July 14th, 2010 by Kateastrophe

Let’s move on to more fun topics.  Like the humiliation of Kate.  Whee!

There are lots and lots of over-sharing type stories to tell from my “experience.”  A new level of humiliation occurs the first time your husband attends an OB/GYN appointment with you and it only gets worse after that.  My low occurred in a dark “water closet” and I can’t imagine the actual having a baby part where, as sweet Molly put it, EVERYONE At THE HOSPITAL SEES YOUR BUTT - and other parts.  And frankly?  You just don’t care.  I haven’t had that experience but I can see why you don’t care because there were moments when I didn’t.

Then there was this morning.  I had an appointment to follow-up with my doctor and make sure my body had taken care of what it needed to take care of, if you know what I mean.  It’s been two weeks and we are crossing our fingers that I won’t need a D&C (which I don’t think I do, but you have to check.)  My appointment was at 8:00 am and I arrived promptly at 7:55.  At 8:00 three or four pregnant girls waddled in and signed in after me.  Then, one by one, the pregs all got called back.  And I sat there.  And sat there.  And watched pregnant girl after pregnant girl go in and out, in and out.  Finally, fifty-five minutes (that’s right, five minutes short of an hour) later I was called back.  I went into the ultrasound room, followed directions, took of my pants, covered myself with the paper sheet and sat down on the uncomfortable chair. Then I waited.  And waited.  Then the blessed knock at the door!  Ah, sweet relief.

Or not.

It was the nurse.  The doctor had snuck out the back door to go deliver a baby “real quick.”  Those were her words.  “Real quick.”  I could either wait for him to get back or I could reschedule.  Now in my brain I was like “wait a minute.  Real quick?  Like, oh I’m just going to run to the hospital, catch this baby and run back?  That doesn’t HAPPEN.”  My Mom pushed (PUSHED!) for three hours.  I knew babies don’t just slide on out but the nurse said 20 minutes or so and by this time it was almost 9:15.  Like crap I was going to reschedule to do this whole circus over again.  So she told me to stay in the chair and wait for the doc. 

Remember how I had no pants on?  Yeah, I had no pants on.  So I grabbed my iPod touch and my Blackberry and sat in that uncomfortable chair naked from the waist down playing games and checking Facebook.  And I waited, and waited, and waited.  On an uncomfortable chair with no pants.  Finally at 10:00 the blessed knock on the door!

Or not.  Take two.

The nurse again.  “Yeah, the doctor just called and things aren’t . . .moving along like he had hoped.  So he’s going to be a while.  The soonest we can see you is 1:30.”

By this time I had missed two hours of work, sat in the ultrasound room (which reminded me of nothing but my miscarriage and made me sad) WITH (have I mentioned) NO PANTS ON for 45 minutes and I’d had it.  I just started sobbing.  The nurse got a shocked look on her face and started apologizing, then giving me excuses, then telling me other people had to wait when they made time for my emergency appointment . . . blah blah blah.  None of that mattered at all to me and I really don’t know why sobbing was my reaction, but it was.  Pants-less sobbing in the ultrasound room.  Awesome.

So, with green and black make-up (PS, the M.A.C. color Humid is awesome - unless you cry) smeared down my face I walked out to the front area to reschedule my appointment.  I happened to get behind someone who had their entire medical history in a canvas bag and she was showing the receptionist and the nurse her charts and x-rays and reports one.at.a.time while I stood behind her crying, waiting for about seven minutes for her to finish so I could just reschedule my damned appointment already.  I finally got it rescheduled for next Monday.  They all kept apologizing and all I could think about, despite everything I could have been mad or sad or even ponderous about, was how humiliating it was to sit in a room - by myself - for 45 minutes with no pants.

As long as I know where my priorities are, I guess we’re good.  I wonder if I should wear a skirt on Monday?

January 5th, 2010 by Kateastrophe

I really hate the days I wake up on the “wrong side of the bed.” 

{Begin Tangent}  Why do people say that?  Only once in my life have I literally woken up on the wrong side of the bed.  My head was where my feet should have been and I even had a pillow.  I woke up because I kicked my husband in the face.  For reals.  And it didn’t make me cranky, it made for an awesome start to my day because I kicked him in the face and laughed for like an hour. {End Tangent}

Today is one of those days. 

I stayed up late last night waiting for my husband and some of his friends - both of whom I’ve never met - to come home from the Fiesta Bowl, and I had to give up at midnight.  Then of course they came home shortly after that riiiiiight as I was drifitng off.  Matt came in and got in bed and proceeded to wiggle for what seemed like ten years.  At first I just heard his foot slooooowwwlllyy rubbing across the sheet.  Then he itched his leg.  Then his arm.  Then what seemed like his whole body.  He was trying to do it gently but it was causing wiggles in the bed.  Then he rolled over, which in Matt land is sort of like a walrus THROWING himself off a rock into the water.   The man doesn’t slowly roll, he flails around, bounching me off the bed as if we’d been playing trampoline games.  Then his phone vibrated on the bathroom counter and he absolutley HAD to get out of bed at 1 AM to see what it was.  Then he got back in bed (felt like jumped) and proceeded to do the whole wiggling thing again.  Finally I couldn’t take it and yelled “GOOD HELL MAN!”  He meekly apologized and said his skin was “crawly.”  In my half asleep grumpiness I explained that I didn’t care and he needed to HOLD STILL FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING HOLY.  This apparently meant “put your hand on my butt” because that’s how he responded.  I was annoyed until I realized that doing that apparently causes immediate paralysis in “crawly skinned” husbands.  (I’ll note that for later.) I was finally able to drift off to sleep.

Until about ten minutes later when I remembered a huge work project we have to get started on and complete in two weeks.  During my busiest time of the month.  And we have a regional meeting here the day before it’s due.  AND I have Jury Duty the day after.  So then I was wide awake going over the details in my head.  For about two hours.  GAH!

Needless to say I pushed snooze for an eternity this morning, causing me to be late to work as well as be smack dab in the middle of the worst part of rush hour.  Shoot me now. 

Now I’m here and I’m alllllll sorts of grumpy-pants.  I am so grumpy I have no desire to eat the delicious Sprinkles Red Velvet Cupcake sitting on my desk.  Yeah, it’s bad.  I have no idea how to get out of the grumpy funk.

How do YOU guys do it?  Any great ideas?  Help a grumpasaurus out!

August 20th, 2009 by Kateastrophe

Seriously, August sucks.

Work sucks. The seemingly endless heat sucks. The traffic that coincides with school starting S-U-C-K-S.

Matt and I were discussing his late August birthday the other night and we decided it sucks too. He remembers starting school several times on his birthday as well as days so stifling hot he wanted to die. Sucks.

To (sort of) quote Green Day:

“Wake me up when September COMES.” August cannot end soon enough.

December 3rd, 2008 by Kateastrophe

The world is full of cheaters and liars, this fact I know to be true because I myself, who I know to be a good person, am still a cheater and a liar.

The first and only time I ever cheated on a test I got caught. I was in fifth grade and we were required to write down all of the Presidents of the United States in order. I couldn’t remember Polk for the life of me. So I glanced at the girl next to me and found the missing name, filled it in on my paper and got 100% on the test. Someone saw and told on me and I was asked to take the test again. That time I missed Taft. I guess missing on out of 41 (I think there were 41 at that time) wasn’t so bad, but I felt like a failure. AND I cheated.

I’m pretty sure that cheating on my President’s test in fifth grade didn’t affect the person I became or have a huge impact on my life now, but I sometimes feel lucky that I got caught because it scared me into never cheating in school again. Maybe I would have turned into a super cheater and cheated my way through life after that. Who knows? And I’d be lying if I said I haven’t cheated on anything since then.

When I was in high school my girlfriends and I were all really good kids. We weren’t underage drinking or having sex under the bleachers. We had a tight group of friends and going to bed on the weekends just wasn’t fun. We used to sneak out of whichever house we were staying at that weekend and just drive around our little town, laughing and having a good old time. Every once in a while we’d get caught and the lies would spew forth. Someone had been sick. We’d been at one persons house and our parents had misheard we’d been somewhere else. On and on it would go. Then, one day we spent the night at our friend Katy’s house. We came in at 4 am, just as her Mom was getting up for work. We all freaked out, knowing all our parents were going to be called and grounding would ensue. Elizabeth, Katy’s mom, looked at all of us and asked us where we’d been. “Out and about, just hanging out. We just got back about five minutes ago.” Katy replied. “Awesome! Glad you’re home. Sleep well, girls!”

I’d never seen anything like it. Katy just looked at her Mom, told her the truth, and Elizabeth trusted her and knew we weren’t in any trouble and let it go. Now, I realize a bunch of teenage girls out on the town isn’t NORMALLY no trouble, but we really were and Elizabeth knew it and we didn’t have to lie.

I wish I’d learned my lesson then, but I continued to lie . . . and still do. I justify it by saying that my lies don’t affect anyone or that they’re just little white lies but I’m well aware those aren’t such a great idea either.

Someone very close to me has a huge cheating and lying problem. It’s gotten him into more trouble in his life than I can even begin to explain. It’s happened again and again and again. It’s a sickness and it sucks for both him and those who love him. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how someone gets to be that way. How someone looks their loved ones in the face and blatantly lies about everything. I mean EVERYTHING. From the big stuff about being faithful to a spouse to things that don’t even matter like what kind of medication he took for his cold. How does this happen? Is it just in his nature? Can he help it?

I don’t know the ultimate answer but the more I think about it the more I think that it starts out small. It starts as a small lie you tell your friend or your husband about where you’re going or where you’ve been or whatever. That was easy enough, so next time you’re doing it, you lie again, then again. You’re not doing anything wrong, you just don’t want to be bothered or whatever. Maybe you mess up and don’t keep your stories straight or someone seems suspicious and you don’t want to look stupid for lying for no good reason, so you lie bigger. Then you’re in a web that you can’t escape and before you know it, you’re asking others to lie for you and lying more and then inevitably, you get caught. Now, because you lied to begin with, you look all kinds of guilty and what started out as not wanting to be bothered causes your loved ones to no longer trust you. It’s a nasty, vicious cycle. Now, imagine what it’s like if you’re actually doing something wrong! Holy crap!

A friend of mine recently said “if you feel like you have to lie, you’ve already crossed the line.” Amen, sister. Amen.

There is a line in the movie “Meet Joe Black” that affected me deeply when I saw the movie way back in 1998. Joe and Quince, the goofy brother-in-law are talking after Quince finds out something he said cause his wife’s father to be fired. He knows he has to tell his wife but is terrified. Joe says ” . . . but Allison loves you? How do you know?” And Quince looks at him and says “Because she knows the worst thing about me and it’s ok.”

I decided the moment I heard that line – THAT is how I wanted my marriage to be. Matt really does know the worst things about me. Things I’ve never told anyone but him. Things I’m ashamed of. Stupid things I do all the time. I decided that if he couldn’t love ALL of me, no matter how bad it was, it would never work. So anytime he asks me a question, I do my best to answer truthfully. When my ex-boyfriend calls, it’s not a secret. Matt doesn’t love it, but it’s not a secret. I don’t ever want to give him a reason to be suspicious of me, because the second the trust is gone is the second my marriage isn’t working. I’ve seen too many lives and marriages torn apart by lies to even start down that road. So, if I can do it with my husband I should really be able to do it with everyone in my life.

I resolve today to be more honest and upfront, even in the little, insignificant things. The commandment doesn’t say “thou shalt not lie unless it’s just a little lie.” It says “thou shalt not lie.” Period.

So I shalt not lie. Period.

November 30th, 2008 by Kateastrophe

It’s hard when family trauma gets in the way of the Holidays.

Thanksgiving was seriously great, but there was a cloud hanging over the day because it appears that my Dad and his wife of 13 years, the woman who is not my Mother but who I love and call Mom, are getting divorced.

I knew it was happening . . . it’s not like they broke the news ON Thanksgiving, but I don’t think it really hit me until that day when I got a call from Lisa/Mom and I realized my Dad wasn’t there.  He was in Ohio along with my sister.  Lisa/Mom was in Pennsylvania with my two brothers.  My Mom was in Utah with her husband and I was here with my husband and his family.  We were already all over the place with lots of splits and families to visit and now we’re adding yet another.

I know I’ve shared how hard my parent’s divorce was, but, as horrible as it sounds, I think this one might be worse.  We’re only a few weeks into it, and they’re still talking about trying to work it out, but it’s already getting ugly.  Us kids are already feeling stuck in the middle.

Quite frankly, it sucks.

My brother is calling us the 0-fers.  Dad and Mom didn’t make it.  Our amazing Step-father Mike passed away after only five years with us, my Mom’s marriage is currently OK but has been rocky at best, and now the relationship we thought was the most stable, is crumbling.

Now, I’m not saying my belief in happy marriages is dead, because it’s FAR from that, but it’s just been hard to watch my parents struggle so much, and really hard to watch my siblings try to make sense out of it all.  They don’t really bounce back quite as easily as I do and I know this is hard for them.

I feel like I’m living that movie Four Christmases . . . except with me it’s up to like twelve or something.

Bah.

November 10th, 2008 by Kateastrophe

Um, don’t be mad.  I still haven’t uploaded pictures.  I’m too freaking tired!  Jet lag freaking sucks, let me just tell you what!  Matt uploaded some on Facebook, so if you’re my friend (and ps, if you’re not, por que?) you can see some of the good ones there.  Especially of note is the one of my Dad and I on a bus, wearing Chinese Army winter hats . . . and my Dad is flipping off the camera.  Best.  Picture.  Ever.

Wanna know what else sucks?  Going back to work after two weeks of being served breakfast on the balcony, shopping for amazing, cheap finds, and seeing some of the world’s most amazingest sights.  Yup, totally sucks.  I have no motivation and require lots of cookies and Diet Coke to function.

Cleaning the house after two weeks away and four suitcases worth of crap also sucks.  Like, a lot.  There was a lot of dust and mucho laundry.  Ugh.  Also, toilets.  When I’m rich, I’m never cleaning another toilet again.  Mark my words.

Also, pre-term labor sucks.  My bestest gal in Arizona, JoAnne,  is about 31 weeks preg and has been having contractions on and off for like a week.  The doctor told her if she doesn’t cook that baby girl for at least three more weeks, she’ll be riding the short bus.  I died laughing when JoAnne told me the doctor actually said that, but it’s not really a funny situation, so now I’m making Jo my service project and making her stay down by feeding her and playing with Alli, the two year old wonder-gal.  It’s keeping me very busy but it’s also tons of fun.  I’m also planning JoAnne’s baby shower which I’m LOVING.  It’s going to be SO FUN.  Invitations go out tomorrow morning and I’m mucho proud of myself, if I am allowed to pat meself on the back (which I am).  I’ll upload the pictures whenever I get around to . . . you know, uploading stuff.

There are some other things happening that suck, like the economy.  And the housing market.  And the size of my thighs.  Sigh.  This too shall pass, no?  Well, maybe not the size of my thighs (stupid hereditary thunder thighs), but the other stuff.  Luckily (knock on wood) Matt’s job is very stable and mine seems to be as well.  Good thing because I have a brand spankin’ new washer and dryer that need paying for!  Sheesh!  (Remind me at some point I’ll tell you the story of the exploding washing machine and how Matt and I thought we could fix it ourselves.  THAT was a fun day.)

I guess I should leave this post on a positive note and mention something that DOESN’T suck.  Brandon Flowers.  That’s who doesn’t suck . . . and neither does The Killers two new singles.  Those things don’t suck one teensy tinsey little bit. 

PS - This is my 501st post!  HOLY CRAP!  Seriously!  That’s a lot of written crap!  I’m surprised I have any readers left!!  Kisses to those of you who stuck around this long!  Mwah!

October 10th, 2008 by Kateastrophe

Dumb Girl:  Remember that party last weekend??  Giggle, giggle, chirp, chirp, chirp, annoying laugh blah blah blah.

Dumb Boy on date with Dumb Girl:  Mumble, party, muble, people blah de blah.

Dumb Girl:  Seriously, whenever you get around people you are soooooo obliviant.

 . . . um, whaa?

September 4th, 2008 by Kateastrophe

Some days I wish my blog was anonymous so I could say the mean things that go through my head.  I’m kind of an awful person lately, with mean, mean thoughts.  Mean horrible thoughts.  Thoughts that would make my family and friends (hi guys!) question my sanity –  which, let’s be honest, was sort of in question already.

I’m a fickle, moody, selfish brat sometimes.  Yes I am.  I think it might have something to do with my new red hair.  When I have red hair, it’s like I give myself permission to be all Irish and feisty.  Rarr. 

See?  Red = Feisty

Who really knows.  Maybe it’s hormones.  Maybe it’s the nastly cold that’s traveling through my office and slowly finding it’s way through me.  Maybe it’s the heat starting to get to me.  Whatever it is, I’m going to hesitantly say that I’m sort of enjoying my new found fire.  Matt on the other hand is probably hating me right now.  Bring it on, mister.  Bring. it. on. 

Also, all politics aside, have you ever seen anything cuter than Sarah Palin’s little baby boy Trig??  He just makes my heart melt.

Also, I am very random.  In case you were wondering.

That is all.

July 2nd, 2008 by Kateastrophe

So, I check blogs sporadically through the day at work.  I’m sure I’m not the only one.  I don’t take a lot of time, and I use the Google Reader plug-in for iGoogle so that I have updates on my home page.  I usually pop over and comment on most of the blogs.  Until recently.

My work instigated some firewall that won’t allow me to comment on anything but Wordpress and sometimes that won’t even work.  IT’S DRIVING ME CRAZY.  I love getting and leaving comments and I hate thinking that people aren’t getting comments from me because of stupidness, but that’s what’s happening.

I would normally just comment from home, but lately?  I have ZERO desire to be on the computer at home.  I sit here in front of the thing 8-9 hours a day and I’m burned out by the time I get to the house.  I need to plant my butt in front of the TV clean and work out and do all the important things I should do at home.

Now this issue, mixed with the blogroll issue I mentioned yesterday, is making me out to be a HORRIBLE blog friend.  I’m not, I swear.  If you’ve ever left me a comment, there’s a 99.9% chance I added you to my blogroll and my reader and that I read EVERY SINGLE post you write.  I swear I do.

I guess I just wanted to publicly announce my love and affection for all of you and let you know I AM reading . . . just not commenting for the moment.  Sigh.

June 19th, 2008 by Kateastrophe

Am I crazy for being shocked at how completely INSANE cab drivers in New York City are?  Even if it means I’m crazy, I’m SHOCKED!

So far I’ve:

Witnessed a screaming “f-you” fight between two cabbies while myself and a mother with two very small children were their passengers.  It was on a one lane, one way road.  My driver was mad at the other driver for . . . taking up too much of the road???

Been screamed at for not having cash for my cab ride.  Don’t install a CREDIT CARD MACHINE if you’re not willing to ACCEPT CREDIT CARDS.  The guy called me a “b***h whore.”  Uhhhhh thanks?

Had a cabbie INSIST that I was at the right place, despite my adamantly disagreeing and NOT being in the right place.  He’d gone to the east side and not the west side.  I had to WRITE the address down for him to convince him.

Been dropped off TWICE and told my destination was “a block or two back down this road.”  Aren’t I paying for a cab so I don’t have to walk several blocks??  If I wanted to walk a few blocks I would have WALKED or taken a subway.  Sheesh.

I guess a solution would be to stop taking cabs . . . but that would mean getting up earlier in the morning.  And we all know that isn’t going to happen in THIS lifetime!