Don't Be a Pill

 Okay, in the series of posts of things I'm a little embarrassed about: medication.

I would like to say I'm not at all embarrassed about the medications I take, which is much more true than it was a few years ago. My mother mentioned the other day that her doctor was shocked that she doesn't take any daily medication, and she's eighty in September, so I get being a little ... not proud, I guess, because most of it she didn't really control, but happy?

I take .... adds in head, takes an unforgivably long time .... six or seven pills in the morning and a nasal spray. One pill is a prescription - proton pump inhibitor/ acid reducer. One is a prescription only because it's cheaper - allergy medicine (I have terrible allergies that apparently aren't actually allergies according to the allergist, but allergy medicine helps them, so I take it, because otherwise I'm a snotty mess). Two or three are vitamin D pills - two 1000 IU in spring and summer, three in fall and winter. Magnesium for restless legs, which I've had intermittently since I was a teenager but was getting more and more often and it was wretched. Prescription nasal spray because of the aforementioned allergy-or-not snotty mess.

In the evening, four and a half pills. Two and a half are antidepressants - one is the kind I've been on for years and years, after trying for a couple of times to switch or go off it and having things go horribly wrong (that time I felt like I was dying after not taking drugs), and the booster I was given last fall when my doctor agreed that I probably have ADHD (without the H) and said this is a good antidepressant for people with ADHD. One is gabapentin because the magnesium wasn't giving enough relief from the restless legs (so maybe I should stop taking the magnesium. Shit. Never thought of that. Hang on, looking it up. What do you know, it says magnesium might lower gabapentin's effectiveness, but that should be helped by taking them at least two to four hours apart, WHICH I AM, I'm a genius). One is a low dose of blood pressure medication which I was given after this fun little episode (I'm not giving you homework, this post just has excursions- and that I was embarrassed about, but it's whatever. My doctor consolingly said, "so you have high blood pressure - so does the rest of the world", which is not true, but was kind and funny.

So yeah, not so much embarrassed about the stuff I take as the way it's all arranged (if you can even use that term).

For behind the doors of this poor, innocent armoire....

lurks absolute chaos.

On the left...

.

..we have the morning meds, beside stacks of books I don't have shelf space for. I also shoved my new shower curtain in there for when I get my bathroom painted and can put it up. I go from right to left, and then grab the nasal spray from the box where the evening meds are kept, because... jesus, I just realized this makes the absolute least sense of an already senseless routine.

On the right...

we have the evening meds, on top of and inside a box of old Broadway show soundtrack CDs, which I still have because...why? Uncertain. I start with the ones precariously balanced on top of the CDs, and then go down to the ones in the box that the CDs sometimes collapse on top of. 

To the extreme left and back, we have occasional-use stuff - migraine meds, Tylenol with codeine, melatonin and *whispers* marijuana products. Also a couple of things from the book subscription a friend got me where you get little presents corresponding to pages of the book, and I haven't finished the third book yet because it's not a library book and there's no deadline, so I haven't yet let myself open the present. 

Oh, and up top there's the bin of all the other crap - Advil, Tylenol, cold medicine, nausea medicine, ancient Ativan (just kidding, I think I took the last one of those in the last post) etc. 

Why am I like this? WHY? I only recently looked at this whole ridiculous mess and realized how ridiculous and messy it is. Do I occasionally very nearly take the wrong meds at the wrong time? Why yes, yes I do. I was talking to Eve about this and said I really needed to get a weekly pill counter thing but they seem so old-persony and clinical and ugly and she said "there are cute ones, Mom". Are there really, though? Huh, well this one isn't bad. And these are... possibly confused about fruit designation, but not terrible. 

I think we all agree things have to change here Is there hope?

Perhaps. On the other side of the room....

My charge cords for my phone and ipad used to be plugged into the power bar between the chair and the window. This was terribly inefficient, I would have to lean over and nearly fall out of bed or - gasp!- GET OUT OF BED when I was already half asleep to plug things in and set them on the arm of the chair. I finally got my ass in gear and ordered another power bar for between the bed and the bedside table, and now the cords are neater, it's easier to plug everything else in and I am always inordinately pleased with myself when I use the setup. 

Am I in the post? Am I helping?

So past experience dictates that every few months, maybe years (decades?) I am able to use my powers of logic and organization to make things a tiny bit less lame. Stay tuned. 

Chrono-Atypical

While deleting blank posts, I accidentally deleted this post, which most of you have already read, so please disregard. I am sorry for deleting your lovely comments - I spent several minutes swearing at myself and being devastated before I found a way to retrieve the actual post.

 I keep jotting down ideas in my Drafts post for blogging and then when I sit down to blog I still feel all disconnected and paralyzed. 

I think my next few posts will be about things that I feel embarrassed about. I don't know why, I just have a few things I want to write about that are connected to things I don't love about myself but I still want to write about them. Also, I just put in my two cents on Suzanne's blog about being bloggishly vulnerable, so might as well put my money where my big fat mouth is. 

So I have sleep issues. I am what I finally know is called a 'late chronotype', which means I prefer to go to sleep later and get up later and I feel most alert in the evening. 

For most of my life, I was stuck in the normal pattern of Western capitalism which meant being a late chronotype sucked super hard. I don't remember how it was getting up for school in elementary, but in high school it was agonizing - I could never get to sleep early enough for how early I had to get up to catch the bus, which was even more obnoxiously early than the school start time because I lived in a town and the high school was in the city. I would sometimes get up and shower and then crawl back into bed for ten more minutes because being awake hurt so much. If we got up at five a.m. to leave on a long driving trip, which my parents liked to do, I would often throw up within the first hour, whereupon someone would always make the 'you really aren't a morning person', haha, laugh it up, fuck off.

Working nine to five (audio publisher) wasn't great, although who can tell if it was the early mornings or the psychotic Irishman who owned the place and regularly threw stuff and had wrestling fights with two of his eight kids who worked there. Then I worked in a couple of bookstores, which was better, because the hours were all over the place and not usually at the butt-crack of dawn, but I also have really bad feet, so then I was less sleepy but in pain all the time (yeah, somebody buggered up the factory settings good and proper on this body). Then I had kids, which was a whole different kind of clusterfuck from a sleep point of view. 

We managed. I would sometimes half-sleep for a couple of hours in the morning while one or two kids climbed on me and babbled at me and maybe watched some Sagwa or Peep on the bedroom tv. I would sometimes nap when a kid napped, although I was stupidly bad at napping also. 

The kids were around eight and ten when I was finally diagnosed with probably adolescent-onset severe sleep apnea because of tiny airways (seriously, asleep at the switch, someone was). This helped a little, but it was still hard. My husband did a lot of bus stop or school drop-offs, which was super guilt-inducing since I was a stay-at-home mom (although I did do all the late night sick-kid vigils). 

And here we are today. The CPAP has helped, but not to the miraculous extent that some people seem to find. I still have trouble falling asleep before 2 a.m. I still have trouble waking up if I don't have to.

I only have one early work morning. I actually don't mind it, because when I'm forced to be out in the world in the morning it's kind of nice. My other work shifts start late morning, and the days I don't have work either I make an appointment that means I can't sleep late, or I sleep late. I always tell myself I won't, I set my alarm for early, I have the very best of intentions. Doesn't work.

So today I slept late. I dragged myself upright finally, petted Lucy's groggy head (she is more than happy to cuddle in for the duration). I looked at the sun and thought I should take Lucy for a walk and do yoga. Then I thought of all the other stuff I have to do, both fairly urgent (cook stuff to freeze and take down to Eve this weekend, bake biscuits for my sister's house this weekend, do my Covid-study blood collection thing) and less so, but still nagging at me (write a blog post, clean out my overstuffed bra drawer), and thought maybe I should skip yoga and walk Lucy later after more stuff is done.

Then I realized I'm doing that thing where I'm punishing myself for not behaving according to some kind of code that I always imagine I'm supposed to be adhering too - I mean, my kids have turned out fine - good, even! -- to all outward appearances (okay, the younger one has massive anxiety and gets a lot of rashes and can't digest cheese, but that's not because I didn't get up early - wait, it's NOT, RIGHT?) I'm holding down a job half a job a third of a job. I cook (sometimes). I drive my parents to medical appointments, even when my mom has to fast, and friends, that is not a small thing. Why do I feel like sleeping later than most of my friends is on par with drop-kicking babies or leaving your grocery cart in the middle of the aisle? 

Ah, spring

Walking Lucy in the sun is nicer than walking her later. The stuff can easily be cooked later, in the EVENING, when I'm more alert (although given my scale of alertness these days, more alert isn't saying a whole lot)  If I do yoga, it will hurt my back less to be on my feet cooking and baking. And isn't tending to my stupid made-by-a-human-plant-line-worker-high-off-his-tits-on-bath-salts body more important than all the other stuff? Or at least AS important? 

Okay, this is a little more boring than I meant it to be, but whatever, I finished it. Onwards to Lemongrass Chicken and buttermilk biscuits. The bra drawer will have to wait. 

So Stupid You Just Have to Laugh

 Suzanne just sent me quick, kind email check-in, which tipped me over from my I-Should-Really-Blog state into Okay-I'm-Blogging state, particularly as I was just sort-of finishing dinner and I was thinking of Suzanne anyway. 

You guys, the amount of Stupid in this day would overflow the Stupidity line on any given bucket on any given day. I also just had to type the word 'stupidity' a stupid number of times.

I haven't been sleeping the greatest, and I was out of the over-the-counter sleeping pills that I often use on Sunday nights so I get a few hours before my early Monday library shift. I took an ancient Ativan instead (making all the good choices lately), tried to read and had some kind of demonic vision instead, fell asleep hard and woke up feeling super-weird. 

Got ready for work. Matt left a few minutes before me to drop the dog at my mom and dad's and head to work. I got ready to go and looked in the key bin and my keys were... not there.

Even when we're not down to one set of keys for the Rav (which we are because I lost my keys and got the fob turned off, that's on me, not in dispute) I had a thing about him not using my keys, because he is notoriously bad at leaving them in a pocket or THE VEHICLE and then I can't find them. But surely he wouldn't have kept them when he knew I had to go to work today? Surely not.

I remembered he used the Rav to do errands before our party on Sunday. He definitely had the keys.

I called my parents to see if I could catch him - he'd just left. I called his cell... no answer.

He couldn't answer but fortunately could see I had called, and came back to give me the keys. I didn't bother getting angry because obviously it was an accident, and it's hard not to get angry when you keep saying put them back in the bin right after you're done with them so this doesn't happen and then, you know, this happens, but I do stupid stuff too, so, not angry. But a little late for work and a little off balance.

Work was good. Monday is pretty much my calmest school and set of classes. I let an extra grade one class slip in because they had missed a couple of weeks of their regular class and they were grateful.

After work I went to the bakery, the drug store and the grocery store. I often just park in front of the bakery and grab my wallet from my purse instead of hauling my sizeable heavy purse in. After I paid and left the bakery I decided to just walk the little bit to the drug store, then thought wait no, I don't have my purse, then thought that's okay, I have my wallet. Got into the drug store, went to check my list on my phone, and swung my purse down to grab my phone because I.... did have my purse? *whimper*

Got drug store stuff. Got groceries. Paid for my groceries. Couldn't find my phone. I didn't even have the energy to freak out, just wrote down my name and number (landline) and asked them to call if it turned up. Which it wouldn't because naturally it was in the seat of my car when I got back to it.

Went to my mom and dad's to pick up Lucy. My mom was having trouble with Facebook. You know how dogs want you to throw their ball, but not to take it? No take, only throw? My mom is kind of like this with fixing her ipad or phone - fix it, but don't change anything or maybe don't touch anything at all, just maybe fix it by looking at it. No touch, only fix. 

When I got back to my car, there was a key just inside the car door beside my seat. I looked down at my school lanyard and the key was missing. But nothing was undone, so how did it fall off? By the Awesome Magical Power of Stupid, I can only presume.

I came home. I had taken chicken thighs out of the freezer. One of my friends mentioned honey garlic baked chicken thighs and I thought I would try that. I took the chicken thighs out of the fridge but they were still frozen. Crap, should have left them out before work. Okay, maybe I'll instant pot them, you can cook them from frozen. Instant pot says to sear them first. How do I do that if they're frozen? So I microwave thaw them a bit, then sear them - in a frying pan, not the instant pot because using the saute function on the instant pot hurts my wrists. Then I cook them. They smell good. They're done. I open the instant pot and remember that chicken wings and chicken thighs cooked in the instant pot taste good but we usually broil them to make them less soggy. So why did I sear them? And now I'm putting them in the oven anyway. And I thought 'Suzanne would probably never do anything this dumb'. And then I checked my email and saw her message and thought okay, I will share my stupidity stupidty stupdine stupidness for the amusement of all BlogKind.

Easter at my sister's was lovely. The drive went well. We stopped for lunch at one of the highway centres (they call them OnRoutes here because Ontario, ha ha, so clever). My dad is never very hungry at lunch and is never very forthcoming when asked what he wants. We went to A&W and were ordering and then saw the little Buddy Burger menu, so we ordered off of that. When the dude started filling a thimble-sized cup with coke we realized we'd gotten him the kids meal. 

He seemed pretty stoked about it

We had a nice chill Friday evening, then Matt and I drove into Hamilton to drop off food and supplies to Eve and take her out for lunch. 

We dropped her at the library because she's a studious little bunny, and when we got back to London my sister and I and my mom and my niece went to the neighbourhood pub for cocktails while the men napped and watched various sportses. I had a jalapeno paloma that was delicious but made me cough, so my niece Charlotte traded me for her classic margarita, and then I got a less jalapeno-y paloma. Then we all went a bit tipsily next door to the grocery store to get breakfast sausage and Charlotte and I were looking for turkey bacon because she doesn't eat pork and then she started making rude gestures with a giant Polish sausage and an older woman passing by gave us a disgusted look and my mom couldn't stop laughing and my sister booked it to the cash trying to pretend she didn't know us.

It was nice enough to sit on the back deck on Sunday, and then I hung out with my niece in the attic reading my book and watching silly Youtube videos because I don't care about curling. Charlotte let us have her bedroom which was so generous, and I drugged myself to sleep every night so that went okay. 

On Sunday my professor invited Eve over after church (actually invited her for church, but Eve managed to amend the invite to after-church), where she was pressed into service by my professor's granddaughter who adores Eve, into reading her the very seasonally appropriate Twas the Night Before Christmas, while she ate her Easter lunch. Then they did matching tattoos.

Everybody was fine for the drive home, and then we got to my parents' place and Matt (who was driving their vehicle) and my dad (who was beside him in the passenger seat) couldn't find the garage door clicker, and my mom lost her mind and we were all exhausted and I was just staring at the driveway because I didn't even know what the frigging thing looked like, and then Matt flipped the visor and realized it was still clipped to it, they were just looking at the wrong side of it. Into every day a little stupid must fall, it seems. 

I'm going to answer Suzanne's email as soon as I can get back into my email platform, which I really need to switch because it has this tiresome habit of autofilling my password which means the password is absolutely correct, but it says it's not four or five times before it lets me in. If I was smart, I would change this right now. But I'm going to go eat my one-dish, three-pan, two-cooking-method chicken first. 

Eastering While Anxious

I said I was going to do a few posts in a row about things I'm self-conscious about. The next one was going to be medications. After that.... thinking.... checking drafts folder.... oh, it was about Lucy. I'm going to do them, but I don't think today. Today I just want to get another post in before a week or more goes by to preserve the habit.

We're going to London Ontario to my sister's for Easter. This is wonderful because I love my sister and her husband and her kids, and I love us all being together. This is only a tiny bit stressful because I'm bad at traveling and I don't love sleeping in a bed that isn't mine, and we're driving down with my parents and my mother is a wonderful, wonderful woman who doesn't have much of an ability to roll with things and says things in anxiety that she doesn't realize can be hurtful to other people, which causes me a bit of anxiety about traveling with her. 

It's also a tiny bit sad because Angus can't come because he's coaching four games this week-end, and Eve can't come even though we'll only be an hour and a half away from her, because it's end of term which is even worse than exam time, because everything is due by Wednesday. Matt and I are going to drive in to Hamilton on Saturday and deliver food and the mountain of stuff my mom has baked (because she is wonderful) and hugs and Easter chocolate. My niece and nephew are both coming home for at least a day or two, so that will be fun. 

(Funny aside about this. On FaceTime last night Eve said "you know my housemates are usually pretty into prioritizing mental health over marks. But I asked them 'what if I just said Fuck It and went to London this weekend' and all their eyes got really big and they said 'are you crazy'" so I think I probably can't come." Fair enough then).

Angus had a bit of a rough time last week - professors sounding off about students being unprepared and not coming to class (at the students who actually came to class, seems a little counterproductive but okay), the team not doing well - so I sent him an Easter tin of cookies and brownies from Mrs. Fields and he was very happy to get it. 

We had a freezing rain event yesterday, which pissed me off even though I know April in Ottawa is no guarantee of spring-like weather. I stopped to get a couple of things at the grocery store after work (butter and milk and buttermilk, which amused me to no end), and I couldn't get to my cloth grocery bags because the trunk was frozen shut. My poor friends Sasha and Dani don't have power and are having PTSD from the last windstorm that knocked out their power for multiple days - HI SASHA, HI DANI, sorry the universe is being such a massive douche to you. 

Photo credit Dimitra Zouzoulas, Greek Goddess

The weather in London is much nicer, which is wonderful but also probably means I'll be too hot all weekend and I don't really know what to pack. Okay okay, I'll stop complaining. At least it's not over any borders so I can pack my weed pen.

Latest perverted autocorrect story: I was texting with Angus about his living situation next year. He is in something called the Circle Apartments which two roommates he doesn't like - they are unfriendly and untidy. He's been saying he will probably get a place with a guy from the basketball team he is friends with. We've just been calling him Basketball Guy, but a couple of days ago Angus texted that they were going to look at a place and would probably lock it down next week. I said "Basketball Guy?" and then thought I should probably stop calling him that so I texted "Name?", except it autocorrected to "Babe?" and I had to hastily reassure my son that I am not, in fact, invested in whether his roommate next year is a snack. 

Happy Easter, everyone. May your eggs be colourful or chocolate or not all in one basket or whatever.