The Queen's Rambles

As I told my dermatologist last year, my biggest talent is growing things. I have pilar cysts all over my scalp (they are basically big sacs filled with keratin). I had a teratoma on my ovary. My GYN wouldn’t tell me the contents, but confirmed that if I read google I would know what was in it. Google tells me they are full of bones, teeth, hair, skin, etc. You know, you’re basic random body parts shoved into a little bag in my ovary. My talent is vast.

While my mom was here she was telling me about a family friend who had a cyst on her wrist. They didn’t have insurance, so her husband slammed a can of corn on it, which burst the thing and made it go away.

Tuesday during BodyPump I noticed that my wrist feeling a little tweakish during certain moves. Yesterday I thought the joint was swollen. Today it is huge! It is clearly a cyst, so I looked it up and found out there is a specific kind of cyst that grows on your wrist joint–a ganglion cyst. It’s a sac filled with fluid that can turn gelatinous. Yummy!

In the old days they called them bible bumps because the accepted cure was to have someone in the family bash it with a bible to break it up. That is not the preferred treatment these days, but do you think I would let a little something like common sense stop me?

I couldn’t bring myself to actually bash the bump with a book or canned good, especially since I was home alone. I pressed it against the table really hard and felt a small pop. Now, instead of a big lump, I have a bagel wrist.

It’s not quite as bad as a Japanese bagel forehead (what a strange, strange land), but it is not attractive either. I’m planning on calling the doctor on Monday if it doesn’t go away on it’s own. Maybe I’ll even let Mike bash me with one of his bibles (aka giant Wheel of Time book).

Guess I better go put Erik to bed. Do I really have to read to him tonight? I know I do, but we’re back to Magic Tree House books and you know how I feel about those. Ugh.

I can’t believe how busy life is! I keep thinking things will calm down, but they are speeding up. I miss my daily journal decompression, but it just isn’t meant to be these days I guess.

Today was a day of catching up. Having guests, even a guest who tries to help, got our schedule completely off-kilter. My mom did not do my regular cleaning schedule while she was babysitting. I did not expect her to do it, nor did I leave her a list of things to do, but man, oh man, were the bathrooms FILTHY when we got home. Despite best intentions, I couldn’t manage to get to them until today! Gross! It feels like I spent hours cleaning this afternoon. As soon as I stepped out of the bathroom, satisfied with my work and pleased with shiny surfaces, Elsa ran by crying that she was pooping.

Yup.

She sure was.

She left a trail up the stairs and all the way into her room. Just what you wanted to read about tonight, eh? At least I have a steamer that can do stairs. Ugh. She’s never done that before, thankfully.

Instead of doing things like cleaning bathrooms, my mom spent her time re-organizing my kitchen despite the fact that I clearly told her not to touch my stuff and I specifically stated that she better not re-organize anything. She also re-organized Elsa’s room and cleaned up my craft table. I have no clue where anything is.

When she asked how I liked the kitchen I tried to be calm. After all she had just done us a huge favor by watching the kids for five days, but I was clearly not enthusiastic. However, I did have to admit that she had some good ideas. Just when it was growing on me, I went to the gym. When I came home she had moved everything back so I still couldn’t find anything. She said “you didn’t say you liked it, so I thought you hated it.” No, I didn’t say I liked it. Nor did I hate it. I said, “We’ll have to see. We need to test it out for a few days.” Is it really so hard to just ASK and communicate? Mike and I communicate about everything. We talk. We plan. If she really wanted to re-organize things and thought she had some good ideas she could have discussed it and we could have worked on it together. Then I might have had a clue where things were.

Really, I’m more angry about the mess she made of Elsa’s room. I know the piles of stuff looked like chaos, but they were completely organized in my head. I had different piles for selling and giving away, too big, too small, eBay, consignment. I had a sock project going on, trying to weed out the too small socks. She does not understand that just because she does not know the reasons things are arranged the way they are arranged that there is a reason.

Who goes into someone else’s home and does that? Especially when they are told to leave things alone?

It could have been worse, I suppose. It doesn’t sound like she fed the kids bowls full of sugar at every meal.

And now I must go to bed. I’ve been drinking a glass of wine in the evening because it is the only way I’ve found to sleep soundly through the night. It makes me so tired that I can barely type. Hope this entry isn’t too non-sensical.

You knew there would be drama with my mom here, right? It never ends. I think I would have a nervous breakdown if I had to live near my family and deal with all of this on a daily basis.

So you knew my mom would probably go home early. Yup. It is happening. She leaves tomorrow.

My sister’s husband is in New Jersey with his high school sweetheart. He can’t tolerate my sister any more and I don’t blame him, but how can he bail on his kids? Not a surprise, really, since he has abandoned kids scattered across the nation.

He’s been in close phone contact with my mom, trying to figure out what my sister is up to. It’s the usual, of course. Dope, men, blah blah blah. Apparently there is something called the purple pages on FB and he found my sister’s picture there. It is a prostitution ring or something. I’m not really clear on it. She also sent him a FB message that she wants him to take my oldest nephew because she’s tired of him and can’t handle him.

Anyway, my sister is in a new house that feeds into a fairly ritzy school. Half the students come from the super fancy country club houses and the other half come from the other side of the tracks. The principal is a young guy who is not burned out yet. My mom called and talked to him last week, so he showed up at my sister’s door with a police officer and took the kids to school. This is a GOOD thing. Finally someone is standing up and taking notice! The principal of their old school saw so much shit that he couldn’t possibly rescue all the kids. He gave up caring. I have semi-high hopes that this new principal is going to rattle some cages.

Today CPS was out there with a different case worker. The kids were alone with a registered sex offender, so they were taken into protective custody. My mom was freaking out, but I was trying to convince her this was a GOOD thing. She would know they were safe tonight. I know foster care is not ideal, but their life is far from safe. A couple of night’s of foster care would be better than what they are living right now. The story my mom pieced together is that their sex offender babysitter was in trouble for being a true pedo. So disgusting.

CPS told the father that if a family member was able to pick the kids up by 5 pm they could go with the family member, but the person would have to pass a UA.

Guess where the kids are right now?

With my #*#*$(#(#@*# sister. She refused to take the UA but they gave her the kids anyway.

The case will be open for 30 days and there will be some kind of investigation. I hope this case worker is more on the ball than the other case worker. They want proof of everything, but it’s not like my sister is going out in middle of the street, shooting up (do you shoot up meth?) in front of a police officer. At some point doesn’t someone have to listen to the people who are making the reports? I am not exaggerating one little bit when I say that I am afraid my sister is going to kill one of the kids. Oregon CPS will say “oh, darn. Guess they were right.” I want to go to their office and kick in their walls and force them to listen.

My mom has a plane ticket home for tomorrow evening. Once again she is disappointing my kids. I get that she needs to go there. I WANT her to go home and take care of the kids. That’s all I’ve wanted. I just wish she would learn to shut her mouth and not tell my kids about her plans. First she told them she was moving here, so Erik is really sad that she’s not. Then she told them she would be here until after Elsa’s birthday party, but of course that didn’t work out either. I told her and told her when she first planned this trip to not tell my kids anything about her plans, but she refused to admit that her plans would change. That’s the part that pisses me off. Just bleepity-bleep LISTEN to me once in a while!

At least she finally said she was nuts to think she could move away from the kids. I was so angry about her moving plans. I know and understand that they are not her responsibility, but she’s all they’ve got. She’s their grandma. She needs to protect them the best she can. She took on that role when they were born and even though it is not fair, she needs to live up to that role. She finally said she couldn’t stand to be away from them and she didn’t know what she was thinking when she thought she could walk away.

It’s just so sad and there’s nothing I can do about it. I have had some serious talks with my mom, telling her to stop fantasizing about beating sense into my sister and start looking for real solutions. She must stop throwing all her money at my sister, thinking it will fix her. She must hire a lawyer and take care of business the way a normal person takes care of business. I don’t know if any of it got through to her, but she did perk up when I told her to call her friend’s granddaughter-in-law who actually works for CPS. I’ve talked to this lady and she told me she would LOVE to give my mom advice, but ethically (maybe legally?) she can’t do it unless my mom initiates the conversation.

It is so frustrating to watch the system completely fail my niece and nephews. It is even more frustrating to watch my mom make bad choice, after bad choice. She’s a really good woman, but she doesn’t understand how to make things happen. I really don’t understand her thought processes at all. You’d think a person in their 60s would have learned a little about the way the world works, but she keeps banging her head against the wall and only ends up with a headache.

All those people who tell you to take time for yourself and your marriage–“make going away a priority, spend time without kids.” They know what they are about, don’t they? I always knew they had to be right, but it was not something we could ever manage. It was such a gift to be able to concentrate on each other without worrying about the very demanding, specific, often illogical needs of our children. When you spend the whole day giving someone every ounce of your attention and energy, it’s hard to find even MORE attention and energy after the kids go to bed.

Our vacation was worth every penny and every moment of stress beforehand. It was almost as perfect as it could be, except for a glitch at The Wizarding World of Harry Potter that has made me swear to become the anti-Universal Studios blogger of the year.

Sure, not everything went right. I ended up with huge blisters on the bottoms of my feet by the end of the first day. Our most expensive meal was also the worst meal of the whole trip. We were rained on at Epcot. Details, schmetails.

Overall I can’t even begin to describe how badly we needed this time away for ourselves. I am very, very grateful that my mom was able to watch the kids for five days and I am not even going to complain about the things she did that have me scratching my head. Everyone is alive and happy and that’s what counts.

We started our adventure at Animal Kingdom. I thought we would be spending the whole day in line, but the people behind Disney are brilliant. Everyone can get a FastPass! Other theme parks offer this service for a super-expensive price, but at Disney it is a little different. You go to the attraction and get a ticket with a time printed on it. Once the clock strikes your specific time, you can go through the FastPass lane, which means a pretty short wait (maybe 10 minutes). You can also wait in the stand-by line, which we did on a couple of rides with low wait times. Overall, Disney totally rocked my world with their planning and guest services. Everyone was friendly and happy. I am sure the employees must have been tired by the end of the day, but it never showed. The attractions are all really well planned and everything flowed beautifully. Even with crowds and long lines there was really no feeling of being completely overwhelmed (except for the babies. The poor babies! We saw so many little infants and toddlers at Animal Kingdom who looked completely miserable. It almost seems cruel to bring such young children to a theme park with such high stakes (Disney! Have fun gosh darnit! Even if you are only six months old and sunburned! We paid hundreds for these tickets!).

Animal Kindgom was a lot of walking around, looking at animals. We did the jungle safari ride twice, rode the big thrill coaster and took in two shows. The Lion King show was pretty amazing! They say it is the best show at Disney and I believe it. We also had our best meal of the trip at the Flaming Tree BBQ stand. I never knew theme park food could be good! I was also really impressed with the way they had the lines organized–seems like a silly thing to think about, but keeping those lines under control is so important in making a guest’s experience more positive.

By the end of the day my feet were hurting pretty bad. It has been so cold here in Maryland that I’ve been wearing my big winter moccasin type shoes all the time. I knew I should take my running shoes, but they really hurt my back. I made the incredibly bad decision to wear my Birkenstocks. I’ve worn Birkies for years, but have fallen out of the habit now that I spend a lot of time at playgrounds. I don’t like the mulch on my feet. Thus, blisters.

The blisters were hideous. By the time we got to the hotel that night I couldn’t even walk and was convinced our trip would be ruined. I thought I’d have to be like all the other fat people and rent a scooter or have Mike push me in a wheelchair. But my problem wasn’t my fat! It was my dumb blisters! We did some first aid on them, and hoped for the best.

The next day we decided to forgo common advice to be first in line at Islands of Adventure and spent our morning relaxing. It was a vacation sans children–we were not getting up at 6 am.

Animal Kingdom really died down around 4 pm (all the kiddos needed naps) so we were hoping the same
would be true of Islands of Adventure.

We went to the pool and watched families freeze their tushies off (we didn’t swim), then we did lunch and spotted Footlocker. A very knowledgeable young lady helped me find a great pair of shoes that I will love forever now that I’ve given up on insisting that I only wear women’s shoes. I know that is silly, but I do like to be feminine. I hate feeling like a man.

The artistry of the Islands of Adventure park is really beautiful, but it does not have that Disney touch. The employees all looked tired and a lot of them were downright surly. Disney and IoA both had their fair share of shops, but it felt like IoA had a lot more and was a lot more expensive. Maybe I’m just bitter. Their fastpass system was a pay system, so we didn’t buy one. There weren’t enough rides that we wanted to go on to justify it. Half the rides were either big thrill coasters or water rides. It was way too cold for water rides (even though crazy people were giving it a go!).

Finally we arrived at Harry Potter world! It was so crowded that we couldn’t even move, much less get a good look at any of the things we wanted to see. The biggest disappointment was the ride that we came all the way to Florida to go on–the Forbidden Journey through Hogwarts. It has a pull-over-the-head restraint that is not built to accommodate all people. If you have a big upper body you can’t go on the ride. I have big shoulders, huge boobs and a big belly. I couldn’t go on the ride.

I know I am fat, but I have never, never in my life been denied anything (except cute clothing) because of my weight. I don’t have to use seatbelt extenders or anything like that. I’ve never put much thought into something like this happening. I rode several rides at Disney with the same pull over restraints and it wasn’t an issue. Obviously this spoiled that whole day, but I am trying not to think about it too hard. I will never, never go to Universal Studios again, that’s for sure. Also, the food at the Three Broomsticks was pretty awful and the butterbeer was way too sweet. Boo.

Onwards to day three!

Everyone said we had to see Epcot, so we did the whole “go in the afternoon” thing again, even though it didn’t work out so well at IoA. It was actually raining when we arrived and it wasn’t so fun to stand there in the rain, but we got in a fast moving line that was mostly covered and by the time we were done exploring the iconic big golf ball (Spaceship Earth) the rain was pretty much over.

We did a few of the rides/shows in the World of Tomorrow, which were fun but a little dated and a little too educational. It was not crowded at all so we didn’t get FastPasses for any of the rides. I think our longest wait was about 20 minutes (we skipped the water ride that had a long line. We were already cold and wet.)

The best part of Epcot, by far, was the World Showcase. We spent hours going through the different countries. It was very well done and I loved going in all the shops. Yes, most of it was probably really overpriced, but it was still fun to see such a wide variety of things I’d never dreamed of. And I learned something new! All those anime animal like characters actually have a meaning. They are based off Japanese gods. I never knew that! I find anime annoying, but that certainly shed a different light on the whole art.

I was dying to buy a little Chinese outfit for Elsa. They had all kinds, but the prices were just a little too much for dress-up box clothes. It’s not like she’s Chinese and has a place to wear silk floral clothing. I also wanted to buy one for myself, but I doubt they would have my size and, of course, where would I wear it? I loved looking at the outfits, but there is no way I could comfortably wear one in public. I won’t even wear American florals most of the time.

We are getting technologically advanced in our old age and managed to make reservations at the Moroccan restaurant using a Disney app! Whoo-hoo! Using the app to make reservations was about the most exciting part of the meal. Being in a loud, packed restaurant is not exactly romantic. The food was fairly bad, too. We get the same thing at a local take-out place and it tastes much, much better for less than half the price.

After dinner we kept walking and I had a really tasty bit of chocolate trifle in the UK. By the time we reached Canada (the end!) it was time for the fireworks, which was a fantastic show!

Friday was our last day and we debated going to another park. In the end we decided my feet weren’t up to it and there was nothing we were dying to see. We spent most of the day at Downtown Disney, which is a restaurant/shopping district outside the parks. Nothing too impressive (the balloon ride was down because of storms), but it did have a movie theatre so we went to see Oz the Great and Powerful. Fun movie, but we really should have picked something a little more adult.

And then it was time to come home. We flew on AirTran, which was not the best airline ever. For some reason they don’t seat parties together, then once the plane is loaded the start juggling people around so children can sit with their parents. We were able to juggle ourselves into an exit row together. Whoo-hoo! Since the plane didn’t crash, I didn’t even need to test my strength on the door.

And now we are home! It was great to get big kisses and hugs from the kids, but returning is sure a trial by fire. No easing in to it–it’s just instant go go go get the soccer shoes, brush the hair, why are you naked? clean the mirror, talk on the play phone, and so on and so on and so on.

When’s our next vacation?