Blood Werkz

I got blood drawn today, which ended up being a two-hour process.  I made the mistake of grabbing a Woman's Day off the mag rack.  I teared up at every single story in there.  There were several about helping other people at holiday times.  Those always get me.  Anything about the army gets me too.  The one that really sent me over the edge: a dad AND daughter deployed to Iraq this holiday season.  So here I am, so beyond tearing up, now legitimately crying in the doctor's office, clutching my Woman's Day.  

My soft spot for holiday stories began years ago when my sister and I were working at a Christian book store (yep).  One of the (many) Pentecostal ladies who worked with us had been listening to Talk Radio again and heard a story she just had to tell us about.  Two poor (White Republican Christian was the subtext, if memory serves me) have a really sick kid on Christmas Eve.  They take him to the ER and get turned away, the doctors saying he just needs some OTC loving.  The next morning, the parents find the little 3-yr old curled up under the Christmas tree ... dead.  

It's not even that this kid dies.  It's that he's this little kid and you know how your body just aches so bad when you have the flu? Don't you imagine this itty bitty kid crawling under the Christmas tree, hoping Mr. Nutcracker or Santa or maybe the angel on top of his tree will provide some relief?  Gah, that's what always gets me.  And my sister and I talked about that story for years.  We still do, actually (hence this post).  

But the best part of my day wasn't the umpteen billion tests they ran today.  It was my door prize.  This:

What is that?  It's the bio-hazard jug I get to store my urine in for the next 24 hours.  The worst part?  I have to keep it in the fridge.  So, instead of trying to warn Dustin and Justin (who I suspect have a secret lab somewhere in this house) about the hazardous acids they put in to react with the urine, I'm just sticking a post it on the top that says "Nanny's Pee".  

Just so Dora will stop checking ...

I'm working on a blog right now, but I have to do it in between, you know, actually nannying and shiz.  So more to come ... just after Tae Kwon Do probably.  

Blegh

Migraine today.  Posting tomorrow. 

You're Bleeding All Over Our Xmas Cookies!!!

As I was sawing through frozen burger patties for lunch today, I accidentally sawed through my left thumb with this:

I sort of love this kind of stuff.  I love looking at blood and especially scabs.  Francois Philippe had these scaly white bumps all around his mouth last week and I kept following him around with my high-powered flashlight, begging him to stay still so I could examine them.  

This was one of those gaping cuts, where the skin doesn't naturally reclose (like a slit cut would), so it bleeds way more (coooooool).  My initial reaction was to suck air through my teeth and then run to show Dash.  He's a boy, he's going to love this, right?  Wrong.  Dash turned pale and started yelling, "Help!  We gotta call somebody!  We have to go to the hospital!!!"  Okay, okay, maybe I shouldn't have gone over there with blood running down to my elbow.  

The thing about this sort of cut is that they take awhile to heal.  It keeps spurting just a tiny bit every few minutes. It's bled through all the paper towels and gauze I've wrapped around it so now I'm just letting it air out for a little while.  

... which is making the royal red icing I'm making for our Christmas cookies a little extra special.  

Advice You Didn't Ask For ...

... the best kind. 

I recently saw Four Christmases.  It was good enough that I watched the entire thing, but it was bad enough that if I hadn't been able to pirate the whole thing, I'd be okay with it too.  

I also saw Madagascar 2: Return to Africa.  Blegh.  First of all, I am of the generation that doesn't believe I have to pay for electronic media.  We only pay for things we respect and/or want to compliment.  I was okay with paying to see The Dark Knight three times in a row.  I was okay with buying a Dave Matthews CD.  But I am not okay with paying $24.50 for les bebes and I to go to a fucking matinee showing of a movie made up almost entirely of crude unfunny cliches.  And it was racist, which is like, the worst thing adjective I can mete out.  

However, I do have some good news.  Role Models was kick ass.  Seriously, it was so hilarious that I didn't start making out with The Skydiver until like 3 quarters of the way through.  

Also, Transsiberian was good.  Really thrilling.  Plus, Ben Kingsley.  Need I say more?  

In typical NannyGarcia fashion, the movies I've semi-reviewed are not even new, but hopefully I've saved you (or someone you know) a little heartache.  

... and repeat ...

I've been trying to clean my room for about a week now.  I have always found this task painstaking and arduous.  I grew up in a garbage heap, usually with a narrow walking path leading from the bed to the door.  Every few months, my mother would lock me in there and, after about three days of gnashing my teeth and beating my breast, I would emerge a changed (and clean) woman, vowing never to allow my room to get into such a state of disrepair again.  ... and repeat ... 

 In college, I would do my laundry and throw all the cleanies on my bed.  On the rare occasions that I slept, I would climb to the top of the clothing heap and just sink into the clothes, using a sweat shirt for my pillow and a hippie skirt for my quilt (hey, it was usually patchwork). The next morning (or the one after that, at least) I would extract some smushed up (but still clean!) outfit.  When I would finally get back down to my bedspread, I would know it was time to go back to the laundromat always promise myself that NEXT time, my laundry would be properly put away and I would actually use my sheets.  ... and repeat ... 

Before I left for Thanksgiving, I cleaned up my room in my version of spotless (meaning there was some shiz stuffed in boxes and thrown in my closet, but you couldn't see it so it didn't count).  It was vacuumed and dusted.  Two weeks later, I'm back to sleeping next to my mandolin and a tub of Vaseline. I ain't even lying, I just looked over to see what was on my bed when I wrote that sentence.  

But I'm really going to get it all fancied up again by the end of this weekend.  Les bebes love to play in my room and when my junk is all over the place, I get irritated when they're in there.  And I hate that.  I think it's disgusting when people are short with children.  I could see maybe snapping on Trixie because she can be evil sometimes, but Dash - never.  He is pure sunshine and puppies.  

Okay, well, I guess I've procrastinated enough and have to get back to the cleaning.  

XMas pt. II

Everything is going swimmingly in Operation Christmas Spirit.  Last night we had forced family holiday programming - Mickey Mouse's Christmas Carol.  Our janky basement Christmas tree is all decorated with homemade ornaments, and we've had a steadystream of Christmas cookies NannyGarcia baked with love from scratch.  Incidentally, "from scratch" is a sporting term.  I shit you not.  

But I've almost exhausted all my standard kiddo Christmas plans, so I've gotten a little creative.  And by that I mean, making les bebes do things that Dora and I would do anyway.  For example, anytime we see a Christmas tree in public (I had to add that last clause after Dash tried to break into a neighbor's house to get to their tree in the front window), we take a picture by it.  Currently, our collection consists of the tree in McDonalds as well as several trees in found in Wal-Mart.  Yeah, it's probably going to be a White Trash Christmas from here on out, folks.  

Oh, and by popular demand (meaning Cat), the pictures of The Wal-Mart Coat:

And here is the lovely hood:

But my favorite feature is this:

I found this tag on the inside and I keep it, just in case PETA mistakes me for an Olsen twin.