Monthly Archives: April 2013

I’ve been trying to get my blood pressure under control over the last few months.  Apparently I have a type AAAAAAAA personality, which you may already have heard, usually kills a person before they are 30.  At the decrepit age of 45, I figure it’s my amazing genes and medical science that have gotten me this far.  I’m not saying it’s pretty; I’m not saying I’m a model of health and well-being.  What I am saying is that I’m not 6 feet under ground…yet.

One of the newest meds good ol’ Doctor Duggirala tried to put me on was a diuretic.  It worked.  My blood pressure tanked like a pregnant hippo in the zoo pond.  (I don’t know why my mind immediately went to a pregnant hippo when I was searching for a metaphor, but just go with it.  It’s crazy in this head, Vern.)

And if you don’t know how a diuretic works, simply put, it takes fluid volume out of the blood vessels, thereby lessening the pressure within the blood vessels.  This will make you pee.  Often.  Often and copiously.  With no regard to where you may be or what you may be doing at the time.

Every morning I diligently take the two fistfuls of various medicines that keep me artificially alive, and twenty minutes later, the peeing begins.

I also run errands just about every morning.  Not so much because I am busier than a mouse at a burlesque show, but more because I’m inefficient as hell.    And I go to the grocery store about 3 times a week (see inefficiency above).   The pharmacy at my grocery store is on the way to the bathroom, and I always wave to the nice (read: handsome) pharmacist there.  The first day he asked if he could help me, and I simply said, “Diuretic!” as I shook my head.  He smiled and nodded and that was that.   Two days later, he saw me as I was running to the bathroom and he chuckled, “Again?” and I said, “Yep”.   The third time that week I stopped at his counter, after I had peed, and introduced myself.  We had a scintillating discussion about diuretics and I went on my merry way.

The next week as I was passing he said “Hey there, Pam!” as I hustled by.  Then I heard him say to the other guy behind the counter, who I’d never seen, “Oh, that’s just Pam.  Diuretics.”

I’ve been pigeonholed by the meds I take!

Thank God I’m not on Ducolax.

Tonight I saw a photograph of My Captain that had been posted on the Facebook page,  In Memory of Carlos Alfaro Sr. and Jr.   

Over a hundred and fifty photos taken by Carlos over the years were lovingly displayed by his family, and out of them I found this gem of my husband.  I don’t know the year of it, but it’s OLD, I can tell you that!

As I gazed at it, I went through a veritable bevy of unexpected emotions.   I’m hoping you can help me sort them out, since we’re friends and all.  In no certain order, here are the demons that plague me:

Lust: …because hell, look at him.  Who wouldn’t.  A smile like that…good night!

Happy: …how can you look at a picture of such a happy person like that and not smile?

Grateful: …that he’s mine, that he hasn’t died in any of the thousands of situations that could have killed him in over 30 years of firefighting (he started when he was 16!).

Jealous:…that I didn’t know him then, or experience all of his interesting heroics with him.

Angry:…that I missed so much time with him.  Why…WHY did I have to meet him so late in our lives?

Furious…that he never knew me skinny, or not-exhausted, or without facial hair.

Sad:…that all that time is past, never to be seen again.

Amazed:….is that hair on his head???!!!

Most people would look at an old picture of their husband and chuckle or smile.  Most people would continue with their day, go on to lead normal lives.

Me, I go into a full-blown emotional melt-down.  And then I write about it publicly.  In excruciating detail.  With embarrassing frankness, and apparently no shame.

It’s hard to be me sometimes.  Don’t judge.

But seriously, is that hair???!!

I like him better the way he is now.  All wisdom and strength and just as virile as he must have been then.

He’s the BOMB.  My utter and complete Beloved.  I’m entirely blessed.

But I’m still pissed that he never knew me skinny.

This evening my Critter did not want to join the rest of us in attending Varmint’s softball practice.  So I left my smart, resourceful 10-year-old at home running around the yard as Batman with hardly a second thought.  He’d stay out of trouble for an hour, after all, right?

I was confident he’d be just fine.

Picture me, 45 minutes later at the softball field chatting with the other softball mommies when one of them asked me where my Critter was.  I said, “He’s at home.  Didn’t want to come.”

And the look of sheer horror on her face made me blink.

“You left him at home….ALONE?” she asked incredulously.

“Uh, sure!” I replied, feeling a little awkward.  “He’s been able to handle that kind of responsibility for a couple of years now.”  (The legal age to be left alone in our state is 8, provided there are resources nearby for the child.)

Again, she looked at me with horror.   I could feel my cheeks get hot.  I hate hot cheeks!  They usually precede me saying something asinine.

“I could never do that!” She gasped.

“Why not?  When I left him, he was playing Batman happy as a pig in poop.  He was launching himself off the deck to see if his cape would have any aerodynamic ability whatsoever, and having a ball in the process, so why would I drag him away?”

“But what if something happens and he gets hurt?”

My cheeks were on fire, now.

“He knows to call me or 911.  He’s a pretty smart cookie.”

But about that time I remembered that I didn’t have my phone.  I had accidentally left it at home.  Sure, My Captain had his phone with him (he was there with me and Varmint, helping to coach the pitchers) so Critter could get a hold of one of us if need be.  But I didn’t have MY phone, and I knew I would be the first one my baby called.

And So the seed of doubt was planted.  She got me!  That other mommy…. Mommied ME!

My overactive imagination began running amuck.  What if at that very moment he was laying in the yard with one….nay..two broken fibulae and couldn’t call me?  What if he was passed out from the pain and poisonous snakes were advancing on his little body.  What if he had hit his head and was slowly dying of intracranial hemorrhage whispering, “I love you mom! I’m sorry!  But at least I didn’t get your carpet bloody!” to the empty air.  All Alone.

My hands were already in my pocket  reaching for my keys as I dashed to my car, bellowing to My Captain on the ball field that I was leaving and would see him at home.

I went from being confident in my kid to having absolute irrational fear for my kid in 0.02 seconds.

Like any other good mother would do.

And, of course, when I got home, he was fine.

And still jumping off the deck at Mach 3.

Why?

Because he’s Batman.

Today was like any other.  I woke up and immediately swung into gear, which included:

Breakfast

Dishes

Pet care

House chores

Gardening

Errand running

Kid taxiing

and laundry.

Like I said, today was like any other.

Though I did have to wake Batman up from his sleeping position on the chin-up bar in order to deliver his clean skivvies.

What?  Even Batman needs clean underwear!

I have a problem.  (Okay, okay, I know I have several problems, but cut me some slack here for the sake of this discussion, Homer.)

(Is it alright if I call you Homer?)

My dear friend Vicki, who I thought loved me, has played a horrendous joke on me.  She bought me this:

after hitting the after-Easter sales.

Now the fact that she bought me pastel colored candy corn is not the problem.  Anyone who knows me knows that I am one of the 17 people in the whole northern hemisphere that actually enjoys candy corn.   So that part doesn’t really bug me.  In fact, I’m thrilled she thought of me.

No sir, the problem is that she bought over a half a dozen POUNDS of the stuff:

presumably because she knows I am a total pig and have absolutely no self-control.   My Captain won’t eat it.  My Varmint won’t eat it.  This leaves the lot to Critter and myself.  And being a good mama, I’m not about to let my 10-year-old rot his teeth out.

And I can’t throw it away!  That would go against every cell within me that hails from Scotland.  I….just….can’t….do…it…Jim.

(Is it alright if I call you Jim?)

So what am I to do?  I know it won’t go stale, but like I could ever just let it sit.  C’mon, we’re being real here.  That is simply not happening.

What am I to do?