Sleep Is Good If You Can Get It

The only thing more divisive to a marriage than the remote control is spousal sleeping habits.

I am a quiet, self-contained sleeper. My husband - a loud, rambunctious hoarder of sheets.

I sleep like a feather, always coasting just beneath the gauzy film of wakefulness. P-Dawg, on the other hand, has held entire conversations while zonked out cold.

Every night, I assume the same position in the corner of the bed that I staked out years ago. There is even a small Rima sized divot on my side of the mattress. The P-Dawg knows not where his divot is.

I follow an elaborate bedtime ritual involving moisturizer, nasal spray, lip balm, chamomile tea, and a book. Once my pillows have been satisfactorily configured, I crank up the noise machine, align my body with the mattress, pop a melatonin tablet, and slowly drop off to the land of nod.

P-Dawg, on the other hand, is down for the count and snoring before his head hits the pillow. He is a human furnace whose presence can easily raise the temperature under the covers by at least ten degrees and cause me to wake nightly in a peri-menopausal sweat.

Whilst slumbering, it is imperative that no portion of my body touch another living thing. Every morning, I wake up in the same position I fell asleep, with the sheets tucked neatly about my person in a perfect cocoon. Sometimes there is no need to make the bed, only to fold down the corner of the duvet from which I emerged and smooth it out. It's a mystery why no one has ever given me a prize for that.

My husband, bless his heart, nightly flails and thrashes about in a tangled ball of blankets, never assuming the same position twice. He has no boundaries, and whenever I am rudely awakened by the sound of a MedEvac helicopter coming in for a landing, it's because P-Dawg has been snoring directly into my unprotected ear.

The P-Dawg does not believe in "hospital corners" and considers having one's feet trapped beneath the covers cruel and unusual punishment. He defies my heartfelt conviction that sheets belong tucked neatly under the end of the mattress by nightly poking his tootsies out of their lovingly constructed 500 thread count tent.

It's always been that way. That is, until this morning, when I woke up with limbs askew, pillows thrown asunder, and a thin crust of drool clinging to my cheek.

"Have the aliens landed?"

"No," said the P-Dawg. "You were snoring like a rabid warthog all night long. I couldn't fall asleep for hours."

"You lie!" I said.

"No, really" the P-Dawg insisted, with a few demonstrative snorts.

I refuse to believe it. On the other hand, it wouldn't hurt the good doctor to get a taste of his own medicine every now and again.

There's one in every relationship - a statue and a steamroller, a snorer and a snoree. Which one are you?

I Am a (Very Sensitive) Home Economist

Yesterday afternoon, J-dog and V-meister kidnapped me and the P-Dawg by gunpoint and forced us to drive them to Red Robin for lunch. As we were waiting for our food to arrive, I noticed my husband eyeing me with a look of concern.

P-Dawg: "So, I've been thinking about what you might want to do when you eventually re-enter the workforce."

Rima: "Are you calling me lazy?"

P-Dawg: "No, no, it's just that-"

Rima: "I'm very busy, you know. Very busy. It's not like I'm running around getting pedicures."

P-Dawg: "No, of course not. But I've been thinking that-"

Rima: "I have too much time on my hands? Because let me tell you something, mister . . ."

P-Dawg: "No, it's not that. It's-"

Rima: "I spend a lot of time on laundry and general home economics. And tidying up. Do you think our family's shoes line themselves up from smallest to largest in the entryway all by themselves?"

P-Dawg: "Thank you. Listen, I'm not saying right away, but hear me out for a minute-"

Rima: "Not to mention menu planning and food preparation. These things don't come easily to me, but I do them out of love."

P-Dawg: "I know you do, and I appreciate it, I really do. But I know you want to eventually get back to work and I've been thinking about some options you may want to consider."

Rima: "Plus there's violin practice, and my charities . . . "*

P-Dawg: "For example, I think you might really enjoy starting your own business. You could do something you love, make your own hours, and not be confined to a cubicle."

Rima: "ARE YOU CALLING ME FAT?"

********************************************************************************************

While I do plan to go back to some form of work eventually, I apparently don't want to talk about it yet.

(And for the record, what P-Dawg had in mind was for us to start our own day trading business. Which I think has something to do with the stock market and is the OBVIOUS CHOICE for a person with degrees in French, English, and Edumacation who has no idea what's even in her 401k plan, regardless of the fact that she is routinely quizzed about it at the dinner table.)

On the other hand, it's heartening to know that the P-Dawg was merely projecting his own career aspirations onto his wife, and not trying to prematurely foist her on corporate America in curlers and a bathrobe.


*There are no charities

Where in the World is Rimarama

. . . and why is she neglecting her blog?

There is no compelling reason. We needed time apart, the blog and I. But my hiatus was actually more or less an accident that quickly morphed into a way of life.

It was a languid and delicious way of life, and I am a little loathe to leave it. I'm feeling the itch to write here again, but this time truly without guilt or obligation. It's the only way I can re-enter the fray.

After I finished my big project, I kept meaning to post, but found that I had misplaced my writing groove. Sitting down to write was like trying to start a letter to an old neglected friend, and I didn't know quite how to begin, what to share, what to leave out.

Then we (finally!) moved.

After unpacking, I obsessed a bit about furniture and decorating choices and when that got old, I just meandered about my kingdom in a happy daze, pausing every so often to fluff a pillow here, nab a wayward piece of lint there. Sometimes I would simply roll around on the sun room floor, purring and batting at dust mites.

I invested some time in taking care of myself, eating better, exercising. I lost seven pounds on We1ght Watcher$, which doesn't really sound like that much of a feat, but it's more than five percent of my body weight and makes a considerable dent in a pygmy frame.

I've been trying to lose ten pounds since after the V-meister was born and could never quite get there until I started counting those stupid points. I always thought I was eating fairly well (EggBeaters, anyone?), but what WW taught me is that I can pretty much never have bakery bread or seconds, even if we're just talking about a dadburn piece of boneless, skinless chicken breast that's cooked in olive oil spray. Also, I cannot haz cheezburger.

I hate WW and I love it. Sometimes I resent counting POINTS so much that it makes me want to run around in circles and punch a wall. I have a little POINTS angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other, and the two of them are waging a war right in front of my mouth.

But. There is this one pair of jeans that I just couldn't get rid of when purging my closet of Things I Will Never Wear Again In This Lifetime, even though I hadn't been able to zip them even halfway up in years. I hung on to these jeans as a kind of benchmark for what I knew had been a healthy and attractive weight for me, although I was beginning to lose hope that I could ever get there again. And now they fit me, like a glove.

I interviewed a few new pairs of jeans again in the Gap dressing room yesterday evening and while I don't yet have an opening for a pair of size zero Long and Leans, I'm happy to announce that I had to dismiss my old nemesis, Size Six Boot Cut Ankle Length, because they were too big.

I've had a lot of anxiety lately, too, I guess I should say. It has to do with moving here, my conflicting emotions about undeserved bounty, karma, the state of the nation, all that. I'm guessing it's also been triggered by the old North Wind and the information packet we got from the V-meister's school about pandemic/avian bird flu preparedness.

This is the sort of thing that can put me into a tailspin for days, cause me to pick my cuticles ragged, snap at my family in spite of myself, and arrange my books in their built in cases according to size and color.

But here is a little piece of information I'm not sure I've ever shared with you: I have a little voice in my head that dictates my blog posts to me! I can only write when she's around. I call her, "Rimarama," and, frankly, I don't know where the hell she's been.

But lately I've heard her trying to come through and I think she's saying that she feels like writing again. Even though she's getting kind of sick of the cotton candy pink header with its playfully depressing implications, the blog's general tone of insouciance, and also regrets the pseudonym she assigned her son. (She wants to start calling him the little J-Bomb instead).

She's writing this catchup post in hopes that the act of writing itself will engender inspiration.

If not, it's back to the sun room floor.

Fears-R-Us

Last night as I was tucking her in, I suggested the little V-meister remove the bead necklace she was wearing, citing a potential safety hazard. (What? Accidents happen!)

Either she was employing some seriously advanced bedtime stalling tactics, or my firstborn is preparing for a career in law enforcement, because the V-meister then proceeded to catalog for me - with great zeal - a list of additional "safety violations" she'd gleaned from watching Lou and Lou Safety Patrol every morning on Playhouse Disney:

• You should always wear a helmet when riding your bike. The helmet must match the color of your bike.*
  
  
• Always make sure that your shoelaces are tied before riding your bike. Your shoelaces could get caught up in the pedals and you could fall over and hurt yourself.
  
  
• Make sure your bike doesn't have a flat tire. You could flip over.
  

Bike safety is a biggie, people, so take note. Now, on to general safety hazards:

• It is a safety violation to put anything in an electrical outlet or accidentally unplug Mama's laptop that has a dead battery.
  
  
• It is a safety violation to stand in the middle of the street.
  
  
• It is a safety violation to put your hand near a rotating fan.
  
  
• It is a safety violation to climb up on your dresser and touch the Moon in Your Room because the Moon in Your Room could fall down on your foot**

Because I viewed it as a Teaching Moment (you know I snuck in a few very important safety violations of my own), and also because I was curious about the extent of V-meister's safety knowledge, I prompted her to continue.

I've never seen anyone more jazzed about the prospect of getting hit by a car or having a finger sliced off by a fan blade. Maybe it was just that lights out was being postponed, but the V-meister was absolutely giddy with excitement.

She tried to stifle the giggles by placing one delicate hand over her mouth, then took a quick moment to pull herself together, stating, "I shouldn't be laughing, Mama, because safety violations are not funny." But she just couldn't get it together, because, if we're honest, who among us is not nuts about safety violations?

I cut her off at Safety Violation Number One Hundred and Nine: "It is a safety violation to swallow big girl toothpaste," assuring her that our discussion could continue the next day.

The little V-meister was amenable to this prospect and fell asleep within minutes, visions of safety violations dancing in her head.

On the one hand, I'm glad that my daughter is so acutely aware of potential safety hazards and that she's taking them seriously. On the other, I suspect I may be setting her up for a tense and lonely life of worrywartdom, like mine.

Of course I want her to be vigilant, but I fear (DO YOU SEE? What I mean?) that it's too late and she's already been indoctrinated into my curmudgeonly cult of caution.

* The V-meister doesn't even freaking have a bike (it's a safety violation), and furthermore, I believe she used poetic license here.

** This one reeks of someone having actually climbed up on her dresser to touch the Moon in Her Room, don't you think?

P.S. You know what else is a safety violation? Running outside to photograph the hungry horny buck that wandered into your backyard to feast at the foot of your apple tree:

"You're dead, lady."

Post It If You Got It

There are days when I say to myself, "Nay, I will not post the drivel today, for it is tedious."

Other days I'm happy to post like a broken record and suffer the consequences. (BRING IT, TROLLS!!!)

One thing I've learned about myself over the last month or so of home searching: I can switch fixations faster than democratic candidate allegiances.

(As you might imagine, my heart breaks for Hillary, but I'm Barackin' it now.)

On Tuesday night the P-Dawg came home and announced that he had chosen a morsel of real estate for us to call our permanent abode.

I attached myself to his pant leg while he went about the business of setting his briefcase down and loosening his tie, until such time as he saw fit to disclose our family's future.

It was a house we had seen before (He wouldn't pick one I hadn't even laid eyes on, would you, P-Dawg?), but we had deemed it a little too big, way overpriced, and in need of some TLC in the area of fugly 80s wallpaper and carpet removal.

However, if we could get it for a good price, the P-Dawg now announced, he felt that it would be the perfect choice.

We gave them an offer yesterday morning. Alas, our offer, in comparison to the asking price, was so low that it kicked up dust on the baseball diamond as it whizzed past the sellers, who swiftly rejected it and lobbed it back into my hopeful face.

Problem is, in the space of time it took for all of this to happen, I had already made out with this new house several times and was planning on bringing my toothbrush over that very night.

You see, once my greedy little brain had wrapped itself around the possibilities inherent in this latest home, it took mere moments to dump the spindle railing death trap house and jump into bed with ChateauRama.

The teal carpeting and peach orchid bonanza wallpaper in the master bath? Pffft! I would lovingly replace it with tranquil hues and cherry cabinetry from Restoration Hardware!

In no time flat, I was delightedly googling "fugly 80s glamour bath remodel" and fantasizing about which leather sectional I would buy for my new great room.

It's what I do, this fervent devotion to one fickle fantasy after another. I was going to fill in the backyard fountain with sand for the kids and host twinkling midsummer dinner parties on the patio, dammit.

And now? . . . back to square one. When we placed the bid yesterday, we also drew up offers for two other houses that the P-Dawg had selected to low-ball in quick succession until somebody is desperate enough to sell us their home.

This is the P-Dawg's clinical approach to real estate. He believes there to be a veritable glut of serviceable homes for us to buy, and only the unfortunate matter of price inflation standing between us.

Silly old sellers, overpricing their huts in a down market! We'll show them! We'll lo-ball every dang property that is up for sale this side of the Mississippi, and then we'll see who has the last laugh.

(Like, when we're living out of a suitcase at Extended Stay America, for instance.)

"You have to take the emotion out of it, Rimster," the P-Dawg tells me as I weep over the loft reading nook that could have been.

"My hopes are not high that any of these next two offers will be accepted," he continues, "But I have six more homes to bid on lined up right behind them, and I do believe that eventually, we will hit the jackpot."

I am to be fully prepared to accept rejection after rejection, to place all my emotional chips squarely on a series of wobbly tables that are destined to collapse up to seven more times.

I don't even know what to perseverate about anymore.

And so, I will not speak of this matter again until the ink is dry on the contract for Hut Beautiful, so help me God.

Rimarama Recommends: Melatonin

First of all, no deal on the house.

I'm more angry than depressed over it, actually. They strung us along way past the time that our offer expired and their agent kept stalling and not returning our agent's phone calls before finally giving us some bull$hit explanation and ultimately saying "no."

I have added their agent to my official Enemies List, which also includes all of the engineers from my old tech writing job, our wedding DJ, and Carmine the landscaper, who I once chased down with the Ramamobile to get him to cough up the eighty bucks he owed me.

Whatever. I don't even want their stupid house anymore.

My guess is that it will still be festering on the market two or three months from now, when the sellers find their dream home, and then, if I'm still available, I'll offer them five bucks for it. But I will attach that five spot to an invisible string and jerk it away at the last possible minute, just like my mom did to me on April Fool's Day back in '82.

Oh yes, my revenge will be sweet. (Dear Saint Joseph, don't pay no nevermind, I'm just talkin.')

Anyway, onward, ho!

Today's subject is melatonin.

You might be wondering how a person as high strung as I tend to be is getting even a wink of sleep, what with all the real estate and other, non blog approved craziness going on right now. And I'll tell you: I drink a fifth of Jack Daniels with my Amb1en tablet every single night while watching Poker TV.

I kid! Don't ever do that.

Actually, I have a new friend, and his name is Melatonin. I first met Melatonin about ten years ago. Our relationship ended badly when I failed to read the dosing information on his jacket.

The result of this foray into the nefarious underworld of non-FDA regulated herbal remedies was that I stayed up all night peeing day-glo yellow every ten minutes, became convinced that my kidneys were failing, and had a full blown panic attack which necessitated calling my at-the-time med student boyfriend, the P-Dawg, at three in the morning screaming, OMG, P-DAWG, I'M DYING, SHOULD I CALL 9-1-1 ???

But don't let this scare you away from the Melatonin.

For the past few nights, I've cranked up the old noise machine an extra decibel or two, curled up with my 500 hundred page hardback, The Secret History of the World, and taken a sub-lingual melatonin tablet that tastes just like an Altoid mint. And, even though my thoughts race faster than a hamster on a wheel, I've fallen peacefully asleep, dreamed super vivid, wacky dreams, and woken up feeling fresh as a daisy every morning.

And so I heartily recommend melatonin as the homeopathic remedy of the day.

P.S. Just an FYI: It's possible there may be some shark cartilage in those tablets. In case you were interested in trying it, you know, I thought I should tell you.

Hut for Sale; Desperate Hutwife Not Included

Oh right, my blog!

I've been bizzy.

Last weekend was a veritable Lithuaniapalooza. What that means is cultural festivities out the wazoo in commemoration of the motherland's 90th year of independence.

How is it possible that Lithuania could be celebrating ninety years of independence, you ask, when I just told you last week she only busted out from behind the Iron Curtain in 1991?

Lithuania has two independence days - February 16th is the first one, when we told the czar to bite us back in 1918, and March 11th, 1991 is when we shed the dread communist mantle once and for all.

The upside of being relentlessly bullied by evil empires is two separate excuses to party like it's 1999. But we like to place the emphasis on our first independence day because it sends a clear message that sez, "Suck it, commies! Let's pretend the last fifty or so years never happened."

So I spent most of the weekend rehearsing for and participating in the Lithuanianpalooza, where my extreme choir sang and even the little V-meister recited a poem and sang a song along with her little pre-school friends. The rest of the time during the program, she looked like this:



Next:

With the real estate market in our area totally tanking, the P-Dawg and I decided now would be the ideal time to put our hut up for sale, and so I spent most of Monday running around like a madwoman, shoving random clutter, clothing, toys, and the odd child under beds and into closets in preparation for our listing agent's visit.

So paranoid was I about the state of our lair, that I was practically tripping over myself to offer our agent my take on things that could be improved before we put the house on the market. Because, above all, I aim to please.

As we were doing our walk-thru, I would bound in front of the pack (the pack being the agent, the P-Dawg, the V-meister, and the J-Dog) to enter the room in question before anyone else did so that I could properly lament the sorry state of affairs and make totally unbidden and impossible promises like, "I was thinking we could just knock this wall out, you know, to make the room look bigger? And a new paint job, of course, and curtains, and why don't I just box up all the kids' toys and send them back to China right now!?"

I was pathetic. But the agent made only minor suggestions for bathroom and kitchen updates and, of course, advised us to get rid of all the junk I had thrown in the basement and shoved under beds and into closets in my foolhardy attempt to foil her.

Also of note:

The V-meister has yet another ear infection. We made the much dreaded trip to the pediatrician's office this morning. The V-meister quite enjoys the Ped's office, but it frankly makes me rather sick.

I like to go in armed with anti-bacterial wipes to disinfect any and all surfaces we may potentially come into contact with and also hover around the kids like a hummingbird on crack to ensure that nobody gets any ideas about licking the wall (J-dog!) or, you know, touching anything. By the time we get home, I'm totally wiped out, twitchy, and convinced that I picked up the flesh eating bacteria.

This ear infection, however, seems a lot less dastardly than the Great Ear Infection of 2007, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it stays that way.

And now I'm off to begin polishing the floors with my toothbrush.

But First I Removed the Beam from My Own Eye

My husband has hyper-sensitive eyes protected by lashes so long that they enter the room a full minute before he does. (A cruel joke of nature that such bounty should be wasted on a man, but there you have it.)

You can't so much as wave an index finger two feet from his ocular orb without the P-dog flinching in terror before collapsing to the floor and folding himself into a turtle shell.

As you might imagine, a foreign particle, such as the one that was apparently trapped beneath his eyelid last night, constitutes a five-alarm emergency.

After a few minutes of back and forth over the the various chores involved in shutting down the house for the night ("Hey, P-dog, will you run the dishwasher before you go up thanks!" "I ran it last night." "Yeah, but I unplugged the Christmas tree." "I'll do it if you turn down the thermostat and check the front door"), we headed upstairs to execute our unique bedtime rituals.

My bedtime routine involves tooth brushing, flossing (six teeth a night, give or take a few, every five days on a rotating schedule - huge time saver), face washing, moisturizer, lip balm, noise machine volume adjustment, an occasional Benadryl or Tylenol PM, obsessive sheet straightening, and five minutes of reading the New Yorker before it falls on my face, waking me up.

The P-dog's routine involves tooth brushing, thorough flossing (except when on vacation), face washing, and two minutes of reading The History of the World before it falls on his face, waking him up.

Last night, his routine was shot to hell by the foreign object the P-dog was convinced was lodged beneath his eyelid.

Just as I finished positioning my stack of pillows just so and settled into bed, the P-dog came staggering into the room with one hand covering his left eye, ranting about the splinter that was rendering him senseless with pain.

Although it inconvenienced me to no end, I put my magazine down and agreed to take a look around, see what I could find.

Flipping the P-dog's eyelid back and shining an ultraviolet fold-up clip-on reading lamp into it did not yield favorable results and almost got both of us killed.

(There was a lot of thrashing, lamentation, and gnashing of teeth while the procedure was being performed, and the P-dog, besides being a whole foot taller, also outweighs me by about a hundred pounds.)

I suggested that perhaps his eye was simply a tad dry and would he like some Visine?

Did you ever see that episode of Friends where the gang wrestles Rachel to the ground in order to administer eye drops?

A similar scene took place in our bedroom last night, the P-dog being physically and psychologically incapable of himself executing this task that he considers akin to gouging his own eye out with an ice pick.

It was not easy, but I managed to keep his head relatively steady while squirting a stream of thirst quenching drops in the general direction of his left eyeball.

"Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaauuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh! You're killing me, Rimster! Killing me! Enough! Enough already!" he wailed.

But the source of ocular irritation persisted.

"Why don't you sleep on it, P-dog, and maybe it will work itself out by morning."

"I don't have the luxury of time, Rimster! If this pain does not end soon, I will be a cyclops by morning ! How would you like a one-eyed husband?"

(Squints at me with one eye shut while making pirate noises.)

After a few more minutes of moaning and writhing, the P-dog finally fell asleep.

I didn't get a good look at him this morning before he left for work, but I think I would have noticed an eye patch.

Men are so sensitive.

***********************************************************************************

I want to thank everyone who commented on yesterday's post about vertigo for your concern and earnest suggestions.

I am going to try making some changes in my diet, as Gadzooks and Alejna suggested, and see what happens. (You just gave me free license to eat potato chips all day long.)

I'm a little wary of going to a chiropractor, as Kathryn suggested, but I would give acupuncture a try.

Amy takes the cake, though. How could I not further investigate author Stasi Eldredge's claim, in her book, Captivating, that her severe dizziness was the result of spiritual attacks??? I heart you, Amy.

Fear Mongering, It's Scary Stuff

Whenever possible, the P-dog and I like to kick back and watch the evening news.

This shouldn't come as too great a surprise, since we also consider the symphony a happening place to be on a Saturday night.

The evening news hour hasn't been the same since the Brokaw/Jennings/Rather trifecta disintegrated, but we've gotten into the habit of having a cup of Ovaltine (I kid) and taking in a V1agra commercial or two with our evening Bushapalooza as a way to unwind.

(No, we didn't catch the last Golden Girls re-run on Nick at Night, why do you ask?)

But in reality, watching the news does more to key me up than to help me chill out. More often than not, I end up turning it off in disgust, boredom, or because someone needs my assistance in getting his head extracted from the space between couch and wall.

Last night, the news catapulted me into a full scale paranoia-induced meltdown and resulted in the exchange of cross words with the P-dog, all thanks to a segment about a recent increase in cases of deadly, drug-resistant staph infection.

As always, the underlying tone of the piece was No one is safe! This can happen to you! The world is a dangerous place! Be very, very afraid!

Obedient media consumer that I am, I took this information very much to heart and became immediately convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that a lingering rash I've noticed on the little V-meister is caused by nothing less than the lethal drug-resistant staph bacteria itself, a time bomb waiting to explode by crossing the blood barrier to wreak complete havoc on her fragile little system.

Naturally, I blamed the P-dog, who happens to be in the medical profession, for not being more concerned about the V-meister's rash, for not alerting me to the fact that it could be DEADLY, for being lackadaisical about our children's welfare, blah blah blah and then there was the time when she had a 104 fever and you were going to put her to bed without even taking her temperature is it only people with challenging medical conditions that you care about what about your own flesh and blood blah blah blah.

I can be kind of high-strung.

After conducting numerous Google searches and consulting several medical texts, we've pretty much come to the conclusion that the V-meister has your garden variety (possibly skid-mark related) contact dermititis, but my whole point here is that the fear mongering perpetrated by the media in this country is getting too much for me to take.

Have you ever watched Glenn Beck? I try to avoid him like the plague he warns is imminent, but sometimes I can't help but stop and stare in wonder at his gigantic talking head for a few moments while channel-surfing. I would be very surprised if the man does not, in fact, live in an underground bunker. Every other show he does is about signs pointing to the end of days.

Do you watch any one of the early morning news shows? Have you noticed how many segments to do with childhood illness and accidents happen to run during the 9-10 o'clock hour when the stay-at-home mom set tunes in over their morning cup of joe?

Have you ever noticed what a huge amount of airplay even the slightest, casualty-free airline mishap gets?

Did you, even for a moment, consider not having your children vaccinated because of the (as yet uncorrelated) possibility that certain vaccines might cause autism?

Are you, like me, afraid of microwaving anything inside a tupperware container because of that "microwaving plastic causes cancer" email that was going around?

I know that sensational stories garner ratings. I know that perspective and a grain of salt is what I need. Just because Brian Williams told me more people died of drug-resistant staph infection than of AIDS last year alone, doesn't mean I'll get it.

But I'm still afraid.

Not just of super-viruses. Of everything.

What I want to know:

How do you sort out what to keep and what to throw away?

What is your metaphorical sieve?

How do you leave your house in the morning when the world at large would have you believe the sky is about to fall down?

R.I.P. Infant Dimetapp

Grouchy today.

I have an entire family of mouth breathers on my hands since the little J-dog began passing around the old germ baton Tuesday.

There’s something about mouth breathing that makes my skin crawl. Almost as much as my hands-down, number one I’m coming at you with a box of Kleenex and a sledgehammer pet peeve - the phenomenon whereby a person will LOUDLY suck the mucous that has accumulated in the back of his or her nose back down the throat and then swallow it.

If you ever do that in say, a movie theater, and I happen to be sitting nearby? I will whip my head around like a periscope and proceed to stare you down, shooting daggers at you with my eyes until the P-dog manually turns my head back to the forward position.

It simply amazes me that this technique has never actually stopped anyone from repeating the offense.

Anyway, it’s tough being a neat freak in a house full of kids who are manufacturing mucous faster than the Jolie-Pitts are adopting. I’ve been following the little J-dog around with a Kleenex and a wet cloth all day long (the cloth is for the upholstery). The very minute I wipe the couch down, he scrambles over to rub his face in it all over again.

He defies me!

Adding insult to injury is the fact that the manufacturers of childrens' cold remedies have deemed me incapable of properly dosing my child in the event I should choose to give him medicine and have decided to pull ALL INFANT cold medications off the shelves! I’m going straight to Le Tar-Jay tonight to see if I can round up any stray bottles that may have been overlooked during this purging.

But the good news is that Bill Clinton is a fan of Rimarama!

I know this because I got a hit from Chappaqua, New York the other day. And I’m assuming that it’s Bill who is reading my blog, since Hill’s busy on the campaign trail and what else could Bill possibly have to do than sit around the house doing crosswords and reading the occasional mommyblog?

Frankly, I’m surprised he didn’t discover me sooner, since I’ve written about oh so many topics of interest to him:

• His wife and old girlfriend
• His nemesis
• Pureed potato balls with bacon
• One very special cigar

I hope you’re enjoying Rimarama, Bill. In the future, I will try to do more pieces with a political bent for your exclusive reading pleasure.

But for now, it's back to tending the old snot factory.

Somebody Save Me From Myself

I’m all in a tizzy today because this afternoon, the P-Dog and I are leaving for a short vacation, sans enfants.

It’s just a little weekend trip to a spa/resort a few hours from here, but we plan to sleep in till noon every day, take our meals sitting down, and swear out loud at every turn.

As is always the case before any trip we take without the kids, I am starting to get zippy and my OCD tendencies are kicking in to full gear.

Not a single item of dirty laundry may be left in the basement, not a dirty dish in the dishwasher, not one item of garbage in the bin. If any of these conditions equal “true,” and I were to realize it on the drive up, my mind would simply leave my body and return home to reside in the dishwasher or dryer, or, more likely, the garbage can.

I must line up all of our shoes in the foyer according to size, straighten the hand towels on their racks so the hems are perfectly lined up, and make sure that not a drawer or cabinet is left ajar. All stray hairs must be eliminated from the sink and tub, and the calendar days must be marked off to reflect the day on which we will return.

If we return.

All this on top of the necessity to pack enough crap to last me through an exile worthy of a queen and the nagging suspicion that this act of selfishness and greed (the vacation) constitutes an enormous withdrawal from the Bank of Equilibrium and will naturally come around to bite me in me bum in the shape of harm to my children.

See why my panties are all in a knot?

I’m really going to need that couples aromatherapy massage we signed ourselves up for.

Hopefully this time I’ll work up the courage to go.

I am petrified.

Besides the sheer terror of disrobing (I'm keeping my drawers on, y'all), there are other issues. Years ago, I had a decidedly unpleasant experience on a visit to the fatherland involving my wrinkled Auntie L, a cedar wood sauna, and an ancient Nordic massage therapy that included a wet birch branch and vigorous thrashing. And because I didn’t have the foresight to pack my swimsuit on my mid-winter sojourn to the frozen north, I had to endure this procedure in my birthday suit itself. It’s a post for another day.

So.

I’ll be MIA for a few days, but with any luck, I'll be back next week, bright-eyed and bushy tailed.