Don’t Just Look. Feel. Smell. And Other Things I Say to Mike.

So I know…I’m blogging again. Gasp! Shock! Applaud! Are we done yet?

Being a single parent sucks. When Mike is out-of-town, I’m a complete mess. I wake up every hour, I sleep with the lights on, the tv on, the alarm on. I check the windows a million times…every sound is either an earthquake or a burglar. I’d prefer burglar…at least I could aim a rifle at him…maybe. Earthquakes I’m just a sitting duck.

What happened last night kind of takes the cake in my ability to be a single mom superwoman. I pick Ava up from school, head to the gym, get home, cook dinner (and by cook I mean microwave chicken nuggets) and while I’m “cooking” I decide to empty the litter box. While I’m doing this Ava comes into the kitchen to tell me she wants six chicken nuggets, not the original four she requested and that she would like ketchup AND honey tonight. I answer her, she tells me the kitty box stinks and to put the lid back on, which I do. I walk away and that’s that.

UNTIL 5pm today when I get the following phone call from Mike:

Him: Just a piece of advice…
Me: What? What did I do?
Him: When did you empty the litter box?
Me: Last night. Why?
Him: Last night?!?!?!
Me: Just tell me what happened!!!!
Him: Babe, you put the lid on backwards.
Me: What do you mean backwards?
Him: Meaning the entrance to get in is facing the wall…there is no entrance.  
Me: Oh my God!
Him: So last night at what time?
Me: Like 8pm. I think. Shit.
Him: I’m trying to figure out where she went to the bathroom.
Me: Have you checked the beds? Check the beds…this isn’t something we want to find out at 10pm tonight when we’re trying to go to sleep.
Him: I’m looking.
Me: Don’t just look. Feel. Smell. (yes…I said smell)

And this, people, is why I should not be left alone. I can’t even empty a litter box and put the lid back on correctly. I’m sure many of you are questioning my ability to parent at this point. We’re totally fine there though since Mike always leaves the toilet seat up we’re in no danger blocking the entrance to Ava’s bathroom. At some point I’ll share the story about the time a guest came over and put the toilet seat down.

I’ve Lost It…Officially

I think I’ve officially lost my mind. Do you want to know what happens when I spend eight hours driving to Sonoma, four hours drinking wine, wake up the next morning at 4:30 am and watch a friend cross the Vineman finish line? I sign up for a half-marathon and a triathlon a week apart. For real.

I think I was feeling a bit inspired when I hit the “Sign up here” button. Because the problem is that it’s August 17th and I was supposed to start training two weeks ago but I decided to buy a house too. So yeah…there’s that whole moving thing getting in the way of my plan to conquer, well, everything. And then there’s that 9 mile run in there the morning after my friend Katy’s wedding. Yeah…that’s gonna happen for sure. As a matter of fact, if you’re in Michigan on September 11th and see me running just slap me because nobody should run 9 miles after attending a friend’s wedding. Running that day would mean I failed as a wedding guest.

Have you ever almost been eaten by a shark?

So about twelve years ago I took a trip to Catalina Island. Catalina is right off the coast of California and has some great diving sites. So, my boyfriend, at the time, took me there for an anniversary. I love snorkeling, so it was assumed I would love scuba diving. I’m slightly massively afraid of being eaten by a shark. I’m convinced I’m what’s for dinner each time I get into the ocean, but since I love the water so much I face the fear often.

 So here we are at Casino Point. I’m not a certified diver…the ex was. So we find a guide to do a guided dive. I get all geared up. We get in the water, snorkel out and start to descend. I paid attention to the instructions on how to equalize your ears, but my left one didn’t cooperate and at 27 feet down, I felt a pop and a stabbing pain in my ear. I gesture to the guide to go up.

My head pops out of the water and I’m bleeding out of my left ear. This is bad…really, really bad. Because not only am I bleeding out of my ear, I’m in an ocean where there are great white sharks and I’m BLEEDING OUT OF MY EAR!!!! The only way this story could get better is if I had steaks tucked under my arms. So anyway, I hear screaming…lots of it. I look towards the shore and all of these people are screaming for us to get out of the water.

In this instant, I was convinced that Jaws was behind me and if I wanted to live I should swim like crazy to get to the stairs to get out of the water. So I did. All the while I’m crying because a) I’m in pain and b) Jaws is gaining on me and I don’t want to die!!!!

I get to the stairs of the seawall, I step up, relieved that I’ve made it out alive, only to forget I have a weight belt on. I quickly proceed to flip over backwards right back INTO THE WATER!!!! I was certain at this point I was just going to land right in the shark’s mouth…why not, right?

After we get out of the water, we find out that a diver had gone missing. He had done a solo dive (not smart) and had been under far longer than the amount of air in his tank. This story has a sad ending, I’m afraid. At the time we came up, they needed people out of the water so they could find his body. It was a very traumatic experience on all levels.

As for my left ear…well, I’ll never be able to dive again. I ruptured my eardrum that day and once you have a ruptured eardrum it’s nearly impossible to get it to equalize while diving. We spent 3 hours in the emergency room and then the rest of the day watching them try to find the missing diver. He wasn’t found until the next afternoon.

Holy mother of God…how do I recall an email?

So when I had Ava, I dropped most of the weight pretty quickly. I am not ashamed to admit I gained 45 pounds during pregnancy. I spent the pretty much all day of the first four months of pregnancy hugging the toilet. So the next 5 months I ate everything in sight. And I don’t mean fruit and salad…I ate nachos, cheeseburgers, cookies and I might have eaten an entire apple pie one night. Go ahead and judge me suckers…I was HUNGRY!!!!!

So I lost 10 pounds the first four months I was pregnant and gained 45 total so that left me with 35 to lose. The first 20 came off no problem. The last 15 would not budge. I breastfed, which didn’t magically make the weight disappear like it did for my lucky friends. So when Ava was 6 months old, I talked Mike into doing Nutrisystem with me.

We get our one month food supply in the mail and read all the directions about what to eat when…blah, blah, blah. In the directions they suggest taking a “BEFORE” picture. Me being the type A personality I am, I throw on a black bikini and tell Mike to take my picture. Let me tell you, it wasn’t pretty…it just wasn’t. I had this “bite me” look on my face…I wasn’t happy about taking this picture. It was a total blow to the self-esteem. But I thought whatever…I’m going to look good in 3 months…this weight is coming off.

Anyway…fast forward a few weeks. In my “I’m not getting enough sleep” haze, I downloaded all the pictures off of our camera and uploaded them to Shutterfly. I “share” Ava’s Month 6 album with everyone in my address book. A day or two goes by and by this point alot of people had written back commenting on how cute Ava is and how much she’s growing. AND THEN…my cousin-in-law sends me an email and is all, “Nice pic of you in your bikini!”

OH. MY. GOD.

Yes. I sent my “before” picture out to all my friends and family. It doesn’t get much more awesome than that. Can you imagine the people who I didn’t get a chance to explain the “before” picture too???? I bet they were thinking, “Why the hell did Janice send a picture of herself, in a bikini, standing in her house?” They had to know it was a “before” picture, right?