squeeze the zipper, zip the dress and pull. And it doesn't come apart. I do it again, pulling a little harder. Still zipped.

It worked!

Then I get a little paranoid.  What if I'm in the middle of dinner and it snaps open?  Or comes open while I'm walking? So I decide to do it one more time.  But this time when I clamp the pliers, I hear a little snap. And off flies the zipper pull.

But I am wearing this damn dress!

So I call on friends and get them to commit to sewing me into this thing. I honestly don't care how it's done, we are going to make this happen.

I was able to get into the dress without the need for sewing, stapling or liposuction. And once we got the zipper up, it stayed closed.  It was still way too tight but it was shut and that's the best I could hope for.

It's not flattering but IT'S ON!

The lesson in all of this is really very simple - when you buy a dress that is obviously too small and not going to fit over your body no matter how hard you try, you should expect one thing:

to find a good tailor!