Love

Me: Baby? If I got really sick and started throwing up and my retainer fell in the toilet from the puking? Would you reach in and get it out?

Him (without hesitation): Yes.

Him (after a pause): Um, but try not to do that, okay?

Thanksgiving

Well, we are headed out very early tomorrow morning to catch a flight to LA. And then we will be there a night and then head out early the next morning to drive up the state of California to north of San Francisco. With some stops along the way. The estimate is about 8.5 hours of driving. But Kym is a bit of a speed demon, so that estimate may be a little off (hi kym!). We'll be back on Monday.

So, in the meantime, I hope you all have a fantastic and safe Thanksgiving. And eat lots of good food and hang out with people you love.

I leave you all with kitty photos:

Otto:

And Tabitha:

More Evil

And just when you thought they couldn't become MORE evil:

So this is how the Bush administration is going to deal with poverty.

"11/18/2004: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), led by Bush appointees, is seeking input on a new proposed study in which infants in participating low income families will be monitored for health impacts as they undergo exposure to known toxic chemicals over the course of two years. The study entitled Children’s Environmental Exposure Research Study (CHEERS) will look at how chemicals can be ingested, inhaled or absorbed by children ranging from babies to 3 years old.

For taking part in these studies, each family will receive $970, a free video camera, a T-shirt, and a framed certificate of appreciation.

In October, the EPA received $2.1 million to do the study from the American Chemistry Council, a chemical industry front group that includes members such as Dow, Exxon, and Monsanto (see full list of members on sidebar of this page). Critics of the research, including some EPA scientists, claim the study's funders guarantee the results will be biased in favor of the chemical industry, at the expense of the health of the impoverished children serving as test subjects."

Health Care

Wow, this administration never ceases to amaze me with its evil.

Now they are proposing taking away the one incentive for corporations to pay for their employees' health care. 45 million people are already without health care. And now companies won't have the incentive to continue provide coverage. Nice. That's just what a compassionate government is supposed to do.

"Instead the administration plans to push major amendments that would shield interest, dividends and capitals gains from taxation, expand tax breaks for business investment and take other steps intended to simplify the system and encourage economic growth, according to several people who are advising the White House or are familiar with the deliberations.

The changes are meant to be revenue-neutral. To pay for them, the administration is considering eliminating the deduction of state and local taxes on federal income tax returns and scrapping the business tax deduction for employer-provided health insurance, the advisers said."

Care Bears?

We saw a commercial for new Care Bears. That do aerobics. And sing. Pretty creepy. And then, they start singing "Let's Get Physical" by Olivia Newton John! Um, that song isn't about working out in the traditional sense. Expect those toys to be pulled from the shelves. Not very good research on their parts. The "cute" little dancing Care Bears want to have sex with your children! Maybe they'll become collector's items.

In other news, we had a very uneventful weekend. My hubby was invited to an anniversary party for the gaming company at which he worked this summer. The game he was working on was for the Playboy company. So, Playboy sent a Playmate to the party! And all the gaming geeks were trying to catch glimpses of her as they were melting themselves into the background. She was nice. And it must have been tough for her to be surrounded by all these awkward men. She was dressed in a very pretty black dress and heels. Now, you have to understand Northampton. Not so much with the hair highlights and the cleavage. So it was pretty easy to tell which one she was. My hubs was convinced I wouldn't be able to tell who she was at the party. I think it was about 5 seconds after we got there that I pointed her out to him. Men.

Other than that party, it was a very subdued weekend. I think we are gearing ourselves up for the big move. And the week in California for Thanksgiving. And Christmas. This was our last weekend to just hang around. I did make a yummy carmelized onion pizza and an olive/sundried tomato calzone with the extra pizza dough I had frozen. I also made my boss a bittersweet chocolate torte with white chocolate ganache. He's going to be in today and I thought it would be a nice treat for him. He lost about 20 pounds from chemo and he really didn't have that much to lose. So, the sooner he gets his strength back, the sooner he can come back to work. Yes, and it's a bit of brown-nosing.

I keep forgetting to put my little tooth in my mouth when I'm talking to people. And I have a tendency to smile and laugh. So I've been catching people off guard. And then they pretend not to have noticed the gaping hole in the front of my mouth. So far, people have been very polite. The surgeon only wants me to wear it when absolutely necessary. Don't wear it to eat, don't wear it to bed, etc. The main reason is because it hits against the stitches at the base of the gum. And when I chew, it really hits against them. Plus, I know I grind my teeth at night. I have it in a little yellow container on my desk right now. I can usually hear when someone is approaching my cubicle, and I quickly open the box and shove it in place. I'm sure I'm less sneaky than I think.

Toof

So, I went in today to get the thousand stitches out of my mouth and he decided to leave them in for another week. So, another week of soft foods and no caffeine and no alcohol... At least my waist is losing some of the extra pudge. I kind of had a feeling he was going to leave them in. They are still a little sensitive and since he had to stretch the gum so much to cover the removed infected tissue, he decided the stitches needed to stay.

I brought my hubby to see the house today. The one we are going to be renting starting in January. He's now a little worried that it is too big for us. I'm still excited. He'll be fine once we get things moved in. It looks like I have enough vacation time saved up to take most of the week after Christmas off to officially move everything out of there. The woman from whom we will be renting has very generously offered to let us move in before Christmas and then not start paying rent until January. But since we will be out of town for Christmas, I don't want to do that to the kitties. Move them and everything they know to a new house and then leave them for 3 days. They would be very, very upset with us. The better plan is to move in that Monday after the Christmas weekend and then have the week to clean the old apartment. Not that it is dirty, but there are holes in the walls, etc.

In case Kym is reading this - I keep forgetting to say THANK YOU for the lovely hand-knitted scarf and the Louisiana hot sauce you sent for my birthday. I've talked to you several times on the phone and I keep forgetting. The scarf is long and soft and warm. I can wrap it around my neck several times and look very supermodel with the long ends and the lovely color. It matches my winter coat to perfection. It is the best scarf in the whole world. And the fact that you made it makes it even better, if that could be possible. The hot sauce is quite hot and I love it. I've already put it in my refried black beans and on some tacos and in my soup. Love, love, love it. You are the best sister-in-law in the whole universe. Everyone should be jealous that you are my friend. ;)

Snow?!

As I left work today, I noticed the sky looked pretty ominous. And within seconds, it started SNOWING!!! AAAGGHH!!! I'm not ready! Luckily nothing stuck to the ground and by the time I made it home (about 25 minutes South), it had stopped. But that is scary. Let it be noted that the first snow happened on November 8th this year.

My face is feeling better. The swelling has gone down - I think the worst day was Saturday when I could barely open my right eye. I looked like a deranged chipmunk. I don't have my fake tooth flipper in because it doesn't fit with all the stitches and swelling. So I tried to avoid people as much as possible at work today. This is one of my upper front teeth - so it's pretty noticeable that it is not there.

In other news, we are going to be moving up to Greenfield by the end of next month. A former coworker moved to D.C. for a few years and she and her husband had bought a lovely Victorian house in Greenfield. Since they had put a lot of work into it, they decided to rent and not sell. Woohoo! Professional kitchen, yard, garden, wrap-around porch! Washing machine and dryer - in the house! Spider web ceiling paper in the living room! It suits me just fine. They were having trouble renting it at their ideal price and I had offered many months ago to rent it - at a rent similar to what we are paying now. And they finally decided to go with someone they know. Me! Now the stress of moving and cleaning this apartment out for the management Nazis. They gave us a list of things that they "could" charge us for - $50/window/room! We are on the second floor - how are we going to clean the outside windows in the middle of winter? We're just going to have to do the best we can. My husband is already panicking a little. He doesn't want to pay them an extra penny. Fine. So, December will be moving and cleaning month. Hopefully no more snow until we are all settled.

All for now.

Living in a Fog

Well, yesterday sucked. We have a fascist running our government and the world thinks we are insane to have voted him back into office. And by "we", I mean all the hicks in the middle of the country who still think there is a connection between Iraq and 9/11. Gays, guns and god. Those are the values. I can only hope that all the papers and moderate Republicans who publicly came out to support Kerry will help slow the tide of extremism. And I refuse to believe that Diebold had nothing to do with this.

In other news, I went in for surgery on my tooth this morning. Thus the title of this entry. I have an implant in my top, front jaw that replaced a dead tooth. And the implant looked great and felt fine for about 2 years. Then the first infection happened. So more surgery then. Fixed for about a year. We moved to Massachusetts; infected again. Went to a quack dentist who opened my gum again to look at the infection and then failed to suture my gum back fully. So, big hole left in my gum. Finally went to another dentist and this is who did the surgery this morning. I had had enough of novacaine (novocaine?) and asked that I put under general anesthesia. When I woke up, big swollen face, lots of sutures, ice packs and bloody gauze. And my hubby holding my hand while the surgeon explained that I should only eat soft foods and drink no alcohol or caffeine for the next week. AND I had asked him before the surgery - a month ago - whether there were going to be restrictions on my diet so that I could prepare myself. To no avail, apparently. I've been wearing a flipper in my mouth in place of the crown that used to be attached to the implant for about 3 frickin' months now. And now he doesn't want me to wear it for a couple of days until the swelling goes down. So, no frickin' way I'm going to work tomorrow. I mean, this is a top, front tooth! I look like a hick! Put some flannel and workboots on me and I'm done.

Anyhoo - our anniversary was spent in a bit of a funk yesterday. My hubby was really pissed about the election. And I was desperately trying to unclog my nostrils so that I could actually have surgery this morning. See, the cold is still there. So, Vicks VapoRub, Breathe Right VapoSteamCup (or something), zinc, Breathe Right Strips and then we ordered Thai food - mine was extra spicy. It seemed to have worked because I was able to breathe through my nose this morning with no problem.

I guess it's good that I'm a little drugged up at the moment on fake Vicodin (stupid insurance) - otherwise the debacle of the election would really sink in.

I do have one question - the Osama Bin Laden tape - why was that a "gift" for Bush??? To me it was just glaring proof that we are in the wrong war, fighting the wrong people. HELLO!!??! Osama Bin Laden was responsible for 9/11!!! Idiots! The fact that he is still out there is NOT a GIFT for BUSH! AND, in the tape he said that there would be more attacks if we elected BUSH again!!!! What is this stupid country coming to?

Now back to my drug-induced fog.

Happy Anniversary, Baby!

Today is our wedding anniversary. Three wonderful years of marriage (and 8 years - 9 years?- of togetherness). My how time flies.

Here is a photo from our wedding day. Not taken by a professional photographer, but manages to capture the giddiness of the day. What you don't see is my bride of frankenstein stripe of white hair. Not kidding. We had a Halloween-themed wedding. Not with costumes, other than my hair, but with pumpkins and orange and black and spooky candelabras and Halloween-y music. A great time was had by all.

An ode to my hubby:

You are funny and silly and kind. You are handsome and stunning and blind (to my evilness). You play nice with others, are as smart as a whip and you even do my laundry (yes, I know that doesn't rhyme). I love to give you hugs and to hear your giggles when I fart. I love how much you love our kitties and I love it when you sing them kitty-customized songs. You put up with so much of my craziness and yet you remain my greatest champion. Your hands are so big and your chest is so hairy (those are good things). You love everything I cook and then you don't hesitate to do the dishes. I never thought I'd meet someone who is so easy to get along with. Your patience astounds me and you make sure I walk on the inside of the sidewalk. You still reach for my hand when we are walking. You do not hesitate to help my parents or my siblings. I can't wait to raise children with you.

I love you.

Vote!

We got up early this morning to get to the polls before the crouds crowds (thanks, Styro) (hopefully). And I'm going to talk to as many people at work today about voting. So - VOTE!!! It's a very important election and every vote counts.

UPDATE: and I don't know about you, but I've been waiting for 4 years for this day.

In other news, I'm coming down with a cold. Three weekends at my sister's house finally got me. Those kids are little germ carriers. Oh well. Everyone else around me has been sick, I guess it's my turn.

I'll post Halloween photos shortly - I was Medusa and my hubby was Zeus.