Wednesday, March 03, 2004

Close Button Dialog of Death

It has happened TWICE to me now -- I'm in the middle of an opus and up pops the Close Button Dialog of Death. It's a big, white, dialog box with nothing but a gray Close button on it. That Close button is the only thing clickable on screen. Ctrl-Alt-Del does not bring up the Task List.

When that sucker comes up, I am well and truly screwed, because when I press Close, it closes EVERYTHING. *poof* Gone. Sob.

Anyway, I had written a really nice long entry here about taking a bath... it went something like this (I have rebooted, hopefully avoiding a reappearance of the Close Button Dialog of Death...)

I took a bath this evening. I can't remember the last time I did that, but it was actually kind of nice. The reason I took the bath was to soak The Leg. The Leg has become such a focus of my life these days that it now deserves capital letters.

I noticed The Leg had pretty much stopped draining yesterday and it just didn't look or feel all that great, so I went to see the PA at my pcp's office today. She said it was probably a sebaceous cyst from my description of what came out of it, and offered to try and remove the sac so the cyst wouldn't grow back and continue to cause me problems.

Worst case scenario, she didn't get it and I need surgery to remove it later. Best case scenario, she gets and it heals completely, no surgery. Do nothing? Surgery later. No brainer decision here, I went for it -- especially since she was willing to do it on the spot, and not make me set up another appointment to do it.

So, they shepherded the 2 little ones to another room while she poked around inside The Leg for FIVE ENTIRE MINUTES. It was the weirdest thing. Of course I was all lidocaine'd up and didn't feel a thing, but I knew it was going to hurt like a sonofabitch when it wore off and I was right. Owowowowowow.

She wasn't able to remove the sac in one clean swoop but did get lots of pieces of it, and hopefully she broke it up (think: chop chop chop) so that it will disintegrate on its own and it can finally heal. That would be nice. Anyway, she told me to soak it every day, so I took a bath.

We have this huge Roman bath in our master bathroom, and I've never used it before. We can fit all 3 kids in there at once, no problem. DD can float in this tub, it's that big. It's actually very nice and deep, and not cold as I expected it would be.

My parents have this 6-foot tub in their house, but it's made of metal with fiberglass or porcelain overlay, and I swear the thing just sucks the heat right out of you. I always used to use up the hot water taking baths when I still lived at home. Long baths with good books and huge cups of tea were one of my favorite past-times. When the water got cool I would run some out and draw some more hot water in, so I would stay toasty. It amazes me that my parents didn't get annoyed with me for doing that.

Ah, but now I remember I mostly did that after they had already gone to bed, after a late shift of waitress work when I really needed to decompress to have a prayer of going to sleep. God, those baths were essential. Maybe I should start doing that again, getting all warm and sleepy and that will help me get to bed at a decent time? Damn Close Button Dialog, keeping me up even later!

Seriously, this bath now has great potential for the mini-vacation. DH can definitely handle the kids for an hour while I go soak with a book and a cuppa with some nice-smelling bubble bath and/or candles. Hmmm. Definite potential.

So today was another day of not getting back to work. I had every intention of calling until I realized The Leg needed attention, and when I got back from that appointment, I was completely wiped out. Totally, I had zip left...it surprised me how much just the procedure weakened me, even before the anesthesia wore off. Then of course it did, and it got worse. Ow ow ow ow. Damn.

Still, I somehow managed to pull off a great dinner: .lemon butter cod over baby spinach. And I even made a salad -- that was Mom's job when she was here. I do love salad, just don't enjoy making them, but I'm going to try and keep it up as long as I can this year. They taste soooo good. I just have to get off my butt and do it! Hee

The kids had leftover chicken and did not complain. They are so totally spoiled. I didn't make them eat spinach, either. They got brocolli instead. Yes, I am an evil mom... at least they think so.

Tomorrow: perhaps Home Depot after dropping DD off at school, if there is time before story time starts; then story time with DS2, then pick up DS1 from his half-day, then DD, then lunch out somewhere or other -- I have no idea -- then I plan to come home and crash. Possibly let the kids decide what we'll have for dinner (within reason) and shop for it if we need to -- I don't know. I do know it will be busy! If there's time, I'll go back on the clock. If not, it will wait until Thursday.

My gut hurts today, I think I have been acting as if the gb surgery is more healed than it is. Typical. Also, my digestion is apparently completely shot no matter what I eat or in what quantity, and I'm wondering how long this is going to last, or if indeed it is a post-op thing at all. Whee!

Avoiding all wheat products is damn hard, and I'm thinking of going off the gluten-free trial just so I can eat up some of the good things I made before I really kick into it. I'm sure I've probably had gluten hidden in things I didn't even know about, practically every day, anyway. (And I'm not even going into the whole decision about whether or not to take the Host at Communion, that's just too freaky...)

Blech.

I responded to a new email I got on Make It Low Carb today, a question about losing weight fast. I think I was paradoxically harsh but gentle about it. A better way to say it may be just, realistic. Low Carb isn't a crash diet, if you try to use it that way, it won't work. If you're not going to make the commitment to change your way of eating, don't bother. Seriously. Why put yourself out if you're just going to go back to your old habits? What's the point? Sheesh, I am harsh. Also, I just looked at that page again when I got the URL and man is that too long. I have to work on that over-writing thing.

Since the only news today was about John Kerry sweeping the Super Tuesday primaries, and John Edwards bowing out (I guess), I skipped the news and watched Phone Booth with Colin Farrell, Keifer Sutherland, and Forest Whitaker. I really enjoyed that movie... I could listen to Keifer read the phone book (ha) and sit there with a smile on my face... hee! I think he did a great job of establishing his character through his voice only. Very tough job, well done. Farrell and Whitaker, too -- good jobs all around.

Watching a movie with DH midweek is an unexpected thing. Makes it seem almost Friday-ish. I wish it were Friday, we're going out to see Sean Hannity and it should be a blast. Unless, of course, The Leg makes trouble for me. Damn, I have no idea what I'm going to wear -- I wasn't going to wear a skirt but now I have to, I can't wear pants with The Leg the way it is (I have this honking huge bandage on my inner left thigh, it looks just lovely.) I'm thinking I'll wear my new boots which I had on this morning for a kind of trial run. They're fine. Not as comfy as my Naturalizers (nothing is) but fine, indeed. And they look awesome. Pictures are in order... one of these days!

OK, it's 12:30 and I'm officially turning into a pumpkin. See ya tomorrow.

No comments: