All Or Nothing

Oh, Cody

Well, it has been a while since he's graced us with the material for one of these stories.  I guess we were due.

It all started a couple of weeks ago when Cody started a new rotation at a clinic in a town about 30 miles from where we live.  Because he was going to be getting up at least 45 minutes earlier than normal, we attempted to get into SOMEWHAT of a routine at night.  (For past attempts at routine, see this, this or this).

Cody is a night owl, and all attempts to determine what I am (night owl/early bird) have failed.  If I have to get up early, I am most certainly NOT a night owl, but am more of whatever type of species you imagine being horribly snarly and mean.  If I can sleep late, then I am happy to stay up til whenever.  Cody doesn't care if he has to get up early - actually he DOES care, but all attempts for him to override his natural compulsion to stay up late are generally met with failure.  He tries to go to bed, but always finds something more interesting to do, like watching SportsCenter or losing his keys. 

This perfect storm of disorganization results in the evening "routine" Cody and I have developed over the nearly four years we've been married.  Sometime between 7-10pm we eat something, and usually we're watching television while eating and/or after we're done eating.  Either that or we've gone out to eat somewhere, and may or may not even come back home until 10:30-11.  Sometimes we forget about eating until really late, and then Cody tells me that he's hungry.  Those are the nights I feel like a REALLY good wife.

We end up watching things that have backed up on our Tivo until at least midnight, and it's only then that either one of us even thinks about STARTING the true bedtime routine; a complicated dance that involves the following:

• Locating and bringing inside Sophie, the outside cat
• Chasing Jill (the mean cat) out from under the guest-room bed and into the laundry room
• Thawing the raw meat patties to feed Lydah (which is, as Cody puts it, "an up-at-dawn, pride-swallowing siege")
• Taking Lydah out and making her go to the bathroom so that she doesn't wake us up at 3am by standing over us in bed, panting
• Getting into bed 

Of course Cody has to have a movie playing in the bedroom DVD to fall asleep, a habit I HATED when we first got married but have now gotten completely used to and hardly even notice.  It was a good trade for me anyway, because the habit he had to lose out on in the compromise was the one where he set his alarm clock like, over an hour early and HIT THE SNOOZE, EVERY FIVE MINUTES, FOR OVER AN HOUR.  Boy, those were the days.

(The habit I had to lose was listening to soft music as I fell asleep.  I know, who would EVER WANT TO DO THAT?)

Anyway.  By the time we've stopped watching back episodes of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and finished the bedtime routine, it's easily 1am.  And I don't care, because I hardly ever have to be up early in the morning but Cody does care, because he has to be up early every day.  And you might think that he would catch on to the fact that every day he has to be up early, and every night he stays up late, and therefore every morning he is miserable, but you would be wrong.  Each night it's like a brand-new misery; he looks at the bedside clock, reads off some permutation of "AM", and gets all upset.

Recently, though, with the new clinic rotation and added insult of a 45 minute drive every morning, Cody decided to make a change.  I fully support all of Cody's "change" decisions (for their entertainment value if nothing else), and so I happily went along.  Plus, I already have my doubts about how I'll ever make it as a mom (see: total disorganization, lack of routine, staying up late, sleeping late, needing my sleep desperately), and I kind of feel like I NEED to get on a good routine as far as normal sleep/wake habits.

11-11:30pm was decided upon as the bedtime goal, and for the past couple of weeks, I'd say that we've hit that goal at least 70% of the time - a success, in my opinion.  It's still hard though, to get up earlier than you're used to, and since Cody's been having to do that, I've been fielding all 3am Lydah bathroom breaks.  She's just so annoying, that dog.  I know it's probably our fault, feeding her so late and then expecting her little system to do a digestive miracle a mere 20 minutes after she's eaten, but geez.  Can't she hold it 8 hours? 

No.  No, she can't.  And when she decides she wants to go, she does this awful thing where she walks around on the bed, stepping on all our limbs, and then finally squeezes herself in between our heads, sitting upright, panting loudly.  Since Cody can sleep through a tornado (and has, actually! another story for another day!) I am ALWAYS the one woken up by hot dog breath on my face.  (Sidenote: foreshadowing for future midnight baby feedings, anyone?)

Normally we fight over who has to take her out, a fight which involves me waking up, Lydah panting heavily, Cody sleeping peacefully, me getting annoyed that he's somehow managing to stay asleep, me kicking Cody and telling him to take Lydah out, and him saying okay and then rolling over and falling back asleep immediately.  Without taking her out.  But for his first week of work, I just decided to forego all the procedure and skip to the part where I take her out.  I mean, that's what happens anyway, 90% of the time.  Oh, and obviously we don't have a fence, or all of this would be totally pointless as we would just open the door, shove Lydah into the backyard, and be done with it.

Earlier this week though, Cody took Lydah out to the bathroom before bed and didn't stick around to make sure she went.  This is a surefire way to make sure I get woken up at 3am, and so when it happened I was annoyed.  I took her out, but as I came back to bed I told Cody that the next 7 times were all going to be his turn.  He mumbled "okay" and rolled over.  Always coming up with something new, that Cody.

Anyway, last night Lydah started up with her whole panting routine and somehow (miracle? karma?) Cody HEARD her, and woke up.  He also remembered the "next 7 times" conversation and dragged himself out of bed to take the dog out, griping all the way.  I rolled over to fall back asleep, relishing in the freedom of covers all to myself and appreciative of Cody for taking the stupid dog out.  I didn't really expect him to do it.

Cue to OVER AN HOUR LATER, I am suddenly awakened by frantic dog barking, coming from outside.  I jump out of bed, blearily looking around for Lydah or Cody, seeing no one, but hearing even louder barking from outside.  I open the french doors from our bedroom and run out onto the screen porch, yelling for Lydah.  At the same time I hear Cody opening the front door and calling for Lydah from the front porch.  About a minute later Lydah comes bounding in the house, full of puppy energy, happy to be back inside.  Cody walks back into our room looking sleepy and I ask him if he just left Lydah outside, roaming the neighborhood, for over an hour.  He confirms that he did.  I ask him why.  He says he fell asleep on the couch after he opened the front door and let her out.  I tell him that I certainly hope he doesn't think this counts as one of his 7 turns.  He says that it should.

So I ask you, Internet:  Should it?

An Oldie But A Goodie Nonetheless

****And the beat goes on****

No more whining coming from over here.  The official stance of the House of Carter is that Lydah is going to be fine; will heal and will recover.  The end!

(If you keep saying it, it will become true - right?)

Kitters, on the other hand, will have to rest in peace, but I think that's alright because she was at least 117 years old, in the feline world.  That's a nice long life and I can only imagine that if I were 117 years old and forced to live outside on the back porch I would probably be ready to throw in the towel as well.

****Best search keywords from last month****

This time, I found the "how to" questions and the confessions ("I did activity X") to be the most interesting.  Some examples?  Sure!

1.  "how to deal with a guest that lost his keys"

I actually feel uniquely qualified to answer this, not because I often host guests who lose their keys, but because as the wife of Cody, I have often been the guest who has lost their keys.  I'd say your best bet is to either crack open another drink and make the best of it, or (if you're really sick of us), offer to drive us home with lots of assurances that the keys will turn up somewhere the next day.  And roll your eyes a lot. I hear eye-rolling works well in situations such as these.  Cody LOVES it.

2.  "how to bite girls toenails if I am the girl"

Hmm.  I have no problem biting my own toenails, and so I can't see why you're having such a tough time with it.  Maybe more yoga or something?

3.  "how to store headbands organize"

You seem to have answered your own question there, smarty.

4.  "how to poison my husbands dog"

My gosh.  It's like you have no tact.  Either that, or you haven't even been READING what's been going on around here lately.  Poor Lydah is all hurt and dying getting better and healing and all you can talk about is finding ways to kill dogs.  Well, if you MUST, I'd try feeding your husband's dog some fancy canned pet food from the pet food recall.  I think that'll do the trick nicely.  And you'll come off as the kind and caring doggy mommy, who only wanted little Fido to have some special treats.

And now for the confessions:

1.  "I go motions sickness on the airplane and puked in the air sick bag and my self"

Gross.

2.  "I got motion sickness on a airplane and puked on a flight attedent"

Again, gross!  Also, you sound like you've got a nasty cold.  Go blow your nose before typing anything else.

3.  "I walk around nude in front of my baby sitter" 

Wow!  Opportunistic little gal/guy!

4.  "I'm a pretty pony clippity-clop dragonrealms and I love to have my coat brushed"

Where to start?  First of all, I seriously doubt that you're a pony at all.  I mean, let's get real.  Ponies aren't well-known for trolling the Internet, typing vain phrases about themselves into search engines.  You just don't have the hooves for it.  Secondly, as we've already established that you're more than likely NOT a pony, we don't even need to get into the ridiculous arrogance and fallacy that lies within the whole "pretty" thing.  So there we go.  You aren't a pony, you DEFINITELY are not a "pretty" pony, and while I will admit to being confused about the "clippity-cliop dragonrealms" part of your message, I'll go ahead and call foul on that as well.  Clippity-clop sounds suspiciously like you're trying to emulate pony noises, which really makes the whole thing even MORE pathetic, as we've already all agreed that you are NOT a pony.  Stop trying so hard.  And you like to get your coat brushed?  Really?  After all of this?  You're still claiming to have a coat?

It's sad, is what it is.  Sad.   

What are the best search phrases you've seen this month?

Nothing Fun Here; Holiday Happiness Seekers Can Move Right Along

Well.  Lydah has everything you can imagine wrong with her, and then some.

No, that's not fair.  I suppose she could have had cancer and the vet could have told us that she had to be put down right that very second.  That didn't happen.

However, she does have the torn ACL, she does have a severe enzyme deficiency, and she does have bad hips.  Which, although that sounds like the least of the problems, is really the very, very worst.  You see, bad hips is what you pray your (especially large breed) dog won't have.  Because if they have bad hips then they are really likely to get hip dysplasia, which is a chronic, debilitating disease.  And then you have to put them down, because they are in too much pain.  And guess what!  Lydah is a "very strong candidate" for hip dysplasia.

Boy, I am a real joy to be around right now!

Of course, we need to take into effect that I am, as a friend puts it, not just a "glass half-empty" person, but rather a "glass is half-poison" person.  And Cody is more of a "glass half-full" or a "what glass; I have forgotten about it altogether in my endless and boundless optimism" person.  So if you, as my vet, give me a pretty negative diagnosis, I am going to go home, dress myself all in black, start tearing my garments and putting ashes on my head and mourning inconsolably.  And Cody is going to want to rent a movie and pop some popcorn.

Anyway.

My in-laws have had this same cat for over 20 years.  The cat, who became known only as "Kitters" (after no one cared enough to name her), has outlasted at least three dogs, several unintentional starvations, and a serious case of worms that may have lasted for at least 5 of those 20 years (my father-in-law, one day recently: "you know, we just thought Kitters had gotten awfully skinny these last few years, but turns out it was just worms!  Whaddaya know?").  He then bought some really cheap de-worming stuff and Kitters recovered beautifully.  Anyway, she's the sweetest and toughest cat ever, and last night, right after we found out about Lydah's DEATH SENTENCE, we got the call that Kitters had died.

Sucky, sucky days.

At Least Our Nightly Rates Are Competitive

As a follow-up to that last post, I thought I'd share another short story of hospitality and house guests.  You see, my husband's family is just notoriously hospitable, and will pretty much put up anyone for any length of time should the need arise.  They are kind of like a halfway house, a mini-hotel, and a work-site all in one.  You can stay there for as long as you want, but be prepared to maybe build an entire wall out of pea-gravel and mortar you'll mix yourself.  That's all I'm sayin'.

Because of their extensive experience in hosting guests, sometimes for extended periods of time, we have taken the opportunity to learn from Cody's parents' store of knowledge.  One of the results of this is that we're pretty much going to say yes to anyone who needs to stay with us, at any time, for pretty much however long they want to stay.  Another result is that we learned early the Carter Cardinal Rule of Hosting: Never, ever give up your own bed.  You'll only be sore and tired and, eventually, resentful.

So!  We don't give up our own bed.  And at this point, probably no one would even want it.  We have a relative menagerie of animals running around here, and one or two of them usually end up sleeping in or around our bed.  I really don't feel like we have that many animals, especially since I am currently trying to convince Cody that we could use another puppy.  However, the other day when I was vacuuming absolute meteor-sized hairballs off the floor, I mentioned to my friend that I just couldn't believe how much animal hair was always all over the place.  "I mean, I vacuum like two or three times a week now, and it doesn't matter!  I can't imagine if I waited an entire week before cleaning.  Why are they shedding so bad?"  She replied by confirming whether or not we had two cats and a big, double-coated dog, all living inside.  When I replied in the affirmative, she said "Well, that's your problem.  You have THREE ANIMALS, just running free all over your house.  What would you expect?" 

I guess I expected a little bit more courteous shedding habits, or something.

Anyway.  Lydah nearly always sleeps in our bed with us, and one of our cats, Sophia, will certainly try to sneak in there given the chance.  Jill, our second cat, pretty much hates everyone, everything, and the very fact that she is alive, and therefore spends the vast majority of her time hiding under the bed in our guest room.  This is important to the story - some might call it foreshadowing.  Ooh.

Over the Fourth of July, we always have a big party out at the lake, and end up hosting quite a few people at our house.  Two years ago it was something like eleven people.  Last year it ended up more like six or eight.  Either way it's always fun, even when everyone loses their minds, collectively, and decides that sleeping is unnecessary.  This year, a new couple came to join the festivities, and we graciously offered up our guest room, it being the only other room in our house with an actual bed.  They even more graciously accepted our offer, and I had a fun time putting together a little basket of toiletries and other cutesy stuff that only a girl would care about.  Normally we seem to have a high percentage of male guests around here, so I was excited to have a female staying as well.  And she totally liked the basket.  She told me!

So, our new friends, Mr. and Mrs. Houseguest, were sleeping in the guest room.  Since Jill the Cat hates life in all its forms, especially human, she immediately vacated the premises as soon as she found that her space had been invaded.  I'm not sure where she went, but she was nowhere to be found.  She needn't have worried, given the fact that NO ONE SLEPT, LIKE EVER, for the first few nights, but she had relocated either way.  On the third night, sometime around 4am, people decided that they might want to get some shut-eye and so Mr. and Mrs. Houseguest made their way into the guest room, shut the door, and called it a night.  Only to emerge a half-hour later or so, carrying Sophie the Friendly Cat, who had squirmed her way through the crack in the door and was trying to snuggle up in bed with them.  They deposited Sophie outside the door, made sure the door was shut, and went back to sleep.  Always the tenacious one, Sophie spent the next 45 minutes or so outside their room, double-paw scratching at the door, hoping that one of those mighty paw-swipes would open the door and she could hop back in the bed.  Apparently she gave up after a while because our guests did eventually get some sleep that night.  They reported all of this to us the next morning over coffee, and we all laughed together because of how gracious they were being about our annoying cat.  We promised to sequester Sophie the following night so that they wouldn't be treated to a repeat of Cat, The Musical: If Scratching Doesn't Work, I'll Try Meowing Next!

True to our word, the next evening (well, maybe it was 3am) arrived, and we made sure that Sophie was locked in the laundry room with her food and litter box.  Jill was still MIA, so we didn't really worry about her.  Our friends retreated to their room, said goodnight, and shut the door.  I'm not sure whether they were just lying in bed talking, or what it was that caused the incident, but suddenly Mrs. Houseguest heard a strange growling noise.  "What IS that?  Do you hear that?  It sounds like...are you snoring?"  They both quickly determined that no one was, in fact, snoring, and that more than likely there was an animal in the room.  However, they had both witnessed our locking-up of Sophia and because Jill is so anti-social, neither the Mr nor the Mrs were even aware that she existed. 

So there they are, our new friends, lying in bed in the dark, listening to some strange animal's growling, petrified that maybe there is a stray raccoon or possum in their bedroom.  Mrs. Houseguest leaned over to turn on the bedside lamp, and as she brought her arm up to the light, she brushed up against fur.  "Aaahh!" she screamed, and in reflex, hit the button on the lamp.  The whole room lit up brightly, showcasing a bristling Jill, sitting directly on the edge of the bedside table, baring her teeth and letting out a loud and hateful "HISSSSSSSS!"

"Is this Sophie?!?" Mrs. Houseguest questioned, panicked.  "I don't think this is Sophie!  Sophie is....not like this!"  Mr. Houseguest got up, removed the hissing Jill from the room, and they laid back down in silence.  "I don't think that was the same cat," said Mrs.  "I don't think so either," said Mr.  "Holy crap, that was scary," Mrs commented.

"Yeah, they totally have stray cats, taking over their house."

iSight Is Awesome! Or, The Most Boring Post Ever! (You Choose)

I love my MacBook.  Have I mentioned that?  Because I really love my MacBook.  It has so many interesting features, and I don't even know how to use most of them.  Mainly because I'm dumb. For example, I have been told there is a widget called Flores.  This particular widget is supposed to tell me when I get a new email by blooming prettily as an flowering icon at the bottom of my screen.  Cute, right?  But stupid me, I can't HAVE Flores.  No, as soon as I try to install Flores, the Flores people ask me all sorts of questions about my POP server and various incoming and outgoing mail servers and how to solve the Rubik's cube in UNDER 3.7 minutes and what my original thoughts are on global warning.  Also, how to properly sear beef.  And, as anyone who has eaten with me will attest, I'm not qualified to answer ANY of those questions.

However.  The iSight is delightfully easy to operate (click on the little camera, and it counts down from three!) and so I often take pictures of...well....everything.  Most often, as you'll see, "everything" means "cats".  And this makes "Elise" "boring".  Or, possibly, "crazy".  But, nonetheless, cat pictures!  And different iSight effects!  Yay!

Jill, as shown in the Comic Book effect.

Sophia, as shown in the Colored Pencil effect. 

Elise, as shown in the Pop Art effect.  Don't I look kind of man-ish?

Elise and Jill, as shown in the Sepia effect.  The only way to get Jill to stay anywhere, for any amount of time, is to let her lick your fingers.  She never tires of this, and it's yet another example of her socially deficient personality.

Elise and Jill, as shown in the Black and White effect.  This picture PERFECTLY sums up Jill, and her feelings on the world at large.  See how miserable she looks?  How annoyed, and beaten down by life?  She hates everyone, all the time.  Oh Jill, your life, truly, is difficult.

This is as still as Sophie gets.  I have to hold her down and give her the kiss of death - pressure on the top of her head - for her to sit still at all.  Ever.  Her eyes are yellow and have this funny way of looking like they're narrowed permanently in a glare.  However, Sophie is, far and away, the friendliest, most loving cat I have ever encountered.  In other words, she is the polar opposite of Jill.

My cats, they hate each other.  I keep waiting for the day when they'll be best friends, and will curl up together on the bed and sleep in a cozy ball of felineity.  And all I get in thanks for my dreams of love and peace is this:

"Grooooooowwwwllllllllllll......Grrrrrrrrr....rarururrrrrrrrr...."

"HISSSSSSSSSS!  Hisssssss, hisssSSSSSSS!"

Very pleasant creatures, cats.