Kiss My What?

Due to recent events I have been looking into new housing for myself and Princess. I don't spend too much time worrying about whether people would want me or not, but whether I want to rent from them or not. I know I am a good tenant, I am clean, quiet and pay my bills on time. So it came as a big surprise when a recent possible landlord was very concerned about the fact that I am disabled and didn't have any recent references. I have been married for 6.5 years and with my husband for over 8 years -- I haven't exactly been renting anything in that time. She was too concerned by my not working, even though I am able to pay the deposit, first month's rent and even a few months in advance if need be. My husband is a champion saver and I am getting a sizeable divorce settlement that is squirreled away in my mother's care. Also my mom was willing to sign the lease for me and say that she would be willing to cover me if for some reason I was unable to pay the rent, which she knows won't happen because she knows how much money I currently have. My mom has almost perfect credit and works full time, she is an excellent "risk." But did this matter to said bitchy-possible-landlady? Heck no. She went on and on about having to talk to her attorney about what they would have to do to rent to a disabled person and what modifications would have to be made. I told her that I am not in a wheelchair and as the apartment has no stairs in it, to it or around it that I would not have a problem. I was also willing to sign an agreement that if anything happened to me that I would not hold them responsible. But all she could think about was my not having a job and being disabled and what that could mean to them. Now, if you read my blogs at all I am sure you can guess how I feel about this. I want to pull an Eminem and circle their house with my windows down, my system up, screaming I don't give a F*CK! And being the forgiving person that I am I put a curse on them: for that apartment to be open and generating NO money for quite some time. Gosh, I am such a good person it almost brings a tear to my eye. I have a new found sympathy for those who are discriminated against. I have never been a person to discriminate against anyone, but now I have made a sworn promise to the God/s that I believe in (don't want to get into that subject and offend anyone, especially as I believe that your beliefs are a personal thing) that I will never, ever, for ever never and forever discriminate against anyone for any reason. I know how it has made me feel, like a lesser person, not quite as good as everyone else, and I never want to make anyone feel that way. So to bitchy landlady, doom on you and may your apartments be either empty for extended periods of time or filled with tenants who destroy them and don't pay! But I'm not bitter or anything...

Why Boys Come From Jupiter

I would normally post this on my other blog, but this is too good of a story not to share. Growing up we used to say, "Boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider. Girls go to Mars to get candy bars." Not the most creative or painful insult in the world, but we thought it was. The other day, Princess (or my young ward, take your pick. She is not my biological child.) was talking about what people from other planets might look like. She is in that stage of unanswerable, ridiculous and annoying questions, "What would we do if hair grew from our backs and it was purple? What if horses rode on our backs? What if we thought cats screeching was music (after we heard some cats mating one day)? What would happen if we ate dog food and dogs ate our food? Don't you wish we could live on a cloud?" and so on and on and on. She liked the idea of people from Jupiter so much she decided to draw a picture of what they would look like. She called them, "Juperpeans" even though I thought they should be called, "Jupiterlings," but what do I know? Turns out that people from Jupiter have their arms and legs in all the wrong places, and their butts and heads are reversed. Lucky for me she labeled the parts because at first I thought she had drawn something way beyond her years or knowledge. Between the legs (I think they are legs anyway) were some... things hanging; big and long things. I'm no virgin so they looked suspiciously like testicles and I would have assumed they were if she had not labeled them for me as a butt. I enjoy that drawing so much I am going to keep it for her to see when she is old enough to see what that butt really looks like, but until then I am enjoying telling people that boys really are from Jupiter and I have proof. Of course I don't say this in front of her. I'm not ready for her to understand yet.

Nine Needles A Stabbing

And my arms look like a junkieeeeeeeeee's!
This last time that I got my Tysabri done they could not get an IV started on me; my veins would blow every time they tried to push the syringe of whatever-that-fluid-is into them. I blew (get it?) past my old record of 5 pricks (way too many pricks for any woman to deal with) into a new astounding 9 times! The last record was from the steroids, which we all know mess up your veins, and I was not particularly interested of breaking that record. It surprises me that I would be a hard person to get an IV started on, having garden hoses for veins, especially in my hands. I was not really worried about the difficulty in starting an IV on me, but my mother was. My mother is an RN (she got her BSN degree in her late 40's after my father walked out on us, an inspiring story of determination and tenacity that I can't relate to) and she was concerned about it. She was asking me all kinds of things, like if they considered trying my thumb, which she called the "nursing student spot," whether they thought about doing one on my leg, which would need a doctor's approval, or if they talked about starting a pick (right spelling? I don't know. I've never seen it in print, just heard the word.) line on me. Even before my mom was an RN she always worked in the medical field, so I took in medical terms with my baby food and beyond. We didn't get bruises, we got hematomas. Diarrhea? Never. But one could have loose stools. A runny nose? Not here. But you could have inflamed mucos membranes with discolored secretions. And God forbid we get a splinter! Out would come the needle and the bottle of rubbing alcohol. We hated the needle, so much so that we would rather have a 2x4 sticking out of our foot than deal with that painful extraction. So when anyone talks of things like pick lines, sub-q, IM and such I know what they are talking about. Even before I had MS I knew, but giving myself injections, both sub-q and IM, really brought it home for me. When she would come to the hospital to visit me when I was doing the steroids, she would check the bag, the rate of infusion, my blood pressure, all that fun stuff, just to make sure her baby was having it done right. Now with my arms all bruised and looking like the arse end of a drug binge, her best advice to me was to wear long sleeves so nobody would get the wrong idea. How pathetic. I expected better from the woman who asks for, "50 ccs of ketchup, STAT!"

Slow Lane

I always thought a great license plate for me would be NMBR 2, but the other day while I was tooling around town doing things that didn't need to be done (shopping) I was passed by a little hot rod that had the license plate "Fast Lane." My first thought was what a cop magnet such a vanity plate would be, then I thought how silly it would be if I had the same plate. I never speed because I have all the time in the world and no place to be at any given time. Also I don't work so if I got a speeding ticket my husband would have to pay it and how would I explain that I just had to get to that great sale to buy more crap I don't need? But that plate changed my mind as to the vanity plate I would get, if I ever get one. And, yes, you guessed it, it would be the title of this post. What a great license plate that would be! Me puttering along in the slow lane, lollagagging and rubbernecking at anything that caught my eye -- gotta keep a sharp eye out for those banners that say, "CLEARANCE SALE!!" I can no more pass up a great sale than I could sprout scales and live under water. I have a strict policy of never buying anything at full price, and am an object of jealousy for my great buys, everyone else in my family has to work and never gets to shop the sales like I do. I also think it would be great to be parked in the handicapped space with a license plate that said "slow lane." See that's funny because it's obvious! I love life in the slow lane, so peaceful, so much time to lollagag. You can keep your fast lane because I enjoy my slow lane so much more.