Kate

Swine flu panic, it sweeps through doctor's offices and emergency rooms, schools, offices, and even through the heart of our not-so-stalwart, moronic Vice President.

Every year the regular flu virus kills 36,000 people. In the U.S., there's been ONE confirmed death from the swine flu, a 2 year old Mexican child. You know, because it's the very young, very old, and those with poor immune systems that are most susceptible. There are only 109 confirmed cases in this country, and the treatment is pretty much the exact same as treatment for the regular flu, but everyone's in an uproar.
Mer called me this morning and told me she was sick. "I know this sounds ridiculous, but my friend told me to look up swine flu on the internet, and I have the symptoms. Can we go to the doctor and get it checked out?"

I assured her she didn't have swine flu, if she was sick she could stay home from school, but let's wait and see before rushing off to the doctor because unless she had an infection, there wasn't much they could do for her. Besides, it's spring in the allergy capitol of the universe and we went from temperatures in the 90s to temperatures in the 50s this week. People always get sick in changing weather.

She went to school, walked into her class looking a little flushed and coughing. The teacher didn't even let her sit down before she sent her out of the classroom and to the clinic. The nurse called me and wanted me to take Mer to the doctor to get a nasal swab to test for swine flu, just in case. Could we get an appointment today because they won't let her back in school without a note from the doctor saying she doesn't have it. *headdesk* Okay.

We go to the doctor, who is right there with us in the eye-rolling. The office is hopping because EVERYONE thinks they've got frickin' swine flu. He looks her over and says he thinks she's got bronchitis and allergies, but if we want him to, he'll prescribe Tamiflu, which doesn't actually cure the swine flu but just shortens the length of time you have it and reduces symptoms.

I don't really want to give her a drug she doesn't need, and I ask about the nasal swab, explaining that she has to have a note declaring her swine-flue-free to go back to school. Dr. V rolls his eyes. "The nasal swab tests for the regular flu. The only way to test for swine flu is to do a blood draw, send it to the CDC, and wait a week for a negative result."

So we're in between a rock and a hard place. Mer doesn't have swine flu, but the doctor can't provide us a written statement saying that because she hasn't been tested. We have the Tamiflu prescription, but I'm not going to fill it until I talk to the school nurse. She needs to know she's giving out bad information, and that Meredith can't miss her night school class if she's going to graduate. I'll be damned if I'm going to have her sit out a week for no reason. She'll stay home tomorrow because she is sick, but come Monday, I want her back in school. God help them if they give me a hard time.

People need to chill out and try to look at this with a tiny bit of perspective. And WHO needs quit trying to scare people over bullshit.

So, a few months ago I offered up some of Mer's old clothes to people. Terribly sorry for the delay, 'late' is generally how I roll. Yesterday I finally mailed those out.

Except Nicole's, because I'm pretty sure she moved after I got her address and I didn't want to send the package to the wrong place in Canada. That would be bad. So, Nicole, if you would go here: http://mugglechump.livejournal.com/205428.html and leave me your new address, I'll get that out to you this coming week. And you'll get a Christmas card, too.

In fact, if anyone wants a Christmas/other holiday card they should also click on that link and leave me their address, assuming they haven't already done so.

I'm rambling. You get the drift.

In news of things even less scintillating, I'm making a Romy mood theme. It is a long and tedious process, but I want one. Depending on how long it takes me, I may do some for my other characters. We'll see. There are some already-made mood themes for various VRs around, but I've had a hard time finding ones I like. Call me picky. I did manage to find a decent one for Reilly, only to discover that the Si Muove rpg community is set up to use smileys on all entries. Oh well, at least her journal entries will have pretty moods.

I'm almost out of milk and I don't want to go out. Maybe Meredith will stop by today and I can send her erranding for me. *hopes*

Oh, and since music spamming is the thing to do lately, here's my contribution. I love William Joseph. (Dr.Phil? Not so much.)

Okay, it's been forever since I've done a real update, so I'll try to catch up on the important moments in the last - what? - two months or so? *shrugs* A long time at any rate. My life is pretty routine anyway, so it won't take that long.

( The excitement that is my life )

Saw a fabulous bumper sticker on the way home today:

Hope is not a foreign policy. Just ask Neville Chamberlain.


Odd occurrences of late (note the common denominator of Meredith):

- Meredith drove to Quizno's, parked the car, and waited for another car to pass before she crossed the parking lot to get to the store. As she crossed, the car she'd waited for stopped and backed into her, then drove off. Yes, she's fine. I did get a very incredulous call, though. "Someone ran into me!" Then she opted for the comfort of Coldstone over the numminess of Quizno's.

- Saturday night around 10:30 I heard the door to the apartment open. Assuming it was Meredith, who'd spent the evening visiting her friends from our old house, I called, "Hello." A very male, "Hi, Mom" was the response. I recognized the voice as belonging to Mer's ex-boyfriend Derek, and assumed that they'd hooked up somewhere over the course of the evening and she'd brought him home to hang out. As I was running around in my jammies, I started for my bedroom door to tell Mer I wasn't dressed for company and I'd rather she took Derek home. Just before I got to the door, Derek asked, "Is she back there with you?" He wasn't with Meredith at all. The boy had just walked into my home like he lived here!

- Around 11:00 Saturday night, Mer called to tell me she'd locked the keys in the car. In Leesburg. (Read: 30 minutes away.) We only have one working car at the moment because I haven't gotten the convertible fixed from her little run-in with the curb several weeks ago. Fortunately her dad was able to bring her home and James took me to get the car on Sunday. We had to jump start it because Meredith had locked the keys inside with the radio on.

Other random things:

- Went to see Prince Caspian with James and Sheridan yesterday. Had a good time. Sheridan liked it, but was disappointed that it didn't remain faithful to the book. A hard lesson to learn at the age of 10.

- Speaking of Sheridan, she amuses me. (I know, not exactly news.) The other day I went over to Richard and Tracey's to pick up the lasagna and barbeque Richard had saved for me - Have I mentioned my love for my BIL? - and Sheridan was slicing up a Japanese persimmon. She'd never had one before and wanted to try it. She cut a piece for me, too, and after I'd eaten it she asked my opinion. I told her that I liked it, it was sweet. Sher said, "I like it, too. It's subtle." And it was. I smiled and Mer gave Sher the 'Could you be any freaking smarter?' stare.

I made pirate panty icons and a few text icons. Woo hoo!

( Iconses! )

Other items of note (or that I feel like sharing, noteworthy or not):

- Today is my 11th wedding anniversary. Obviously didn't celebrate it, as James and I are separated.
- Went to see Iron Man with Mom, Kenny, James, and Mer. Enjoyed it, although I'm not as rapturous over it as a lot of people.
- Elephants have moved in above me. Graceless elephants. Wish they would learn how to walk without shaking the freaking building. Seriously, I never heard my previous upstairs neighbors. The new ones are clomping around 24/7. Annoying. Might have to say something.
- I do not understand the appeal of Rod Stewart. Can't stand his music.
- I'm out of milk again. I bought two gallons last weekend. Apparently we are some serious milk drinkers. Not really a surprise. Ovaltine FTW!
- I think I'm going to take a 401K loan and pay off the personal loan I have. On the one hand, I hate to deplete my 401K, but on the other hand, it's trading a ridiculously high interest rate for a very low one. The 401K loan is repaid directly out of my paycheck in an amount of time I get to select, AND it doesn't show up on my credit report. Not to mention that I'm paying the interest to myself, essentially, with a 401K loan. Decision: Benefits outweigh the drawbacks.
- I want to scene more. Who wants to scene with me? In Caliga I've got Susan, Romy, Miles, and Sam. In Muove I've got Susan, Romy, and Emma. They're all looking at you with puppy eyes. Play with them.
- Speaking of scening, I'm planning to audition another Caliga character. Yeah, I know. I know.
- Continuing to speak of RPGs, if you aren't playing, are you reading? Why not? Go, read. It's fun! caliga_rpg and si_muove_rpg. Check 'em out.
- Need to send out snail mail. Badly. Am a bad friend.

Mer's gone until Monday. Woot! I've been pretty frustrated with her the last couple weeks, so this break is well-timed. She and her dad (and the rest of their crew) are headed down to NC to see Jeff Dunham (?). I think he's a comedian/ventriloquist guy.

I have seven rpg characters. Why do I not have more scenes? Must find plot. *looks under cushions* Who wants to scene with me? Anyone? Anyone? (I actually do have some things lined up, but they're mostly stand-alone scenes. Not much meaty stuff.)

I have seven characters that aren't being scened terribly often as it is, so why am I tempted to bat eyelashes to be allowed a 4th Muove character? Because I want a Muove boy. Three girls and a boy, that's my thing. In Caliga it's Susan, Romy, Sam, and Miles. In Muove I have Susan, Romy, and Emma. No boy. I'm not sure WHICH boy, but I have a VR picked and everything. For a character I can't have, don't need, and have no plan for. Logic - not my strong suit.

I'll be putting up a lyric meme later. Fair warning.

My boss bought lunch for us today. Yay Jeff.

Our new subcontracts rep is a nice-ish guy, but he's so not getting the job done. He's overwhelmed, which may or may not be the reason for his incompetence, but he also has no tact and little professionalism. Very soon the villagers will be coming for him with pitchforks. It won't be pretty. Poor bastard just relocated here from another state, bet he regrets that.

I'm pretty sure there was more I wanted to say, but I can't think of what it was.

This is a very rambly post, but there is one important thing I need to cover first:

Carrie - Can you post the Michael/Susan scene this morning? We never said who was going to do it and my internet cut out at home just before I left for work so I couldn't email the scene to my work account. No big deal if you can't, we can just post it late. Thanks!

I really want to do the music meme that's going around, and I've been tagged to do the 10 people of serious yayness meme (ok, so that's not what it's called, but you know the one I'm talking about) by a couple people, and I do intend to do them. I just haven't yet. The music one is time consuming, and the 10 people one makes me limit the number of people I can squee about. I may have to break the rules for both and just answer as many as I want. You all know me. I can't pick favorites of anything. I'm all about the free love for all. Non-sexually speaking, of course.

I have two scenes going on that I'm very pleased with so far. I scened a few others over the weekend, and have a few waiting to be started. I'm always happy when I'm busy with Caliga stuff, though I did have a brief moment or two of panic this weekend when I allowed my imagination to run a little too wild and I envisioned both my girls getting the brush off from men in their lives, and one in particular spiraling into a pit of despair which ended with our favorite vampire getting the privilege of offing her at her request. Yeah, I got carried away. I'm better now.

Fictional men are ever so much more appealing than real ones. Why can't there be a real life Michael, or Oliver, or Justin? *sigh* Don't even get me started on fictional men outside the realm of Caliga. So much love.

I still need to post my Grayson pictures. I've seen her a few times in the last couple weeks, so yay for that! She's such a cutie. Tiny, but cute. She's seven months old now and still about 14 lbs. Little, bitty baby. She's developing well, though. She's started crawling. Gracie's being baptized at the end of the month and Becky asked me to be her godmother. *beams* I'm seriously beside myself with excitement. I'd honestly never even considered that she might ask. She said they're asking James to be her godfather, and I think he'll be very touched.

Blergh. I put way too much sugar in my coffee this morning.

Meredith broke up with her boyfriend. They were together for over three months. That's got to be a near record for her. I asked who was warming up in the bullpen, but she said she was sick of boys and didn't want another boyfriend right now. Right. That'll last.

She got a call from her buddy Robert, the kid I always wanted her to date from our old neighborhood. His older brother died in his sleep, they haven't determined why yet. I feel horribly for him. Robert is a really sweet kid.

That's about it for now.

First off, let me apologize profusely for not having wished Ayla a happy birthday ON her birthday. So, HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY, AYLA!

And a big happy birthday to Yssa, too!

( Random newsiness and babble )

It's 3 a.m. and I just got home. We left for Mer's game at 7:40 or so because we needed to stop and pick her up some Propel (she just won't drink plain water, I've tried). The game was at 9:00. Our team got butchered. Seriously, it was horrible. Mercy rules came into play. Just bad, all around. One of our players threw up. Mer got a serious case of vertigo and passed out briefly (not actually on the field). I had to help her to the car because she was so dizzy and her vision was blurry. We went to the ER where she had:

- 2 chest x-rays
- EKG
- CAT scan of her chest with IV contrast
- Blood work
- Urine test
- 2 bags of IV fluids
- Blood pressure taken laying down, after sitting upright for 5 minutes, and after standing for 5 minutes

They thought about keeping her overnight, but decided she could go home. She can't participate in the bowling tournament in Richmond tomorrow, though, because they don't want her doing anything physical until we see a cardiologist on Monday. (This means her teammates, who she doesn't have contact information for, won't get to play because they won't have a full team.)

As dramatic as all this sounds, more than likely she just overexerted herself and was dehydrated and hadn't eaten enough. She was pretty out of it, though, so we needed to get her checked out.

Just as an aside, my daughter knows people everywhere we go. Her dad is the same way. They just know people. Everywhere. Mer even ran into someone she knew at an amusement park in Florida. Tonight was no exception. The boy 3 rooms down from Mer in the ER was a kid she went to middle school with and had kept in touch with. Mer's dad (he came out to the hospital) knew the kid's mom. So, Rob meandered between the two rooms chatting, and Mer had to stop and see Gregory (the seriously cute boy - all 6'5" of him) before we left.

Anyhoo, I'm tired. It's now nearly 3:30. I think I'll go to bed.

It's positively painful to be at the office today. Very few people are in this week, and those that were here have mostly gone for the day. I'm very tempted to sneak out myself. Seriously, this place is tedious over the holidays.

However, my fellow project controllers surprised me with cake today. I really had no idea what was going on, despite being perfectly aware that my birthday is this weekend. So that was nice. We munched and chatted just enough about work that we could justifiably charge the time.

My boss and one of my co-workers were no here to partake. Jeff left early, and Tiff has been placed on bedrest. She's 19 weeks pregnant and they are hoping to keep her from delivering until week 25 at least, but her pregnancy history is not great. This is her 5th pregnancy, I believe. The child from her only successful pregnancy was born in October of last year. Keep her in your thoughts, please.

I need to go to the grocery and get staples, at least. I'm out of milk and pretty much every other type of drink save Gatorade (blech!) and old beer. Beer's just not good on cereal.

I actually did go to dinner with my dad and my brothers last night. We went to Clyde's. Dad and I had a relatively friendly argument about illegal immigration. He also offered to pay for my divorce lawyer. Fun family moments. Clyde's beef stew is pretty yummy.

Meredith took the hermit crabs to her little cousins last night. Tommy is 7 and Joey is 5, I think. Tommy's scared of them. Joey doesn't mind them as long as Mer doesn't take them completely out of the tank. Hopefully Mer's Aunt Sherri will take proper care of them. I sent all their provisions, and a paper full of instructions. I also re-iterated my threat to Mer's dad that if he shows up with any more living creatures, expecting me to house them, I will remove his bits with a dull knife. He still thinks I'm joking. I'm not.

I had a bit of a scare just before Christmas. I was out shopping and suddenly my check card started getting declined. As I had gotten paid just two days before this occurred, I was a bit perplexed. Fortunately, I had done all the immediately necessary shopping and was only working on the last few things I need to mail out. Anyway, I went to the bank yesterday to ask about it. It seems there is a daily limit to how much you can charge on the debit card. I don't think I reached the amount they told me, but the balance they showed available was pretty close to what I expected to be in the account, so I guess all is right with the world again. I'm glad it didn't screw up my Christmas shopping too badly.

Yesterday I also went to the DMV for two flippin' hours. I needed to:

- renew my license
- change my address
- provide proof of insurance
- change the address on my registration for the Sebring
- register the Buick
- update my voting registration (Yes, we do that at the DMV here. Motor voter.)

I managed all of it except the parts to do with the car registrations. I couldn't change the address for the Sebring because James' name is first on the title. So he has to go in and change it to my address, even though I'm the one using (and paying for) that car. Or I can try to get his name taken off, but then I'd have to re-do the loan paperwork and blahblahblah. Too much hassle.

In order to register the Buick, which is currently titled in Florida in both of my grandparents' names, I have to bring in both of their death certificates and my mom's paperwork stating she is the executor of the estate and has authority to sign the title over to me. The Florida registration is good until February, so that gives me a little time to gather all that crap. Ah, the DMV. Second only to the IRS for most hated government office.

Well, that's all the stuff I can think to gripe about at the moment. Is it time to go home yet?