We need to refi too, meara.

Moving sucks. Leaving the PNW sucks. The rest of it? Is really worth all of that.

Sending many hugs your way, Cass. Moving does suck, but so glad that you are with your family.

I have been a lump today. Mostly I've exercised and read The Hobbit to the kids. Now they are watching Hobbit production vids, and I made some lemon cordial. Someone else better be in charge of dinner is all I can say.

What an unholy fuckstick of a day this day has been.

Very long story short, in the last several days Matilda has had two things that were square and white and looked like teeth so she swallowed them. In her case, they actually both were teeth, but one of them left behind some ragged gum that has now gotten red and inflamed and abscessed, with nasty little blisters on her tongue and lips as a gift with unpurchase.

We spent the afternoon at urgent care, where the on-call pediatrician prescribed a clindamycin oral solution to beat back the abscess until we can get her in to the dentist on Monday morning. Unfortunately, it turns out that clindamycin oral solution is one of the vilest, bitterest substances on the planet and, Dr. Google tells me, is specifically not recommended for children because the taste and smell are so foul that almost no flavor can mask them.

The pharmacy (the third one we tried, because apparently this is an extremely rare formulation and practically nobody carries it) told me they were adding a banana flavor to mask the bitterness, but upon Matilda's first dose it became immediately apparent that either nothing had been added or banana was actually the worst possible flavor to add, as (a) the stuff smelled like Satan's rancid ass juice, and (b) she instantly vomited it back up, along with the bowl of soup that was the first thing her hurting mouth had allowed her to eat in almost a day. When my mom and I tried to coax her into giving it another go with her nose held and a cookie chaser, she went blind banshee screaming in panic.

I called the pharmacy back, and... it was 5:05, and it was closed for the weekend. So was my original pharmacy. So was the Walgreens up the street (which I hadn't used originally because they're having a fight with my insurance company and won't fill any prescriptions for anyone with this company). Finally I called the nearest 24-hour pharmacy I could think of, the 24-hour Walgreens on Castro. They immediately, bless them, told me to bring it over and they'd dose it up with better flavors.

Halfway there, it occurred to me that I was now officially insane, as I was voluntarily going out in search of parking in the Castro on a Saturday night (which I did find, five blocks away, but I was damn grateful). The Walgreens staff triple-loaded the clindamycin with pungent masking flavors, agreed that the other pharmacy were idiots, and charged me next to nothing, which practically made me cry. It now smelled vaguely like moist Smarties, not exactly delightful but such an improvement.

Home again, home again, jiggity jig, where Matilda screamed like a banshee for another twenty minutes (Plei and Jilli, it was exactly like Shiva's recent Event), finally calmed down enough to prove amenable to bribery with a Merida doll if she could get through the week's dosage, and then spent the next two and a half hours almost taking it and then stalling (I spent that time discovering reserves of patience I never imagined I had, not that it did any good). Finally, because the thought of an abscess inches from her brain was freaking my shit out badly and it was clear that she was never going to take it on her own, I bearhugged her while my mom dosed her. She shot out of my arms, gave me the hatingest hatestare in human history, and stormed out screaming, "I am REALLY ANGRY AT BOTH OF YOU! It tasted REALLY SUPER AWFUL, YOU KIDS!"

She raged in the bedroom a few minutes, came out to rage in the kitchen, and then settled down to cuddle with me on the couch, drink fizzy water, watch Alice in Wonderland and guzzle a bowl of chocolate pudding (no crunchy or even chewy food allowed until we get the all-clear from the dentist). And now she's happy as a clam, snuzzling and chuckling at Alice and I feel like the evillest mom ever. And we still have twenty more doses to get through.

Also, in the middle of this post I had to get up to fix the VCR, during the course of which I found that the pipe behind the kitchen sink has completely rusted through, and that the building (continued...)

( continues...) maintenance guy isn't answering his phone.

In conclusion, today is just stupid.

Aww, JZ, how miserable, but you did the right thing. It's for her own good, not that she can understand that now. You're a good mom, not a bad one.

Oh, JZ. That is so awful and scary!! I hope it goes better from here on out, and that she heals quickly. Poor noodle, and poor mommy.

I went to see a French movie (Poupoupidou aka Nobody Else But You) and it left me in a weird brain space, and then I checked my email and found a message from my brother wondering what the point of life was. I offered a number of answers, including 42, but I'm not sure I can handle his existential crisis right now.

JZ, you have all of my sympathy. It was such a struggle finding some way of getting amoxicillin into my daughter back in the day when the only mix-in that was readily available was bubble-gum flavor - which she hated and refused to take and would promptly vomit up if you tried to dose her. As an alternative, I asked for the caplets which I could open and try to dissolve in something but she always knew - one of my worst memories was backing her into a corner and repeating, over her screams, "you can't have a cookie until you've eaten your ice cream". In retrospect, it was absurd but at the time, I, too, felt like the evillest mom in the world. My only comfort is that it doesn't seem to be HER worst childhood memory - she is just amused by her obstinacy and somewhat proud that she managed to get two desserts out of me.

Rule 34 lives!

The Wonderful World of Filthy Olympic Swimming Fanfiction

Oh JZ, what a day!

Dear God, JZ. What a day, indeed. A lot of ~ma to all of you. Poor thing.

And "Satan's rancid ass juice" might be my new favorite expression.

JZ, what a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

My POD is unpacked. Bed is assembled. Desk is actually assembled too because the dudes I hired like puzzles. They were awesome. Though the person that recommended them to mom kept cautioning her not to be startled or put off by their appearances. Apart from them each having a facial piercing or two and one with rocking burgundy chunks in (dark) hair, I have no idea what she meant.

There are boxes everywhere. I did my clothes today. Tomorrow is bathroom and then the diaster that is kitchen because not only are there boxes in the way of half of the storage areas, I also don't know where I want things yet.

Of probably over 60 boxes, only three looked crushed and actually I haven't found anything broken in them (but haven't unpacked them completely) or anything else so far. I mean, I know that something breaking is probably inevitable but so far, so amazing. Especially given the clusterfuck that was my move to Oregon where I hired movers to do it all and they broken pages and pages of furniture and glasses and just everything. And never covered it. Today? One missing hardware doodad for my bed frame but I think that maybe was already missing. Probably from the assholes who moved me to Oregon.

Saw meteors tonight. And met half of the town because Mom knows every single person. Benefit for the local land trust. Storms rolled through earlier but then it got dark and it got really clear. And - bam - our atmosphere was playing Galaga.

And any minor earthquakes you feel

Amusingly my elementary school is being closed and a new one built. Turns out they finally care that it's on a fault. I just remember being told that we'd go through earthquake procedures after a spelling test which was interrupted by, you guessed it, an earthquake.

As an alternative, I asked for the caplets which I could open and try to dissolve in something but she always knew - one of my worst memories was backing her into a corner and repeating, over her screams, "you can't have a cookie until you've eaten your ice cream". In retrospect, it was absurd but at the time, I, too, felt like the evillest mom in the world. My only comfort is that it doesn't seem to be HER worst childhood memory - she is just amused by her obstinacy and somewhat proud that she managed to get two desserts out of me.

When I had a broken jaw that was wired shut, my dad would throw my antibiotics into whatever he was blending for me to eat. Thankfully it was pre-braces, so I didn't have to have a tooth knocked out. Just put the straw between the huge front gap.

There was an epic sulk when it was scrambled eggs tough. He won but I cannot imagine that was fun for him. I just used it as an essay in school and then sold the story for money eventually.

As glad as I am to have my couch again, I think I want my bed more right now. Moving is hard work. I have one lone sock. I will give it to a house elf if they unpack and organize my kitchen.