I’ve got that loving feeling (again).

Right now, everything in The Life of Riley is pretty much… well, like The Life of Riley.  Meaning everything is running smoothly and well.  Except the part where I haven’t won the lottery yet.  My wife is being domestic and nice to me.  Giving me extra kisses, not forgetting to say goodnight, calling me on the phone just to check in on me and generally being sweet.  My daughter, the sass master of all time, is being nice to.  She is speaking to me in the mornings (she is a horrible morning person), texting me to let me know where she is like she is supposed to, and listening to me lecture her when needed without rolling her eyes or sarcastic comeback.

Lucky me right?

All of this leads me to realize I can choose one of three multiple choice options in response.

a) Be appreciative and say awwwww and try to be nice in return

b) Accept it as my due, since I am the big bad man of the house and deserve such due to my awesome good looks and mighty charm

c) Realize I’m being buttered up like a Christmas Goose

Well, my Momma didn’t raise no dummy despite her claims to the contrary and I know my two women well.  After all, I’ve been married for 20 years, and my daughter is 17.  Which means I only really have one option here.  Option C.

That’s right folks.  I’m being set up.

The problem is, I haven’t been able to figure out for what.  To say I’m starting to get nervous is an understatement.  Sure, sit there in your chair and roll your eyes at me and mutter “wow isn’t he the suspicious sort”.  You’re either young (read naive) or don’t know my girls.

Both of them were born for the natural instinct that God gives all women.  Manipulation.  Both have large, female disney character style eyes, and pouty lips.  When they unleash their arsenal of weapons, it’s difficult for any man not to give in.  Oh, did I forget to mention the tears?  Big giant ones that slowly roll down their cheeks that somehow, can get turned on and off with a snap.  I know there must be a switch for that somewhere, but I have been unable to find it.  I did look.  Using my male authority, I had them both facing the wall, with hands on it while I frisked them.  Even amongst the giggling, squirming and annoyed questions of “what do you think you’re doing”, I failed in that quest.  Sherlock, I’m not.

But let’s do some reviewing shall well?

One year, when our daughter was still a rather obnoxious baby who had us wrapped around her little finger toddler, my wife decided she just HAD to have a Christmas tree in her room for her.  Well, being a man, I thought that was a bit of overkill.  Think of the expense, I reasoned, the trouble, the extra lights and ornaments.  Needless to say, that didn’t go over very well.  The worst part of it was, it had to be a specific tree.  Do you remember the fad years ago with the six foot trees that were really skinny?  Yup, had to be one of those.  And of course, she picked that year to try and get one, when everyone else wanted one.  She ran all over town, with me on the phone calling every store in the phone book.  It took a number of days, but she finally got that tree.  Yeah, I could have put my foot down, but I really didn’t want to face the big eyes, giant tears, and pouting.  So I was a wuss and went along for the ride.

You try saying no to this.

Or how about the whole year my daughter worked on me to get that nose piercing she just had to have?  I tried to be an adult, explain why it was “not a good idea” and all I got was the face, and the tears, and the moans, and they lectures from my wife of you just don’t understand young girls (which is true btw).  So yeah, in the end, she got the piercing.  Again, try saying no to the cuteness of the Kitty Princess.

Then there was the time a few months ago my wife convinced me to get my eyebrows done at one of those new kiosks in the mall where they use thread to painfully rip remove portions of your eyebrows, therefore shaping them.  She will deny this of course, but it was all her idea.  Hey, I’m a man, and I’m hairy.  I may look like a gorilla, but being a man, I don’t really care right?  Well let me tell you, that is one I will not make the mistake of falling for twice.  After the tears of pain stopped, I had to walk around with a glowing red forehead for an hour.  I looked ridiculous.  Like I had a neon sign on my forehead.  Not to mention the pain.  Man, the things women do to make themselves look good is beyond mentioning.

Of course, there is also the clues.  Even though I’m no Sherlock, I can still spot the signs.  The whispering, the sudden cessation of talking when I walk in the room, only to see two innocent smiles.

It all adds up one thing.  I’m in trouble peeps.

I’ve looked for clues around the house.  Scraps of paper, match books, the sudden appearance of brochures.  So far, I haven’t found anything.  But it’s coming.  I just know it.

I’ve got some vacation time.  I’m thinking of running off to the North Pole and help Santa, but I don’t know.  I’m afraid of what I’ll find when I return.

~ Kev

The end of the stone

Well, for those of you that have been following along, I finally passed my kidney stone.  What a relief!  No more pain, no more drugs and no more pain!  But most importantly, no more pain!  I’m excited, nay, I am THRILLED.  Mere words can not begin to describe my joy and relief.

Thursday, June 11, 2009 is going down on my calendar as a special day.  I’m making it a holiday, just for me.

I have a long list of people to thank for dealing with me over the past week.  Being a man, being sick is a burden that reverts me back to a little boy.  Yeah, I can admit it.  At least this time, I was in enough pain that people overlooked it.

First and foremost, I have to thank the Evil Wife Creature for everything she has done for me.  She was awesome.  Patient, kind, loving, and did her best to take care of me.  At the end of the day, what more can you ask for when you’re suffering so badly?  So thanks baby.  In this case my lovely dragon, RAWR means I love you.

 

The Evil Wife Creature.  Hear her RAWR!

Baby, I will never forget your eagerness to just jump in the car and rush me to the ER with grave concern written all over you beautiful face.  For prosperity purposes, I managed to find a picture from a road camera that documents are trip to the ER.

I tell ya, I’m a lucky man!

Of course, I also have to thank the local hospital vampires, guy and girl, who quickly tortured helped me by taking blood.  Of course, their multiple attempts to stick a vein won’t be mentioned.

They look happy, yes?  I’m sure they were as thrilled as I was by their attentions.

I also must thank my first doctor, who in his concern, completely forgot to give me the proper information before throwing me out the door and sending me home to pace back and forth from the pain I was in.  No doubt, he had far weightier matters on his mind, such as that nights menu.  That’s right, thank you Mr. Swedish Chef Doctor.  I’ll never forget you.

I will admit that I had second thoughts about even mentioning the second ER doc.  Frankly, when I opened my eyes and saw him standing over me, I almost screamed and ran.  But the Evil Wife Creature held me down for my own good and let out a mighty RAWR, breaking numerous glass objects and gave him the Evil Eye.  He behaved.  He to, in his concern, forgot to give me important information, but luckily, the Evil Wife Creature refused to deal with me in my poor state and took matters into her own hands.

And Doc?  I hope you finally got that meal you were going on and on about instead of taking care of me.  Let’s see, your hunger pains over my kidney stone pains.  Wow, they don’t even come close to matching up!

Lastly, I must thank my kidney stone.  Is that weird?  Maybe, but the stone taught me a valuable lesson.  Nothing else can quite turn you into a shaking, sweating, crying, slag of a human quite like a kidney stone.  I felt you trying to rip out of my insides for 6 inhuman days.

Personally, I still think I was invaded by an evil alien creature, like the one pictured above, and the Evil Wife Creature killed it and refuses to tell me about it so I won’t cry, weep, and grind my teeth in despair.

In the end, the stone I was feeling inside me didn’t quite match up to my expectations, which was a stone like this.

Not the small little thing I dropped off for the lab to analyze.  It’s hard to believe that something that is only 3mm can cause so much pain, but let me assure you that it can.  It came, it saw, it kicked my rear end.

But all is well that ends well, at least for now.  I have a second stone sitting in my kidney that is no doubt plotting evil and mayhem.  Oh the joy –headesk-

~ Kev

An Infamous Day

Some mornings when you wake up, you just know this day is going to be one of the ones that go down in infamy.

Today was one of those days for me.

I was awakened this morning by a very intense, very sharp, pain in my side.  I thought at first that my wife had finally tried to kill me in my sleep a giant had crept into my room and kicked me in the side.  The pain was awful.  I got up and inspected my side for stab wounds took some Tylenol in hopes that whatever it was, would go away.  Unfortunately, it didn’t.  I started to get concerned after an hour and I began to think I was suffering from appendicitis.  My manly whimpering attempts to work through the pain woke up my wife, who decided to take pity on me.  Despite my protests, she decided it was time for me to do something about it, so she told me in no uncertain terms I was going to the ER.

I’m a fairly smart man most days, and thankfully, today was one of my smarter ones, because when my wife makes up her mind, there is just no stopping her.  So we got dressed and off we went to the hospital where my wife made sure to hit every bump in the road in some bazaar form of retribution.

When we finally arrived at the ER, I was lucky enough not to have to wait long, because by this point, the pain was so bad, I had an evil mind set.  Despite being the manly man that I am, I don’t tolerate pain all that well.  The registration nurse ignored my chants of “give me drugs” and got me registered.  I find it funny that they have this one particular question they ask.  They ask you, on a scale of 1 – 10, with 10 being the worst pain you have ever felt, rate your pain.  Hunched over, whimpering in pain, with bloodshot eyes, I calmly asked her if 10 was as high as it went, because 10 wouldn’t describe the pain I felt.  For some reason, she thought that was hilarious.  After shooing me away, I hobbled back to the waiting area and started chanting again tried to be patient, if you’ll pardon the pun.

I got back into an exam room and didn’t even mind the degradation of having to strip and put on one of those exam gowns designed my some evil alien that we all love to hate.  Then I got a visit from the local vampire who wanted my blood.  Apparently, he was a young vampire, because even after repeated sticks and probing with a needle, he was unable to get any.  So they called in a younger, but far more experienced vampire who finally found a vein that interested her.  Personally, I think there was a group of vampires outside the room laughing quietly at the whole ordeal.

Then it was time to pace back and forth, ignoring the repeated question of “don’t you want to lay down?” because I was in far to much pain to lay down.  Plus, it hurt worse when I did.  Finally the Doc came in, looking like some Swedish Model and took one look at my evil glare, heard my chanting, and fled to get a nurse who was loaded with pain medication.  FINALLY.  All I have to say is that whoever invented morphine, may they be blessed.

Then it was time for my exam and the Swedish Model of a doctor did all manner of things, like poking and pressing on my side where it hurt, and thumping my back over my kidneys.  Because I didn’t scream like a girl and try to kick him, he said, he thought I might have appendicitis.  They ordered up a cat scan and I was forced to drink this awful concoction that they claimed would taste like Sierra Mist, but instead tasted like swamp water from the depths of hell crap.  Off I went to have my cat scan done.

You know, it’s funny how some people are.  One of the scan techs began to amuse me with tales of how I would feel like I was burning up with a fever, feel sick to my stomach, and feel like I peed on myself from the additional glow in the dark contrast concoction that they gave me though my IV.  When the other technician came to give me this concoction, after the evil tech had left the room, he silently told me it wouldn’t be as bad as she made it out to be at all, to just relax.  I swear I saw fear in his eyes, which made me think the other tech was actually an evil alien body snatcher.  The cat scan went smoothly and I was taken back to my exam room.

At this point, I was fully expecting to be told I was going under the knife, to remove a misbehaving appendix.  So it was with some surprise that I was told by my Swedish Model doc that I had a kidney stone after all, and that it was passing from my kidney, which was causing all the pain.  So I was given a handful of prescriptions, one for pain thank the Lord, and was told to go home and prepare to learn what it was like to have a baby wait for the stone to pass.

The person who gave me instructions, which in my drugged state I was unable to process, told me I needed to name my stone, like it was a baby, because that so totally makes sense.  Then, feeling relief that at least I wouldn’t have to have surgery, I stumbled into my clothes and let my darling wife help me walk out.  Thankfully, she decided to be nice and not let me fall, because let me tell you, that morphine was kicking my behind.  So off we went, and I could swear that I could hear the vampires still snickering, and the Swedish Model Doctor imitating the Swedish Chef Muppet.  But that could have been the drugs.

My daughter says that I should name this stone “Arpeggio”, because “that’s such a fun word to say”.  You know?  I think she is right.

~ Kev

Shopping Fun

Since times are hard, one of the ways we like to try and save money is by shopping at second hand stores.  It’s something we have liked to do for many years now, but now more than ever, it’s quite helpful.

While my lovely wife is doing her shopping, I run around the store like a typical man go on hunts for things she might find useful.  I’m very helpful like that.

Somehow or other, I end up pawing browsing though items that people have thrown away decided they didn’t want anymore.  What is amazing is the things you will actually find.  Some of the things I come across are wonderful finds, while others quite frankly leave me scratching my head.  It’s not that I think people have strange tastes.  One man’s tastes will differ from another’s.  What amazes me is that companies actually make some of the things they do.

Take these wonderful child plates for example.  What better way to force fast food on children to induce a child to eat their veggies than such at these plates!  Just imagine the joy a child will feel, eating his veggies to reveal his favorite fast food characters so that they can terrorize their parents into going back again and again!

Then, I came across evidence of either a very upset Nascar family, or one going through Rehab for addiction to cars driving in circles.

Now I know some people have some strange tastes.  I also know designers have strange tastes.  But this?  This is monstrous to say the least.  This is supposed to be.. some kind of lamp.  No seriously.

 

thiJust imagine the wonderful ambient lighting you can get from that.  Personally, I think it’s kind of creepy.

Now I know that sometimes, companies don’t pay attention to details like they should.  This one is pretty easy to accept, but I can’t help but poke at it.  I’m glad they were ready for the start of the new Millennium, a year early.

This next one, bought to you by the folks who are constantly asking “What’s in your wallet”, just plain confuses me.  What is this supposed to be?  What were they thinking?

Ah well.  To be honest, I’m really not interested in finding out.  Well, there ends the fun in second hand shopping for this trip.  Take care all!

~ Kevin

OHMYGOSH SNOW!

So yeah.  Living in Richmond, Virginia, we usually get passed in the snow department.  Instead, we are more likely to get freezing rain.  But not this time!

I don’t know if I should be full of joy or irritated honestly.  I mean it’s Monday and I’m supposed to be working.  But we got 10” of snow on the ground and Interstate 95 was a mess this morning.  I probably would have been in “danger danger” if I had tried to leave Richmond.  If I hadn’t have gone North, I would have gone Southwest, and they got even more snow.  So it looks like I’m working from home (as well as writing this blog).

My overly hormonal sweet cute little girl, who is 16, has decided to go out and build a snowman.  It will be interesting to see how she does.  I know it’s only 10” of snow, but she isn’t even 5’ tall.  She might get lost out there.  Don’t worry, I will rescue her eventually immediately if she does.  When I went out to check on her, I had to shake my head in wonder.  Her snowmen are… tiny.  I asked her what was up with that and she should build a big one and she grumpily sweetly told me to mind my own business.

My little brainiac is a card.  She finally finished with her midget snowmen, and they actually look kinda cute.  The finished product?

I finally got the cars cleaned off.  Then I decided to go inspect the local scenery to see how my neighbors faired.  The streets don’t really have that much snow on them as of this afternoon, but still, you could see how early it was no easy going for locals.

I don’t understand why Richmonder’s are just plain convinced that they can go out and drive in the snow.  Especially when the storm we get equals more than an inch.  They should know better, but yet something strange seems to come over them and forces them out of the house to go popping around town.  Personally, I’m voting for Aliens, who want to hover in their flying saucers and take pictures of the hillarity of the whole thing.  Maybe they have their own FAIL website, like the one at Fail Blog. I guess, since we rarely get snow here now days, it’s just a case of crazyness quickly on-setting cabin fever.  Brave Richmonder’s, gotta wonder about love ‘em.

I wish they would learn to stay in their houses.  That way I would feel safe going out.  Not that I’m some expert in driving in the snow, but I’m a lot better than most.  I’ve had a lot of experience driving in the snow, not to mention that my father worked for the highway department for untold years and took my young self out to actually teach me about driving in the snow.  He must have done something right.  Or maybe I’ve just been lucky.  Either way you look at it, I can, for once, say I’m better than most in Richmond.  Ok, yes that sounded conceited.  So what?

While I was out a little while ago, taking a gander at the kids playing in their yards and laughing at the pileup of cars on the side of the road, I almost got hit.  Minding my own business (for the most part), this tiny little Honda came skidding – barely – to a stop halfway into the road at a stop sign.  He was obviously driving like there was no snow on the road and decided to wait to brake to a stop like on any normal day.  Just goes to show you I am right about the Richmonder’s.  His look of fright was plain to see and actually gave me a nice little pop to my day.  I have a Durango, and if he hadn’t stopped, and for some reason I didn’t, well…. he would have had an annihilated car.  I might have suffered a scratch.  Luckily, a collision was avoided quite easily.

Regardless, the snow is beautiful, and I’m glad Richmond finally got some.  Everything is white and clean looking.  Thanks mother nature.

Tomorrow should be an interesting day.  It’s going down to 11 degrees so the mush, what’s left on the road, is going to be solid ice.  Oh joy.  I’m sure the local insurance agents in the area will be losing lots of sleep this week.

At the moment, I’m enjoying watching my wife and child take our cats and putting them outside in the snow.  No seriously, they are out there practicing “cat tossing”.  They are indoor cats, so of course, the cats are suffering a sudden case of “WTF!?!?!” and tearing back inside, their tiny cat faces full of fright.  Now that’s some good stuff.  Indoor cats and snow equals lots of lolz.

Can you just SEE the evil glint look of joy in my wife’s face as she enjoys introducing one of our cats to the snow?  Let me just say, I’m glad my wife never needed to teach me how to swim.

Here is another one of our cats who was introduced to the snow.  Notice how she is trying to climb the wall of our porch.  Poor kitty (laughing hysterically).

Maybe tomorrow I will take my camera out with me when I go back to actual working on the road.  I’m sure I can find some interesting pictures.  I guess we will see.  However, for now it’s time to go, back to getting paperwork done, until the sun goes down and I once again venture outside to see how bad things are.

~ Kevin