Saturday, August 24, 2013

Let's Peck Each Other to Death

It's Saturday, my darling sex goddesses.

I am currently sitting on my couch in booty shorts, my husbands knee socks and a t-shirt with a picture of Grumpy Dwarf that says "All Grumpy, All the Time".  The Justin Timberlake prophecy is true, friends, I am single-handedly bringing sexy back.

Thought I would take a break from turning everyone in Los Angeles on to pop on here and talk about the world of online infertility as it seems to be sort of a shit storm recently. I'm apparently on some kindness kick - last time it was about being nice to yourself now let's talk about each other.

I've said it on here before, but my favorite book of all time is probably "Like Water For Chocolate". It's simple, it's an easy-read, it's folklore, it's a cookbook, it's fairy tale, it's romantic, it's funny, its heartbreaking, it's everything I want in a damn book. Whenever I read it I feel like Fred Savage in The Neverending Story.  Gimme gimme this shit is crazy.

Anyhoo - at one point some farm chickens are fed some food that was made when someone was righteously angry.  Lovely little community of chicken friends are handed a little bit of anger-laced-food, they ingest it, and then everything gets all Quentin-Tarantinoey/Lord of the Flies/Lux Aeterna real fast. They're pecking each others eyes out, munching down chicken feet, ripping out each others feathers and wearing them as fashionable victory beards - it is CRAY CRAY time in chicken town. They turn their energy on each other in such an epic way that they force themselves into a literal tornado of evil chickens, blow themselves away from their real purpose (which was to lead happy chicken lives, I assume) and out of the whole damn book.  No more chickens.

My point is - at best, Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, forums, all the shit that we use in the infertile online community is amazing. At best it's a place to meet other women like ourselves, keep invested in each others stories (because gawd knows we're probably boring the less understanding people in our real lives to tears), we help each other, we keep informed... I can get on Twitter at any time and say something along the lines of "Dear Facebook, I don't give a shit about what anyone's baby had for lunch" and I will undoubtedly be embraced by the warm, ample, hormone-riddled cyber-bosom of many women who agree with me. Which, and I can't stress this enough, is awesome.

At worst, when we're hopped up on a little bit of anger we turn on each other like a goddamn psychotic chicken tornado hellbent on our own destruction which is a pretty big 'at worst'.

(Source.)

Let me state for the record here, I'm not saying any of this in response to anything specific.  Much to my horror, there is no specific.  If there was a specific, I would be animatedly retelling it to my doubtlessly eye-rolling husband and not looking up pictures of angry birds. Most unfortunately there are countless examples so I can't even narrow down a specific.

I've been in blogland for over a year, and occasionally the blow ups happen.  I've been in forums off an on for years, occasionally the blow up happens. I've been on Twitter for 3 months, and though it is overall lovely (never will I again go a day without talking to another infertile) holy shit me it happens every other week. Most of the time when there's a whiff of negativity, I spend 2 seconds investigating, get lost, get distracted by a butterfly or shiny object.

Sometimes when I notice them, I think 'oh I get where they're both coming from, they're both living out a nightmare, afterall'.  Sometimes for me, it's a clear case of 'wooaaaah girl, you are being CRIZAY'.  I stick to making ludicrously unhelpful comments and the occasional fertile-bitch.

This is not to count myself out of it or claim innocence.  If someone went way over the line I'm not going to delude myself in thinking I wouldn't go to bat.  I'm a peaceful, mellow person who tries to stay out of things, because I'm naturally goofy - and I also know my tongue can be the equivalent of a nuclear bomb. No one should yank me out of the arsenal unless all is lost and we've resigned ourselves to death-by-chicken-tornado.

But yeah, I'm infertile.  No matter how good I am at shoveling all my emotions into a ball in the pit of my stomach and throwing jokes on top of it, there's some part of me whether I feel it or not that is probably pissed everyday.  I'm wrestling the crazy pissed stork into a nice little mental closet, but if someone jiggled the handle the right way out would come Storknado.

Some of us are way better about keeping in check than others, but all of us - given that we're all living out some version of a psychological cunt punt nightmare - are capable of being nasty if pushed in the right way.

We have all this great technology that we've been blessed with to bring us together in the first place.  On an off day, however, that technology can be used as a rocket launcher and hurl everyone into a lady-on-lady bitch spiral of doom.


I know I've talked about this before and I will undoubtedly talk about it again, but just a few thoughts I had on how we can keep ourselves from turning on each other and destroying an otherwise peaceful infertile farm.

Be super duper nice to the lady that's in the middle of treatment. It's a shitty situation to begin with as you well know, and she's now orbiting in outerspace between two planets called "all your dreams come true" and "haha just kidding you're fucked".  Being grounded is a card girlfriend desperately wants but wasn't dealt. That alone is going to make her more sensitive - plus she's hopped up on hormones. What. Are You. Doing.

If an infertile gets pregnant - yes every pregnancy is a sock in the gut, however, I think we should remind ourselves that at least it's one on the scoreboard for our team, and she's not taking a pregnancy away from us.  (Yes, I know, close to impossible, but we can try).  Yes she's achieved pregnancy, but she still doesn't belong at the fertile table so let's try not to hurl her away from ours so she's not forced against her will to sit at the not-belonging-anywhere table those people are freaks.  You don't take an artsy-drama nerd and force them to sit with the band-nerds it's uncomfortable and frankly blasphemous. Let's try to keep in mind that this was always the goal here.  We supported her, we wanted this for her, she's one of us.

If you are an infertile who gets pregnant - for gawds sake don't become a born again fertile.  Yours are the only pregnancies we can handle hearing about, and the only ones we can muster up happiness for. Yes you're still a member of our club, and we're happy that it worked for you (because you deserve it).  That being said - keep in mind your pregnancy does not magically transform us all into totally unscarred fertiles who are going to want to endlessly debate nursery color choices.  I am trying to keep my happiness for you as upbeat as I can - please try to remember what it feels like.  I would love to be happier for you and more involved than I am.  It pisses you off that I'm  not?  Me too. There is absolutely no way under the sun that my inability to feel giddy about a pregnancy makes you feel worse or more guilty than it does me.  If your very best friend was recently widowed, yes absolutely you should still expect her to support you in your wedding/marriage but prrrrobably not deduct points for lack of enthusiasm.

I've said this before, but we've all booked passage on the Titanic thinking it was going to be a lovely vacay and that shit sunk. If you're still in the water waiting for a lifeboat, trying to poke holes in the boats of people floating by is not really going to do anything (though I understand the impulse).  And if you're in a lifeboat, for gawdssake try not to complain too much about how chilly it is to people still in the water (though I understand the impulse). To sum up  - we should all keep in mind how fucking awful it is to make someone feel bad about their luck and/or something they can't control.

Unfollow.  Do it.  Life's too short.  While I have to say overall our community has an extremely, extremely (shockingly!) high rate of lovely, there are people on this planet who were mean and/or batshit to begin with.

If at all possible (and I'm allowing room for everyone to be out of control every once in awhile, we're human) ask yourself before engaging in something - is this really going to be worth my time?  If someone is a friend of yours that you really care about, then yeah - have the argument.  Bleed out the toxins. If it's not... let it go. Let them go.  Every time I write a post where I talk about my unshakable support of gay rights, I lose a follower.  For a second, I feel bad.  Then I remember that person has left me to go continue their life of being a miserable person.  God speed.

Let's try not to categorize ourselves.  Which is close to impossible, I know.

The fact is, if pregnancies and babies were handed out based on who had put in the most time and effort, more than likely all of our families would look different.  Some of us with 0 kids would have 20 and some of us with 3 would have 1.  Who gets to return home after this war isn't organized by battle scars.

Some girls are going to get pregnant their first round of Clomid, some are going to end up like me and be a problem within IVF.  My easily knocked-up half-sister with 0.0 dollars and a life out of Maury Povich is 8 months pregnant, still smoking pot, and posting about it on Facebook. (I think we can all agree here that Mark Zuckerberg is a sadistic dominatrix who whips us all daily). The one thing we can probably all, infinitely and forever, agree upon is that pregnancies and babies don't happen based on readiness, motherliness or general awesomeness. If they were, we'd all have babies by now.

Apart from when someone asks, don't say anything along the lines of 'if I were you' to someone on the front lines.  Are you shitting me?

If you say something not-so-pleasant to someone, and they call you out on it... Assess it, man up & own it, justify or apologize.

If someone seems to be going off the rails and having a day and a half, let's be kind and try to disarm - because we've all been there, and if at all possible we don't want them to be a henpecking catalyst.

If someone has gone way over the line, and it's not in a misunderstanding way but a malicious one, then by all means, let them know.  But be clever and firm - if they can write you off as 'crazy' then they're even less likely to get your point.


Yes I realize this is over simplifying, and I realize I don't even do these all the time.  But if we could just.... try to keep them in mind.  That way when there's a tornado of chicken feathers or an animal attack, it's at the very least necessary.  Then I'll take my earrings out, rip my weave off and verbally beat someone over the head with it.


(And speaking of psychotic animals, is it me or is the trailer for "You're Next" not so much a trailer for a horror movie as it is just a very vivid and realistic portrayal of what it's like to live with a cat?)


You people are my safe haven.  Let's just be kind to each other how we can, when we can, shall we?



Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Treat. Yo. Self.

Happy Tuesday, Tiddlywinks.

Senor Bub got a big promotion last week with a title so fancy that it cements my suspicions that he works in an ivory tower whilst stroking a hairless cat.  I'm super proud of that freakishly smart cray-cray.

I am writing to you from my sweaty backyard. After a summer of disasters I am finally feeling like I'm getting less behind (only 20 more things to write! This week...). I was feeling like I was drowning in the swimming portion of a triathlon, and now I can sort of start to see the surface so I can bust through that shit and get to the really tedious running part.  Busy (but good) day and now I am simultaneously trying to keep my psychotic dogs in line in a yard they have dug holes in the size of bunkers, and marveling at how the first few days I use a new mascara I always end up looking like lamb chop.  Short of showing them the hose (which seems mean seeing as they hate the hose) I don't know how to keep these damn dogs from digging.

To sum up the last paragraph with the holes and the mascara and the dogs it's all very Silence-of-the-Lambs up in here.

(Source).

(Sidenote - does anyone else think "IT PUTS THE LOTION IN THE BASKET" anytime they go through airport security and make themselves giggle?  No?  Just me? K.)

Speaking of lotion, Mr. T (gay husband) and I went to the mall this morning to spend an unseemly amount of money on their fall scents.

We both, equally, hate summer (are we in the right state, or what?).  And if I didn't before, I certainly do now.  My summer has consisted of me basically being the fat kid that gets dropped off at camp in June, and on his first day gets stung by bees, stricken with poison ivy, nearly drowns after falling off a canoe, impales his eyeball whilst trying to make Popsicle stick art and thus spends the rest of his summer praying someone will save him. (Hello Mudda Hello Fadduh and all that).

I'm ready for my house to wreak of pumpkins and apples. I'm ready for it to be socially acceptable to blast "Thriller" in my car as much as I already do. I'm ready to rip off the damn Bandaid and get to the part where I'm actually doing IVF #2, the super sci-fi edition.

Here's the thing, sugar lumps - just between us girls.  I am a tough, tough lady.  And even though I'm chubby and bug-eyed and I can't even handle keeping my dogs from pre-digging graves for the happy bunny families they kill, I'm good at making things funny.  That's the one thing Gawd or the universe said 'okay we'll give you a little extra dose of that'.

Most of the time, I emotionally approach infertility as I would an exaggerated, horror-movie size version of having an inappropriate fire-ant-like crotch itch when you're out in public. An absolute terror of an inconvenience, but give me a couple of seconds of no one looking and damnit I have the determination to squash that shit. I am good at making it silly and manning the fuck up.

Yesterday, Mr. T came over to do a welfare check and I had spent the day writing, talking to women going through infertility and answering a couple of you-got-to-be-shitting-me 'why don't you have kids?' type questions with jokes (my standard answer being 'because I want freetime and money').  And I was, as always, feeling fine and goofy and numb.  But five minutes after being here, Mr. T said "you're not fine, are you?"

And I'll be damned if hearing someone I care about ask me that question didn't make my eyes.. moisten.  Not full on cry, mind you, because I'm a dead robot at this point, but the way the question was worded disarmed me for long enough for me to... feel.  There were a few seconds there where I felt it before the goofy, overly-strong 'scratch that shit' side of myself inevitably took over.

Nope, I'm probably not fine.  Actually - I don't know if I've been 'fine' in four years.

I may not let myself feel it (I may not even know how to and survive at this point) but that doesn't mean my brain isn't somewhere, secretly, absorbing every little bit of pain and wrestling those monsters into a dark closet so that I can continue to feel, on some level, Alive.

In a couple of months I'm going to figure out exactly where the line between determination and desperation is, and that makes me nervous.

I'm choosing to go at this determined.  I will man the fuck up because I'm Stupid Fucking Stork and I was born ready for whatever shit is thrown at me.  I have to remind myself that any time any person does any brave thing, they are afraid of doing it but they do it anyways.  I'm telling myself you end up with what you put up with and no matter what, I am not putting up with being an unhappy person.

But I am afraid.  I am afraid, I am afraid, I am afraid - and for one second because of the particular phrasing of a question out of a particular mouth, I felt it.  All at once.

Today, much to my surprise, instead of feeling jarred I feel pretty damn good. It took me a minute to realize why, and then I had a mini-revelation.  I feel good because as a result of that interaction, today I was kind to myself.

Which brings me to my point - we could all stand to be a lot fucking kinder to ourselves. It is, and I say this as someone who has numbed herself as best as any human being could and who is pretty good at genuinely cackling about all this, almost impossible not to end up with some level of self-hatred as a result of infertility.

My body is a failure. If only I were thinner/taller/sluttier in High School, this would have been easier for me.  Maybe what they say is right - maybe some people can't have kids because they're undeserving. Maybe if I hadn't smoked cigarettes, pot, drank so much in college.  I shouldn't make light of this, I shouldn't let myself get depressed, I shouldn't be so spiteful of women getting pregnant... It's my fault, it's my fault, it's my fucking fault.

Whether you're like me and your body has shut down any ability to let you feel that or you feel it every second of every day in a crippling way, on some level that's the shit that we're really dealing with.  More than bum ovaries, more than uteri that grow their fluff incorrectly, more than our bodies spontaneously getting rid of things our hearts so desperately want.

My jokes are my own response to the asshole in the back of my mind that's consistently mean to me. So you know what?  Yeah.  As Carrie-Fucking-Barf-Bradshaw as it sounds, a few hours this morning of buying things I absolutely don't need and eating greasy Chinese food without making myself feel guilty about it felt good. As far as infertility-treatment is concerned, Dr. Stork is highly recommending grabbing your gay husband and having a shopping seizure (or some form of self-treat) of mammoth, epic, unfathomable proportions.

(If you're not watching Parks & Rec I can't imagine what you're doing with your life).

So to you, yes YOU, may I just for a moment here be your best friend and word things in a way that you may need to hear.

Dear You,

None of this is your fault.

If today you woke up and felt shitty about it - you are allowed to.  Feel shitty for as long as you need to, soak in it until your fingers get all pruney.

If today you woke up and feel compelled to feel goofy about it, make jokes, or not deal with it at all - you are allowed to.  Make fun of that shit - anything that involves flashing your beaver as much as we do is on some level hilarious.

You don't have to be fine and you don't have to be miserable.  Whatever you are right now is exactly how you should be and you're going to rock the shit out of it until you're ready to feel something else.

If that woman that your friends with is having a baby shower, and you don't think you can go?  Not only do you not have to, but you don't have to feel guilty about it.  Like, at all.  I am officially telling you that feeling guilty about not going to a party because you're too busy trying to dance in hell is not a problem that you have to deal with. One teeny tiny bit of her happiness (on an atomic level) being taken away because you're not there does not undo or negate the kind of pain (on an atomic bomb level) that you're going through.

You want to be mad at Gawd?  Do it.  If He/She is all-knowing and made all of us, I'm pretty sure no matter how angry you are They can handle it. No one is going to smite you for having dark thoughts just like no one seems to be rewarding you for the times you had peachy thoughts. If there's a Gawd to be angry at, They're the ones who gave you this hurdle to deal with knowing exactly how you'd deal with it.

Whatever He, She or It that doesn't understand how you feel - if they don't get it, they don't need to. It sucks that they can't - it sucks - but it's not your job to make them understand loss or heartache on the level that you're dealing with. It's like trying to explain astrophysics to an infant.

And that He, She or It that really, really doesn't understand how you feel?  Fuck em'.  They're idiots and they always have been.  I've always thought so I just didn't want to say anything until now.

If you're feeling like you're somehow sexually inadequate?  Please.  You are a woman who has sex for fun and doesn't get pregnant.  You are a porn goddess in the eyes of 90% of the male population.

Get that fucking pedicure you've been putting off.  You don't get to have kids yet?  Guess what. You get Pedicures.

If you're on some crazy diet and cheated? Fuck me I bet that ice cream was delicious.  Totally worth it.

No matter what the evil creatures in your mind are saying right now, You. Are meant. To be. A mother.  I have not virtually-met anyone in infertileworld who is not maternal as fuck. You are a Mom, you just don't have a kid yet.

None of this is your fault.

None of this is your fault.

None of this (not one fucking iota of it) is your fault.

However you are dealing with it, you are rocking the shit out of it.  Or my name isn't Stupid Fucking Stork.

Friday, August 16, 2013

Mountain Lion Shit

Happy Friday, my Fantastic Follicle Farmers.

I am allllmost back to normal!  No seriously.  And I will be spending my weekend writing the 10 million things I have to write and, more importantly, reading all the 10 million blogs I want to catch up on in a completely creepy way because it is possible - quite possible - that I am approaching some level of lucidity.

And speaking of completely creepy and my lack of lucidity in the past two weeks, I have outdone myself. Outdone.

It is important to keep in mind, here, that I am a lunatic someone who prides herself on being able to entertain herself in otherwise boring situations. If an hour has gone by and I have not snorted at something then my hamster-in-a-wheel brain starts getting creative and determined to find a way to make myself snort.

Also important to this story, occasionally I get text messages from people (even though I've had the same number for 9 million years) who I don't know.  This, in general, brings out the inner artist in me.  Oh and my inner artist is a psychotic 5 year old who has had too much cotton candy laced with meth.

So Wednesday night, I had just wrapped up a conversation with my teenage Sister-in-Law Bubella about how her teenage boyfriend's phone number was publicly on Twitter and this was stupid, because something like that could literally entertain me for a month straight. So already, the hamster operating my controls was thinking about the weirdest possible things you could do with a new persons phone number.

After this conversation, I got a text 20 minutes later from a number I did not recognize except that it was from the DC area. In my Ambien fueled mind, there were two possible scenarios.  One, it was the sudo brother-in-laws number because we had just been talking about it.  Two, it was a DC friend who had not alerted me that they changed their number and therefor must be punished.

The following happened.  I would be in the blue.


Now at this point, after sending what was clearly in my mind the obligatory picture of mountain lion shit, I went to bed. Yesterday afternoon it occurred to me... Waaaaait a second, I should probably double check that this was, in fact, my sisters boyfriend who it's my job to torment when given the opportunity.

I was texting her about something else, and as an afterthought, double checked to see that it was him.

NOPE.

Cue the wondrous combination of absolute horror and uncontrollable laughter.

Suffice it to say she found this to be the funniest thing that ever happened and demanded an explanation as to why I don't have my own YouTube channel as my shenanigans are not to be believed when retold.

After a few hours I caved and did a back search on the number.

Turns out it was my High School sweetheart.

So, in the event that 15 years later he wanted to text me just to verify I was still batshit crazy, this was a successful mission on his part.  Don't worry, I explained myself nicely.


(Still haven't heard back from him).

In other news, the cyst is gone (I finally managed to kill that shit like a rabid puma) and minus this whole kidney infection on the way out, I am almost ready to go.

Sat down with awesome-sauce IVF nurse and I'm all loosely scheduled.  Egg Retrieval scheduled for first week of October.

I am nervous?  Optimistic?  Pessimistic?

And just for the record, here, if it doesn't work I will be calling you all at home, repeatedly, like so:




And you know I will as I clearly can't be trusted with phones.

Friday, August 9, 2013

Blizzardnado

It is creeping on Friday evening, interwebs, I have had two near-death experiences in the past week and I am feeling sassy and threw on a pair of fresh pajamas to celebrate.

I have felt lousy for probably... the entire summer. I thought this was due in large part to Francisco the Asshole Cysto which made me feel like a Class-A Pussy.

Why?  It was a CYST.  At his mightiest and most powerful he was only 4...  I'm bad with measurements.  Couldn't really tell you the difference between an inch and a mile.. something, for chrissakes. And there I was complaining about him, profusely, to Dr. Kickass. (Francisco is now, apparently, deflated and waving around pathetically like one of those inflatable people they have outside of used car dealer ships, by the way. Yay progress.).

I am not that woman, damnit.  I once went to Cedar Sinai with a kidney stone, passed the damn thing in the waiting room and went home.  I once walked a half mile home on a broken foot.  I WILL TAKE THAT PAIN AND RAISE IT A FUCK YOU.

But I've felt totally off all summer.  

Thursday I saw my GP and got some antibiotics because I felt like I had a UTI (considering I'm a horny she-beast I've had them enough times to just alert him when I've needed something).  Saturday I woke up with a headache and feeling like everywhere I went it was snowing.  By Saturday night I had a fever of 102.

By Tuesday morning, my fever was approaching 104, I didn't really understand what day it was, I had a laying down heart rate of 140, I was wearing so many blankets someone could've mistaken me for a Bed Bath & Beyond and I hadn't said anything snarky in nearly 48 hours.  GP sent me to Urgent Care.

Kidney infection, bitches.  Gnarly kidney infection.  I have never felt. That sick. In my entire. Life.

So I had probably been wandering around with an infection all summer, someone passed a slight cold-like bug to me, and my body was like nahhh, dude, too much. I lost 8 lbs in 4 days (so if anyone needs me to like, lick their face while I'm still a little cootieish, I'm game). 

I've spent my week hydrating like a motherfucker, exhausted by moving more than 5 feet, and taking antibiotics the size of gravy boats. Bub took a day off to take care of me, my Mom came up for a day - I couldn't do shit. It has been 36 hours with a temperature below 100 and I've never felt so excited to feel like regular old flu-garbage in my entire life.

On the downside, given my very thick curly hair and lack of being able to move, I look like Cornel West (I definitely mean hair, I kind of mean eyebrows and I may even mean beard). Which as you can imagine, though he looks quite distinguished, is not a good look for a pale girl in her 30s.

(Source.)

Now to the more important near-death experience.  I was almost killed by a komodo dragon.

Bubba the Grump is known affectionately as the worst-nurse-ever.  Nurturing is not his bag. However, this week he did amazingly awesome. He made sure I took my antibiotics, frequently took my temperature, I'd be unconscious and wake up to him hovering over me with a water saying 'drink, woman, drink'.

So the fact that now that I'm mentally more awake I see that the house is a four-alarm catastrophe that any sane person would have condemned is not something I'm upset about.  Had I re-emerged from my coma in a smoldering pile with a husband and three animals covered in ashes, I'd still be pretty proud of him. But today I felt well enough to get up and try to clean for a few minutes.  Gawd smited me.

My only supervisors today are my 500 lb cat  (Mokey), the 40 lb corgi-mix (Phoebe) and the giant somewhat dopey husky mix Luna (I say dopey lovingly - I'm just saying I'm pretty sure whatever thought process she has there are banjos playing in the background).

Let me just say that I feel an intruder in our house should have gone far smoother with this team.  Phoebe, although loving, is a known mouse, bird and bunny murderer. I've left her outside for five minutes only to come out and find her wearing a feather beard with a grin on her face. The only thing that's gotten away from her clutches is a skunk and that's because it distracted her with a skunk-dance before spritzing her right in the nose and everyone knows corgis are suckers for the majesty of an elaborate tap-dance number.  Luna is the scariest fucking thing you've ever seen in your life.  Dopey, yes, but on looks alone she kills. If Mokey hasn't seen a piece of food in 20 minutes, she has the balls to act as though she is starving to death despite looking like a furry waterbed and will smack you right in the face because that's how she rolls.

SO THIS. SHOULD HAVE. GONE. BETTER.

I am in the kitchen cleaning and wondering if while I was unconscious my husband just put pounds of mud on every clean plate just to mix shit up, when I notice that Phoebe and Mokey are sitting in the kitchen fixated on something in the laundry room.  We have a child safety gate between the kitchen and the laundry room - not because we have children (HA) but for the far more ridiculous reason of keeping the dogs from accessing the... free dog bakery Mokey runs out of a box. I go to see what they're looking at and they seem to be looking at a giant piece of fur.

'What are you looking at?' I say as though I'm snow fucking white and can speak to animals, and as I do the giant ball of fur gets up on it's legs and starts to scurry around the laundry room. Not a ball of fur, but a LIZARD.

A series of things happen all at once.

I, naturally, jump up on my kitchen bench and start screaming.

Mokey, who is supposed to take care of this sort of riff-raff being a cat the size of a large diabetic puma, runs into the living room and wedges half of her body under the couch, ass in the air because it won't fit.

Luna, the scariest, proceeds to just run around the living room barking like I'm not scared for my life but rather have just announced that we're all going to Disneyland.

Phoebe, brave soldier that she is, dives as though belly-flopping off a pier into the laundry room. Through sheer gymnastics I shut the child safety gate behind her and scream (Snow White has grown hostile) that I will not be letting her out until she gets rid of it and then continue to scream at the top of my lungs.

I'm screaming, Luna is barking in circles (in the wrong room, naturally), I hear Phoebe scuttling furiously in the laundry room all the while attempting to text Bub that I have survived high fevers and a kidney infection ONLY TO BE KILLED BY GODZILLA and he needed to come home at once (from an hour away) or I was calling the SWAT team.

He apparently thought this was an overreaction.

This is my punishment for cleaning and for mocking sharknado made manifest - I will die by combination Barknado and Lizardnado. A Blizardnado.

Three minutes later it has occurred to me that the neighbors might think I'm being murdered, I spent a good 30 seconds contemplating whether them sending the cops would be a BAD thing before I noticed that Phoebe had stopped scurrying.  Peeped around the corner (my bravest moment) and she seemed to be sitting at the gate triumphant.

I cannot determine cause of death exactly as I will NOT go into the laundry room and I find it best when hiring a furry hitman not to ask any questions just to be grateful, however there appears to be a smooshed, lizard shape outline near my second fridge. (And that damned lizard carcass is blocking me from my juice). Not to say that this was the king of Lizard's but had I found Jim Morrison standing in my laundry room I would've been less surprised.

Mind you, I am happy that I have survived this.  I am.  However, if you would have asked me yesterday I would've thought it gone smoother.  Much more like the Cat on Roomba if the role of duck was played by a lizard, you know?  Hyperfocused cat predator with dogs in the background as a just-in-case muscle prop.  They spot unwanted creature, and without blinking whip out costumes and machinery like a finely tuned death squadron.

Not a psychotic corgi saving the day with a cat, husky and woman in the background acting fucktarted.

(Sidenote - the tile in this video is the exact tile in my laundry room, so now I feel as though this video was trying to prophetically warn me).




Be thankful to be alive today, people.  It's true, there is infertility and lizards and people casting Ashton Kutcher to play Steve Jobs (whaaaaaaaat?! Honestly Luna is closer to Steve Jobs' intelligence) in this world... and if you're having trouble feeling thankful, I give you my new favorite everything (apart from cat on roomba).