I have to declutter my house tonight. Guess what the special occasion is? I have a house cleaner coming tomorrow. (You know that hiring a cleaner requires you to do as much cleaning as you would have done anyway.) Even worse it is a house cleaner that I work with at a vet clinic on occasion. It is time to hide anything embarrassing…

Kati asked what kind of stuff the SO reads. He is a lot like me in that he reads just about anything - fiction, biography, history, business, etc. What has been interesting is that I’ve been giving him things to read and movies to see that I like but that he hasn’t read yet. So far he’s liked them all. Here a list of my recommendations. I’ve started to wonder what this lists says about me.

Books:

The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan - serious
The Eyre Affair by Jasper FForde - smart and literary but funny
Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett - religious/antireligious, funny

Movies:

I Am Legend and Shaun of the Dead (for the zombie double header)
Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle - so stupid it is hysterical
Superbad
Hot Fuzz
Accepted - the best higher education plan ever

That might just come as close to summing up my goofy psyche as possible without disclosing my possibly unhealthly love of anything Kevin Smith writes.

I was kidnapped last night and taken here. It was a very nice state park resort.

Here was the actual plan I was told. Remember I was told this by a male person. He wanted to go to this park because there was a big fireplace with rocking chairs in the lodge and it was a good place to sit and read. (There were actually all kinds of other things to do outside but it was raining so we did inside things.) I actually managed to find a guy who not only likes to read but who likes to go special places to read! He doesn’t quite understand why I think this is a good thing. I keep telling him that I’ve never dated anyone who would choose to read a book unless they were locked in a room with only a book for entertainment. Even then it had better have pictures. He thinks I’m making fun of him but this is a very good thing.

There was also swimming and a sauna and a restaurant with views of squirrels fighting over the bird feeders. Very nice mini-vacation.

This weekend I completed another of my 101 Things in 1001 Days. I volunteered at a soup kitchen. I thought this one might be really hard since I couldn’t find any info about a local place to volunteer. Turns out that area churches have a schedule where they take one night a week and make a meal. The SO’s church does Sunday nights. (Yes, I’m dating a church-going Christian. Yes, that was on my list of absolute no-nos. I’m filing this under the heading of “nobody’s perfect” and moving on.)

I’d done a lot of serving at homeless shelters in TN. It was a big operation. It was like a cafeteria. It wasn’t like that at all here. It was much smaller. They made up the plates of pasta, salad, and bread ahead of time and then just added whatever sauce the people preferred. The servers here were a bit odd. They didn’t seem to want to interact with the people they were serving. They would whisper about the people coming through the line, especially in the cases where they knew the families of the people. It didn’t seem very nice. The SO and I went out and ate with the group with everyone else seemed to barricade themselves in the kitchen. Odd.

This is from an old Bon Appetit magazine I found lying around a clinic. Fast, easy, and very good.

6 oz baby carrots finely chopped
2 T butter
1 cup orzo
1.5 cups water
1.25 cups vegetable broth
1 garlic clove, minced
1/4 cup parmesan cheese
2 T chopped green onions
1 teaspoon rosemary

Melt butter in medium saucepan. Add orzo and carrots; saute 5 minutes. Add water, broth, and garlic. Cook uncovered until liquid is absorbed stirring frequently, about 10 minutes. Stir in cheese, onions, and rosemary. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

I survived the meeting of the mother and the SO. However, I don’t believe that the SO fully grasped what I meant when I said that my mom and I talk all the time but don’t talk about anything to do with feelings. He has pretty much no filter on feelings talks and he likes to talk so he was way more open with my mother than I would have liked. Since I tended to be sitting between them I couldn’t subtly hit him to make him stop. Besides, the one time I tried it he told my mother that I had just hit him!

It started with his comment about the first time I cried in front of him. I actually laid down on the ground (I was already sitting on the ground) and covered my face with my hands. This was public humiliation at the worst. I’m known in my family as a cold-hearted b*tch with no emotions. Now within minutes of meeting my mother he’s revealing that not only do I cry but that I’ve done it more than once. My mother looked over at me. He intercepted the look and said, “She’s really emotional.” My mother replied, “She does her best to hide it.” I was praying to any God who was interested to kill me now.

He probably revealed more personal stuff to my mother than she’s ever known about me. She knew it was killing me and she seemed quite amused by it. From now on I will have to be quite specific on my gag orders.

My mother-person is coming to visit for a few days. That means that I have to endure the horrible ritual of introducing the parent to the new boyfriend. That’s always worse for me than for anyone else involved. I really thought I wasn’t going to have to do this again ever. LOL.

I have a barn cat that was brought by her mother to live in my barn last spring. I named her Baby because she was a baby when she came here and I’m creative like that. Since then I’ve worked on taming her so she would be nice when the time came to take her to get spayed. I went overboard on the training and created an attention-seeking monster. She plays with people. She plays with horses. She tries to play with opossums.

I’ve been procrastinating about her spay. I figured that I had to get serious about it when she was gone for a few days two weeks ago. I decided that yesterday was the day. I caught her in the morning and put her in a cardboard carrier. I went out to catch the horses. When I came back in she was sitting next to the still closed carrier. She’s a magic cat. I caught her again and put the carrier in the car. When I came back from brushing my hair she was sitting looking out the back window. I decided she could stay out of the carrier.

She found the office a fine place to hang out. She was in a cage with a towel. Towels are fun to play with. I’ve never seen a cat more relaxed in my life. Dogs were barking and she was stretched out like she was on the best vacation ever.

Surgery went fine but apparently I was right about her whereabouts a few weeks ago. She gets to stay at the clinic for a few days since she can’t stay in the house here. (The resident house cats would punish her severely for getting ideas above her station!)

I’d be all excited about having all my barn cats spayed if Baby hadn’t brought home a new friend from her weekend of debauchery. I can’t be sure of the sex of this friend but I have a working theory that every barn cat is a girl and that they spontaneously reproduce so I’m betting she’s female.

I had a morning that most people wouldn’t describe as fun but I’m absolutely bubbly.

First I had a mammogram. This was made even more fun than normal because my mass is underneath and against the body wall. It isn’t exactly easy imaging. I’ve decided that my next mass will be located in an easily accessible place.

Then I had to pick up my ultrasound and report because I’m scheduled to see a specialist next week for a biopsy. I asked for the report since my doctor’s office didn’t tell me what they said. It is the most useless piece of medical reporting ever. It says that it might be a papilloma. Then again, it might be a intramammary lymph node but probably not. It might be a carcinoma. It doesn’t actually say, “Beats me what it is” but that would have been more to the point.

I had to go back and pick up my ultrasound because I was so excited about errand number 2 of my day that I forgot to take it with me.

I filed for divorce!!!

That made me bubbly. I wanted to jump up and down, clap my hands, and yell, “Yay!!!”

I’m heading out to Oregon tomorrow to meet with the corporate high muckety mucks about the practice I’d like to buy. I need to feel comfortable with them and they need to approve me. I’m most excited about going letterboxing tomorrow in a city park where the letterboxes are so thick that one would think you’d be tripping on them as you walk about. I’m sure this probably means that I won’t be able to find any!

Last Saturday morning I found a mass in my left breast. This came as a bit of a shock since I’m sure that it hadn’t been there the day before. It was quite large and unmistakable. I immediately go into clinical mode on these things - “Rapid onset of a large mass, slightly sore, I’m 35 with no family history of breast cancer so either it is nothing or I’m going to be dead in a week.” Unbelievably that kind of self talk relaxes me.

My next decision was whether or not to tell the SO (I’ve decided for lack of a more original name at this time to call him the SO for significant other - this may change). He has had cancer himself and his mom died of cancer two years ago. He did not take this calmly. He did show an admirable amount of understanding about me though by making me solemnly swear to play nice with the human doctors and do everything they say. (This was the day before I spent quality time with him in the hospital where he declined to play nice with the human doctors.)

The next challenge was getting someone to see me. On Monday I started trying to get an appointment. My ob/gyn just had a baby - something you’d think she should know how to prevent- and her office couldn’t get me in with another doctor until 4/22. For a breast mass they wait three weeks? I don’t wait more than one day for a new mass on a dog. (Repeat after me. Play nice with the human doctors. Play nice with the human doctors….) My family doctor could see me today.

Here’s where I made a huge error of judgment. I stayed at the SO’s house last night. The appointment was early morning so I decided to leave Snowball there, go to the appointment, and then pick up Snowball, and go home to feed the horses. The mass was down to about a 1/4 of the size it was 6 days ago so I figured it was nothing. The doctor agreed it was probably nothing but wanted an ultrasound and mammogram. She wanted to schedule it for Monday but I’m out of town. She wanted me to reschedule my trip but I can’t. Well, if I thought I was dying I probably could have but there are limits to how much I’m willing to play nice. She called the ultrasound place and got me in right away. So at noon I’m in another office having an ultrasound. What am I thinking about? Oh my god, Spirit is going to kill me!

After the ultrasound the tech took the images to the radiologist to see if he wanted a mammogram right away or if the one scheduled for next week would be ok. He said that next week was fine so I’m assuming that the mass isn’t too scary-looking.

I ran back and picked up a very angry dog and headed home. I called the SO to try to calm him down. Then I faced the beast. It was 1:00 PM. Sometimes the only thing you can do when you come face to face with a screaming, kicking ball of fury is yell “I’m sorry!” over the ruckus, open the stall door, and get the hell out of the way.

Now I’m waiting for a repairman to come see my refrigerator which died over the weekend. I need to know if it can be revived or if I need to get a new one. I also called my barn builder to get him to come out and fix the large barn door that fell off the overhead track. Everything is just wearing out around here!

There is something beeping in my house. It has been beeping every few minutes for several days. I can’t find the source. I think it is in my computer room but I wouldn’t bet my life on it.

I’m about to go insane!

I’m bordering on delirious. I’ve been up since 7:00 yesterday morning. It is now 7:00 at night. This is totally not a normal thing for me.

After I wrote the last post I went over to the new guy’s house (He so needs a blog name but I can’t come up with anything.) He mentioned that he didn’t feel well. This will go down as one of the major understatements of the year. Fast forward several hours later and many episodes of severe illness later, to 1:00 AM when I hear a huge thud. I ask if he’s ok and get silence. Then he asks fairly calmly if I could come there for a second. I open the bathroom door and am greeted by the sight of him standing there covered in blood. He passed out (probably from dehydration) and hit his head and cut open a big chunk above his eye. I got that cleaned up enough to see that he needed stitches so I got him off to the hospital. That was an event. He was tired, weak, sick, slightly loopy from head trauma, and sort of weird even with none of those things going on. I’m sure it looked like I was leading the drunken loser of a bar fight into the ER.

It was a long night. The ER doc was a jerk to me. When the new guy (needs a name!) said that I said he needed stitches, the doc snapped, “Who is she to say you need stitches? Is she a nurse?” He replied in this very tired and sort of pitiful voice, “She’s my vet.” Like that explained everything. But it did turn the doc around. He started saying how much he liked vets and how we are better than human doctors since we can diagnose without conversing with our patients.

Eventually, the wound was glued and he got a bag of fluids and I got him home at 5:10 this morning. I cleaned up all the blood in the bathroom and figured out that he hit his head on the inner rim of the bathtub which takes major skill. Then I headed off to work. I actually felt pretty good until I would sit down. I’m going over to his house now to make sure that he is still alive and to crash. I’m planning on being unconscious until sometime tomorrow!

Last Wednesday I met up with a person who reads this blog, Olivia (who really needs to get her own blog so I can link to her) and her friend Pam. They kindly offered to show me around LA.

The first place we went was a small cemetery in the middle of town where all kinds of famous people are buried. This is was item #9 on my 101 Things in 1001 Days list. We saw Marilyn Monroe’s headstone with fresh lipstick kiss marks on it. We also had to get a picture with this guy since he was the whole reason I was there in the first place.

Then we went to the Chinese Theater and saw the hand and foot prints in the cement. As a die hard Harry Potter fan I had to get this one.

And we need evidence of horses that do more than hang around and complain that I’m not feeding them often enough.

That’s Roy Rogers and Trigger if you can’t read it well.

We also went to look at the Kodak Theater (home of the Oscars). There was a whole group of kids waiting in line at Hot Topic because Panic at the Disco had been there. Olivia and I are so not hip because we had no clue who that was. I still don’t but she found out that they had been on Saturday Night Live recently. Then we went to dinner at El Chollo which had very nice vegetarian enchiladas.

The next day I flew out at 6:30 AM to head back home. I got home at 6:30 PM and went out to dinner and crashed at an airport hotel. I left the next morning at 6:00 AM to go judge a trail ride in North Carolina. It was cold and wet. Bone chillingly cold and wet. This was my favorite competitor of the weekend.

He’s an 18.2 hand, 1800 lb Belgian who did great on the 40 mile ride. He was hard to examine though because his back was 8 inches over my head. I had to reach up to feel if he had a sore back. He also decided that I was not examining his mouth. He just put it up out of reach and said, “What are you going to do about it, puny human?” Answer - not much. The picture doesn’t really do him justice but if I was standing next to him, my head would be at about the level of his rider’s knee.

I didn’t disappear and go into the witness protection program. I left LA last Thursday and flew back home. I got in around 6 PM. I had to fly out again to judge a trail ride in NC at 6:00 AM Friday morning so I just stayed at a hotel near the airport. I’ve been the wilds of North Carolina freezing my butt off ever since. Right now the ride is over and I’m at a hotel with my room temperature set to near-sauna levels. I’ve taken a hot shower and may take another. I’m excited that I’m down to wearing one layer of clothing from a high of four. I’m quite brain dead after this week so I won’t have any more details now. I have pictures from LA and from the ride that I’ll post after I get home and do penace with the dog and cats for being gone for a week!

I totally got my butt kicked and I’m actually ok with that. It was fun. Here were my problems on the game.

1. I never did figure out my timing on the buzzers. I’d ring in too soon and get locked out but if I tried to slow down I’d wait too long.

2. Blanking on things I know I know. I’ve been semi-obsessively listening to the song “Online” for a week. So, for $2000 who sang it? Totally blanked. That one made me mad.

3. Taking educated (but wrong) guesses when it probably would have been better strategy to keep my mouth shut so I lost a bunch of money.

4. Not getting picked for the games that included the categories “Those Darn Equestrians” or “A Day at the Dog Show.”

But I did get a daily double and got it right and I got final jeopardy right. I ended up taking third so the trip out here is paid for and it really did end up being fun.

After I wrote my last post I went up to my room to unpack. That’s when I realized that I left the bag containing everything I used on Monday morning on the sink in my bathroom. No toothpaste, brush, hairspray, etc. Yep, I’m going on national tv without a brush. I look lovely. They did our makeup but they don’t have hair people. Oh well. It wasn’t that bad. I tucked most of my hair behind my ears so you can’t tell it is out of control.

Then we met in the lobby of the hotel at 7:30 AM yesterday. It was an interesting group of people. Everyone was really nice and friendly. The contestant coordinators are great. They are very upbeat and had us all memorized from our awful polaroids so they could talk to us as soon as they saw us. I walked in and the one guy yelled, “Heather! Fax girl!” since I had a horrible time getting the crappy fax machine at work to fax my info back to him and had to send it in 3 batches over several days.

The guy that was helping me study gave me a pin as sort of a good luck charm. I didn’t have any pockets in my outfit so I pinned in on my bra. I thought that was smart. I was wearing a shirt and jacket so it didn’t show. Then I had to go through a metal detector. All I could think of was that I was going to have to strip down to get this pin off me because there was no way to do it discretely. I decided to chance it and went through the detector without setting it off. Thank god since I really didn’t want to be stripping outside to get that pin off.

We spent the first 2 hours or so going over all the rules and stuff and getting makeup done. Then we went and rehearsed on set. We also had to write our local commercials - all except me and a guy from Philly. Our channels didn’t want anything cute. We just had to say the time that Jeopardy was on that night. Everyone else was so jealous.

We were randomly selected before each game. I didn’t play until the last game so I watched the four games before me. I also got free lunch since I was still there at that time. It was more interesting watching the games since by this time we sort of knew each other and our basic life stories. If a category would come up that was good for someone we’d know it plus there was more involvement just because we knew each other.

I think I can claim this as a business trip because when I was getting my makeup touched up before my game the makeup artist was asking me a bunch of questions about her dog with cushing’s disease. Then on stage one of the guys was asking my opinions on whether he should get a labradoodle or a goldendoodle for his allergic wife.

During commercials Alex would talk to the audience and a little kid asked why we wrote our names so sloppily. He was explaining how hard it is to write with electronic pens while the contestant coordinator asked me if I wanted her to go kick the little kid’s butt on our behalf. Alex also had the Golden Girls theme song in his head from an earlier show and kept singing it during commercials. Now it is still in my head.

Overall it was fun. I’m actually surprised that I’m not upset about losing but by the time I actually played it was almost like the game was secondary to just hanging out there and having fun.

I’m in LA. I was sent off this morning with pep talks ranging from “Maybe you should get some geeky glasses so you at least look smart” to “Call us if you lose so much money that you can’t afford to fly home.” I answered that one by asking what they would do if I called them. At that point the tech started miming a phone conversation, “Hello? Who? Never heard of her…. Click.” And these are some of my biggest fans. LOL

One person did want to come and be the cheering section. He wanted to yell, “The stupidest vet is smarter than the smartest human doctor.” I told him that was too long so he modified it to “Vets are cool!” He also suggested I add my phone number under my name on the screen and make a point of showing my left hand with no ring on it. I believe I am also to mouth “call me” any time the camera focuses on me. (He is considering it his job in life to get me married off even though I am still technically married. I think his reasoning is that if I get a rich guy I won’t go buy a practice and will continue to work for him.)

I’m heading off to bed now so I can get a good night’s rest. I’m done studying. I’m to the point where I can’t have a conversation without mouthing off relevant facts. Over dinner the other day the person I was with mentioned the St. Lawrence River and I immediately replied, “St. Lawrence Seaway dedicated by Dwight Eisenhower and Queen Elizabeth II. Contains the Eisenhower Lock.” That’s not normal behavior but luckily the person I was with just high fived me and laughed.

I’ll post tomorrow even if it is just to say that it was so awful that I’m heading into the Witness Protection Program.

I am surrounded by the most evil of taskmasters. No matter where I am people are making me study. I worked at two different clinics this week both of which required me to bring Trivial Pursuit cards. Every time I sat down today someone would pick up a stack of cards and fire questions at me until my brain was mush. Tonight I have a potential male friend coming over here. Is there something hot and heavy planned? Nope, he’s planning on making me study. I swear by the time this is over next week my brain will have liquified and run right out of my ears!

I am learning things though. I’m not sure that it is anything useful at all. But when the Avon lady walked into work today I knew the original name of Avon and when it was started.